Dive Into Five Years of Security Strategies

  • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}247|cart{/j2store}
  • member rating overall impact: N/A
  • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
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  • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
  • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
  • As organizations build their security programs, there is often the question of what are other companies doing.
  • Part of this is a desire to know whether challenges are unique to certain companies, but also to understand how people are tackling some of their security gaps.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Don’t just wonder what others are doing – use this report to see how companies are faring in their current state, where they want to target in their future state, and the ways they’re planning to raise their security posture.

Impact and Result

  • Whether you’re building out your security program for the first time or are just interested in how others are faring, review insights from 66 security strategies in this report.
  • This research complements the blueprint, Build an Information Security Program, and can be used as a guide while completing that project.

Dive Into Five Years of Security Strategies Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out what this report contains.

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Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

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  • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
  • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
  • Contacts fail to convert to leads because messaging fails to resonate with buyers.
  • Products fail to reach targets given shallow understanding of buyer needs.
  • Sellers' emails go unopened and attempts at discovery fail due to no understanding of buyer challenges, pain points, and needs.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Marketing leaders in possession of well-researched and up-to-date buyer personas and journeys dramatically improve product market fit, lead gen, and sales results.
  • Success starts with product, marketing, and sales alignment on targeted personas.
  • Speed to deploy is enabled via initial buyer persona attribute discovery internally.
  • However, ultimate success requires buyer interviews, especially for the buyer journey.
  • Leading marketers update journey maps every six months as disruptive events such as COVID-19 and new media and tech platform advancements require continual innovation.

Impact and Result

  • Reduce time and treasure wasted chasing the wrong prospects.
  • Improve product-market fit.
  • Increase open and click-through rates in your lead gen engine.
  • Perform more effective sales discovery and increase eventual win rates.

Create a Buyer Persona and Journey Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Our Executive Brief summarizes the challenges faced when buyer persona and journeys are ill-defined. It describes the attributes of, and the benefits that accrue from, a well-defined persona and journey and the key steps to take to achieve success.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Drive an aligned initial draft of buyer persona

Define and align your team on target persona, outline steps to capture and document a robust buyer persona and journey, and capture current team buyer knowledge.

  • Buyer Persona Creation Template
  • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

2. Interview buyers and validate persona and journey

Hold initial buyer interviews, test initial results, and continue with interviews.

3. Prepare communications and educate stakeholders

Consolidate interview findings, present to product, marketing, and sales teams. Work with them to apply to product design, marketing launch/campaigning, and sales and customer success enablement.

  • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template
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Workshop: Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Align Team, Identify Persona, and Document Current Knowledge

The Purpose

Organize, drive alignment on target persona, and capture initial views.

Key Benefits Achieved

Steering committee and project team roles and responsibilities clarified.

Product, marketing, and sales aligned on target persona.

Build initial team understanding of persona.

Activities

1.1 Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.

1.2 Identify buyer persona choices and settle on an initial target.

1.3 Document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).

Outputs

Documented steering committee and working team

Executive Brief on personas and journey

Personas and initial targets

Documented team knowledge

2 Validate Initial Work and Identify Buyer Interviewees

The Purpose

Build list of buyer interviewees, finalize interview guide, and validate current findings with analyst input.

Key Benefits Achieved

Interview efficiently using 75-question interview guide.

Gain analyst help in persona validation, reducing workload.

Activities

2.1 Share initial insights with covering industry analyst.

2.2 Hear from industry analyst their perspectives on the buyer persona attributes.

2.3 Reconcile differences; update “current understanding.”

2.4 Identify interviewee types by segment, region, etc.

Outputs

Analyst-validated initial findings

Target interviewee types

3 Schedule and Hold Buyer Interviews

The Purpose

Validate current persona hypothesis and flush out those attributes only derived from interviews.

Key Benefits Achieved

Get to a critical mass of persona and journey understanding quickly.

Activities

3.1 Identify actual list of 15-20 interviewees.

3.2 Hold interviews and use interview guides over the course of weeks.

3.3 Hold review session after initial 3-4 interviews to make adjustments.

3.4 Complete interviews.

Outputs

List of interviewees; calls scheduled

Initial review – “are you going in the right direction?”

Completed interviews

4 Summarize Findings and Provide Actionable Guidance to Colleagues

The Purpose

Summarize persona and journey attributes and provide activation guidance to team.

Key Benefits Achieved

Understanding of product market fit requirements, messaging, and marketing, and sales asset content.

Activities

4.1 Summarize findings.

4.2 Create action items for supporting team, e.g. messaging, touch points, media spend, assets.

4.3 Convene steering committee/executives and working team for final review.

4.4 Schedule meetings with colleagues to action results.

Outputs

Complete findings

Action items for team members

Plan for activation

5 Measure Impact and Results

The Purpose

Measure results, adjust, and improve.

Key Benefits Achieved

Activation of outcomes; measured results.

Activities

5.1 Review final copy, assets, launch/campaign plans, etc.

5.2 Develop/review implementation plan.

5.3 Reconvene team to review results.

Outputs

Activation review

List of suggested next steps

Further reading

Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

Make it easier to market, sell, and achieve product-market fit with deeper buyer understanding.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

B2B marketers without documented personas and journeys often experience the following:

  • Contacts fail to convert to leads because messaging fails to resonate with buyers.
  • Products fail to reach targets given shallow understanding of buyer needs.
  • Sellers’ emails go unopened, and attempts at discovery fail due to no understanding of buyer challenges, pain points, and needs.

Without a deeper understanding of buyer needs and how they buy, B2B marketers will waste time and precious resources targeting the incorrect personas.

Common Obstacles

Despite being critical elements, organizations struggle to build personas due to:

  • A lack of alignment and collaboration among marketing, product, and sales.
  • An internal focus; or a lack of true customer centricity.
  • A lack of tools and techniques for building personas and buyer journeys.

In today’s Agile development environment, combined with the pressure to generate revenues quickly, high tech marketers often skip the steps necessary to go deeper to build buyer understanding.

SoftwareReviews’ Approach

With a common framework and target output, clients will:

  • Align marketing, sales, and product, and collaborate together to share current knowledge on buyer personas and journeys.
  • Target 12-15 customers and prospects to interview and validate insights. Share that with customer-facing staff.
  • Activate the insights for more customer-centric lead generation, product development, and selling.

Clients who activate findings from buyer personas and journeys will see a 50% results improvement.

SoftwareReviews Insight:
Buyer personas and buyer journeys are essential ingredients in go-to-market success, as they inform for product, marketing, sales, and customer success who we are targeting and how to engage with them successfully.

Buyer personas and journeys: A go-to-market critical success factor

Marketers – large and small – will fail to optimize product-market fit, lead generation, and sales effectiveness without well-defined buyer personas and a buyer journey.

Critical Success Factors of a Successful G2M Strategy:

  • Opportunity size and business case
  • Buyer personas and journey
  • Competitively differentiated product hypothesis
  • Buyer-validated commercial concept
  • Sales revenue plan and program cost budget
  • Consolidated communications to steering committee

Jeff Golterman, Managing Director, SoftwareReviews Advisory

“44% of B2B marketers have already discovered the power of Personas.”
– Hasse Jansen, Boardview.io!, 2016

Documenting buyer personas enables success beyond marketing

Documenting buyer personas has several essential benefits to marketing, sales, and product teams:

  • Achieve a better understanding of your target buyer – by building a detailed buyer persona for each type of buyer and keeping it fresh, you take a giant step toward becoming a customer-centric organization.
  • Team alignment on a common definition – will happen when you build buyer personas collaboratively and among those teams that touch the customer.
  • Improved lead generation – increases dramatically when messaging and marketing assets across your lead generation engine better resonate with buyers because you have taken the time to understand them deeply.
  • More effective selling – is possible when sellers apply persona development output to their interactions with prospects and customers.
  • Better product-market fit – increases when product teams more deeply understand for whom they are designing products. Documenting buyer challenges, pain points, and unmet needs gives product teams what they need to optimize product adoption.

“It’s easier buying gifts for your best friend or partner than it is for a stranger, right? You know their likes and dislikes, you know the kind of gifts they’ll have use for, or the kinds of gifts they’ll get a kick out of. Customer personas work the same way, by knowing what your customer wants and needs, you can present them with content targeted specifically to their wants and needs.”
– Emma Bilardi, Product Marketing Alliance, 2020

Buyer understanding activates just about everything

Without the deep buyer insights that persona and journey capture enables, marketers are suboptimized.

Buyer Persona and Journey

  • Product design
  • Customer targeting
  • Personalization
  • Messaging
  • Content marketing
  • Lead gen & scoring
  • Sales Effectiveness
  • Customer retention

“Marketing eutopia is striking the all-critical sweet spot that adds real value and makes customers feel recognized and appreciated, while not going so far as to appear ‘big brother’. To do this, you need a deep understanding of your audience coming from a range of different data sets and the capability to extract meaning.”
– Plexure, 2020

Does your organization need buyer persona and journey updating?

“Yes,” if experiencing one or more key challenges:

  • Sales time is wasted on unqualified leads
  • Website abandon rates are high
  • Lead gen engine click-through rates are low
  • Ideal customer profile is ill defined
  • Marketing asset downloads are low
  • Seller discovery with prospects is ineffective
  • Sales win/loss rates drop due to poor product-market fit
  • Higher than desired customer churn

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
Marketers developing buyer personas and journeys that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, and Product of personas to target will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer targeting and acquisition process.

Outcomes and benefits

Building your buyer persona and journey using our methodology will enable:

  • Greater stakeholder alignment – when marketing, product, and sales agree on personas, less time is wasted on targeting alternate personas.
  • Improved product-market fit – when buyers see both pain-relieving features and value-based pricing, “because you asked vs. guessed,” win rates increase.
  • Greater open and click-through rates – because you understood buyer pain points and motivations for solution seeking, you’ll see higher visits and engagement with your lead gen engine, and because you asked “what asset types do you find most helpful” your CTAs become ”lead-gen magnets” because you’ve offered the right asset types in your content marketing strategy.
  • More qualified leads – because you defined a more accurate ideal customer profile (ICP) and your lead scoring algorithm has improved, sellers see more qualified leads.
  • Increased sales cycle velocity – since you learned from personas their content and engagement preferences and what collateral types they need during the down-funnel sales discussions, sales calls are more productive and sales cycles shrink.

Our methodology for buyer persona and journey creation

1. Document Team Knowledge of Buyer Persona and Drive Alignment 2. Interview Target Buyer Prospects and Customers 3. Create Outputs and Apply to Marketing, Sales, and Product
Phase Steps
  1. Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.
  2. Pull stakeholders together, identify initial buyer persona, and begin to document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).
  3. Validate with industry and marketing analyst’s initial buyer persona, and identify list of buyer interviewees.
  1. Hold interviews and document and share findings.
  2. Validate initial drafts of buyer persona and create initial documented buyer journey. Review findings among key stakeholders, steering committee, and supporting analysts.
  3. Complete remaining interviews.
  1. Summarize findings.
  2. Convene steering committee/exec. and working team for final review.
  3. Communicate to key stakeholders in product, marketing, sales, and customer success for activation.
Phase Outcomes
  1. Steering committee and team selection
  2. Team insights about buyer persona documented
  3. Buyer persona validation with industry and marketing analysts
  4. Sales, marketing, and product alignment
  1. Interview guide
  2. Target interviewee list
  3. Buyer-validated buyer persona
  4. Buyer journey documented with asset types, channels, and “how buyers buy” fully documented
  1. Education deck on buyer persona and journey ready for use with all stakeholders: product, field marketing, sales, executives, customer success, partners
  2. Activation will update product-market fit, optimize lead gen, and improve sales effectiveness

Our approach provides interview guides and templates to help rebuild buyer persona

Our methodology will enable you to align your team on why it’s important to capture the most important attributes of buyer persona including:

  • Functional – helps you find and locate your target personas
  • Emotive – deepens team understanding of buyer initiatives, motivations for seeking alternatives, challenges they face, pain points for your offerings to address, and terminology that describes the “space”
  • Solution – enables greater product market fit
  • Behavioral – clarifies how to communicate with personas and understand their content preferences
Functional – “to find them”
Job Role Title Org. Chart Dynamics Buying Center Firmographics
Emotive – “what they do and jobs to be done”
Initiatives: What programs/projects the persona is tasked with and their feelings and aspirations about these initiatives. Motivations? Build credibility? Get promoted? Challenges: Identify the business issues, problems, and pain points that impede attainment of objectives. What are their fears, uncertainties, and doubts about these challenges? Buyer Need: They may have multiple needs; which need is most likely met with the offering? Terminology: What are the keywords/phrases they organically use to discuss the buyer need or business issue?
Decision Criteria – “how they decide”
Buyer Role: List decision-making criteria and power level. The five common buyer roles are champion, influencer, decision maker, user, and ratifier (purchaser/negotiator). Evaluation and Decision Criteria: Which lens – strategic, financial, or operational – does the persona evaluate the impact of purchase through?
Solution Attributes – “what does the ideal solution look like”
Steps in “Jobs to Be Done” Elements of the “Ideal Solution” Business outcomes from ideal solution Opportunity scope; other potential users Acceptable price for value delivered Alternatives that see consideration Solution sourcing: channel, where to buy
Behavioral Attributes – “how to approach them successfully”
Content Preferences: List the persona’s content preferences – blog, infographic, demo, video – vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction Preferences: Which are preferred among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, videoconferencing, conducting research via Web, mobile, and social? Watering Holes: Which physical or virtual places do they go to network or exchange info with peers (e.g. LinkedIn)?

Buyer journeys are constantly shifting

If you didn’t remap buyer journeys in 2021, you may be losing to competitors that did. Leaders remap buyer journey frequently.

  • The multi-channel buyer journey is constantly changing. Today’s B2B buyer uses industry research sites, vendor content marketing assets, software reviews sites, contacts with vendor salespeople, events participation, peer networking, consultants, emails, social media sites, and electronic media to research purchasing decisions.
  • COVID-19 has dramatically decreased face-to-face interaction. We estimate a B2B buyer spent 20-25% more time online in 2021 than pre-COVID-19 researching software buying decisions. This has diminished the importance of face-to-face selling and given dramatic rise to digital selling and outbound marketing.
  • Content marketing has exploded, but without mapping the buyer journey and knowing where – by channel –and when – by buyer journey step – to offer content marketing assets, we will fail to convert prospects into buyers.

“~2/3 of [B2B] buyers prefer remote human interactions or digital self-service.” And during Aug. ‘20 to Feb. ‘21, use of digital self-service to interact with sales reps leapt by more than 10% for both researching and evaluating new suppliers.”
– Liz Harrison, Dennis Spillecke, Jennifer Stanley, and Jenny Tsai McKinsey & Company, 2021

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
Marketers are advised to update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is affected due to events such as COVID-19 and as emerging media such as AR shifts asset-type usage and engagement options.

Our approach helps you define the buyer journey

Because marketing leaders need to reach buyers through the right channel with the right message at the right time during their decision cycle, you’ll benefit by using questionnaires that enable you to build the below easily and quickly.

You’ll be more successful by following our overall guidance

Overarching insight

Buyer personas and buyer journeys are essential ingredients in go-to-market success, as they inform for product, marketing, sales, and customer success who we are targeting and how to engage with them successfully.

Align Your Team

Marketers developing buyer personas and journeys that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, and Product of personas to target will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer targeting and acquisition process.

Jump-Start Persona Development

Marketing leaders leverage the buyer persona knowledge not only from in-house experts in areas such as sales and executives but from analysts that speak with their buyers each and every day.

Buyer Interviews Are a Must

While leaders will get a fast start by interviewing sellers, executives, and analysts, you will fail to craft the right messages, build the right marketing assets, and design the best buyer journey if you skip buyer interviews.

Watch for Disruption

Leaders will update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is effected due to events such as COVID-19 and as emerging media such as AR and VR shifts the way buyers engage.

Advanced Buyer Journey Discovery

Digital marketers that ramp up lead gen engine capabilities to capture “wins” and measure engagement back through the lead gen and nurturing engines will build a more data-driven view of the buyer journey. Target to build this advanced capability in your initial design.

Tools and templates to speed your success

This blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you gather team insights, interview customers and prospects, and summarize results for ease in communications.

To support your buyer persona and journey creation, we’ve created the enclosed tools

Buyer Persona Creation Template

A PowerPoint template to aid the capture and summarizing of your team’s insights on the buyer persona.

Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

For interviewing customers and prospects, this tool is designed to help you interview personas and summarize results for up to 15 interviewees.

Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

A PowerPoint template into which you can drop your buyer persona and journey interviewees list and summary findings.

SoftwareReviews offers two 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."

The "do-it-yourself" step-by-step instructions begin with Phase 1.

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."

A Guided Implementation is a series of analysts inquiries with you and your team.

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout each option.

Guided Implementation

A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst.

Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

What does our GI on buyer persona and journey mapping look like?

Drive an Aligned Initial Draft of Buyer Persona

  • Call #1: Collaborate on vision for buyer persona and the buyer journey. Review templates and sample outputs. Identify your team.
  • Call #2: Review work in progress on capturing working team knowledge of buyer persona elements.
  • Call #3: (Optional) Review Info-Tech’s research-sourced persona insights.
  • Call #4: Validate the persona WIP with Info-Tech analysts. Review buyer interview approach and target list.

Interview Buyers and Validate Persona and Journey

  • Call #5: Revise/review interview guide and final interviewee list; schedule interviews.
  • Call #6: Review interim interview finds; adjust interview guide.
  • Call #7: Use interview findings to validate/update persona and build journey map.
  • Call #8: Add supporting analysts to final stakeholder review.

Prepare Communications and Educate Stakeholders

  • Call #9: Review output templates completed with final persona and journey findings.
  • Call #10: Add supporting analysts to stakeholder education meetings for support and help with addressing questions/issues.

Workshop overview

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

Day1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
Align Team, Identify Persona, and Document Current Knowledge Validate Initial Work and Identify Buyer Interviewees Schedule and Hold Buyer interviews Summarize Findings and Provide Actionable Guidance to Colleagues Measure Impact and Results
Activities

1.1 Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.

1.2 Identify buyer persona choices and settle on an initial target.

1.3 Document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).

2.1 Share initial insights with covering industry analyst.

2.2 Hear from industry analyst their perspectives on the buyer persona attributes.

2.3 Reconcile differences; update “current understanding.”

2.4 Identify interviewee types by segment, region, etc.

3.1 Identify actual list of 15-20 interviewees.

A gap of up to a week for scheduling of interviews.

3.2 Hold interviews and use interview guides (over the course of weeks).

3.3 Hold review session after initial 3-4 interviews to make adjustments.

3.4 Complete interviews.

4.1 Summarize findings.

4.2 Create action items for supporting team, e.g. messaging, touch points, media spend, assets.

4.3 Convene steering committee/exec. and working team for final review.

4.4 Schedule meetings with colleagues to action results.

5.1 Review final copy, assets, launch/campaign plans, etc.

5.2 Develop/review implementation plan.

A period of weeks will likely intervene to execute and gather results.

5.3 Reconvene team to review results.

Deliverables
  1. Documented steering committee and working team
  2. Executive Brief on personas and journey
  3. Personas and initial targets
  4. Documented team knowledge
  1. Analyst-validated initial findings
  2. Target interviewee types
  1. List of interviewees; calls scheduled
  2. Initial review – “are we going in the right direction?”
  3. Completed interviews
  1. Complete findings
  2. Action items for team members
  3. Plan for activation
  1. Activation review
  2. List of suggested next steps

Phase 1
Drive an Aligned Initial Draft of Buyer Persona

This Phase walks you through the following activities:

  • Develop an understanding of what comprises a buyer persona and journey, including their importance to overall go-to-market strategy and execution.
  • Sample outputs.

This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

  • Program leadership
  • Product Marketing
  • Product Management
  • Representative(s) from Sales
  • Executive Leadership

1.1 Establish the team and align on shared vision

Input

  • Typically a joint recognition that buyer personas have not been fully documented.
  • Identify working team members/participants (see below), and an executive sponsor.

Output

  • Communication of team members involved and the make-up of steering committee and working team
  • Alignment of team members on a shared vision of “Why Build Buyer Personas and Journey” and what key attributes define both.

Materials

  • N/A

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • CMO/Sponsoring Executive Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
  • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

60 minutes

  1. Schedule inquiry with working team members and walk the team through the Buyer Persona and Journey Executive Brief PowerPoint presentation.
  2. Optional: Have the (SoftwareReviews Advisory) SRA analyst walk the team through the Buyer Persona and Journey Executive Brief PowerPoint presentation as part of your session.

Review the Create a Buyer Persona Executive Brief (Slides 3-14)

1.2 Document team knowledge of buyer persona

Input

  • Working team member knowledge

Output

  • Initial draft of your buyer persona

Materials

  • Buyer Persona Creation Template

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (optional)
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

2-3 sessions of 60 minutes each

  1. Schedule meeting with working team members and, using the Buyer Persona Template, lead the team in a discussion that documents current team knowledge of the target buyer persona.
  2. Lead the team to prioritize an initial, single, most important persona and to collaborate to complete the template (and later, the buyer journey). Once the team learns the process for working on the initial persona, the development of additional personas will become more efficient.
  3. Place the PowerPoint template in a shared drive for team collaboration. Expect to schedule several 60-minute meets. Quicken collaboration by encouraging team to “do their homework” by sharing persona knowledge within the shared drive version of the template. Your goal is to get to an initial agreed upon version that can be shared for additional validation with industry analyst(s) in the next step.

Download the Buyer Persona Creation Template

1.3 Validate with industry analysts

Input

  • Identify gaps in persona from previous steps

Output

  • Further validated buyer persona

Materials

  • Bring your Buyer Persona Creation Template to the meeting to share with analysts

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (Optional)
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
  • Info-Tech analyst covering your product category and SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

30 minutes

  1. Schedule meeting with working team members and discuss which persona areas require further validation from an Info-Tech analyst who has worked closely with those buyers within your persona.

60 minutes

  1. Schedule an inquiry with the appropriate Info-Tech analyst and SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to share current findings and see:
    1. Info-Tech analyst provide content feedback given what they know about your target persona and product category.
    2. SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst provide feedback on persona approach and to coach any gaps or important omissions.
  2. Tabulate results and update your persona summary. At this point you will likely require additional validation through interviews with customers and prospects.

1.4 Identify interviewees and prepare for interviews

Input

  • Identify segments within which you require persona knowledge
  • Understand your persona insight gaps

Output

  • List of interviewees

Materials

  • Interviewee recording template on following slide
  • Interview guide questions found within the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

1-2 weeks

  1. Identify the types of customers and prospects that will best represent your target persona. Choose interviewees that when interviewed will inform key differences among key segments (geographies, company size, mix of customers and prospects, etc.).
  2. Recruit interviewees and schedule interviews for 45 minutes.
  3. Keep track of Interviewees using the slide following this one.
  4. In preparation for interviews, review the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool. Review the two sets of questions:
    1. Buyer Persona-Related – use to validate areas where you still have gaps in your persona, OR if you are starting with a blank persona and wish to build your personas entirely based on customer and prospect interviews.
    2. Buyer-Journey Related, which we will focus on in the next phase.

Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

The image shows a table titled ‘Interviewee List.’ A note next to the title indicates: Here you will document your interviewee list and outreach plan. A note in the Segment column indicates: Ensure you are interviewing personas across segments that will give you the insights you need, e.g. by size, by region, mix of customers and prospects. A note in the Title column reads: Vary your title types up or down in the “buying center” if you are seeking to strengthen buying center dynamics understanding. A note in the Roles column reads: Vary your role types according to decision-making roles (decision maker, influencer, ratifier, coach, user) if you are seeking to strengthen decision-making dynamics understanding.

Phase 2
Interview Buyers and Validate Persona and Journey

This Phase walks you through the following activities:

  • Developing final interview guide.
  • Interviewing buyers and customers.
  • Adjusting approach.
  • Validating buyer persona.
  • Crafting buyer journey
  • Gaining analyst feedback.

This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

  • Program leadership
  • Product Marketing
  • Representative(s) from Sales

2.1 Hold interviews

Input

  • List of interviewees
  • Final list of questions

Output

  • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

Materials

  • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

1-2 weeks

  1. Hold interviews and adjust your interviewing approach as you go along. Uncover where you are not getting the right answers, check with working team and analysts, and adjust.

Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

2.2 Use interview findings to validate what’s needed for activation

Input

  • List of interviewees
  • Final list of questions

Output

  • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys
  • Stakeholder feedback that actionable insights are resulting from interviews

Materials

  • Buyer Persona Creation Template
  • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
  • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

2 hours

  1. Convene your team, with marketing analysts, and test early findings: It’s wise to test initial interview results to check that you are getting the right insights to understand and validate key challenges, pain points, needs, and other vital areas pertaining to the buyer persona. Are the answers you are getting enabling you to complete the Summary slides for later communications and training for Sales?
  2. Check when doing buyer journey interviews that you are getting actionable answers that drive messaging, what asset types are needed, what the marketing channel mix is, and other vital insights to activate the results. Are the answers you are getting adequate to give guidance to campaigners, content marketers, and sales enablement?
  3. See the following slides for detailed questions that need to be answered satisfactorily by your team members that need to “activate” the results.

Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

2.2.1 Are you getting what you need from interviews to inform the buyer persona?

Test that you are on the right track:

  1. Are you getting the functional answers so you can guide sellers to the right roles? Can you guide marketers/campaigners to the right “Ideal Customer Profile” for lead scoring?
  2. Are you capturing the right emotive areas that will support message crafting? Solutioning? SEM/SEO?
  3. Are you capturing insights into “how they decide” so sellers are well informed on the decision-making dynamics?
  4. Are you getting a strong understanding of content, interaction preferences, and news and information sources so sellers can outreach more effectively, you can pinpoint media spend, and content marketing can create the right assets?
Functional – “to find them”
Job Role Title Org. Chart Dynamics Buying Center Firmographics
Emotive – “what they do and jobs to be done”
Initiatives: What programs/projects the persona is tasked with and their feelings and aspirations about these initiatives. Motivations? Build credibility? Get promoted? Challenges: Identify the business issues, problems, and pain points that impede attainment of objectives. What are their fears, uncertainties, and doubts about these challenges? Buyer Need: They may have multiple needs; which need is most likely met with the offering? Terminology: What are the keywords/phrases they organically use to discuss the buyer need or business issue?
Decision Criteria – “how they decide”
Buyer Role: List decision-making criteria and power level. The five common buyer roles are champion, influencer, decision maker, user, and ratifier (purchaser/negotiator). Evaluation and Decision Criteria: Which lens – strategic, financial, or operational – does the persona evaluate the impact of purchase through?
Solution Attributes – “what does the ideal solution look like”
Steps in “Jobs to Be Done” Elements of the “Ideal Solution” Business outcomes from ideal solution Opportunity scope; other potential users Acceptable price for value delivered Alternatives that see consideration Solution sourcing: channel, where to buy
Behavioral Attributes – “how to approach them successfully”
Content Preferences: List the persona’s content preferences – blog, infographic, demo, video – vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction Preferences: Which are preferred among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, videoconferencing, conducting research via Web, mobile, and social? Watering Holes: Which physical or virtual places do they go to network or exchange info with peers (e.g. LinkedIn)?

2.2.2 Are you getting what you need from interviews to support the buyer journey?

Our approach helps you define the buyer journey

Because marketing leaders need to reach buyers through the right channel with the right message at the right time during their decision cycle, you’ll benefit by using questionnaires that enable you to build the below easily and quickly.

2.3 Continue interviews

Input

  • Final adjustments to list of interview questions

Output

  • Final buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

Materials

  • Buyer Persona Creation Template
  • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

1-2 weeks

  1. Continue customer and prospect interviews.
  2. Ensure you are gaining the segment perspectives needed.
  3. Complete the “Summary” columns within the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool.

Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

Phase 3
Prepare Communications and Educate Stakeholders

This Phase walks you through the following activities:

  • Creating outputs for key stakeholders
  • Communicating final findings and supporting marketing, sales, and product activation.

This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

  • Program leadership
  • Product Marketing
  • Product Management
  • Sales
  • Field Marketing/Campaign Management
  • Executive Leadership

3.1 Summarize interview results and convene full working team and steering committee for final review

Input

  • Buyer persona and journey interviews detail

Output

  • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

Materials

  • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool
  • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (Optional)
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
  • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

1-2 hours

  1. Summarize interview results within the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template.

Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

3.2 Convene executive steering committee and working team to review results

Input

  • Buyer persona and journey interviews summary

Output

  • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

Materials

  • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

1-2 hours

  1. Present final persona and journey results to the steering committee/executives and to working group using the summary slides interview results within the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template to finalize results.

Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

3.3 Convene stakeholder meetings to activate results

Input

  • Buyer persona and journey interviews summary

Output

Activation of key learnings to drive:

  • Better product –market fit
  • Lead gen
  • Sales effectiveness
  • Awareness

Materials

  • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

Participants

  • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
  • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
  • Stakeholder team members (see left)

4-5 hours

Present final persona and journey results to each stakeholder team. Key presentations include:

  1. Product team to validate product market fit.
  2. Content marketing to provide messaging direction for the creation of awareness and lead gen assets.
  3. Campaigners/Field Marketing for campaign-related messaging and to identify asset types required to be designed and delivered to support the buyer journey.
  4. Social media strategists for social post copy, and PR for other awareness-building copy.
  5. Sales enablement/training to enable updating of sales collateral, proposals, and sales training materials. Sellers to help with their targeting, prospecting, and crafting of outbound messaging and talk tracks.

Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

Summary of Accomplishment

Problem Solved

With the help of this blueprint, you have deepened your and your colleagues’ buyer understanding at both the persona “who they are” level and the buyer journey “how do they buy” level. You are among the minority of marketing leaders that have fully documented a buyer persona and journey – congratulations!

The benefits of having led your team through the process are significant and include the following:

  • Better alignment of customer/buyer-facing teams such as in product, marketing, sales, and customer success.
  • Messaging that can be used by marketing, sales, and social teams that will resonate with buyer initiatives, pain points, sought-after “pain relief,” and value.
  • Places in the digital and physical universe where your prospects “hang out” so you can optimize your media spend.
  • More effective use of marketing assets and sales collateral that align with the way your prospect needs to consume information throughout their buyer journey to make a decision in your solution area.

And by capturing and documenting your buyer persona and journey even for a single buyer type, you have started to build the “institutional strength” to apply the process to other roles in the decision-making process or for when you go after new and different buyer types for new products. And finally, by bringing your team along with you in this process, you have also led your team in becoming a more customer-focused organization – a strategic shift that all organizations should pursue.

If you would like additional support, contact us and we’ll make sure you get the professional expertise you need.

Contact your account representative for more information.

info@softwarereviews.com

1-888-670-8889

Related Software Reviews Research

Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

  • Save time and money and improve your sales win rates when you apply our methodology to score contacts with your lead gen engine more accurately and pass better qualified leads over to your sellers.
  • Our methodology teaches marketers to develop your own lead scoring approach based upon lead/contact profile vs. your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and scores contact engagement. Applying the methodology to arrive at your own approach to scoring will mean reduced lead gen costs, higher conversion rates, and increased marketing-influenced wins.

Bibliography

Bilardi, Emma. “How to Create Buyer Personas.” Product Marketing Alliance, July 2020. Accessed Dec. 2021.

Harrison, Liz, Dennis Spillecke, Jennifer Stanley, and Jenny Tsai. “Omnichannel in B2B sales: The new normal in a year that has been anything but.” McKinsey & Company, 15 March 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

Jansen, Hasse. “Buyer Personas – 33 Mind Blowing Stats.” Boardview.io!, 19 Feb. 2016. Accessed Jan. 2022.

Raynor, Lilah. “Understanding The Changing B2B Buyer Journey.” Forbes Agency Council, 18 July 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

Simpson, Jon. “Finding Your Audience: The Importance of Developing a Buyer Persona.” Forbes Agency Council, 16 May 2017. Accessed Dec. 2021.

“Successfully Executing Personalized Marketing Campaigns at Scale.” Plexure, 6 Jan. 2020. Accessed Dec 2020.

Ulwick, Anthony W. JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice. E-book, Strategyn, 1 Jan. 2017. Accessed Jan. 2022.

Create a Game Plan to Implement Cloud Backup the Right Way

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  • Parent Category Name: Storage & Backup Optimization
  • Parent Category Link: /storage-and-backup-optimization
  • Cloud adoption is frequently driven by hype rather than careful consideration of the best-fit solution.
  • IT is frequently rushed into cloud adoption without appropriate planning.
  • Organizations frequently lack appropriate strategies to deal with cloud-specific backup challenges.
  • Insufficient planning for cloud backup can exacerbate problems rather than solving them, leading to poor estimates of the cost and effort involved, budget overruns, and failure to meet requirements.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • The cloud isn’t a magic bullet, but it tends to deliver the most value to organizations with specific use cases – frequently smaller organizations who are looking to avoid the cost of building or upgrading a data center.
  • Cloud backup does not necessarily reduce backup costs so much as it moves them around. Cloud backup distributes costs over a longer term. Organizations need to compare the difference in CAPEX and OPEX to determine if making the move makes financial sense.
  • The cloud can deliver a great deal of value for organizations who are looking to reduce the operational effort demanded by an existing tape library for second- or third-tier backups.
  • Data security risks in some cases may be overstated, depending on what on-premises security is available. However, targeting backup to the cloud introduces other risks that need to be considered before implementation is given the green light.

Impact and Result

  • Understand if cloud backup is the right solution for actual organizational needs.
  • Make an informed decision about targeting backup to the cloud by considering the big picture TCO and effort level involved in adoption.
  • Have a ready strategy to mitigate the most common challenges with cloud adoption projects.
  • Develop a roadmap that lays out the required step-by-step to implement cloud backup.

Create a Game Plan to Implement Cloud Backup the Right Way Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Understand the benefits and risks of targeting backups to the cloud

Build a plan to mitigate the risks associated with backing data up in the cloud.

  • Storyboard: Create a Game Plan to Implement Cloud Backup the Right Way

2. Determine if the cloud can meet the organization's data requirements

Assess if the cloud is a good fit for your organization’s backup data.

  • Cloud Backup Implementation Game Plan Tool

3. Mitigate the Challenges of Backing Up to the Cloud

Build a cloud challenge contingency plan.

4. Build a Cloud Backup Implementation Roadmap

Perform a gap analysis to determine cloud backup implementation initiatives.

Infographic

Workshop: Create a Game Plan to Implement Cloud Backup the Right Way

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Evaluate the business case for targeting backup at the cloud

The Purpose

Understand how cloud backup will affect backup and recovery processes

Determine backup and recovery objectives

Assess the value proposition of cloud backup

Key Benefits Achieved

A high-level understanding of the benefits of moving to cloud backup

A best-fit analysis of cloud backup in comparison to organizational needs

Activities

1.1 Document stakeholder goals for cloud backup

1.2 Document present backup processes

1.3 Document ideal backup processes

1.4 Review typical benefits of cloud backup

Outputs

Documented stakeholder goals

Current backup process diagrams

Ideal backup process diagram

2 Identify candidate data sets and assess opportunities and readiness

The Purpose

Identify candidate data sets for cloud-based backup

Determine RPOs and RTOs for candidate data sets

Identify potential value specific to each data set for targeting backup at the cloud

Evaluate organizational readiness for targeting backup at the cloud

Key Benefits Achieved

Documented recovery objectives

Recommendations for cloud backup based on actual organizational needs and readiness

Activities

2.1 Document candidate data sets

2.2 Determine recovery point and recovery time objectives for candidate data sets

2.3 Identify potential value of cloud-based backup for candidate data sets

2.4 Discuss the risk and value of cloud-based backup versus an on-premises solution

2.5 Evaluate organizational readiness for cloud backup

2.6 Identify data sets to move to the cloud

Outputs

Validated list of candidate data sets

Specific RPOs and RTOs for core data sets

An assessment of the value of cloud backup for data sets

A tool-based recommendation for moving backups to the cloud

3 Mitigate the challenges of backing up to the cloud

The Purpose

Understand different cloud provider models and their specific risks

Identification of how cloud backup will affect IT infrastructure and personnel

Strategize ways to mitigate the most common challenges of implementing cloud backup

Understand the client/vendor relationship in cloud backup

Understand the affect of cloud backup on data security

Key Benefits Achieved

Verified best-fit cloud provider model for organizational needs

Verified strategy for meeting the most common challenges for cloud-based backup

A strong understanding of how cloud backup will change IT

Strategies for approaching vendors to ensure a strong footing in negotiations and clear expectations for the client/vendor relationship

Activities

3.1 Discuss the impact of cloud backup on infrastructure and IT environment

3.2 Create a cloud backup risk contingency plan

3.3 Document compliance and security regulations

3.4 Identify client and vendor responsibilities for cloud backup

3.5 Discuss and document the impact of cloud backup on IT roles and responsibilities

3.6 Compile a list of implementation intiatives

3.7 Evaluate the financial case for cloud backup

Outputs

Cloud risk assessment

Documented contingency strategies for probabe risks

Negotiation strategies for dealing with vendors

A committed go/no-go decision on the value of cloud backup weighted against the effort of implementation

4 Build a cloud backup implementation roadmap

The Purpose

Create a road map for implementing cloud backup

Key Benefits Achieved

Determine any remaining gaps between the present state and the ideal state for cloud backup

Understand the steps and time frame for implementing cloud backup

Allocate roles and responsibilities for the implementation intitiative

A validated implementation road map

Activities

4.1 Perform a gap analysis to generate a list of implementation intiatives

4.2 Prioritize cloud backup initiatives

4.3 Assess risks and dependencies for critical implementation initiatives

4.4 Assign ownership over implementation tasks

4.5 Determine road map time frame and structure

4.6 Populate the roadmap with cloud backup initiatives

Outputs

A validated gap analysis

A prioritized list of cloud backup initiatives

Documented dependencies and risks associated with implementation tasks

A roadmap for targeting backups at the cloud

Maintain an Organized Portfolio

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  • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
  • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
  • All too often, the portfolio of programs and projects looks more like a random heap than a strategically organized and balanced collection of investments that will drive the business forward.
  • Portfolio managers know that with the right kind of information and the right level of process maturity they can get better results through the portfolio; however, organizations often assume (falsely) that the required level of maturity is out of reach from their current state and perpetually delay improvements.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • The information needed to define clear and usable criteria for organizing the portfolio of programs and projects already exists. Portfolio managers only need to identify the sources of that information and institute processes for regularly reviewing that information in order to define those criteria.
  • Once a portfolio manager has a clear idea of the goals and constraints that shape what ought to be included (or removed) from the portfolio and once these have been translated into clear and usable portfolio criteria, basic portfolio management processes can be instituted to ensure that these criteria are used consistently throughout the various stages of the project lifecycle.
  • Portfolio management frameworks and processes do not need to be built from scratch. Well-known frameworks – such as the one outlined in COBIT 5 APO05 – can be instituted in a way that will allow even low-maturity organizations to start organizing their portfolio.
  • Organizations do not need to grow into portfolio management frameworks to get the benefits of an organized portfolio; instead, they can grow within such frameworks.

Impact and Result

  • An organized portfolio will ensure that the projects and programs included in it are strategically aligned and can actually be executed within the finite constraints of budgetary and human resource capacity.
  • Portfolio managers are better empowered to make decisions about which projects should be included in the portfolio (and when) and are better empowered to make the very tough decisions about which projects should be removed from the portfolio (i.e. cancelled).
  • Building and maturing a portfolio management framework will more fully integrate the PMO into the broader IT management and governance frameworks, making it a more integral part of strategic decisions and a better business partner in the long run.

Maintain an Organized Portfolio Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should maintain an organized portfolio of programs and projects, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Assess the current state of the portfolio and PPM processes

Analyze the current mix of programs and projects in your portfolio and assess the maturity of your current PPM processes.

  • Maintain an Organized Portfolio – Phase 1: Assess the Current State of the Portfolio and PPM Processes
  • Project Portfolio Organizer
  • COBIT APO05 (Manage Portfolio) Alignment Workbook

2. Enhance portfolio organization through improved PPM criteria and processes

Enhance and optimize your portfolio management processes to ensure portfolio criteria are clearly defined and consistently applied across the project lifecycle when making decisions about which projects to include or remove from the portfolio.

  • Maintain an Organized Portfolio – Phase 2: Enhance Portfolio Organization Through Improved PPM Criteria and Processes
  • Portfolio Management Standard Operating Procedures

3. Implement improved portfolio management practices

Implement your portfolio management improvement initiatives to ensure long-term sustainable adoption of new PPM practices.

  • Maintain an Organized Portfolio – Phase 3: Implement Improved Portfolio Management Practices
  • Portfolio Management Improvement Roadmap Tool
[infographic]

Workshop: Maintain an Organized Portfolio

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Assess Portfolio Mix and Portfolio Process Current State

The Purpose

Analyze the current mix of the portfolio to determine how to better organize it according to organizational goals and constraints.

Assess which PPM processes need to be enhanced to better organize the portfolio.

Key Benefits Achieved

An analysis of the existing portfolio of projects (highlighting areas of concern).

An analysis of the maturity of current PPM processes and their ability to support the maintenance of an organized portfolio.

Activities

1.1 Pre-work: Prepare a complete project list.

1.2 Define existing portfolio categories, criteria, and targets.

1.3 Analyze the current portfolio mix.

1.4 Identify areas of concern with current portfolio mix.

1.5 Review the six COBIT sub-processes for portfolio management (APO05.01-06).

1.6 Assess the degree to which these sub-processes have been currently achieved at the organization.

1.7 Assess the degree to which portfolio-supporting IT governance and management processes exist.

1.8 Perform a gap analysis.

Outputs

Analysis of the current portfolio mix

Assessment of COBIT alignment and gap analysis.

2 Define Portfolio Target Mix, Criteria, and Roadmap

The Purpose

Define clear and usable portfolio criteria.

Record/design portfolio management processes that will support the consistent use of portfolio criteria at all stages of the project lifecycle.

Key Benefits Achieved

Clearly defined and usable portfolio criteria.

A portfolio management framework that supports the consistent use of the portfolio criteria across all stages of the project lifecycle.

Activities

2.1 Identify determinants of the portfolio mix, criteria, and constraints.

2.2 Define the target mix, portfolio criteria, and portfolio metrics.

2.3 Identify sources of funding and resourcing.

2.4 Review and record the portfolio criteria based upon the goals and constraints.

2.5 Create a PPM improvement roadmap.

Outputs

Portfolio criteria

Portfolio metrics for intake, monitoring, closure, termination, reprioritization, and benefits tracking

Portfolio Management Improvement Roadmap

3 Design Improved Portfolio Sub-Processes

The Purpose

Ensure that the portfolio criteria are used to guide decision making at each stage of the project lifecycle when making decisions about which projects to include or remove from the portfolio.

Key Benefits Achieved

Processes that support decision making based upon the portfolio criteria.

Processes that ensure the portfolio remains consistently organized according to the portfolio criteria.

Activities

3.1 Ensure that the metrics used for each sub-process are based upon the standard portfolio criteria.

3.2 Establish the roles, accountabilities, and responsibilities for each sub-process needing improvement.

3.3 Outline the workflow for each sub-process needing improvement.

Outputs

A RACI chart for each sub-process

A workflow for each sub-process

4 Change Impact Analysis and Stakeholder Engagement Plan

The Purpose

Ensure that the portfolio management improvement initiatives are sustainably adopted in the long term.

Key Benefits Achieved

Stakeholder engagement.

Sustainable long-term adoption of the improved portfolio management practices.

Activities

4.1 Conduct a change impact analysis.

4.2 Create a stakeholder engagement plan.

Outputs

Change Impact Analysis

Stakeholder Engagement Plan

Completed Portfolio Management SOP

Asset Management

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  • Download01-Title: Asset Management Executive Brief
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  • Parent Category Name: Infra and Operations
  • Parent Category Link: /infra-and-operations
  • byline: IT Asset management is dynamic by nature. Create your own proactive program.
Asset management has a clear impact on the financials of your company. Clear insights are essential to keep your spending at the right level.

Asset Management

Streamline Application Management

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  • Parent Category Name: Maintenance
  • Parent Category Link: /maintenance
  • Today’s rapidly scaling and increasingly complex products create mounting pressure on delivery teams to release new features and changes quickly and with sufficient quality.
  • Many organizations lack the critical management capabilities to balance maintenance with new development and ensure high product value.
  • Application management is often viewed as a support function rather than an enabler of business growth. Focus and investments are only placed on management when it becomes a problem.
  • The lack of governance and practice accountability leaves application management in a chaotic state: politics take over, resources are not strategically allocated, and customers are frustrated.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • New features, fixes, and enhancements are all treated the same and managed in a single backlog. Teams need to focus on prioritizing their efforts on what is valuable to the organization, not to a single department.
  • Business integration is not optional. The business (i.e. product owners) must be represented in guiding delivery efforts and performing ongoing validation and verification of new features and changes.

Impact and Result

  • Justify the necessity to optimize application management. Gain a grounded understanding of stakeholder objectives and validate their achievability against the current maturity of application management.
  • Strengthen backlog management practices. Obtain a holistic picture of the business and technical impacts, risks, value, complexity, and urgency of each backlog item in order to justify its priority and relevance. Apply the appropriate management approach to each software product according to its criticality and value to the business.
  • Establish and govern a repeatable process. Develop a management process with well-defined steps, quality controls, and roles and responsibilities, and instill good practices to improve the success of delivery.

Streamline Application Management Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should sustain your application management practice, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Define your priorities

State the success criteria of your application management practice through defined objectives and metrics. Assess your maturity.

  • Streamline Application Management – Phase 1: Define Your Priorities
  • Application Management Strategy Template
  • Application Management Maturity Assessment Tool

2. Govern application management

Structure your application management governance model with the right process and roles. Inject product ownership into your practice.

  • Streamline Application Management – Phase 2: Govern Application Management

3. Build your optimization roadmap

Build your application management optimization roadmap to achieve your target state.

  • Streamline Application Management – Phase 3: Build Your Optimization Roadmap
[infographic]

Workshop: Streamline Application Management

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Define Your Priorities

The Purpose

State the success criteria of your application management practice through defined objectives and metrics.

Assess your maturity.

Key Benefits Achieved

Grounded stakeholder expectations

Application management maturity and identification of optimization opportunities

Activities

1.1 Set your objectives.

1.2 Assess your maturity.

Outputs

Application management objectives and metrics

Application management maturity and optimization opportunities

2 Govern Application Management

The Purpose

Structure your application management governance model with the right process and roles.

Inject product ownership into your practice.

Key Benefits Achieved

Management approach aligned to product value and criticality

Management techniques to govern the product backlog

Target-state application management process and roles

Activities

2.1 Select your management approach.

2.2 Manage your single product backlog.

2.3 Optimize your management process.

2.4 Define your management roles.

Outputs

Application management approach for each application

Product backlog management practices

Application management process

Application management roles and responsibilities and communication flow

3 Build Your Optimization Roadmap

The Purpose

Build your application management optimization roadmap to achieve your target state.

Key Benefits Achieved

Optimization opportunities

Application management optimization roadmap

Activities

3.1 Build your optimization roadmap.

Outputs

Application management optimization roadmap

Develop Meaningful Service Metrics

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  • Parent Category Name: Service Management
  • Parent Category Link: /service-management
  • IT organizations measure services from a technology perspective but rarely from a business goal or outcome perspective.
  • Most organizations do a poor job of identifying and measuring service outcomes over the duration of a service’s lifecycle – never ensuring the services remain valuable and meet expected long-term ROI.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Service metrics are critical to ensuring alignment of IT service performance and business service value achievement.
  • Service metrics reinforce positive business and end-user relationships by providing user-centric information that drives responsiveness and consistent service improvement.
  • Poorly designed metrics drive unintended and unproductive behaviors that have negative impacts on IT and produce negative service outcomes.

Impact and Result

Effective service metrics will provide the following service gains:

  • Confirm service performance and identify gaps.
  • Drive service improvement to maximize service value.
  • Validate performance improvements while quantifying and demonstrating business value.
  • Ensure service reporting aligns with end-user experience.
  • Achieve and confirm process and regulatory compliance.

Which will translate into the following relationship gains:

  • Embed IT into business value achievement.
  • Improve the relationship between the business and IT.
  • Achieve higher customer satisfaction (happier end users receiving expected service, the business is able to identify how things are really performing).
  • Reinforce desirable actions and behaviors from both IT and the business.

Develop Meaningful Service Metrics Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop meaningful service metrics, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

  • Develop Meaningful Service Metrics – Executive Brief
  • Develop Meaningful Service Metrics – Phases 1-3

1. Design the metrics

Identify the appropriate service metrics based on stakeholder needs.

  • Develop Meaningful Service Metrics to Ensure Business and User Satisfaction – Phase 1: Design the Metrics
  • Metrics Development Workbook

2. Design reports and dashboards

Present the right metrics in the most interesting and stakeholder-centric way possible.

  • Develop Meaningful Service Metrics to Ensure Business and User Satisfaction – Phase 2: Design Reports and Dashboards
  • Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide

3. Implement, track, and maintain

Run a pilot with a smaller sample of defined service metrics, then continuously validate your approach and make refinements to the processes.

  • Develop Meaningful Service Metrics to Ensure Business and User Satisfaction – Phase 3: Implement, Track, and Maintain
  • Metrics Tracking Tool
[infographic]

Workshop: Develop Meaningful Service Metrics

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Design the Metrics

The Purpose

Define stakeholder needs for IT based on their success criteria and identify IT services that are tied to the delivery of business outcomes.

Derive meaningful service metrics based on identified IT services and validate that metrics can be collected and measured.

Key Benefits Achieved

Design meaningful service metrics from stakeholder needs.

Validate that metrics can be collected and measured.

Activities

1.1 Determine stakeholder needs, goals, and pain points.

1.2 Determine the success criteria and related IT services.

1.3 Derive the service metrics.

1.4 Validate the data collection process.

1.5 Validate metrics with stakeholders.

Outputs

Understand stakeholder priorities

Adopt a business-centric perspective to align IT and business views

Derive meaningful business metrics that are relevant to the stakeholders

Determine if and how the identified metrics can be collected and measured

Establish a feedback mechanism to have business stakeholders validate the meaningfulness of the metrics

2 Design Reports and Dashboards

The Purpose

Determine the most appropriate presentation format based on stakeholder needs.

Key Benefits Achieved

Ensure the metrics are presented in the most interesting and stakeholder-centric way possible to guarantee that they are read and used.

Activities

2.1 Understand the different presentation options.

2.2 Assess stakeholder needs for information.

2.3 Select and design the metric report.

Outputs

Learn about infographic, scorecard, formal report, and dashboard presentation options

Determine how stakeholders would like to view information and how the metrics can be presented to aid decision making

Select the most appropriate presentation format and create a rough draft of how the report should look

3 Implement, Track, and Maintain Your Metrics

The Purpose

Run a pilot with a smaller sample of defined service metrics to validate your approach.

Make refinements to the implementation and maintenance processes prior to activating all service metrics.

Key Benefits Achieved

High user acceptance and usability of the metrics.

Processes of identifying and presenting metrics are continuously validated and improved.

Activities

3.1 Select the pilot metrics.

3.2 Gather data and set initial targets.

3.3 Generate the reports and validate with stakeholders.

3.4 Implement the service metrics program.

3.5 Track and maintain the metrics program.

Outputs

Select the metrics that should be first implemented based on urgency and impact

Complete the service intake form for a specific initiative

Create a process to gather data, measure baselines, and set initial targets

Establish a process to receive feedback from the business stakeholders once the report is generated

Identify the approach to implement the metrics program across the organization

Set up mechanism to ensure the success of the metrics program by assessing process adherence and process validity

Further reading

Develop Meaningful Service Metrics

Select IT service metrics that drive business value.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Are you measuring and reporting what the business needs to know?

“Service metrics are one of the key tools at IT’s disposal in articulating and ensuring its value to the business, yet metrics are rarely designed and used for that purpose.

Creating IT service metrics directly from business and stakeholder outcomes and goals, written from the business perspective and using business language, is critical to ensuring that the services that IT provides are meeting business needs.

The ability to measure, manage, and improve IT service performance in relation to critical business success factors, with properly designed metrics, embeds IT in the value chain of the business and ensures IT’s focus on where and how it enables business outcomes.”

Valence Howden,
Senior Manager, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group

Our understanding of the problem

This Research Is Designed For:
  • CIO
  • IT VPs
 This Research Will Help You:
  • Align business/IT objectives (design top-down or outside-in)
  • Significantly improve the relationship between the business and IT aspects of the organization
  • Reinforce desirable actions and behaviors
This Research Will Also Assist:
  • Service Level Managers
  • Service Owners
  • Program Owners
 This Research Will Help Them
  • Identify unusual deviations from the normal operating state
  • Drive service improvement to maximize service value
  • Validate the value of performance improvements while quantifying and demonstrating benefits realization

Executive summary

Situation

  • IT organizations measure services from a technology perspective yet rarely measure services from a business goal/outcome perspective.
  • Most organizations do a poor job of identifying and measuring service outcomes over the duration of a service’s lifecycle – never ensuring the services remain valuable and meet expected long-term ROI.

Complication

  • IT organizations have difficulty identifying the right metrics to demonstrate the value of IT services to the business in tangible terms.
  • IT metrics, as currently designed, reinforce division between the IT and business perspectives of service performance. They drive siloed thinking and finger-pointing within the IT structure, and prevent IT resources from understanding how their work impacts business value.

Resolution

  • Our program enables IT to develop the right service metrics to tie IT service performance to business value and user experience.
  • Ensure the metrics you implement have immediate stakeholder value, reinforcing alignment between IT and the business while influencing behavior in the desired direction.
  • Make sure that your metrics are defined in relation to the business goals and drivers, ensuring they will provide actionable outcomes.

Info-Tech Insight

  1. Service metrics are critical to ensuring alignment of IT service performance and business service value achievement.
  2. Service metrics reinforce positive business and end-user relationships by providing user-centric information that drives responsiveness and consistent service improvement.
  3. Poorly designed metrics drive unintended and unproductive behaviors, which have negative impacts on IT and produce negative service outcomes.

Service metrics 101

What are service metrics?

Service metrics measure IT services in a way that relates to a business outcome. IT needs to measure performance from the business perspective using business language.

Why do we need service metrics?

To ensure the business cares about the metrics that IT produces, start with business needs to make sure you’re measuring the right things. This will give IT the opportunity talk to the right stakeholders and develop metrics that will meet their business needs.

Service metrics are designed with the business perspective in mind, so they are fully aligned with business objectives.

Perspectives Matter

Different stakeholders will require different types of metrics. A CEO may require metrics that provide a snapshot of the critical success of the company while a business manager is more concerned about the performance metrics of their department.

What are the benefits of implementing service metrics?

Service metrics help IT communicate with the business in business terms and enables IT to articulate how and where they provide business value. Business stakeholders can also easily understand how IT services contribute to their success.

The majority of CIOs feel metrics relating to business value and stakeholder satisfaction require significant improvement

A significantly higher proportion of CIOs than CEOs feel that there is significant improvement necessary for business value metrics and stakeholder satisfaction reporting. Stacked horizontal bar chart presenting survey results from CIOs and CXOs of 'Business Value Metrics'. Answer options are 'Effective', 'Some Improvement Necessary', 'Significant Improvement Necessary', and 'Not Required'.N=364

Stacked horizontal bar chart presenting survey results from CIOs and CXOs of 'Stakeholder Satisfaction Reporting'. Answer options are 'Effective', 'Some Improvement Necessary', 'Significant Improvement Necessary', and 'Not Required'.N=364

(Source: Info-Tech CIO-CXO Alignment Diagnostic Survey)

Meaningless metrics are a headache for the business

A major pitfall of many IT organizations is that they often provide pages of technical metrics that are meaningless to their business stakeholders.

  1. Too Many MetricsToo many metrics are provided and business leaders don’t know what to do with these metrics.
  2. Metrics Are Too TechnicalIT provides technical metrics that are hard to relate to business needs, and methods of calculating metrics are not clearly understood, articulated, and agreed on.
  3. Metrics Have No Business ValueService metrics are not mapped to business goals/objectives and they drive incorrect actions or spend.
 When considering only CEOs who said that stakeholder satisfaction reporting needed significant improvement, the average satisfaction score goes down to 61.6%, which is a drop in satisfaction of 12%.

A bar that says 73% dropping to a bar that says 61%. Description above.

(Source: Info-Tech Research Group CIO-CXO Alignment Diagnostic Survey)

Poorly designed metrics hurt IT’s image within the organization

By providing metrics that do not articulate the value of IT services, IT reinforces its role as a utility provider and an outsider to strategic decisions.

When the CIOs believe business value metrics weren’t required, 50% of their CEOs said that significant improvements were necessary.

Pie Chart presenting the survey results from CEOs regarding 'Business Value Metrics'. Description above.

(Source: Info-Tech Research Group CIO-CXO Alignment Diagnostic Survey)
  1. Reinforce the wrong behaviorThe wrong metrics drive us-against-them, siloed thinking within IT, and meeting metric targets is prioritized over providing meaningful outcomes.
  2. Do not reflect user experienceMetrics don’t align with actual business/user experience, reinforcing a poor view of IT services.
  3. Effort ≠ ValueInvesting dedicated resources and effort to the achievement of the wrong metrics will only leave IT more constrained for other important initiatives.

Articulate meaningful service performance that supports the achievement of business outcomes

Service metrics measure the performance of IT services and how they enable or drive the activity outcomes.

A business process consists of multiple business activities. In many cases, these business activities require one or more supporting IT services.

A 'Business Process' broken down to its parts, multiple 'Business Activities' and their 'IT Services'. For each business process, business stakeholders and their goals and objectives should be identified.

For each business activity that supports the completion of a business process, define the success criteria that must be met in order to produce the desirable outcome.

Identify the IT services that are used by business stakeholders for each business activity. Measure the performance of these services from a business perspective to arrive at the appropriate service metrics.

Differentiate between different types of metrics

Stakeholders have different goals and objectives; therefore, it is critical to identify what type of metrics should be presented to each stakeholder.

Business Metrics

Determine Business Success

Business metrics are derived from a pure business perspective. These are the metrics that the business stakeholders will measure themselves on, and business success is determined using these metrics.

Arrow pointing right.

Service Metrics

Manage Service Value to the Business

Service metrics are used to measure IT service performance against business outcomes. These metrics, while relating to IT services, are presented in business terms and are tied to business goals.

Arrow pointing right.

IT Metrics

Enable Operational Excellence

IT metrics are internal to the IT organization and used to manage IT service delivery. These metrics are technical, IT-specific, and drive action for IT. They are not presented to the business, and are not written in business language.

Implementing service metrics is a key step in becoming a service provider and business partner

As a prerequisite, IT organizations must have already established a solid relationship with the business and have a clear understanding of its critical business-facing services.

At the very least, IT needs to have a service-oriented view and understand the specific needs and objectives associated with each stakeholder.

Visualization of 'Business Relationship Management' with an early point on the line representing 'Service Provider: Establish service-oriented culture and business-centric service delivery', and the end of the line being 'Strategic Partner'.

Once IT can present service metrics that the business cares about, it can continue on the service provider journey by managing the performance of services based on business needs, determine and influence service demand, and assess service value to maximize benefits to the business.

Which processes drive service metrics?

Both business relationship management (BRM) and service level management (SLM) provide inputs into and receive outputs from service metrics.

Venn Diagram of 'Business Relationship Management', 'Service Metrics', and 'Service Level Management'.

Business Relationship Management

BRM works to understand the goals and objectives of the business and inputs them into the design of the service metrics.

Service Metrics

BRM leverages service metrics to help IT organizations manage the relationship with the business.

BRM articulates and manages expectations and ensures IT services are meeting business requirements.

Which processes drive service metrics?

Both BRM and SLM provide inputs into and receive outputs from service metrics.

Venn Diagram of 'Business Relationship Management', 'Service Metrics', and 'Service Level Management'.

Service Level Management

SLM works with the business to understand service requirements, which are key inputs in designing the service metrics.

Service Metrics

SLM leverages service metrics in overseeing the day-to-day delivery of IT services. It ensures they are provided to meet expected service level targets and objectives.

Effective service metrics will deliver both service gains and relationship gains

Effective service metrics will provide the following service gains:

  • Confirm service performance and identify gaps
  • Drive service improvement to maximize service value
  • Validate performance improvements while quantifying and demonstrating business value
  • Ensure service reporting aligns with end-user experience
  • Achieve and confirm process and regulatory compliance
      Which will translate into the following relationship gains:
      • Embed IT into business value achievement
      • Improve relationship between the business and IT
      • Achieve higher customer satisfaction (happier end users receiving expected service, the business is able to identify how things are really performing)
      • Reinforce desirable actions and behaviors from both IT and the business

Don’t let conventional wisdom become your roadblock

Conventional Wisdom

Info-Tech Perspective
Metrics are measured from an application or technology perspective Metrics need to be derived from a service and business outcome perspective.
The business doesn’t care about metrics Metrics are not usually designed to speak in business terms about business outcomes. Linking metrics to business objectives creates metrics that the business cares about.
It is difficult to have a metrics discussion with the business It is not a metrics/number discussion, it is a discussion on goals and outcomes.
Metrics are only presented for the implementation of the service, not the ongoing outcome of the service IT needs to focus on service outcome and not project outcome.
Quality can’t be measured Quality must be measured in order to properly manage services.

Our three-phase approach to service metrics development

Let Info-Tech guide you through your service metrics journey

1

2

3
Design Your Metrics Develop and Validate Reporting Implement, Track, and Maintain
Sample of Phase 1 of Info-Tech's service metric development package, 'Design Your Metrics'. Sample of Phase 2 of Info-Tech's service metric development package, 'Develop and Validate Reporting'. Sample of Phase 3 of Info-Tech's service metric development package, 'Implement, Track, and Maintain'.
Start the development and creation of your service metrics by keeping business perspectives in mind, so they are fully aligned with business objectives. Identify the most appropriate presentation format based on stakeholder preference and need for metrics. Track goals and success metrics for your service metrics programs. It allows you to set long-term goals and track your results over time.

CIOs must actively lead the design of the service metrics program

The CIO must actively demonstrate support for the service metrics program and lead the initial discussions to determine what matters to business leaders.

  1. Lead the initiative by defining the need
    Show visible support and demonstrate importance
  2. Articulate the value to both IT and the business
    Establish the urgency and benefits
  3. Select and assemble an implementation group
    Find the best people to get the job done
  4. Drive initial metrics discussions: goals, objectives, actions
    Lead brainstorming with senior business leaders
  5. Work with the team to determine presentation formats and communication methods
    Identify the best presentation approach for senior stakeholders
  6. Establish a feedback loop for senior management
    Solicit feedback on improvements
  7. Validate the success of the metrics
    Confirm service metrics support business outcomes

Measure the success of your service metrics

It is critical to determine if the designed service metrics are fulfilling their intended purpose. The process of maintaining the service metrics program and the outcomes of implementing service metrics need to be monitored and tracked.

Validating Service Metrics Design

Target Outcome

Related Metrics
The business is enabled to identify and improve service performance to their end customer # of improvement initiatives created based on service metrics
$ cost savings/revenue generated due to actions derived from service metrics

Procedure to validate the usefulness of IT metrics

# / % of service metrics added/removed per year

Alignment between IT and business objectives and processes Business’ satisfaction with IT

Measure the success of your service metrics

It is critical to determine if the designed service metrics are fulfilling their intended purpose. The process of maintaining the service metrics program and the outcomes of implementing service metrics need to be monitored and tracked.

Validating Service Metrics Process

Target Outcome

Related Metrics

Properly defined service metrics aligned with business goals/outcomes
Easy understood measurement methodologies		% of services with (or without) defined service metrics

% of service metrics tied to business goals

Consistent approach to review and adjust metrics# of service metrics adjusted based on service reviews

% of service metrics reviewed on schedule

Demonstrate monetary value and impact through the service metrics program

In a study done by the Aberdeen Group, organizations engaged in the use of metrics benchmarking and measurement have:
  • 88% customer satisfaction rate
  • 60% service profitability
  • 15% increase in workforce productivity over the last 12 months

Stock image of a silhouette of three people's head and shoulders.
(Source: Aberdeen Group. “Service Benchmarking and Measurement.”)

A service metric is defined for: “Response time for Business Application A”

The expected response time has not been achieved and this is visible in the service metrics. The reduced performance has been identified as having an impact of $250,000 per month in lost revenue potential.

The service metric drove an action to perform a root-cause analysis, which identified a network switch issue and drove a resolution action to fix the technology and architect redundancy to ensure continuity.

The fix eliminated the performance impact, allowing for recovery of the $250K per month in revenue, improved end-user confidence in the organization, and increased use of the application, creating additional revenue.

Implementing and measuring a video conferencing service

CASE STUDY
Industry: Manufacturing | Source: CIO interview and case material
Situation

The manufacturing business operates within numerous countries and requires a lot of coordination of functions and governance oversight. The company has monthly meetings, both regional and national, and key management and executives travel to attend and participate in the meetings.

Complication

While the meetings provide a lot of organizational value, the business has grown significantly and the cost of business travel has started to become prohibitive.

Action

It was decided that only a few core meetings would require onsite face-to-face meetings, and for all other meetings, the company would look at alternative means. The face-to-face aspect of the meetings was still considered critical so they focused on options to retain that aspect.

The IT organization identified that they could provide a video conferencing service to meet the business need. The initiative was approved and rolled out in the organization.

Result:

IT service metrics needed to be designed to confirm that the expected value outcome of the implementation of video conferencing was achieved.

Under the direction of the CIO, the business goals and needs driving use of the service (i.e. reduction in travel costs, efficiency, no loss of positive outcome) were used to identify success criteria and key questions to confirm success.

With this information, the service manager was able to implement relevant service metrics in business language and confirmed an 80% adoption rate and a 95% success rate in term meetings running as expected and achieving core outcomes.

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

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

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This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.

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This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.

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

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Develop meaningful service metrics to ensure business and user satisfaction

1. Design the Metrics 2. Design Reports and Dashboards 3. Implement, Track, and Maintain
Supporting Tool icon

Best-Practice Toolkit
  1. Defining stakeholder needs for IT based on their success criteria
  2. Derive meaningful service metrics based on identified IT services and validate with business stakeholders
  3. Validate metrics can be collected and measured
  4. Determine calculation methodology
  1. Presentation format selected based on stakeholder needs and preference for information
  2. Presentation format validated with stakeholders
  1. Identify metrics that will be presented first to the stakeholders based on urgency or impact of the IT service
  2. Determine the process to collect data, select initial targets, and integrate with SLM and BRM functions
  3. Roll out the metrics implementation for a broader audience
  4. Establish roles and timelines for metrics maintenance

Guided Implementations
  • Design metrics based on business needs
  • Validate the metrics
  • Select presentation format
  • Review metrics presentation design
  • Select and implement pilot metrics
  • Determine rollout process and establish maintenance/tracking mechanism
Associated Activity icon

Onsite Workshop

 Module 1:
Derive Service Metrics From Business Goals 		Module 2:
Select and Design Reports and Dashboards 		Module 3:
Implement, Track, and Maintain Your Metrics to Ensure Success
Phase 1 Outcome:
  • Meaningful service metrics designed from stakeholder needs
 Phase 2 Outcome:
  • Appropriate presentation format selected for each stakeholder
 Phase 3 Outcome:
  • Metrics implemented and process established to maintain and track program success

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.
Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4
Design the Metrics
Determine Presentation Format and Implement Metrics
Gather Service Level Requirements
Monitor and Improve Service Levels

Activities
  • 1.1 Determine stakeholder needs
  • 1.2 Determine success criteria and key performance indicators
  • 1.3 Derive metrics
  • 1.4 Validate the metric collection
  • 2.1 Discuss stakeholder needs/preference for data and select presentation format
  • 2.2 Select and design the metric report
  • Requirements
  • 3.1 Determine the business requirements
  • 3.2 Negotiate service levels
  • 3.3 Align operational level agreements (OLAs) and supplier contracts
  • 4.1 Conduct service report and perform service review
  • 4.2 Communicate service review
  • 4.3 Remediate issues using action plan
  • 4.4 Proactive prevention

Deliverables
  1. Metrics Development Workbook
  1. Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide
  2. Metrics Tracking Tool
  1. Service Level Management SOP
  2. Service Level Agreement
  1. Service Level Report
  2. Service Level Review
  3. Business Satisfaction Report

Develop Meaningful Service Metrics to Ensure Business and User Satisfaction

PHASE 1

Design the Metrics

Step (1): Design the Metrics

PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

1.1

Derive the Service Metrics

1.2

Validate the Metrics

2.1

Determine Reporting Format

3.1

Select Pilot Metrics

3.2

Activate and Maintain Metrics

This step involves the following participants:

  • CIO
  • Business Relationship Manager (BRM)
  • Service Level Manager (SLM)

Outcomes of this step

  • Defined stakeholder needs for IT based on their success criteria
  • Identified IT services that are tied to the delivery of business outcomes
  • Derived meaningful service metrics based on identified IT services and validated with business stakeholders
  • Validated that metrics can be collected and measured
  • Determined calculation methodology

Phase 1 outline

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

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

Guided Implementation 1: Design the Metrics

Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4 weeks
Step 1.1: Design Metrics Step 1.2: Validate the Metrics
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
  • Determine the stakeholder and their needs
  • Identify IT services that are tied to the delivery of business outcomes
  • Derive the service metrics
 Review findings with analyst:
  • For the selected metrics, identify the data source for collection
  • Validate whether or not the data can be created
  • Create a calculation method for the metrics
Then complete these activities…
  • Using the methodology provided, identify additional stakeholders and map out their success criteria, including KPIs to determine the appropriate service metrics
 Then complete these activities…
  • Determine whether the designed metrics are measurable, and if so, how
With these tools & templates:
  • Metrics Development Workbook
 With these tools & templates:
  • Metrics Development Workbook

Design your service metrics – overview

Figure representing 'CIO'. Step 1
Derive your service metrics

Metrics Worksheet

Figure representing 'SLM' and/or 'BRM'. Step 2
Validate your metrics

Metrics Worksheet

Figures representing 'CIO', 'SLM', and/or 'BRM'. Step 3
Confirm with stakeholders

Metrics Tracking Sheet

A star.

Defined IT Service Metrics

Deriving the right metrics is critical to ensuring that you will generate valuable and actionable service metrics.

Derive your service metrics from business objectives and needs

Service metrics must be designed with the business perspective in mind so they are fully aligned with business objectives.

Thus, IT must start by identifying specific stakeholder needs. The more IT understands about the business, the more relevant the metrics will be to the business stakeholders.

  1. Who are your stakeholders?
  2. What are their goals and pain points?
  3. What do the stakeholders need to know?
  4. What do I need to measure?
  5. Derive your service metrics

Derive your service metrics

Supporting Tool icon 1.1 Metrics Development Workbook

This workbook guides the development and creation of service metrics that are directly tied to stakeholder needs.

This process will ensure that your service metrics are designed with the business perspective in mind so they are fully aligned with business objectives.

  1. Who are the relevant stakeholders?
  2. What are the goals and pain points of your stakeholders?
  3. What do the stakeholders need to know?
  4. What does IT need to measure?
  5. What are the appropriate IT metrics?

Download the Metrics Development Workbook.

Sample of Info-Tech's Metrics Development Workbook.

Determine your stakeholders

Supporting Tool icon 1.1 0.5 Hour

Who are your stakeholders?

  1. Identify the primary stakeholders of your service metrics. Stakeholders are the people who have a very specific need to know about how IT services affect their business outcomes. Different stakeholders can have different perspective on the same IT service metric.Most often, the primary target of service metrics are the business stakeholders, e.g. VP of a business unit.
  2. Identify any additional stakeholders. The CIO is also a stakeholder since they are effectively the business relationship manager for the senior leaders.

Video Conferencing Case Study
Manufacturing company

For this phase, we will demonstrate how to derive the service metrics by going through the steps in the methodology.

At a manufacturing company, the CIO’s main stakeholder is the CEO, whose chief concern is to improve the financial position of the company.

Identify goals and pain points of your stakeholders

Supporting Tool icon 1.2 0.5 Hour

What are their goals and pain points?

  1. Clearly identify each stakeholder’s business goals and outcomes. These would be particular business goals related to a specific business unit.
  2. Identify particular pain points for each business unit to understand what is preventing them from achieving the desirable business outcome.

VC Case Study

One of the top initiatives identified by the company to improve financial performance was to reduce expense.

Because the company has several key locations in different states, company executives used to travel extensively to carry out meetings at each location.

Therefore, travel expenses represent a significant proportion of operational expenses and reducing travel costs is a key goal for the company’s executives.

What do the stakeholders need to know?

Supporting Tool icon 1.3 0.5 Hour

What do the stakeholders need to know?

  1. Identify the key things that the stakeholders would need to know based on the goals and pain points derived from the previous step.These are your success criteria and must be met to successfully achieve the desired goals.

VC Case Study

The CEO needs to have assurance that without executives traveling to each location, remote meetings can be as effective as in-person meetings.

These meetings must provide the same outcome and allow executives to collaborate and make similar strategic decisions without the onsite, physical presence.

Therefore, the success criteria are:

  • Reduced travel costs
  • Effective collaboration
  • High-quality meetings

What do I need to measure?

Supporting Tool icon 1.4 1 Hour

What does IT need to measure?

  1. Identify the IT services that are leveraged to achieve the business goals and success criteria.
  2. Identify the users of those services and determine the nature of usage for each group of users.
  3. Identify the key indicators that must be measured for those services from an IT perspective.

VC Case Study

The IT department decides to implement the video conferencing service to reduce the number of onsite meetings. This technology would allow executives to meet remotely with both audio and video and is the best option to replicate a physical meeting.

The service is initially available to senior executives and will be rolled out to all internal users once the initial implementation is deemed successful.

To determine the success of the service, the following needs to be measured:

  1. Outcomes of VC meetings
  2. Quality of the VC meetings
  3. Reduction in travel expenses

Derive service metrics

Supporting Tool icon 1.5 0.5 Hour

Derive your service metrics

  1. Derive the service metrics that are meaningful to business stakeholders based on the IT services and the key indicators identified in the previous steps.
  2. Distinguish between service metrics and business metrics. You may identify some business metrics in addition to the IT metrics, and although these are important, IT doesn’t own the process of tracking and reporting business metrics.

VC Case Study

In the previous step, IT identified that it must measure the outcomes of VC meetings, quality of the VC meetings, and the reduction in travel expenses. From these, the appropriate service metrics can be derived to answer the needs of the CEO.

IT needs to measure:

  1. Percent of VC meetings successfully delivered
  2. Growth of number of executive meetings conducted via VC
Outcomes

IT also identified the following business metrics:

  1. Reduction in percent of travel expense/spend
  2. Reduction in lost time due to travel

Validate your metrics

Once appropriate service metrics are derived from business objectives, the next step is to determine whether or not it is viable to actually measure the metrics.

Can you measure it? The first question IT must answer is whether the metric is measurable. IT must identify the data source, validate its ability to collect the data, and specify the data requirement. Not all metrics can be measured!
How will you measure it? If the metric is measurable, the next step is to create a way to measure the actual data. In most cases, simple formulas that can be easily understood are the best approach.
Define your actions Metrics must be used to drive or reinforce desirable outcomes and behaviors. Thus, IT must predetermine the necessary actions associated with the different metric levels, thresholds, or trends.

Determine if you can measure the identified metric

Supporting Tool icon 1.6 0.5 Hour

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Determine what data sources are available. Make sure that you know where the information you need is captured, or will need to be captured. This would include:
    • A ticket/request system
    • An auto discovery tool
    • A configuration management database ( CMDB)
  2. Confirm that IT has the ability to collect the information.
    • If the necessary data is already contained in an identified data source, then you can proceed.
    • If not, consider whether it’s possible to gather the information using current sources and systems.
    • Understand the constraints and cost/ROI to implement new technology or revise processes and data gathering to produce the data.

VC Case Study

Using the metric derived from the video conferencing service example, IT wants to measure the % of VC meetings successfully delivered.

What are the data sources?

  • Number of VC meetings that took place
  • Number of service incidents
  • User survey

Determine if you can measure the identified metric

Supporting Tool icon 1.6 0.5 Hour

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Understand your data requirements
    • To produce relevant metrics from your data, you need to ensure the level of quality and currency that provides you with useful information. You need to define:
      • The level of detail that has to be captured to make the data useful.
      • The consistency of the data, and how it needs to be entered or gathered.
      • The accuracy of the data. This includes how current the data needs to be, how quickly changes have to be made, and how data quality will be verified.

VC Case Study

Data requirement for percent of successful VC meetings:

  • Level of detail – user category, location, date/time,
  • Consistency – how efficiently are VC-related incidents opened and closed? Is the data collected and stored consistently?
  • Accuracy – is the information entered accurately?

Create the calculation to measure it

Supporting Tool icon 1.7 0.5 Hour

Determine how to calculate the metrics.

INSTRUCTIONS
  1. Develop the calculations that will be used for each accepted metric. The measurement needs to be clear and straightforward.
  2. Define the scope and assumptions for each calculation, including:
    • The defined measurement period (e.g. monthly, weekly)
    • Exclusions (e.g. nonbusiness hours, during maintenance windows)

VC Case Study

Metric: Percent of VC meetings delivered successfully

IT is able to determine the total number of VC meetings that took place and the number of VC service requests to the help desk.

That makes it possible to use the following formula to determine the success percentage of the VC service:

((total # VC) – (# of VC with identified incidents)) / (total # VC) * 100

Define the actions to be taken for each metric

Supporting Tool icon 1.7 1.5 Hour

INSTRUCTIONS

Centered on the defined metrics and their calculations, IT can decide on the actions that should be driven out of each metric based on one of the following scenarios:
  • Scenario 1: Ad hoc remedial action and root-cause investigation. If the reason for the result is unknown, determining root cause or identifying trends is required to determine required actions.
  • Scenario 2: Predefined remedial action. A set of predetermined actions associated with different results. This is useful when the meaning of the results is clear and points to specific issues within the environment.
  • Scenario 3: Nonremedial action. The metrics may produce a result that reinforces or supports company direction and strategy, or identifies an opportunity that may drive a new initiative or idea.

VC Case Study

If the success rate of the VC meetings is below 90%, IT needs to focus on determining if there is a common cause and identify if this is a consistent downward trend.

A root-cause analysis is performed that identifies that network issues are causing difficulties, impacting the connection quality and usability of the VC service.

Validate the confirmed metrics with the business

Supporting Tool icon 1.8 1 Hour

INPUT: Selected service metrics, Discussion with the business

OUTPUT: Validated metrics with the business

Materials: Metrics with calculation methodology

Participants: IT and business stakeholders, Service owners

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Once you have derived the appropriate metrics and established that the metrics are measurable, you must go back to the targeted stakeholders and validate that the selected metrics will provide the right information to meet their identified goals and success criteria.
  2. Add confirmed metrics to the Metrics Tracking Tool, in the Metrics Tracking Plan tab.
Service Metric Corresponding
Business Goal 		Measurement
Method 		Defined Actions

Example: Measuring the online banking service at a financial institution

Who are IT’s stakeholders? The financial institution provides various banking solutions to its customers. Retail banking is a core service offered by the bank and the VP of retail banking is a major stakeholder of IT.
What are their goals and pain points? The VP of retail banking’s highest priorities are to increase revenue, increase market share, and maintain the bank’s brand and reputation amongst its customers.
What do they need to know? In order to measure success, the VP of retail banking needs to determine performance in attracting new clients, retaining clients, expanding into new territory, and whether they have increased the number of services provided to existing clients.
What does IT need to measure? The recent implementation of an online banking service is a key initiative that will keep the bank competitive and help retail banking meet its goals. The key indicators of this service are: the total number of clients, the number of products per client, percent of clients using online banking, number of clients by segment, service, territory.
Derive the service metrics Based on the key indicators, IT can derive the following service metrics:
1. Number of product applications originated from online banking
2. Customer satisfaction/complaints
As part of the process, IT also identified some business metrics, such as the number of online banking users per month or the number of times a client accesses online banking per month.

Design service metrics to track service performance and value

CASE STUDY
Industry: Manufacturing | Source: CIO
Challenge Solution Results
The IT organization needed to generate metrics to show the business whether the video conferencing service was being adopted and if it was providing the expected outcome and value.

Standard IT metrics were technical and did not provide a business context that allowed for easy understanding of performance and decision making.

The IT organization, working through the CIO and service managers, sat down with the key business stakeholders of the video conferencing service.

They discussed the goals for the meeting and defined the success criteria for those goals in the context of video conference meeting outcomes.

The success criteria that were discussed were then translated into a set of questions (key performance indicators) that if answered, would show that the success criteria were achieved.

The service manager identified what could be measured to answer the defined questions and eliminated any metrics that were either business metrics or non-IT related.

The remaining metrics were identified as the possible service metrics, and the ability to gather the information and produce the metric was confirmed.

Service metrics were defined for:

  1. Percent of video conference meetings delivered successfully
  2. Growth in the number of executive meetings conducted via video conference

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

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

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

1.1

 Sample of activity 1.1 'Determine your stakeholders'. Determine stakeholder needs, goals, and pain points

The onsite analyst will help you select key stakeholders and analyze their business objectives and current pain points.

1.2

 Sample of activity 1.2 'Identify goals and pain points of your stakeholders'. Determine the success criteria and related IT services

The analyst will facilitate a discussion to uncover the information that these stakeholders care about. The group will also identify the IT services that are supporting these objectives.

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

1.5

 Sample of activity 1.5 'Derive service metrics'. Derive the service metrics

Based on the key performance indicators obtained in the previous page, derive meaningful business metrics that are relevant to the stakeholders.

1.6

 Sample of activity 1.6 'Determine if you can measure the identified metric'. Validate the data collection process

The analyst will help the workshop group determine whether the identified metrics can be collected and measured. If so, a calculation methodology is created.

1.7

 Sample of activity 1.7 'Create the caluclation to measure it'. Validate metrics with stakeholders

Establish a feedback mechanism to have business stakeholders validate the meaningfulness of the metrics.

Develop Meaningful Service Metrics to Ensure Business and User Satisfaction

PHASE 2

Design Reports and Dashboards

Step (2): Design Reports and Dashboards

PHASE 1PHASE 2PHASE 3

1.1

Derive the Service Metrics

1.2

Validate the Metrics

2.1

Determine Reporting Format

3.1

Select Pilot Metrics

3.2

Activate and Maintain Metrics

This step involves the following participants:

  • Business Relationship Manager
  • Service Level Manager
  • Business Stakeholders

Outcomes of this step

  • Presentation format selected based on stakeholder needs and preference for information
  • Presentation format validated with stakeholders

Phase 2 outline

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

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

Guided Implementation 2: Design Reports and Dashboards

Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 3 weeks
Step 2.1: Select Presentation Format Step 2.2: Review Design
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
  • Review the different format of metrics presentation and discuss the pros/cons of each format
  • Discuss stakeholder needs/preference for data
  • Select the presentation format
 Review findings with analyst:
  • Discuss stakeholder feedback based on selected presentation format
  • Modify and adjust the presentation format as needed
Then complete these activities…
  • Design the metrics using the selected format
 Then complete these activities…
  • Finalize the design for metrics presentation
With these tools & templates:
  • Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide
 With these tools & templates:
  • Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide

Design the reports – overview

Figure representing 'SLM' and/or 'BRM'. Step 1
Understand the pros and cons of different reporting styles 		Figure representing 'SLM' and/or 'BRM'. Step 2
Determine your reporting and presentation style

Presentation Format Selection

Figure representing 'SLM' and/or 'BRM'. Step 3
Design your metrics reports 		A star.

Validated Service Reports

The design of service metrics reporting is critically important. The reporting style must present the right information in the most interesting and stakeholder-centric way possible to ensure that it is read and used.

The reports must also display information in a way that generates actions. If your stakeholders cannot make decisions, kick off activities, or ask questions based on your reports, then they have no value.

Determine the right presentation format for your metrics

Most often, metrics are presented in the following ways:

Dashboard
(PwC. “Mega-Trends and Implications.”)
Sample of the 'Dashboard' metric presentation format. 		Infographic
(PwC. “Healthcare’s new entrants.”)
Sample of the 'Infographic' metric presentation format.
Report
(PwC Blogs. “Northern Lights.”)
Sample of the 'Report' metric presentation format. 		Scorecard
(PwC. “Annual Report 2015.”)
Sample of the 'Scorecard' metric presentation format.

Understand the advantages and disadvantages of each reporting style – Dashboard

A dashboard is a reporting method that provides a dynamic at-a-glance view of key metrics from the perspective of key stakeholders. It provides a quick graphical way to process important performance information in real time.

Features

Typically web-based

Dynamic data that is updated in real time

Advantage

Aggregates a lot of information into a single view

Presents metrics in a simplistic style that is well understood

Provides a quick point-in-time view of performance

Easy to consume visual presentation style

Disadvantage

Complicated to set up well.
Requires additional technology support: programming, API, etc.

Promotes a short-term outlook – focus on now, no historical performance and no future trends. Doesn’t provide the whole picture and story.

Existing dashboard tools are often not customized enough to provide real value to each stakeholder.

Dashboards present real-time metrics that can be accessed and viewed at any time

Sample of the 'Dashboard' metric presentation format.
(Source: PwC. “Mega-Trends and Implications.”) 		Metrics presented through online dashboards are calculated in real time, which allows for a dynamic, current view into the performance of IT services at any time.

Understand the advantages and disadvantages of each reporting style – Infographic

An infographic is a graphical representation of metrics or data, which is used to show information quickly and clearly. It’s based on the understanding that people retain and process visual information more readily than written details.

Features

Turns dry into attractive –transforms data into eye-catching visual memory that is easier to retain

Can be used as the intro to a formal report

There are endless types of infographics

Advantage

Easily consumable

Easy to retain

Eye catching

Easily shared

Spurs conversation

Customizable

Disadvantage

Require design expertise and resources

Can be time consuming to generate

Could be easily misinterpreted

Message can be lost with poor design

Infographics allow for completely unique designs

Sample of the 'Infographic' metric presentation format.
(Source: PwC. “Healthcare’s new entrants…”) 		There is no limit when it comes to designing an infographic. The image used here visually articulates the effects of new entrants pulling away the market.

Understand the advantages and disadvantages of each reporting style – Formal Report

A formal report is a more structured and official reporting style that contains detailed research, data, and information required to enable specific business decisions, and to help evaluate performance over a defined period of time.

Definition

Metrics can be presented as a component of a periodic, formal report

A physical document that presents detailed information to a particular audience

Advantage

More detailed, more structured and broader reporting period

Formal, shows IT has put in the effort

Effectively presents a broader and more complete story

Targets different stakeholders at the same time

Disadvantage

Requires significant effort and resources

Higher risk if the report does not meet the expectation of the business stakeholder

Done at a specific time and only valuable for that specific time period

Harder to change format

Formal reports provide a detailed view and analysis of performance

Sample of the 'Formal Report' metric presentation format.
(Source: PwC Blogs. “Northern Lights: Where are we now?”) 		An effective report incorporates visuals to demonstrate key improvements.

Formal reports can still contain visuals, but they are accompanied with detailed explanations.

Understand the advantages and disadvantages of each reporting style – Scorecard

A scorecard is a graphic view of the progress and performance over time of key performance metrics. These are in relation to specified goals based on identified critical stakeholder objectives.

Features

Incorporates multiple metrics effectively.

Scores services against the most important organizational goals and objectives. Scorecards may tie back into strategy and different perspectives of success.

Advantage

Quick view of performance against objectives

Measure against a set of consistent objectives

Easily consumable

Easy to retain

Disadvantage

Requires a lot of forethought

Scorecards provide a time-bound summary of performance against defined goals

Sample of the 'Scorecard' metric presentation format.
(PwC. “Annual Report 2015.”) 		Scorecards provide a summary of performance that is directly linked to the organizational KPIs.

Determine your report style

Supporting Tool icon 2.1 Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide

In this section, you will determine the optimal reporting style for the service metrics.

This guide contains four questions, which will help IT organizations identify the most appropriate presentation format based on stakeholder preference and needs for metrics.

  1. Who is the relevant stakeholder?
  2. What are the defined actions for the metric?
  3. How frequently does the stakeholder need to see the metric?
  4. How does the stakeholder like to receive information?
 Sample of Info-Tech's Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide.
Download the Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide.

Determine your best presentation option

Supporting Tool icon 2.1 2 Hours

INPUT: Identified stakeholder and his/her role

OUTPUT: Proper presentation format based on need for information

Materials: Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide

Participants: BRM, SLM, Program Manager

After deciding on the report type to be used to present the metric, the organization needs to consider how stakeholders will consume the metric.

There are three options based on stakeholder needs and available presentation options within IT.

  1. Paper-based presentation is the most traditional form of reporting and works well with stakeholders who prefer physical copies. The report is produced at a specific time and requires no additional IT capability.
  2. Online documents stored on webpages, SharePoint, or another knowledge management system could be used to present the metrics. This allows the report to be linked to other information and easily shared.
  3. Online dashboards and graphics can be used to have dynamic, real-time reporting and anytime access. These webpages can be incorporated into an intranet and allow the user to view the metrics at any time. This will require IT to continuously update the data in order to maintain the accuracy of the metrics.

Design your metric reports with these guidelines in mind

Supporting Tool icon 2.2 30 Minutes
  1. Stakeholder-specificThe report must be driven by the identified stakeholder needs and preferences and articulate the metrics that are important to them.
  2. ClarityTo enable decision making and drive desired actions, the metrics must be clear and straightforward. They must be presented in a way that clearly links the performance measurement to the defined outcome without leading to different interpretations of the results.
  3. SimplicityThe report must be simple to read, understand, and analyze. The language of the report must be business-centric and remove as much complexity as possible in wording, imaging, and context.

Be sure to consider access rights for more senior reports. Site and user access permissions may need to be defined based on the level of reporting.

Metrics reporting on the video conferencing service

CASE STUDY
Industry: Manufacturing | Source: CIO Interview
The Situation

The business had a clear need to understand if the implementation of video conferencing would allow previously onsite meetings to achieve the same level of effectiveness.

Reporting Context

Provided reports had always been generated from an IT perspective and the business rarely used the information to make decisions.

The metrics needed to help the business understand if the meetings were remaining effective and be tied into the financial reporting against travel expenses, but there would be limited visibility during the executive meetings.

Approach

The service manager reviewed the information that he had gathered to confirm how often they needed information related to the service. He also met with the CIO to get some insight into the reports that were already being provided to the business, including the ones that were most effective.

Considerations

The conversations identified that there was no need for a dynamic real-time view of the performance of the service, since tracking of cost savings and utility would be viewed monthly and quarterly. They also identified that the item would be discussed within a very small window of time during the management meetings.

The Solution

It was determined that the best style of reporting for the metric was an existing scorecard that was produced monthly, using some infographics to ensure that the information is clear at a glance to enable quick decision making.

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

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

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

2.1

 Sample of presentation format option slide 'Determine the right presentation format for your metrics'. Understand the different presentation options

The onsite analyst will introduce the group to the communication vehicles of infographic, scorecard, formal report, and dashboard.

2.1

 Sample of activity 2.1 'Determine your best presentation option'. Assess stakeholder needs for information

For selected stakeholders, the analyst will facilitate a discussion on how stakeholders would like to view information and how the metrics can be presented to aid decision making.

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

2.2

 Sample of activity 2.2 'Design your metric reports with these guidelines in mind'. Select and design the metric report

Based on the discussion, the working group will select the most appropriate presentation format and create a rough draft of how the report should look.

Develop Meaningful Service Metrics to Ensure Business and User Satisfaction

PHASE 3

Implement, Track, and Maintain Your Metrics

Step (3): Implement, Track, and Maintain Your Metrics

PHASE 1PHASE 2PHASE 3

1.1

Derive the Service Metrics

1.2

Validate the Metrics

2.1

Determine Reporting Format

3.1

Select Pilot Metrics

3.2

Activate and Maintain Metrics

This step involves the following participants:

  • Service Level Manager
  • Business Relationship Manager
  • Service Metrics Program Manager

Activities in this step

  • Determine the first batch of metrics to be implemented as part of the pilot program
  • Create a process to collect and validate data, determine initial targets, and integrate with SLM and BRM functions
  • Present the metric reports to the relevant stakeholders and incorporate the feedback into the metric design
  • Establish a standard process and roll out the implementation of metrics in batches
  • Establish a process to monitor and track the effectiveness of the service metrics program and make adjustments when necessary

Phase 3 outline

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

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

Guided Implementation 3: Implement, Track, and Maintain Your Metrics

Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4 weeks
Step 3.1: Select and Launch Pilot Metrics Step 3.2: Track and Maintain the Metrics
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
  • Identify metrics that will be presented first to the stakeholders based on urgency or impact of the IT service
  • Determine the process to collect data, select initial targets, and integrate with SLM and BRM functions
 Review findings with analyst:
  • Review the success of metrics and discuss feedback from stakeholders
  • Roll out the metrics implementation to a broader audience
  • Establish roles and timelines for metrics maintenance
Then complete these activities…
  • Document the first batch of metrics
  • Document the baseline, initial targets
  • Create a plan to integrate with SLM and BRM functions
 Then complete these activities…
  • Create a document that defines how the organization will track and maintain the success of the metrics program
  • Review the metrics program periodically
With these tools & templates:
  • Metrics Tracking Tool
 With these tools & templates:
  • Metrics Tracking Tool

Implement, Track, and Maintain the Metrics

Figure representing 'SLM' and/or 'BRM'. Step 1
Run your pilot

Metrics Tracking Tool

Figure representing 'SLM' and/or 'BRM'. Step 2
Validate success

Metrics Tracking Tool

Figure representing 'SLM' and/or 'BRM'. Step 3
Implement your metrics program in batches

Metrics Tracking Tool

A star.

Active Service Metrics Program

Once you have defined the way that you will present the metrics, you are ready to run a pilot with a smaller sample of defined service metrics.

This allows you to validate your approach and make refinements to the implementation and maintenance processes where necessary, prior to activating all service metrics.

Track the performance of your service metrics

Supporting Tool icon 3.1

The Metrics Tracking Tool will enable you to track goals and success metrics for your service metrics programs. It allows you to set long-term goals and track your results over time.

There are three sections in this tool:
  1. Metrics Tracking Plan. Identify the metrics to be tracked and their purpose.
  2. Metrics Tracking Actuals. Monitor and track the actual performance of the metrics.
  3. Remediation Tracking. Determine and document the steps that need to be taken to correct a sub-performing metric.
 Sample of Info-Tech's Metrics Tracking Tool.

Select pilot metrics

Supporting Tool icon 3.1 30 Minutes

INPUT: Identified services, Business feedback

OUTPUT: Services with most urgent need or impact

Materials: Service catalog or list of identified services

Participants: BRM, SLM, Business representatives

To start the implementation of your service metrics program and drive wider adoption, you need to run a pilot using a smaller subset of metrics.

INSTRUCTIONS

To determine the sample for the pilot, consider metrics that:

  • Are related to critical business services and functions
    • or
  • Address known/visible pain points for the business
    • or
  • Were designed for supportive or influential stakeholders

Metrics that meet two or more criteria are ideal for the pilot

Collect and validate data

Supporting Tool icon 3.2 1 Hour

INPUT: Identified metrics

OUTPUT: A data collection mythology, Metrics tracking

Materials: Metrics

Participants: SLM, BRM, Service owner

You will need to start collection and validation of your identified data in order to calculate the results for your pilot metrics.

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Initiate data collection
    • Use the data sources identified during the design phase and initiate the data collection process.
  2. Determine start date
    • If historical data can be retrieved and gathered, determine how far back you want your measurements to start.
  3. Compile data and validate
    • Ensure that the information is accurate and up to date. This will require some level of data validation and audit.
  4. Run the metric
    • Use the defined calculation and source data to generate the metrics result.
  5. Record metrics results
    • Use the metrics tracking sheet to track the actual results.

Determine initial targets

Supporting Tool icon 3.3 1 Hour

INPUT: Historical data/baseline data

OUTPUT: Realistic initial target for improvement

Materials: Metrics Tracking Tool

Participants: BRM, SLM, Service owner

INSTRUCTIONS

Identify an initial service objective based on one or more of the following options:

  1. Establish an initial target using historical data and trends of performance.
  2. Establish an initial target based on stakeholder-identified requirements and expectations.
  3. Run the metrics report over a defined period of time and use the baseline level of achievement to establish an initial target.

The target may not always be a number - it could be a trend. The initial target will be changed after review with stakeholders

Integrate with SLM and BRM processes

Supporting Tool icon 3.4 1 Hour

INPUT: SLM and BRM SOPs or responsibility documentations

OUTPUT: Integrate service metrics into the SLM/BRM role

Materials: SLM / BRM reports

Participants: SLM, BRM, CIO, Program manager, Service manager

The service metrics program is usually initiated, used, and maintained by the SLM and BRM functions.

INSTRUCTIONS

Ensure that the metrics pilot is integrated with those functions by:

  1. Engaging with SLM and BRM functions/resources
    • Identify SLM and BRM resources associated with or working on the services where the metrics are being piloted
    • Obtain their feedback on the metrics/reporting
  2. Integrating with the existing reporting and meeting cycles
    • Ensure the metrics will be calculated and available for discussion at standing meetings and with existing reports
  3. Establishing the metrics review and validation cycle for these metrics
    • Confirm the review and validation period for the metrics in order to ensure they remain valuable and actionable

Generate reports and present to stakeholders

Supporting Tool icon 3.5 1 Hour

INPUT: Identified metrics, Selected presentation format

OUTPUT: Metrics reports that are ready for distribution

Materials: Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide

Participants: BRM, SLM, CIO, Business representatives

INSTRUCTIONS

Once you have completed the calculation for the pilot metrics:

  1. Confirm the report style for the selected metrics (as defined in Phase 2)
  2. Generate the reporting for the pilot metrics
  3. Present the pilot metric reports to the identified BRM and SLM resources who will present the reporting to the stakeholders
  4. Gather feedback from Stakeholders on metrics - results and process
  5. Create and execute remediation plans for any actions identified from the metrics
  6. Initiate the review cycle for metrics (to ensure they retain value)

Plan the rollout and implementation of the metrics reporting program

Supporting Tool icon 3.6 1 Hour

INPUT: Feedback from pilot, Services in batch

OUTPUT: Systematic implementation of metrics

Materials: Metrics Tracking Tool

Participants: BRM, SLM, Program manager

Upon completion of the pilot, move to start the broader implementation of metrics across the organization:

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Identify the service metrics that you will implement. They can be selected based on multiple criteria, including:
    • Organizational area/business unit
    • Service criticality
    • Pain points
    • Stakeholder engagement (detractors, supporters)
  2. Create a rollout plan for implementation in batches, identifying expected launch timelines, owners, targeted stakeholders, and communications plans
  3. Use the implementation plan from the pilot to roll out each batch of service metrics:
    • Collect and validate data
    • Determine target(s)
    • Integrate with BRM and SLM
    • Generate and communicate reports to stakeholders

Maintain the service metrics

Supporting Tool icon 3.7 1.5 Hour

INPUT: Feedback from business stakeholders

OUTPUT: Modification to individual metrics or to the process

Materials: Metrics Tracking Tool, Metrics Development Workbook

Participants: CIO, BRM, SLM, Program manager, Service owner

Once service metrics and reporting become active, it is necessary to determine the review time frame for your metrics to ensure they remain useful.

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Confirm and establish a review time frame with stakeholders (e.g. annually, bi-annually, after organizational or strategic changes).
  2. Meet with stakeholders by the review date to discuss the value of existing metrics and validate:
    • Whether the goals associated with the metrics are still valid
    • If the metric is still necessary
    • If there is a more effective way to present the metrics
  3. Track actions based on review outcomes and update the remediation tracking sheet.
  4. Update tracking sheet with last complete review date.

Maintain the metrics

Supporting Tool icon 3.7

Based on the outcome of the review meeting, decide what needs to be done for each metric, using the following options:

Add

A new metric is required or an existing metric needs large-scale changes (example: calculation method or scope).
Triggers metrics design as shown in phases 1 and 2.

Change

A minor change is required to the presentation format or data. Note: a major change in a metric would be performed through the Add option.

Remove

The metric is no longer required, and it needs to be removed from reporting and data gathering. A final report date for that metric should be determined.

Maintain

The metric is still useful and no changes are required to the metric, its measurement, or how it’s reported.

Ensuring metrics remain valuable

VC CASE STUDY
Industry: Manufacturing | Source: CIO Interview

Reviewing the value of active metrics

When the video conferencing service was initially implemented, it was performed as a pilot with a group of executives, and then expanded for use throughout the company. It was understood that prior to seeing the full benefit in cost reduction and increased efficiency and effectiveness, the rate of use and adoption had to be understood.

The primary service metrics created for the service were based on tracking the number of requests for video conference meetings that were received by the IT organization. This identified the growth in use and could be used in conjunction with financial metrics related to travel to help identify the impact of the service through its growth phase.

Once the service was adopted, this metric continued to be tracked but no longer showed growth or expanded adoption.

The service manager was no longer sure this needed to be tracked.

Key Activity

The metrics around requests for video conference meetings were reviewed at the annual metrics review meeting with the business. The service manager asked if the need for the metric, the goal of tracking adoption, was still important for the business.

The discussion identified that the adoption rate was over 80%, higher than anticipated, and that there was no value in continuing to track this metric.

Based on the discussion, the adoption metrics were discontinued and removed from data gathering and reporting, while a success rate metric was added (how many meetings ran successfully and without issue) to ensure the ongoing value of the video conferencing service.

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

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

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

3.1

 Sample of activity 3.1 'Select pilot metrics'. Select the pilot metrics

The onsite analyst will help the workshop group select the metrics that should be first implemented based on the urgency and impact of these metrics.

3.2

 Sample of activity 3.2 'Collect and validate data'. Gather data and set initial targets

The analyst will help the group create a process to gather data, measure baselines, and set initial targets.

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

3.5

 Sample of activity 3.5 'Generate reports and present to stakeholders'. Generate the reports and validate with stakeholders

The Info-Tech analyst will help the group establish a process to receive feedback from the business stakeholders once the report is generated.

3.6

 Sample of activity 3.6 'Plan the rollout and implementation of the metrics reporting program'. Implement the service metrics program

The analyst will facilitate a discussion on how to implement the metrics program across the organization.

3.7

 Sample of activity 3.7 'Maintain the service metrics'. Track and maintain the metrics program

Set up a mechanism to ensure the success of the metrics program by assessing process adherence and process validity.

Insight breakdown

Insight 1

Service metrics are critical to ensuring alignment of IT service performance and business service value achievement.

Insight 2

Service metrics reinforce positive business and end-user relationships by providing user-centric information that drives responsiveness and consistent service improvement.

Insight 3

Poorly designed metrics drive unintended and unproductive behaviors that have negative impacts on IT and produce negative service outcomes.

Summary of accomplishment

Knowledge Gained

  • Follow a methodology to identify metrics that are derived from business objectives.
  • Understand the proper presentation format based on stakeholder needs for information.
  • Establish a process to ensure the metrics provided will continue to provide value and aid decision making.

Processes Optimized

  • Metrics presentation to business stakeholders
  • Metrics maintenance and tracking

Deliverables Completed

  • Metrics Development Workbook
  • Metrics Presentation Format Selection Guide
  • Metrics Tracking Tool

Research contributors and experts

Name Organization
Joe Evers Joe Evers Consulting
Glen Notman Associate Partner, Citihub
David Parker Client Program Manager, eHealth Ontario
Marianne Doran Collins CIO, The CIO-Suite, LLC
Chris Kalbfleisch Manager, Service Management, eHealth Ontario
Joshua Klingenberg BHP Billiton Canada Inc.

Related Info-Tech research

Stock image of a menu. Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog
The user-facing service catalog is the go-to place for IT service-related information.
Stock image of a laptop keyboard. Unleash the True Value of IT by Transforming Into a Service Provider
Earn your seat at the table and influence business strategy by becoming an IT service provider.

Bibliography

Pollock, Bill. “Service Benchmarking and Measurement: Using Metrics to Drive Customer Satisfaction and Profits.” Aberdeen Group. June 2009. http://722consulting.com/ServiceBenchmarkingandMeasurement.pdf

PwC. “Mega-Trends and Implications.” RMI Discussion. LinkedIn SlideShare. September 2015. http://www.slideshare.net/AnandRaoPwC/mega-trends-and-implications-to-retirement

PwC. “Healthcare’s new entrants: Who will be the industry’s Amazon.com?” Health Research Institute. April 2014. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/health-industries/healthcare-new-entrants/assets/pwc-hri-new-entrant-chart-pack-v3.pdf

PwC. “Northern Lights: Where are we now?” PwC Blogs. 2012. http://pwc.blogs.com/files/12.09.06---northern-lights-2--summary.pdf

PwC. “PwC’s key performance indicators

Help Managers Inform, Interact, and Involve on the Way to Team Engagement

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  • Parent Category Name: Employee Development
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  • Employee engagement impacts a company’s bottom line as well as the quality of work life for employees.
  • Employee engagement surveys often fail to provide the value you are hoping for because they are treated like an annual project that quickly loses steam.
  • The responsibility for fixing the issues identified falls to HR, and ultimately HR has very little control over an employee’s concerns with their day-to-day role.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • HR and the executive team have been exclusively responsible for engagement for too long. Since managers have the greatest impact on employees, they should also be primarily responsible for employee engagement.
  • In most organizations, managers underestimate the impact they can have on employee engagement, and assume that the broader organization will take more meaningful action.
  • Improving employee engagement may be as simple as improving the frequency and quality of the “3Is”: informing employees about the why behind decisions, interacting with them on a personal level, and involving them in decisions that affect them.

Impact and Result

  • Managers have the greatest impact on employee engagement as they are in a unique situation to better understand what makes employees tick.
  • If employees have a good relationship with their manager, they are much more likely to be engaged at work which ultimately leads to increases in revenue, profit, and shareholder return.

Help Managers Inform, Interact, and Involve on the Way to Team Engagement Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Get more involved in analyzing and improving team engagement

Improve employee engagement and ultimately the organization’s bottom line.

  • Storyboard: Help Managers Inform, Interact, and Involve on the Way to Team Engagement

2. Gather feedback from employees

Have a productive engagement feedback discussion with teams.

  • Engagement Feedback Session Agenda Template

3. Engage teams to improve engagement

Facilitate effective team engagement action planning.

  • Action Planning Worksheet

4. Gain insight into what engages and disengages employees

Solicit employee pain points that could potentially hinder their engagement.

  • Stay Interview Guide

5. Get to know new hires on a more personal level

Develop a stronger relationship with employees to drive engagement.

  • New Hire Conversation Guide
[infographic]

Build an IT Employee Engagement Program

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  • Parent Category Name: Engage
  • Parent Category Link: /engage
  • IT’s performance and stakeholder satisfaction with IT services hinge on IT’s ability to attract and retain top talent and to motivate teams to go above and beyond.
  • With the growing IT job market, turnover is a serious threat to IT’s ability to deliver seamless value and continuously drive innovation.
  • Engagement initiatives are often seen as being HR’s responsibility; however, IT leadership needs to take accountability for the retention and productivity of their employees in order to drive business value.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Engagement is a two-way street. Initiatives must address a known need and be actively sought by employees – not handed down from management.
  • Engagement initiatives are useless unless they target the right issues. It can be tempting to focus on the latest perks and gadgets and ignore difficult issues. Use a systematic approach to uncover and tackle the real problems.
  • It’s time for IT leadership to step up. IT leaders have a much bigger impact on IT staff engagement than HR ever can. Leverage this power to lead your team to peak performance.

Impact and Result

  • Info-Tech engagement diagnostics and accompanying tools will help you perform a deep dive into the root causes of disengagement on your team.
  • The guidance that accompanies Info-Tech’s tools will help you avoid common engagement program pitfalls and empower IT leaders to take charge of their own team’s engagement.

Build an IT Employee Engagement Program Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to discover why engagement is critical to IT performance, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how our tools will help you construct an effective employee engagement program.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Measure employee engagement

Use Info-Tech's Pulse or Full Engagement Surveys to measure employee engagement.

  • Improve Employee Engagement to Drive IT Performance – Phase 1: Measure Employee Engagement
  • Engagement Strategy Record
  • Engagement Communication Template

2. Analyze results and ideate solutions

Understand the drivers of engagement that are important for your team, and involve your staff in brainstorming engagement initiatives.

  • Improve Employee Engagement to Drive IT Performance – Phase 2: Analyze Results and Ideate Solutions
  • Engagement Survey Results Interpretation Guide
  • Full Engagement Survey Focus Group Facilitation Guide
  • Pulse Engagement Survey Focus Group Facilitation Guide
  • Focus Group Facilitation Guide Driver Definitions
  • One-on-One Manager Meeting Worksheet

3. Select and implement engagement initiatives

Select engagement initiatives for maximal impact, create an action plan, and establish open and ongoing communication about engagement with your team.

  • Improve Employee Engagement to Drive IT Performance – Phase 3: Select and Implement Engagement Initiatives
  • Summary of Interdepartmental Engagement Initiatives
  • Engagement Progress One-Pager
[infographic]

Workshop: Build an IT Employee Engagement Program

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 (Preparation) Run Engagement Survey

The Purpose

Select and run your engagement survey prior to the workshop.

Key Benefits Achieved

Receive an in-depth report on your team’s engagement drivers to form the basis of your engagement strategy.

Activities

1.1 Select engagement survey.

1.2 Identify engagement program goals and metrics.

1.3 Run engagement survey.

Outputs

Full or Pulse engagement survey report

Engagement survey results interpretation guide

2 Explore Engagement

The Purpose

To understand the current state of engagement and prepare to discuss the drivers behind it with your staff.

Key Benefits Achieved

Empower your leadership team to take charge of their own teams’ engagement.

Activities

2.1 Review engagement survey results.

2.2 Finalize focus group agendas.

2.3 Train managers.

Outputs

Customized focus group agendas

3 Hold Focus Groups

The Purpose

Establish an open dialogue with your staff to understand what would improve their engagement.

Key Benefits Achieved

Employee-generated initiatives have the greatest chance at success.

Activities

3.1 Identify priority drivers.

3.2 Identify engagement KPIs.

3.3 Brainstorm engagement initiatives.

3.4 Vote on initiatives within teams.

Outputs

Summary of focus groups results

Identified engagement initiatives

Identified engagement initiatives

4 Select and Plan Initiatives

The Purpose

Learn the characteristics of successful engagement initiatives and build execution plans for each.

Key Benefits Achieved

Choose initiatives with the greatest impact on your team’s engagement, and ensure you have the necessary resources for success.

Activities

4.1 Select engagement initiatives with IT leadership.

4.2 Create initiative project plans.

4.3 Present project plans.

4.4 Define implementation checkpoints.

4.5 Develop communications plan.

4.6 Define strategy for ongoing engagement monitoring.

Outputs

Engagement project plans

Implementation and communication checkpoints

Further surveys planned (optional)

5 Additional Leadership Training

The Purpose

Select training modules that best address your team’s needs from Info-Tech’s modular leadership training program.

Key Benefits Achieved

Arm your IT leadership team with the key skills of effective leadership, tailored to their existing experience level.

Activities

5.1 Adopting an Integrated Leadership Mindset

5.2 Optimizing Talent Leadership Practices

5.3 Driving Diversity & Inclusion

5.4 Fortifying Internal Stakeholder Relations

5.5 Engaging Executives and the Board

5.6 Crafting Your Leadership Brand

5.7 Crafting and Delivering Compelling Presentations

5.8 Communication & Difficult Conversations

5.9 Conflict Management

5.10 Performance Management

5.11 Feedback & Coaching

5.12 Creating a Culture of Personal Accountability

Outputs

Develop the skills to lead resourcefully in times of uncertainty

Apply leadership behaviors across enterprise initiatives to deploy and develop talent successfully

Develop diversity and inclusion practices that turn the IT function and leaders into transformative champions of inclusion

Identify elements of effective partnering to maximize the impact of internal interactions

Understand the major obstacles to CEO and board relevance and uncover the keys to elevating your internal executive profile

Develop a leadership brand statement that demonstrates leadership competency and is aligned with the brand, mission, vision, and goals of the organization

Identify the components of effective presentations and hone your presentation skills

Gain the skills to confront and drive solutions from difficult situations

Develop strategies to engage in conflict constructively and reach a resolution that benefits the team or organization

Learn to identify the root causes of low performance and develop the skills to guide employees through the process of improvement

Adopt a behavior-focused coaching model to help managers sustain and apply effective coaching principles

Understand how and when to encourage autonomy and how to empower employees to take success into their own hands

Enterprise Architecture

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Demystify enterprise architecture value with key metrics.

Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements

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Your organization is considering holding an event online, or has been, but:

  • The organization (both on the business and IT sides) may not have extensive experience hosting events online.
  • It is not immediately clear how your formerly in-person event’s activities translate to a virtual environment.
  • Like the work-from-home transformation, bringing events online instantly expands IT’s role and responsibilities.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

If you don't begin with strategy, you will fit your event to technology, instead of the other way around.

Impact and Result

To determine your requirements:

  • Determine the scope of the event.
  • Narrow down your list of technical requirements.
  • Use Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework to select the right software solution.

Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements Storyboard – Use this storyboard to work through key decision points involved in creating digital events.

This deck walks you through key decision points in creating virtual or hybrid events. Then, begin the process of selecting the right software by putting together the first draft of your requirements for a virtual event software solution.

  • Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements Storyboard

2. Virtual Events Requirements Tool – Use this tool to begin selecting your requirements for a digital event solution.

The business should review the list of features and select which ones are mandatory and which are nice to have or optional. Add any features not included.

  • Virtual/Hybrid Event Software Feature Analysis Tool
[infographic]

Further reading

Define Your Virtual and Hybrid Event Requirements

Accelerate your event scoping and software selection process.

Analyst Perspective

When events go virtual, IT needs to cover its bases.

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed a dramatic digital transformation on the events industry. Though event ticket and registration software, mobile event apps, and onsite audio/visual technology were already important pieces of live events, the total transformation of events into online experiences presented major challenges to organizations whose regular business operations involve at least one annual mid-sized to large event (association meetings, conferences, trade shows, and more).

Many organizations worked to shift to online, or virtual events, in order to maintain business continuity. As time went on, and public gatherings began to restart, a shift to “hybrid” events began to emerge—events that accommodate both in-person and virtual attendance. Regardless of event type, this pivot to using virtual event software, or digital event technology, brings events more closely into IT’s areas of responsibility. If you don't begin with strategy, you risk fitting your event to technology, instead of the other way around.

If virtual and hybrid events are becoming standard forms of delivering content in your organization, use Info-Tech’s material to help define the scope of the event and your requirements, and to support your software selection process.

Photo of Emily Sugerman
Emily Sugerman
Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

The organization (both on the business and IT sides) may not have extensive experience hosting events online.

It is not immediately clear how a formerly in-person event’s activities translate to a virtual environment.

Like the work-from-home transformation, bringing events online expands IT’s role and responsibilities.

Common Obstacles

It is not clear what technological capabilities are needed for the event, which capabilities you already own, and what you may need to purchase.

Though virtual events remove some barriers to attendance (distance, travel), it introduces new complications and considerations for planners.

Hybrid events introduce another level of complexity.

Info-Tech’s Approach

In order to determine your requirements:

Determine the scope of the event.

Narrow down your list of technical requirements.

Use Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework to select the right software solution.

Info-Tech Insight

If you don't begin with strategy, you will fit your event to technology, instead of the other way around.

Your challenge

The solution you have been using for online events does not meet your needs.

Though you do have some tools that support large meetings, it is not clear if you require a larger and more comprehensive virtual event solution. There is a need to determine what type of technology you might need to purchase versus leveraging what you already have.

It is difficult to quickly and practically identify core event requirements and how they translate into technical capabilities.

Maintaining or improving audience engagement is a perpetual challenge for virtual events.

38%
of event professionals consider virtual event technology “a tool for reaching a wider audience as part of a hybrid strategy.”

21%
consider it “a necessary platform for virtual events, which remain my go-to event strategy.”

40%
prioritize “mid-budget all-in-one event tech solution that will prevent remote attendees from feeling like second-class participants.”

Source: Virtual Event Tech Guide, 2022

Common obstacles

These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many organizations.

Events with networking objectives are not always well served by webinars, which are traditionally more limited in their interactive elements.

Events that include the conducting of organizational/association business (like voting) may have bylaws that make selecting a virtual solution more challenging.

Maintaining attendee engagement is more challenging in a virtual environment.

Prior to the pandemic, your organization may not have been as experienced in putting on fully virtual events, putting more responsibility in your corner as IT. Navigating virtual events can also require technological competencies that your attendee userbase may not universally possess.

Technological limitations and barriers to access can exclude potential attendees just as much as bringing events online can open up attendance to new audiences.

Opportunity: Virtual events can significantly increase an event’s reach

Events held virtually during the pandemic noted significant increases in attendees.

“We had 19,000 registrations from all over the world, almost 50 times the number of people we had expected to host in Amsterdam. . . . Most of this year’s [2020] attendees would not have been able to participate in a physical GrafanaCon in Amsterdam. That was a huge win.” – Raj Dutt, Grafana Labs CEO[5]

Event In-person Online 2022
Microsoft Build 2019: 6,000 attendees 2020: 230,000+ registrants[1] The 2022 conference was also held virtually[3]
Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence A few hundred attendees expected for the original (cancelled) 2020 in-person conference 2020: 30,000 attendees attended the “COVID-19 and AI” virtual conference[2] The 2022 Spring Conference was a hybrid event[4]

[1] Kelly, 2020; [2] Price, 2020; [3] Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 2022; [4] Warren, 2022; [5] Fast Company, 2020

Info-Tech’s methodology for defining virtual/hybrid event requirements

A diagram that shows defining event scope, creating list of requirements, and selecting software.

Event planning phases

Apply project management principles to your virtual/hybrid event planning process.

Online event planning should follow the same established principles as in-person event planning.
Align the event’s concept and objectives with organizational goals.

A diagram of event planning phases
Source: Adapted from Event Management Body of Knowledge, CC BY 4.0

Gather inputs to the planning processes

Acquire as much of this information as possible before you being the planning process.

Budget: Determine your organization’s budget for this event to help decide the scope of the event and the purchasing decisions you make as you plan.

Internal human resources: Identify who in your organization is usually involved in the organization of this event and if they are available to organize this one.

List of communication and collaboration tools: Acquire the list of the existing communication and collaboration tools you are currently licensed for. Ensure you know the following information about each tool:

  • Type of license
  • License limitations (maximum number of users)
  • Internal or external-facing tool (or capable of both)
  • Level of internal training and competency on the tool

Decision point: Relate event goals to organizational goals

What is driving the event?

Your organization may hold a variety of in-person events that you now wish, for various reasons, to hold fully or partially online. Each event likely has a slightly different set of goals.

Before getting into the details of how to transition your event online, return to the business/organizational goals the event is serving.

Ensure each event (and each component of each event) maps back to an organizational goal.

If a component of the event does not align to an organizational goal, assess whether it should remain as part of the event.

Common organizational goals

  • Increase revenue
  • Increase productivity
  • Attract and retain talent
  • Improve change management
  • Carry out organizational mission
  • Identify new markets
  • Increase market share
  • Improve customer service
  • Launch new product/service

Common event goals

  • Education/training
  • Knowledge transfer
  • Decision making
  • Professional development
  • Sales/lead generation
  • Fundraising
  • Entertainment
  • Morale boosting
  • Recognition of achievement

Decision point: Identify your organization’s digital event vision

What do you want the outcome of this event to be?

Attendee goals: Who are your attendees? Why do they attend this event? What attendee needs does your event serve? What is your event’s value proposition? Are they intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to attend?

Event goals: From the organizer perspective, why do you usually hold this event? Who are your stakeholders?

Organizational goals: How do the event goals map to your organizational goals? Is there a clear understanding of what the event’s larger strategic purpose is.

Common attendee goals

Education: our attendees need to learn something new that they cannot learn on their own.
Networking: our attendees need to meet people and make new professional connections.
Professional development: our attendees have certain obligations to keep credentials updated or to present their work publicly to advance their careers.
Entertainment: our attendees need to have fun.
Commerce: our attendees need to buy and sell things.

Decision point: Level of external event production

Will you be completely self-managed, reliant on external event production services, or somewhere in the middle?

You can review this after working through the other decision points and the scope becomes clearer.

A diagram that shows Level of external event production, comparing Completely self-managed vs Fully externally-managed.

Decision point: Assign event planning roles

Who will be involved in planning the event? Fill/combine these roles as needed.

Planning roles Description
Project manager Shepherd event planning until completion while ensuring project remains on schedule and on budget.
Event manager Correspond with presenters during leadup to event, communicate how to use online event tools/platform, perform tests with presenters/exhibitors, coordinate digital event staff/volunteers.
Program planner Select the topics, speakers, activity types, content, streams.
Designer and copywriter Design the event graphics; compose copy for event website.
Digital event technologist Determine event technology requirements; determine how event technology fits together; prepare RFP, if necessary, for new hardware/software.
Platform administrator Set up registration system/integrate registrations into platform(s) of choice; upload video files and collateral; add livestream links; add/delete staff roles and set controls and permissions; collect statistics and recordings after event.
Commercial partner liaison Recruit sponsors and exhibitors (offer sponsorship packages); facilitate agreement/contract between commercial partners and organization; train commercial partners on how to use event technology; retrieve lead data.
Marketing/social media Plan and execute promotional campaigns (email, social media) in the lead up to, and during, the event. Post-event, send follow-up communications, recording files, and surveys.

Decision point: Assign event production roles

Who will be involved in running the event?

Event production roles Description
Hosts/MCs Address attendees at beginning and end of event, and in-between sessions
Provide continuity throughout event
Introduce sessions
Producers Prepare presenters for performance
Begin and end sessions
Use controls to share screens, switch between feeds
Send backchannel messages to presenters (e.g., "Up next," "Look into webcam")
Moderators Admit attendees from waiting room
Moderate incoming questions from attendees
Manage slides
Pass questions to host/panelists to answer
Moderate chat
IT support Manage event technology stack
Respond to attendee technical issues
Troubleshoot network connectivity problems
Ensure audio and video operational
Start and stop session recording
Save session recordings and files (chat, Q&As)

Decision point: Map attendee goals to event goals to organizational goals

Input: List of attendee benefits, List of event goals, List of organizational goals
Output: Ranked list of event goals as they relate to attendee needs and organizational goals
Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts
Participants: Planning team

  1. Define attendee benefits:
    1. List the attendee benefits derived from your event (as many as possible).
    2. Rank attendee benefits from most to least important.
  2. Define event goals:
    1. List your event goals (as many as possible).
    2. Draw a connecting line to your ranked list of attendee benefits.
    3. Identify if any event goals exist with no clear relationship to attendee benefits. Discuss whether this event goal needs to be re-envisioned. If it connects to no discernible attendee benefits, consider removing it. Otherwise, figure out what attendee benefits the event goal provides.
  3. Define organizational goals:
    1. Acquire a list of your organization’s main strategic goals.
    2. Draw a connecting line from each event goal to the organizational goal it supports.
    3. If most of your event goals do not immediately seem to support an organizational goal, discuss why this is. Try to find the connection. If you cannot, discuss whether the event should proceed or be rethought.

Decision point: Break down your event into its constituent components

Identify your event archetype

Decompose the event into its component parts

Identify technical requirements that help meet event goals

Benefits:

  • Clarify how formerly in-person events map to virtual archetypes.
  • Ensure your virtual event planning is anchored to organizational goals from the outset.
  • Streamline your virtual event tech stack planning later.

Decision point: Determine your event archetype

Analyze your event’s:

  • Main goals.
  • The components and activities that support those goals.
  • How these components and activities fall into people- vs. content-centric activities, and real-time vs. asynchronous activities.
  1. Conference
  2. Trade show
  3. Annual general meeting
  4. Department meeting
  5. Town hall
  6. Workshop

A diagram that shows people- vs. content-centric activities, and real-time vs. asynchronous activities

Info-Tech Insight

Begin the digital event planning process by understanding how your event’s content is typically consumed. This will help you make decisions later about how best to deliver the content virtually.

Conference

Goals: Education/knowledge transfer; professional advancement; networking.

Major content

  • Call for proposals/circulation of abstracts
  • Keynotes or plenary address: key talk addressed to large audience
  • Panel sessions: multiple panelists deliver address on common theme
  • Poster sessions: staffed/unstaffed booths demonstrate visualization of major research on a poster
  • Association meetings (see also AGM archetype): professional associations hold AGM as one part of a larger conference agenda

Community

  • Formal networking (happy hours, social outings)
  • Informal networking (hallway track, peer introductions)
  • Business card exchange
  • Pre- and post-event correspondence

Commercial Partners

  • Booth reps: Publishing or industry representatives exhibit products/discuss collaboration

A quadrants matrix of conference

Trade show

Objectives: Information transfer; sales; lead generation.

Major content

  • Live booth reps answer questions
  • Product information displayed
  • Promotional/information material distributed
  • Product demonstrations at booths or onstage
  • Product samples distributed to attendees

Community interactions

  • Statements of intent to buy
  • Lead generation (badge scanning) of booth visitors
  • Business card exchange
  • Pre- and post-event correspondence

A quadrants matrix of Trade show

Annual general meeting

Objectives: Transparently update members; establish governance and alignment.

Meeting events

  • Updates provided to members on organization’s activities/finances
  • Decisions made regarding organization’s direction
  • Governance over organization established (elections)
  • Speakers addressing large audience from stage
  • In-camera sessions
  • Translation of proceedings
  • Real-time weighted voting
  • Minutes taken during meeting

Administration

  • Notice given of meeting within mandated time period
  • Agenda circulated prior to meeting
  • Distribution of proxy material
  • Minutes distributed

A quadrants matrix of Annual general meeting

Department meeting

Objectives: Information transfer of company agenda/initiatives; group decision making.

Major content

  • Agenda circulated prior to meeting
  • Updates provided from senior management/leadership to employees on organization’s initiatives and direction
  • Employee questions and feedback addressed
  • Group decision making
  • Minutes taken during meeting
  • Minutes or follow-up circulated

A quadrants matrix of department meeting

Town hall meeting

Objectives: Update public; answer questions; solicit feedback.

Major content

  • Public notice of meeting announced
  • Agenda circulated prior to meeting
  • Speakers addressing large audience from stage
  • Presentation of information pertinent to public interest
  • Audience members line up to ask questions/provide feedback
  • Translation of proceedings
  • Recording of meeting archived

A quadrants matrix of Town hall meeting

Workshop

Objectives: Make progress on objective; achieve consensus; knowledge transfer.

Major content

  • Scheduling of workshop
  • Agenda circulated prior to meeting
  • Facilitator leads group activities
  • Participants develop alignment on project
  • Progress achieved on workshop project
  • Feedback on workshop shared with facilitator

A quadrants matrix of Workshop

Decision point: Analyze your event’s purpose and value

Use the event archetypes to help you identify your event’s core components and value proposition.

  1. Attendee types: Who typically attends your event? Exclusively internal participants? External participants? A mix of the two?
  2. Communication: How do participants usually communicate with each other during this event? How do they communicate with the event organizers? Include both formal types of communication (listening to panel sessions) and informal (serendipitous conversations in the hallway).
  3. Connection: What types of connections do your attendees need to experience? (networking with peers; interactions with booth reps; consensus building with colleagues).
  4. Exchange of material: What kind of material is usually exchanged at this event and between whom? (Pamphlets, brochures, business cards, booth swag).
  5. Engagement: How do you usually retain attendees' attention and make sure they remain engaged throughout the event?
  6. Length: How long does the event typically last?
  7. Location and setup: Where does the event usually take place and who is involved in its setup?
  8. Success metrics: How do you usually measure your event's success?

Info-Tech Insight

Avoid trying to exactly reproduce the formerly in-person event online. Instead, identify the value proposition of each event component, then determine what its virtual expression could be.

Example: Trade show

Goals: Information transfer; sales; lead generation.

  1. Identify event component(s)
  2. Document its face-to-face expression(s)
  3. Identify the expression’s value proposition
  4. Translate the value proposition to a virtual component that facilitates overall event goal

Event component

Face-to-face expression

Value proposition of component

Virtual expression
Attendee types Paying attendees Revenue for event organizer; sales and lead generation for booth rep Access to virtual event space
Attendee types Booth rep Revenue for event organizer; information source for paying attendees Access to virtual event space
Communication/connection Conversation between booth rep and attendee Lead generation for booth rep; information to inform decision making for attendee Ability to enter open video breakout session staffed by booth reps OR

Ability to schedule meeting times with booth rep

Multiple booth reps on hand to monitor different elements of the booth (one person to facilitate the discussion over video, another to monitor chat and Q&A)
Communication/connection Serendipitous conversation between attendees Increased attendee contacts; fun Multiple attendees can attend the booth’s breakout session simultaneously and participate in web conferencing, meeting chat, or submit questions to Q&A
Communication/connection Badges scanned at booth/email sign-up sheets filled out at table Lead generation for exhibitors List of visitors to booth shared with exhibitor (if consent given by attendees)

Ability for attendees to request to be contacted for more information
Exchange of material Catering (complimentary coffee, pastries) Obviate the need for attendees to leave the event for refreshments N/A: not included in virtual event
Exchange of material Pamphlets, product literature, swag Portable information for attendee decision making Downloadable files (pdf)
Location Responsibility of both the organizers (tables, chairs, venue) and booth reps (posters, handouts) Booth reps need a dedicated space where they can be easily found by attendees and advertise themselves Booth reps need access to virtual platform to upload files, images, provide booth description
Engagement Attendees able to visit all booths by strolling through space Event organizers have a captive audience who is present in the immediacy of the event site Attendees motivated to stay in the event space and attend booths through gamification strategies (points awarded for number of booths visited or appointments booked)
Length of event 2 full days Attendees travel to event site and spend the entire 2 days at the event, allowing them to be immersed in the event and absorb as much information in as little time as possible Exhibitors’ visiting hours will be scheduled so they work for both attendees attending in Eastern Standard Time and Pacific Time
Metrics for success -Positive word of mouth
-Number of registrations 		These metrics can be used to advertise to future exhibitors and attendees Number of virtual booths visited

Number of file downloads

Survey sent to attendees after event (favorite booths, preferred way to interact with exhibitors, suggestions for improvement, most valuable part of experience)

Plan your metrics

Use the analytics and reporting features available in your event technology toolset to capture the data you want to measure. Decide how each metric will impact your planning process for the next event.

Examples of metrics:

  • Number of overall participants/registrants: Did you have more or fewer registrants/attendees than previous iterations of the event? What is the difference between number of registrants and number of real attendees?
  • Locations of participants: Where are people participating from? How many are attending for the first time? Are there new audiences you can pursue next time?
  • Most/least popular sessions: How long did people stay in the sessions and the event overall?
  • Most/least popular breakout rooms and discussion boards: Which topics should be repeated/skipped next time?
  • Social media mentions: Which topics received the most engagement on social media?
  • Surveys: What do participants report enjoying most? Least?
  • Technical failures: Can your software report on failures? Identify what technical problems arose and prepare a plan to mitigate them next time.

Ensure the data you capture feeds into better planning for the next event

Determine compliance requirements

A greater event reach also means new data privacy considerations, depending on the location of your guests.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Concerns over the collection of personal electronic data may not have previously been a part of your event planning considerations. However, now that your event is online, it’s wise to explore which data protection regulations apply to you. Remember, even if your organization is not located in the EU, if any of your attendees are European data subjects you may still be required to comply with GDPR, which involves the notification of data collected, allowing for opt-out options and the right to have data purged. The data must be collected for a specific purpose; if that purpose is expired, it can no longer be retained. You also have an obligation to report any breaches.

Accessibility requirements

What kind of accessibility laws are you subject to (AODA, WCAG2)? Regardless of compliance requirements, it is a good idea to ensure the online event follows accessibility best practices.

Decision point: Set event policies

What event policies need to be documented?
How will you communicate them to attendees?

Code of conduct

One trend in the large event and conference space in recent years has been the development of codes of conduct that attendees are required to abide by to continue participating in the event.
Now that your event is online, consider whether your code of conduct requires updating. Are there new types of appropriate/inappropriate online behavior that you need to define for your attendees?

Harassment reporting

If your organization has an event harassment reporting process, determine how this process will transfer over to the digital event.
Ensure the reporting process has an owner and a clear methodology to follow to deal with complaints, as well as a digital reporting channel (a dedicated email or form) that is only accessed by approved staff to protect sensitive information.

Develop a risk management plan

Plan for how you will mitigate technical risks during your virtual event
Provide presenters with a process to follow if technical problems arise.

  • Presenter’s internet connection cuts out
  • Attendees cannot log in to event platform
  • Attendees cannot hear/see video feed
  • What process will be followed when technical problems occur: ticketing system; chatbot; generic email accessible by all IT support assigned

Testing/Rehearsal

Test audio hardware: Ensure speakers use headphones/earbuds and mics (they do not have to be fancy/expensive). Relying on the computer/laptop mic can lead to more ambient noise and potential feedback problems.

Check lighting: Avoid backlighting. Reposition speakers so they are not behind windows. Ask them to open/close shades. Add lamps as needed.

Prevent interruptions: Before the event, ask panelists to turn phone and computer notifications to silent. Put a sign on the door saying Do not Disturb.

Control audience view of screenshare: If your presenters will be sharing their screens, teach them how this works on the platform they are using. Advise them to exit out of any other application that is not part of their presentation, so they do not share the wrong screen unintentionally. Advise them to remove anything from the desktop that they do not want the audience to see, in case their desktop becomes visible at any point.

Control audience view of physical environment: Before the event, advise participants to turn their cameras on and examine their backgrounds. Remove anything the audience should not be able to see.

Test network connectivity: Send the presenters a link to a speed test and check their internet speed.

Emergency contact: Exchange cell phone numbers for emergency backchannel conversations if problems arise on the day of the event.

Set expectations: Presenting to an online audience feels very different to a live crowd. Prepare presenters for a lack of applause and lack of ability to see their audience, and that this does not mean the presentation was unsuccessful.

Identify requirements

To determine what kind of technical requirements you need to build the virtual expression of your event, consult the Virtual Event Platform Requirements Tool.

  1. If you have determined that the requirements you wish to use for the event exceed the capabilities of your existing communication and collaboration toolset, identify whether these gaps tip the scale toward purchasing a new tool. Use the requirement gaps to make the business case for purchasing a new tool.
  2. Use the Virtual Event Platform Requirements Tool to create a list of requirements.
  3. Consult the Software Reviews category for Virtual Event Platform Data Quadrant and Emotional Footprint reports.
  4. Assemble your documentation for approvals and the Rapid Application Selection Process.

A photo of Detailed Feature Analysis Worksheet.

Download the Virtual/Hybrid Event Software Feature Analysis Tool

Rapid Application Selection Framework and Contract Review

A photo of Rapid Application Selection Framework
Launch Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework.

Using the requirements you’ve just gathered as a base, use Info-Tech’s complete framework to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software selection.

Once you’ve selected a vendor(s), review the contract. Does it define an exit strategy? Does it define when your data will be deleted? Does it set service-level agreements that you find acceptable? Leverage Info-Tech’s contract review service once you have selected the virtual event solution and have received a contract from the vendor.

Further research

Photo of Run Better Meetings
Run Better Meetings

Bibliography

Dutt, Raj. “7 Lessons from This Company’s First-Ever Virtual Conference.” Fast Company, 29 Jul 2020. Web.

Kelly, Samantha Murphy. “Microsoft Build Proves Splashy Tech Events Can Thrive Online.” CNN, 21 May 2020. Web.

“Phases.” Event Management Body of Knowledge (EMBOK), n.d. Web.

Price, Michael. “As COVID-19 Forces Conferences Online, Scientists Discover Upsides of Virtual Format.” Science, 28 Apr 2020. Web.

“Stanford HAI Spring Conference - Key Advances in Artificial Intelligence.” Stanford Digital Economy Lab, 2022. Web.

“Virtual Event Tech Guide 2022.” Skift Meetings, April 2022. Web.

Warren, Tom. “Microsoft Build 2022 Will Take Place May 24th–26th.” The Verge, 30 March 2022. Web.

Contributors

6 anonymous contributors

Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan

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  • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
  • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
  • Disaster recovery plan (DRP) documentation is often driven by audit or compliance requirements rather than aimed at the team that would need to execute recovery.
  • Between day-to-day IT projects and the difficulty of maintaining 300+ page manuals, DRP documentation is not updated and quickly becomes unreliable.
  • Inefficient publishing strategies result in your DRP not being accessible during disaster or key staff not knowing where to find the latest version.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • DR documentation fails when organizations try to boil the ocean with an all-in-one plan aimed at auditors, business leaders, and IT. It’s too long, too hard to maintain, and ends up being little more than shelf-ware.
  • Using flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams aimed at an IT audience is more concise and effective in a disaster, quicker to create, and easier to maintain.
  • Create your DRP in layers to keep the work manageable. Start with a recovery workflow to ensure a coordinated response, and build out supporting documentation over time.

Impact and Result

  • Create visual and concise DR documentation that strips out unnecessary content and is written for an IT audience – the team that would actually be executing the recovery. Your business leaders can take the same approach to create separate business response plans. Don’t mix the two in an all-in-one plan that is not effective for either audience.
  • Determine a documentation distribution strategy that supports ease of maintenance and accessibility during a disaster.
  • Incorporate DRP maintenance into change management procedures to systematically update and refine the DR documentation. Don’t save up changes for a year-end blitz, which turns document maintenance into an onerous project.

Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should adopt a visual-based DRP, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Streamline DRP documentation

Start by documenting your recovery workflow. Create supporting documentation in the form of checklists, flowcharts, topology diagrams, and contact lists. Finally, summarize your DR capabilities in a DRP Summary Document for stakeholders and auditors.

  • Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan – Phase 1: Streamline DRP Documentation

2. Select the optimal DRP publishing strategy

Select criteria for assessing DRP tools, and evaluate whether a business continuity management tool, document management solution, wiki site, or manually distributing documentation is best for your DR team.

  • Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan – Phase 2: Select the Optimal DRP Publishing Strategy
  • DRP Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool
  • BCM Tool – RFP Selection Criteria

3. Keep your DRP relevant through maintenance best practices

Learn how to integrate DRP maintenance into core IT processes, and learn what to look for during testing and during annual reviews of your DRP.

  • Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan – Phase 3: Keep Your DRP Relevant Through Maintenance Best Practices
  • Sample Project Intake Form Addendum for Disaster Recovery
  • Sample Change Management Checklist for Disaster Recovery
  • DRP Review Checklist
  • DRP-BCP Review Workflow (Visio)
  • DRP-BCP Review Workflow (PDF)

4. Appendix: XMPL Case Study

Model your DRP after the XMPL case study disaster recovery plan documentation.

  • Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan – Appendix: XMPL Case Study
  • XMPL DRP Summary Document
  • XMPL Notification, Assessment, and Declaration Plan
  • XMPL Systems Recovery Playbook
  • XMPL Recovery Workflows (Visio)
  • XMPL Recovery Workflows (PDF)
  • XMPL Data Center and Network Diagrams (Visio)
  • XMPL Data Center and Network Diagrams (PDF)
  • XMPL DRP Business Impact Analysis Tool
  • XMPL DRP Workbook
[infographic]

Workshop: Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Streamline DRP Documentation

The Purpose

Teach your team how to create visual-based documentation.

Key Benefits Achieved

Learn how to create visual-based DR documentation.

Activities

1.1 Conduct a table-top planning exercise.

1.2 Document your high-level incident response plan.

1.3 Identify documentation to include in your playbook.

1.4 Create an initial collection of supplementary documentation.

1.5 Discuss what further documentation is necessary for recovering from a disaster.

1.6 Summarize your DR capabilities for stakeholders.

Outputs

Documented high-level incident response plan

List of documentation action items

Collection of 1-3 draft checklists, flowcharts, topology diagrams, and contact lists

Action items for ensuring that the DRP is executable for both primary and backup DR personnel

DRP Summary Document

2 Select the Optimal DRP Publishing Strategy

The Purpose

Learn the considerations for publishing your DRP.

Key Benefits Achieved

Identify the best strategy for publishing your DRP.

Activities

2.1 Select criteria for assessing DRP tools.

2.2 Evaluate categories for DRP tools.

Outputs

Strategy for publishing DRP

3 Learn How to Keep Your DRP Relevant Through Maintenance Best Practices

The Purpose

Address the common pain point of unmaintained DRPs.

Key Benefits Achieved

Create an approach for maintaining your DRP.

Activities

3.1 Alter your project intake considerations.

3.2 Integrate DR considerations into change management.

3.3 Integrate documentation into performance measurement and performance management.

3.4 Learn best practices for maintaining your DRP.

Outputs

Project Intake Form Addendum Template

Change Management DRP Checklist Template

Further reading

Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Put your DRP on a diet – keep it fit, trim, and ready for action.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

The traditional disaster recovery plan (DRP) “red binder” is dead. It takes too long to create, it’s too hard to maintain, and it’s not usable in a crisis.

“This blueprint outlines the following key tactics to streamline your documentation effort and produce a better result:

  • Write for an IT audience and focus on how to recover. You don’t need 30 pages of fluff describing the purpose of the document.
  • Use flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams over traditional manuals. This drives documentation that is more concise, easier to maintain, and effective in a crisis.
  • Create your DRP in layers to get tangible results faster, starting with a recovery workflow that outlines your DR strategy, and then build out the specific documentation needed to support recovery.”
    •
(Frank Trovato, Research Director, Infrastructure, Info-Tech Research Group)

This project is about DRP documentation after you have clarified your DR strategy; create these necessary inputs first

These artifacts are the cornerstone for any disaster recovery plan.

  • Business Impact Analysis
  • DR Roles and Responsibilities
  • Recovery Workflow

Missing a component? Start here. ➔ Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan

This blueprint walks you through building these inputs.
Our approach saves clients on average US$16,825.22. (Clients self-reported an average saving of US$16,869.21 while completing the Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan blueprint through advisory calls, guided implementations, or workshops (Info-Tech Research Group, 2017, N=129).)

How this blueprint will help you document your DRP

This Research is Designed For:

  • IT managers in charge of disaster recovery planning (DRP) and execution.
  • Organizations seeking to optimize their DRP using best-practice methodology.
  • Business continuity professionals that are involved with disaster recovery.

This Research Will Help You:

  • Divide the process of creating DR documentation into manageable chunks, providing a defined scope for you to work in.
  • Identify an appropriate DRP document management and distribution strategy.
  • Ensure that DR documentation is up to date and accessible.

This Research Will Also Assist:

  • IT managers preparing for a DR audit.
  • IT managers looking to incorporate components of DR into an IT operations document.

This Research Will Help Them:

  • Follow a structured approach in building DR documentation using best practices.
  • Integrate DR into day-to-day IT operations.

Executive summary

Situation

  • DR documentation is often driven by audit or compliance requirements, rather than aimed at the team that would need to execute recovery.
  • Traditional DRPs are text-heavy, 300+ page manuals that are simply not usable in a crisis.
  • Compounding the problem, DR documentation is rarely updated, so it’s just shelf-ware.

Complication

  • DRP is often given lower priority as day-to-day IT projects displace DR documentation efforts.
  • Inefficient publishing strategies result in your DRP not being accessible during disasters or key staff not knowing where to find the latest version.
  • Organizations that create traditional DRPs end up with massive manuals that are difficult to maintain, so they quickly become unreliable.

Resolution

  • Create visual and concise DR documentation that strips out unnecessary content and is written for an IT audience – the team that would actually be executing the recovery. Your business leaders can take the same approach to create separate business response plans – don’t mix the two into an all-in-one plan that is not effective for either audience.
  • Determine a documentation distribution strategy that supports ease of maintenance and accessibility during a disaster.
  • Incorporate DRP maintenance into change management and project intake procedures to systematically update and refine the DR documentation. Don’t save up changes for a year-end blitz, which turns document maintenance into an onerous project.

Info-Tech Insight

  1. DR documentation fails when organizations try to boil the ocean with an all-in-one plan aimed at auditors, business leaders, and IT. It’s too long, too hard to maintain, and ends up being little more than shelf-ware.
  2. Using flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams aimed at an IT audience is more concise and effective in a disaster, quicker to create, and easier to maintain.
  3. Create your DRP in layers to keep the work manageable. Start with a recovery workflow to ensure a coordinated response, and build out supporting documentation over time.

An effective DRP that mitigates a wide range of potential outages is critical to minimizing the impact of downtime

The criticality of having an effective DRP is underestimated.

Cost of Downtime for the Fortune 1000
  • Cost of unplanned apps downtime per year: $1.25B to $2.5B
  • Cost of critical apps failure per hour: $500,000 to $1M
  • Cost of infrastructure failure per hour: $100,000
  • 35% reported to have recovered within 12 hours.
  • 17% of infrastructure failures took more than 24 hours to recover.
  • 13% of application failures took more than 24 hours to recover.
Size of Impact Increasing Across Industries
  • The cost of downtime is rising across the board and not just for organizations that traditionally depend on IT (e.g. e-commerce).
  • Downtime cost increase since 2010:
    • Hospitality: 129% increase
    • Transportation: 108% increase
    • Media organizations: 104% increase
Potential Lost Revenue
A line graph of Potential Lost Revenue with vertical axis 'LOSS ($)' and horizontal axis 'TIME'. The line starts with low losses near the origin where 'Incident Occurs', gradually accelerates to higher losses as time passes, then decelerates before 'All Revenue Lost'. Note: 'Delay in recovery causes exponential revenue loss'.
(Adapted from: Rothstein, Philip Jan. Disaster Recovery Testing: Exercising Your Contingency Plan (2007 Edition).)

The impact of downtime increases significantly over time, not just in terms of lost revenue (as illustrated here) but also goodwill/reputation and health/safety. An effective DR solution and overall resiliency that mitigate a wide range of potential outages are critical to minimizing the impact of downtime.

Without an effective DRP, your organization is gambling on being able to define and implement a recovery strategy during a time of crisis. At the very least, this means extended downtime – potentially weeks – and substantial impact.

Only 38% of those with a full or mostly complete DRP believe their DRPs would be effective in a real crisis

Organizations continue to struggle with creating DRPs, let alone making them actionable.

Why are so many living with either an incomplete or ineffective DRP? For the same reasons that IT documentation in general continues to be a pain point:

  • It is an outdated model of what documentation should be – the traditional manual with detailed (lengthy) descriptions and procedures.
  • Despite the importance of DR, low priority is placed on creating a DRP and the day-to-day SOPs required to support a recovery.
  • There is a lack of effective processes for ensuring documentation stays up to date.
A bar graph documenting percentages of survey responses about the completeness of their DRP. 'Only 20% of survey respondents indicated they have a complete DRP'. 13% said 'No DRP'. 33% said 'Partial DRP'. 34% said 'Mostly Completed'. 20% said 'Full DRP'.
(Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=165) 		A bar graph documenting percentages of survey responses about the level of confidence in their DRP. 'Only 38% of those who have a mostly completed or full DRP actually feel it would be effective in a crisis'. 4% said 'Low'. 58% said 'Unsure'. 38% said 'Confident'.
(Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=69 (includes only those who indicated DRP is mostly completed or completed))

Improve usability and effectiveness with visual-based and more-concise documentation

Choose flowcharts over process guides, checklists over lengthy procedures, and diagrams over descriptions.

If you need a three-inch binder to hold your DRP, imagine having to flip through it to determine next steps during a crisis.

DR documentation needs to be concise, scannable, and quickly understood to be effective. Visual-based documentation meets these requirements, so it’s no surprise that it also leads to higher DR success.

DR success scores are based on:

  • Meeting recovery time objectives (RTOs).
  • Meeting recovery point objectives (RPOs).
  • IT staff’s confidence in their ability to meet RTOs/RPOs.
A line graph of DR documentation types and their effectiveness. The vertical axis is 'DR Success', from Low to High. The horizontal axis is Documentation Type, from 'Traditional Manual' to 'Primarily flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams'. The line trends up to higher success with visual-based and more-concise documentation.(Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=95)

“Without question, 300-page DRPs are not effective. I mean, auditors love them because of the detail, but give me a 10-page DRP with contact lists, process flows, diagrams, and recovery checklists that are easy to follow.” (Bernard Jones, MBCI, CBCP, CORP, Manager Disaster Recovery/BCP, ActiveHealth Management)

Maintainability is another argument for visual-based, concise documentation

There are two end goals for your DR documentation: effectiveness and maintainability. Without either, you will not have success during a disaster.

Organizations using a visual-based approach were 30% more likely to find that DR documentation is easy to maintain. ➔ “Easy to maintain” leads to a 46% higher rate of DR success.
Two bar graphs documenting survey responses regarding maintenance ease of DR documentation types. The first graph compares Traditional Manual vs Visual-based. For 'Traditional Manual' 72% responded they were Difficult to maintain while 28% responded they were Easy to maintain; for 'Visual-based' 42% responded they were Difficult to maintain while 58% responded they were Easy to maintain. Visual-based DR documentation received 30% more votes for Easy to Maintain. The second graph compares success rates of 'Difficult to Maintain' vs 'Easy to Maintain' DR documentation with Difficult being 31% and Easy being 77%, a 46% difference. 'Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=96'.

Not only are visual-based disaster recovery plans more effective, but they are also easier to maintain.

Overcome documentation inertia with a tiered model that allows you to eat the elephant one bite at a time

Start with a recovery workflow to at least ensure a coordinated response. Then use that workflow to determine required supporting documentation.

Recovery Workflow: Starting the project with overly detailed documentation can slow down the entire process. Overcome planning inertia by starting with high-level incident response plans in a flowchart format. For examples and additional information, see XMPL Medical’s Recovery Workflows.

Recovery Procedures (Systems Recovery Playbook): For each step in the high-level flowchart, create recovery procedures where necessary using additional flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams as appropriate. Leverage Info-Tech’s Systems Recovery Playbook example as a starting point.

Additional Reference Documentation: Reference existing IT documentation, such as network diagrams and configuration documents, as well as more detailed step-by-step procedures where necessary (e.g. vendor documentation), particularly where needed to support alternate recovery staff who may not be as well versed as the primary system owners.

Info-Tech Insight

Organizations that use flowcharts, checklist, and diagrams over traditional, dense DRP manuals are far more likely to meet their RTOs/RPOs because their documentation is more usable and easier to maintain.

Use a DRP summary document to satisfy executives, auditors, and clients

Stakeholders don’t have time to sift through a pile of paper. Summarize your overall continuity capabilities in one, easy-to-read place.

DRP Summary Document

  • Summarize BIA results
  • Summarize DR strategy (including DR sites)
  • Summarize backup strategy
  • Summarize testing and maintenance plans

Follow Info-Tech’s methodology to make DRP documentation efficient and effective

Phases

 Phase 1: Streamline DRP documentation Phase 2: Select the optimal DRP publishing strategy Phase 3: Keep your DRP relevant through maintenance best practices

Phases

1.1

 Start with a recovery workflow

2.1

 Decide on a publishing strategy

3.1

 Incorporate DRP maintenance into core IT processes

1.2

 Create supporting DRP documentation

3.2

 Conduct an annual focused review

1.3

 Write the DRP Summary

Tools and Templates

 End-to-End Sample DRP DRP Publishing Evaluation Tool Project In-take/Request Form

Change Management Checklist

Follow XMPL Medical’s journey through DR documentation

CASE STUDY

Industry Healthcare
Source Created by amalgamating data from Info-Tech’s client base

Streamline your documentation and maintenance process by following the approach outlined in XMPL Medical’s journey to an end-to-end DRP.

Outline of the Disaster Recovery Plan

XMPL’s disaster recovery plan includes its business impact analysis and a subset of tier 1 and tier 2 patient care applications.

Its DRP includes incident response flowcharts, system recovery checklists, and a communication plan. Its DRP also references IT operations documentation (e.g. asset management documents, system specs, and system configuration docs), but this material is not published with the example documentation.

Resulting Disaster Recovery Plan

XMPL’s DRP includes actionable documents in the form of high-level disaster response plan flowcharts and system recovery checklists. During an incident, the DR team is able to clearly see the items for which they are responsible.

Disaster Recovery Plan
  • Recovery Workflow
  • Business Impact Analysis
  • DRP Summary
  • System Recovery Checklists
  • Communication, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan

Info-Tech Best Practice

XMPL Medical’s disaster recovery plan illustrates an effective DRP. Model your end-to-end disaster recovery plan after XMPL’s completed templates. The specific data points will differ from organization to organization, but the structure of each document will be similar.

Model your disaster recovery documentation off of our example

CASE STUDY

Industry Healthcare
Source Created by amalgamating data from Info-Tech’s client base

Recovery Workflow:

  • Recovery Workflows (PDF, VSDX)

Recovery Procedures (Systems Recovery Playbook):

  • DR Notification, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan
  • Systems Recovery Playbook
  • Network Topology Diagrams

Additional Reference Documentation:

  • DRP Workbook
  • Business Impact Analysis
  • DRP Summary Document

Use Info-Tech’s DRP Maturity Scorecard to evaluate your progress

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

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan – Project Overview

1. Streamline DRP Documentation 2. Select the Optimal DRP Publishing Strategy 3. Keep Your DRP Relevant
Supporting Tool icon
Best-Practice Toolkit

1.1 Start with a recovery workflow

1.2 Create supporting DRP documentation

1.3 Write the DRP summary

2.1 Create Committee Profiles

3.1 Build Governance Structure Map

3.2 Create Committee Profiles

Guided Implementations
  • Review Info-Tech’s approach to DRP documentation.
  • Create a high-level recovery workflow.
  • Create supporting DRP documentation.
  • Write the DRP summary.
  • Identify criteria for selecting a DRP publishing strategy.
  • Select a DRP publishing strategy.
  • Optional: Select requirements for a BCM tool and issue an RFP.
  • Optional: Review responses to RFP.
  • Learn best practices for integrating DRP maintenance into day-to-day IT processes.
  • Learn best practices for DRP-focused reviews.
Associated Activity icon
Onsite Workshop 		Module 1:
Streamline DRP documentation 		Module 2:
Select the optimal DRP publishing strategy 		Module 3:
Learn best practices for keeping your DRP relevant
Phase 1 Outcome:
  • A complete end-to-end DRP
 Phase 2 Outcome:
  • Selection of a publishing and management tool for your DRP documentation
 Phase 3 Outcome:
  • Strategy for maintaining your DRP documentation

Workshop Overview Associated Activity icon

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

Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4 Workshop Day 5
Info-Tech Analysts Finalize Deliverables
Activities
Assess DRP Maturity and Review Current Capabilities

0.1 Assess current DRP maturity through Info-Tech’s Maturity Scorecard.

0.2 Identify the IT systems that support mission-critical business activities, and select 2 or 3 key applications to be the focus of the workshop.

0.3 Identify current recovery strategies for selected applications.

0.4 Identify current DR challenges for selected applications.

Document Your Recovery Workflow

1.1 Create a recovery workflow: review tabletop planning, walk through DR scenarios, identify DR gaps, and determine how to fill them.

Create Supporting Documentation

1.2 Create supporting DRP documentation.

1.3 Write the DRP summary.

Establish a DRP Publishing, Management, and Maintenance Strategy

2.1 Decide on a publishing strategy.

3.1 Incorporate DRP maintenance into core IT.

3.2 Considerations for reviewing your DRP regularly.

Deliverables
  1. Baseline DRP metric (based on DRP Maturity Scorecard)
  1. High-level DRP workflow
  2. DRP gaps and risks identified
  1. Recovery workflow and/or checklist for sample of IT systems
  2. Customized DRP Summary Template
  1. Strategy for selecting a DRP publishing tool
  2. DRP management and maintenance strategy
  3. Workshop summary presentation deck

Workshop Goal: Learn how to document and maintain your DRP.

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Phase 1: Streamline DRP Documentation

Step 1.1: Start with a recovery workflow

PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1 3.1 3.2
Start with a Recovery Workflow Create Supporting Documentation Write the DRP Summary Select DRP Publishing Strategy Integrate into Core IT Processes Conduct an Annual Focused Review

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Review a model DRP.
  • Review your recovery workflow.
  • Identify documentation required to support the recovery workflow.

This step involves the following participants:

  • DRP Owner
  • System SMEs
  • Alternate DR Personnel

Outcomes of this step

  • Understanding the visual-based, concise approach to DR documentation.
  • Creating a recovery workflow that provides a roadmap for coordinating incident response and identifying required supporting documentation.

Info-Tech Insights

A DRP is a collection of procedures and supporting documents that allow an organization to recover its IT services to minimize system downtime for the business.

1.1 — Start with a recovery workflow to ensure a coordinated response and identify required supporting documentation

The recovery workflow clarifies your DR strategy and ensures the DR team is on the same page.

Recovery Workflow

 ➔

The recovery workflow maps out the incident response plan from event detection, assessment, and declaration to systems recovery and validation.

This documentation includes:

  • Clarifying initial incident response steps.
  • Clarifying the order of systems recovery and which recovery actions can occur concurrently.
  • Estimating actual recovery timeline through each stage of recovery.
Recovery Procedures (Playbook)
Additional Reference Documentation

“We use flowcharts for our declaration procedures. Flowcharts are more effective when you have to explain status and next steps to upper management.” (Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry)

Review business impact analysis (BIA) results to plan your recovery workflow

The BIA defines system criticality from the business’s perspective. Use it to guide system recovery order.

Specifically, review the following from your BIA:

  • The list of tier 1, 2, and 3 applications. This will dictate the recovery order in your recovery workflow.
  • Application dependencies. This will outline what needs to be included as part of an application recovery workflow.
  • The recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) for each application. This will also guide the recovery, and enable you to identify gaps where the recovery workflow does not meet RTOs and RPOs.

CASE STUDY: The XMPL DRP documentation is based on this Business Impact Analysis Tool.

Haven’t conducted a BIA? Use Info-Tech’s streamlined approach.

Info-Tech’s publication Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan takes a very practical approach to BIA work. Our process gives IT leaders a mechanism to quickly get agreement on system recovery order and DR investment priorities.

Conduct a tabletop planning exercise to determine your recovery workflow

Associated Activity icon 1.1.1 Tabletop Planning Exercise

  1. Define a scenario to drive the tabletop planning exercise:
    • Use a scenario that forces a full failover to your DR environment, so you can capture an end-to-end recovery workflow.
    • Avoid scenarios that impact health and safety such as tornados or a fire. You want to focus on IT recovery.
    • Example scenarios: Burst water pipe that causes data-center-wide damage or a gas leak that forces evacuation and power to be shut down for at least two days.

Note: You may have already completed this exercise as part of Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan.

Info-Tech Insight

Use scenarios to provide context for DR planning, and to test your plans, but don’t create a separate plan for every possibility.

The high-level recovery plan will be the same whether the incident is a fire, flood, or tornado. While there might be some variances and outliers, these scenarios can be addressed by adding decision points and/or separate, supplementary instructions.

Walk through the scenario and capture the recovery workflow

Associated Activity icon 1.1.2 Tabletop Planning Exercise
  1. Capture the following information for tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 systems:
    1. On white cue cards, record the steps and track start and end times for each step (where 00:00 is when the incident occurred).
    2. On yellow cue cards, document gaps in people, process, and technology requirements to complete the step.
    3. On red cue cards, indicate risks (e.g. no backup person for a key staff member).

Note:

  • Ensure the language is sufficiently genericized (e.g. refer to events, not specifically a burst water pipe).
  • Review isolated failures (e.g. hardware, software). Typically, the recovery procedure documented for individual systems covers the essence of the recovery workflow whether it’s just the one system that failed or it’s part of a site-wide recovery.

Note: You may have already completed this exercise as part of Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan.

Document your current-state recovery workflow based on the results of the tabletop planning

Supporting Tool icon 1.1.2 Incident Response Plan Flowcharts, Tabs 2 and 3

After you finish the tabletop planning exercise, the steps on the set of cue cards define your recovery workflow. Capture this in a flowchart format.

Use the sample DRP to guide your own flowchart. Some notes on the example are:

  • XMPL’s Incident Management to DR flowchart shows the connection between its standard Service Desk processes and DR processes.
  • XMPL’s high-level workflows outline its recovery of tier 1, 2, and 3 systems.
  • Where more detail is required, include links to supporting documentation. In this example, XMPL Medical includes links to its Systems Recovery Playbook.
Preview of an Info-Tech Template depicting a sample flowchart.

This sample flowchart is included in XMPL Recovery Workflows.

Step 1.2: Create Supporting DRP Documentation

PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
1.11.21.32.13.13.2
Start with a Recovery WorkflowCreate Supporting DocumentationWrite the DRP SummarySelect DRP Publishing StrategyIntegrate into Core IT ProcessesConduct an Annual Focused Review

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Create checklists for your playbook.
  • Document more complex procedures with flowcharts.
  • Gather and/or write network topology diagrams.
  • Compile a contact list.
  • Ensure there is enough material for backup personnel.

This step involves the following participants:

  • DRP Owner
  • System SMEs
  • Backup DR Personnel

Outcomes of this step

  • Actionable supporting documentation for your disaster recovery plan.
  • Contact list for IT personnel, business personnel, and vendor support.

1.2 — Create supporting documentation for your disaster recovery plan

Now that you have a high-level incident response plan, collect the information you need for executing that plan.

Recovery Workflow

Write your recovery procedures playbook to be effective and usable. Your playbook documentation should include:

  • Supplementary flowcharts
  • Checklists
  • Topology diagrams
  • Contact lists
  • DRP summary

Reference vendors’ technical information in your flowcharts and checklists where appropriate.

Recovery Procedures (Playbook)

 ➔

Additional Reference Documentation

 ➔

Info-Tech Insight

Write for your audience. The playbook is for IT; include only the information they need to execute the plan. DRP summaries are for executives and auditors; do not include information intended for IT. Similarly, your disaster recovery plan is not for business units; keep BCP content out of your DRP.

Use checklists to streamline step-by-step procedures

Supporting Tool icon 1.2.1 XMPL Medical’s System Recovery Checklists

Checklists are ideal when staff just need a reminder of what to do, not how to do it.

XMPL Medical used its high-level flowcharts as a roadmap for creating its Systems Recovery Playbook.

  • Since its Playbook is intended for experienced IT staff, the writing style in the checklists is concise. XMPL includes links to reference material to support recovery, especially for alternate staff who might need additional instruction.
  • XMPL includes key parameters (e.g. IP addresses) rather than assume those details would be memorized, especially in a stressful DR scenario.
  • Similarly, include links to other useful resources such as VM templates.
Preview of the Info-Tech Template 'Systems Recovery Playbook'.

Included in the XMPL Systems Recovery Playbook are checklists for recovering XMPL’s virtual desktop infrastructure, mission-critical applications, and core infrastructure components.

Use flowcharts to document processes with concurrent tasks not easily captured in a checklist

Supporting Tool icon 1.2.2 XMPL Medical’s Phone Services Recovery Flowchart

Recovery procedures can consist of flowcharts, checklists, or both, as well as diagrams. The main goal is to be clear and concise.

  • XMPL Medical created a flowchart to capture its phone services recovery procedure to capture concurrent tasks.
  • Additional instructions, where required, could still be captured in a Playbook checklist or other supporting documentation.
  • The flowchart could have also included key settings or other details as appropriate, particularly if the DR team chose to maintain this recovery procedure just in a flowchart format.
Preview of the Info-Tech Template 'Recovery Workflows'.

Included in the XMPL DR documentation is an example flowchart for recovering phone systems. This flowchart is in Recovery Workflows.

Reference this blueprint for more SOP flowchart examples: Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

Use topology diagrams to capture network layout, integrations, and system information

Supporting Tool icon 1.2.4 XMPL Medical’s Data Center and Network Diagrams

Topology diagrams, key checklists, and configuration settings are often enough for experienced networking staff to carry out their DR tasks.

  • XMPL Medical includes these diagrams with its DRP. Instead of recreating these diagrams, the XMPL Medical DR Manager asked their network team for these diagrams:
    • Primary data center diagram
    • DR site diagram
    • High-level network diagrams
  • Often, organizations already have network topology diagrams for reference purposes.

“Our network engineers came to me and said our standard SOP template didn't work for them. They're now using a lot of diagrams and flowcharts, and that has worked out better for them.” (Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry)

Preview of the Info-Tech Template 'Systems Recovery Playbook'.

You can download a PDF and a VSD version of these Data Center and Network Diagrams from Info-Tech’s website.

Create a list of organizational, IT, and vendor contacts that may be required to assist with recovery

If there is something strange happening to your IT infrastructure, who you gonna call?

Many DR managers have their team on speed dial. However, having the contact info of alternate staff, BCP leads, and vendors can be very helpful during a disaster. XMPL Medical lists the following information in its DRP Workbook:

  • The DR Teams, SMEs critical to disaster recovery, their backups, and key contacts (e.g. BC Management team leads, vendor contacts) that would be involved in:
    • Declaring a disaster.
    • Coordinating a response at an organizational level.
    • Executing recovery.
  • The people that have authority to declare a disaster.
  • Each person’s spending authority.
  • The rules for delegating authority.
  • Primary and alternate staff for each role.
Example list of alternate staff, BCP leads, and vendors.

Confirm with your DR team that you have all of the documentation that you need to recover during a disaster

Associated Activity icon 1.2.7 Group Discussion

DISCUSS: Is there enough information in your DRP for both primary and backup DR personnel?

  • Is it clear who is responsible for each DR task, including notification steps?
  • Have alternate staff for each role been identified?
  • Does the recovery workflow capture all of the high-level steps?
  • Is there enough documentation for alternate staff (e.g. network specs)?

Step 1.3: Write the DRP Summary

PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
1.11.21.32.13.13.2
Start with a Recovery WorkflowCreate Supporting DocumentationWrite the DRP SummarySelect DRP Publishing StrategyIntegrate into Core IT ProcessesConduct an Annual Focused Review

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Write a DRP summary document.

This step involves the following participants:

  • DRP Owner

Outcomes of this step

  • High-level outline of your DRP capabilities for stakeholders such as executives, auditors, and clients.

Summarize your DR capabilities using a DRP summary document

Supporting Tool icon 1.3.1 DRP Summary Document

The sample included on Info-Tech’s website is customized for the XMPL Medical Case Study – use the download as a starting point for your own summary document.

DRP Summary Document

XMPL’s DRP Summary is organized into the following categories:

  • DR requirements: This includes a summary of scope, business impact analysis (BIA), risk assessment, and high-level RTOs and achievable RTOs.
  • DR strategy: This includes a summary of XMPL’s recovery procedures, DR site, and backup strategy.
  • Testing and maintenance: This includes a summary of XMPL’s DRP testing and maintenance strategy.

Be transparent about existing business risks in your DRP summary

The DRP summary document is business facing. Include information of which business leaders (and other stakeholders) need to be aware.

  • Discrepancies between desired and achievable RTOs? Organizational leadership needs to know this information. Only then can they assign the resources and budget that IT needs to achieve the desired DR capabilities.
  • What is the DRP’s scope? XMPL Medical lists the IT components that will be recovered during a disaster, and components which will not. For instance, XMPL’s DRP does not recover medical equipment, and XMPL has separate plans for business continuity and emergency response coordination.
Application tier Desired RTO (hh:mm) Desired RPO (hh:mm) Achievable RTO (hh:mm) Achievable RPO (hh:mm)
Tier 1 4:00 1:00 *90:00 1:00
Tier 2 8:00 1:00 *40:00 1:00
Tier 3 48:00 24:00 *96:00 24:00

The above table to is a snippet from the XMPL DR Summary Document (section 2.1.3.2).

In the example, the DR team is unable to recover tier 1, 2, and 3 systems within the desired RTO. As such, they clearly communicate this information in the DRP summary, and include action items to address these gaps.

Phase 2: Select the Optimal DRP Publishing Strategy

Step 2.1: Select a DRP Publishing Strategy

PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
1.11.21.32.13.13.2
Start with a Recovery WorkflowCreate Supporting DocumentationWrite the DRP SummarySelect DRP Publishing StrategyIntegrate into Core IT ProcessesConduct an Annual Focused Review

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Select criteria for assessing DRP tools.
  • Evaluate categories for DRP tools.
  • Optional: Write an RFP for a BCM tool.

This step involves the following participants:

  • DRP Owner

Outcomes of this step

  • Identified strategies for publishing your DRP (i.e. making it available to your DR team).

Info-Tech Insights

Diversify your publishing strategy to ensure you can access your DRP in a disaster. For example, if you are using a BCM tool or SharePoint Online as your primary documentation repository, also push the DRP to your DR team’s smartphones as a backup in case the disaster affects internet access.

2.1 — Select a DR publishing and document management strategy that fits your organization

Publishing and document management considerations:

Portability/External Access: Assume your primary site is down and inaccessible. Can you still access your documentation? As shown in this chart, traditional strategies of either keeping a copy at another location (e.g. at the failover site) or with staff (e.g. on a USB drive) still dominate, but these aren’t necessarily the best options. ➔
 A bar chart titled 'Portability Strategy Popularity'. 'External Website (wiki site, cloud-based DRP tool, etc.)' scored 16%. 'Failover Site (network drive or redundant SharePoint, etc.)' scored 53%. 'Distribute to Staff (use USB drive, personal email, etc.)' scored 50%. 'Not Accessible Offsite' scored 7%.
Note: Percentages total more than 100% due to respondents using more than one portability strategy.
(Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=118)
Maintainability/Usability: How easy is it to create, update, and use the documentation? Is it easy to link to other documents as shown in the flowchart and checklist examples? Is there version control? Lack of version control can create a maintenance nightmare as well as issues in a crisis if staff are questioning whether they have the right version.
Cost/Effort: Is the cost and effort appropriate? For example, a large enterprise may need a formal solution (e.g. DRP tools or SharePoint), but the cost might be hard to justify for a smaller company.

Pros and cons of potential strategies

This section will review the following strategies, their pros and cons, and how they meet publishing and document management requirements:

  • DRP tools (e.g. eBRP, Recovery Planner, LDRPS)
  • In-house solutions combining SharePoint and MS Office (or equivalent)
  • Wiki site
  • “Manual” approaches such as storing documents on a USB drive

Avoid 42 hours of downtime due to a non-diversified publishing strategy

CASE STUDY

Industry Municipality
Source Interview

Situation

  • A municipal government has recently completed an end-to-end disaster recovery plan.
  • The team is feeling good about the fact that they were able to identify:
    • Relative criticality of applications.
    • Dependencies for each application.
    • Incident response plans for the current state and desired state.
    • System recovery procedures.

Challenge

  • While the DR plan itself was comprehensive, the team only published the DR onto the government’s network drives.
  • A power generation issue caused power to be shut down, which in turn cascaded into downtime for the network.
  • Once the network was down, their DRP was inaccessible.

Insights

  • Each piece of documentation that was created could have contributed to recovery efforts. However, because they were inaccessible, there was a delayed response to the incident. The result was 42 hours of downtime for end users.
  • Having redundant publishing strategies is just like having redundant IT infrastructure. In the event of downtime, not only do you need to have DR documentation, but you also need to make sure that it is accessible.

Decide on a DR publishing strategy by looking at portability, maintainability, cost, and required effort

Supporting Tool icon 2.1.1 DRP Publishing and Management Evaluation Tool

Use the information included in Step 2.1 to guide your analysis of DRP publishing solutions.

The tool enables you to compare two possible solutions based on these key considerations discussed in this section:

  • Portability/external access
  • Maintainability/usability
  • Cost
  • Effort

The right choice will depend on factors such as current in-house tools, maturity around document management, the size of your IT department, and so on.

For example, a small shop may do very well with the USB drive strategy, whereas a multi-national company will need a more formal strategy to manage consistent DRP distribution.

Preview of Info-Tech's 'DRP Publishing and Management Solution Evaluation Tool'.

The DRP Publishing and Management Solution Evaluation Tool helps you to evaluate the tools included in this section.

Don’t think of a business continuity management (BCM) tool as a silver bullet; know what you’re getting out of it

Portability/External Access:
  • Pros: Typically a SaaS option provides built-in external access with appropriate security and user administration to vary access rights.
  • Cons: Degree of external access is often dependent on the vendor.
Maintainability/Usability:
  • Pros: Built-in templates encourage consistency and guide initial content development by indicating what details need to be captured.
  • Pros: Built-in document management (e.g. version control, metadata support), centralized access/navigation to required documents, and some automation (e.g. update contacts throughout the system).
  • Cons: Not a silver bullet. You still have to do the work to define and capture your processes.
  • Cons: Requires end-user and administrator training.
Cost/Effort:
  • Pros: For large enterprises, the convenience of built-in document management and templates can outweigh the cost.
  • Cons: Expect leading DRP tools to cost $20K or more per year.

About this approach:
BCM tools are solutions that provide templates, tools, and document management to create BC and DR documentation.

Info-Tech Insight

The business case for a BCM tool is built by answering the following questions:

  • Will the BCM tool solve an unmet need?
  • Will the tool be more effective and efficient than an in-house solution?
  • Will the solution provide enhanced capabilities that an in-house solution cannot provide?

If you cannot get a satisfactory answer to each of these questions, then opt for an in-house solution.

“We explored a DRP tool, and it was something we might have used, but it was tens of thousands of pounds per year, so it didn’t stack up financially for us at all.” (Rik Toms, Head of Strategy – IP and IT, Cable and Wireless Communications)

For in-house solutions, leverage tools such as SharePoint to provide document management capabilities

Portability/External Access:
  • Pros: SharePoint is commonly web-enabled and supports external access with appropriate security and user administration.
  • Cons: Must be installed at redundant sites or be cloud-based to be effective in a crisis that takes down your primary data center.
Maintainability/Usability:
  • Pros: Built-in document management (e.g. version control, metadata support) as well as centralized access/navigation to required documents.
  • Pros: No tool learning curve – SharePoint and MS Office would be existing solutions already used on a daily basis.
  • Cons: No built-in automation (e.g. automated updates to contacts throughout the system).
  • Cons: Consistency depends on creating templates and implementing processes for document updates, review, and approval.
Cost/Effort:
  • Pros: Using existing tools, so this is a sunk cost in terms of capex.
  • Cons: Additional effort required to create templates and manage the documentation library.

About this approach:
DRPs and SOPs most often start as MS Office documents, even if there is a DRP tool available. For organizations that elect to bypass a formal DRP tool, and most do, the biggest gap they have to overcome is document management.

Many organizations are turning to SharePoint to meet this need. For those that already have SharePoint in place, it makes sense to further leverage SharePoint for DR documentation and day-to-day SOPs.

For SharePoint to be a practical solution, the documentation must still be accessible if the primary data center is down, e.g. by having redundant SharePoint instances at multiple in-house locations, or using a cloud-based SharePoint solution.

“Just about everything that a DR planning tool does, you can do yourself using homegrown solutions or tools that you're already familiar with such as Word, Excel, and SharePoint.” (Allen Zuk, President and CEO, Sierra Management Consulting)

A healthcare company uses SharePoint as its DRP and SOP documentation management solution

CASE STUDY Healthcare

  • This organization is responsible for 50 medical facilities across three states.
  • It explored DRP tools, but didn’t find the right fit, so it has developed an in-house solution based in SharePoint. While DRP tools have improved, the organization no longer needs that type of solution. Its in-house solution is meeting its needs.
  • It has SharePoint instances at multiple locations to ensure availability if one site is down.

Documentation Strategy

  • Created an IT operations library in SharePoint for DR and SOPs, from basic support to bare-metal restore procedures.
  • SOPs are linked from SharePoint to the virtual help desk for greater accessibility.
  • Where practical, diagrams and flowcharts are used, e.g. DR process flowcharts and network services SOPs dominated by diagrams and flowcharts.

Management Strategy

  • Directors and the CIO have made finishing off SOPs their performance improvement objective for the year. The result is staff have made time to get this work done.
  • Status updates are posted monthly, and documentation is a regular agenda item in leadership meetings.
  • Regular tabletop testing validates documentation and ensures familiarity with procedures, including where to find required information.

Results

  • Dependency on a few key individuals has been reduced. All relevant staff know what they need to do and where to access required documentation.
  • SOPs are enabling DR training as well as day-to-day operations training for new staff.
  • The organization has a high confidence in its ability to recovery from a disaster within established timelines.

Explore using a wiki site as an inexpensive alternative to SharePoint and other content management solutions

Portability/External Access:
  • Pros: Wiki sites can support external access as with any web solution.
  • Cons: Must be installed at redundant sites, hosted, or cloud-based to be effective in a crisis that takes down your primary data center.
Maintainability/Usability:
  • Pros: Built-in document management (version control, metadata support, etc.) as well as centralized access/navigation to required information.
  • Pros: Authorized users can make updates dynamically, depending on how much restriction you have on the site.
  • Cons: No built-in automation (e.g. automated updates to contacts throughout the system).
  • Cons: Consistency depends on creating templates and implementing processes for document updates, review, and approval.
Cost/Effort:
  • Pros: An inexpensive option compared to traditional content management solutions such as SharePoint.
  • Cons: Learning curve if wikis are new to your organization.

About this approach:
Wiki sites are websites where users collaborate to create and edit the content. Wikipedia is an example.

While wiki sites are typically used for collaboration and dynamic content development, the traditional collaborative authoring model can be restricted to provide structure and an approval process.

Several tools are available to create and manage wiki sites (and other collaboration solutions), as outlined in the following research:

Info-Tech Insight

If your organization is not already using wiki sites, this technology can introduce a culture shock. Start slow by using a wiki site within a specific department or for a particular project. Then evaluate how well your staff adapt to this technology as well as its potential effectiveness in your organization. Refer to our collaboration strategy research for additional guidance.

For small IT shops, distributing documentation to key staff (e.g. via a USB drive) can still be effective

Portability/External Access:
  • Pros: Appropriate staff have the documentation with them; there is no need to log into a remote site or access a tool to get at the information.
  • Cons: Relies on staff to be diligent about ensuring they have the latest documentation and keep it with them (not leave it in their desk drawer).
Maintainability/Usability:
  • Pros: With this strategy, MS Office (or equivalent) is used to create and maintain the documentation, so there is no learning curve.
  • Pros: Simple, straightforward methodology – keep the master on a network drive, and download a copy to your USB drive.
  • Cons: No built-in automation (e.g. automated updates to contact information) or document management (e.g. version control).
  • Cons: Consistency depends on creating templates and implementing rigid processes for document updates, review, and approval.
Cost/Effort:
  • Pros: Little to no cost and no tool management required.
  • Cons: “Manual” document management requires strict attention to process for version control, updates, approvals, and distribution.

About this approach:
With this strategy, your ERT and key IT staff keep a copy of your DRP and relevant documentation with them (e.g. on a USB drive). If the primary site experiences a major event, they have ready access to the documentation.

Fifty percent of respondents in our recent survey use this strategy. A common scenario is to use a shared network drive or a solution such as SharePoint as the master centralized repository, but distribute a copy to key staff.

Info-Tech Insight

This approach can have similar disadvantages as using hard copies. Ensuring the USB drives are up to date, and that all staff who might need access have a copy, can become a burdensome process. More often, USB drives are updated periodically, so there is the risk that the information will be out of date or incomplete.

Avoid extensive use of paper copies of DR documentation

DR documents need to be easy to update, accessible from anywhere, and searchable. Paper doesn’t meet these needs.

Portability/External Access:
  • Pros: Does not rely on technology or power.
  • Cons: Requires all staff who might be involved in a DR to have a copy, and to have it with them at all times, to truly have access at any time from anywhere.
Maintainability/Usability:
  • Pros: In terms of usability, again there is no dependence on technology.
  • Cons: Updates need to be printed and distributed to all relevant staff every time there is a change to ensure staff have access to the latest, most accurate documentation if a disaster occurred. You can’t schedule disasters, so information needs to be current all the time.
  • Cons: Navigation to other information is manual – flipping through pages, etc. No searching or hyperlinks.
Cost/Effort:
  • Pros: No technology system to maintain, aside from what you use for printing.
  • Cons: Printing expenses are actually among the highest incurred by organizations, and this adds to it.
  • Cons: Labor intensive due to need to print and physically distribute documentation updates.

About this approach:
Traditionally DRPs are printed and distributed to managers and/or kept in a central location at both the primary site and a secondary site. In addition, wallet cards are distributed that contain key information such as contact numbers.

A wallet card or even a few printed copies of your high-level DRP for general reference can be helpful, but paper is not a practical solution for your overall DR documentation library, particularly when you include SOPs for recovery procedures.

One argument in favor of paper is there is no dependency on power during a crisis. However, in a power outage, staff can use smartphones and potentially laptops (with battery power) to access electronically stored documentation to get through first response steps. In addition, your DR site should have backup power to be an appropriate recovery site.

Optional: Partial list of BCM tool vendors

A partial list of BCM tool vendors, including: Business Protector, catalyst, clearview, ContinuityLogic. Fusion, Logic Manager, Quantivate, RecoveryPlanner.com, MetricStream, SimpleRisk, riskonnect, Strategic BCP - ResilienceONE, RSA, and Sungard Availability Services.

The list is only a partial list of BCM tool vendors. The order in which vendors are presented, and inclusion in this list, does not represent an endorsement.

Optional: Use our list of requirements as a foundation for selecting and reviewing BCM tools

Supporting Tool icon 2.1.2 BCM Tool – RFP Selection Criteria

If a BCM tool is the best option for your environment, expedite the evaluation process with our BCM Tool – RFP Selection Criteria.

Through advisory services, workshops, and consulting engagements, we have created this BCM Tool Requirements List. The featured requirements includes the following categories:

  1. Integrations
  2. Planning and Monitoring
  3. Administration
  4. Architecture
  5. Security
  6. Support and Training
Preview of the Info-Tech template 'BCM Tool – RFP Selection Criteria'.

This BCM Tool – RFP Selection Criteria can be appended to an RFP. You can leverage Info-Tech’s RFP Template if your organization does not have one.

Info-Tech can write full RFPs

As part of a consulting engagement, Info-Tech can write RFPs for BCM tools and provide a customized scoring tool based on your environment’s unique requirements.

Phase 3: Keep Your DRP Relevant Through Maintenance Best Practices

Step 3.1: Integrate DRP maintenance into core IT processes

PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
1.11.21.32.13.13.2
Start with a Recovery WorkflowCreate Supporting DocumentationWrite the DRP SummarySelect DRP Publishing StrategyIntegrate into Core IT ProcessesConduct an Annual Focused Review

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Integrate DRP maintenance with Project Management.
  • Integrate DRP considerations into Change Management.
  • Integrate with Performance Management.

This step involves the following participants:

  • DRP Owner
  • Head of Project Management Office
  • Head of Change Advisory Board
  • CIO

Outcomes of this step

  • Updated project intake form.
  • Updated change management practice.
  • Updated performance appraisals.

3.1 — Incorporate DRP maintenance into core IT processes

Focusing on these three processes will help ensure that your plan stays current, accurate, and usable.

The Info-Tech / COBIT5 'IT Management and Governance Framework' with three processes highlighted: 'MEA01 Performance Measurement', 'BAI06 Change Management', and 'BAI01 Project Management'.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Prioritize quick wins that will have large benefits. The advice presented in this section offers easy ways to help keep your DRP up to date. These simple solutions can save a lot of time and effort for your DRP team as opposed to more intricate changes to the processes above.

Assess how new projects impact service criticality and DR requirements upfront during project intake

 Icon for process 'BAI01 Project Management'.
Supporting Tool icon 3.1.1 Sample Project Intake Form Addendum

Understand the RTO/RPO requirements and IT impacts for new or enhanced services to ensure appropriate provisioning and overall DRP updates.

  • Have submitters include service continuity requirements. This information can be inserted into your business impact analysis. Use similar language that you use in your own BIA.
    • The submitter should know how critical the resulting project will be. Any items that the submitter doesn’t know, the Project Steering Committee should investigate.
  • Have IT assess the impact on the DRP. The submitter will not know how the DRP will be impacted directly. Ask the project committee to consider how DRP documentation and the DR environment will need to be changed due to the project under consideration.

Note: The goal is not to make DR a roadblock, but rather to ensure project requirements will be met – including availability and DR requirements.

Preview of the Info-Tech template 'Project Intake Form'.

This Project Intake Form asks the submitter to fill out the availability and criticality requirements for the project.

Leverage your change management process to identify required DRP updates as they occur

 Icon for process 'BAI06 Change Management'.

Avoid the year-end rush to update your DRP. Keeping it up to date as changes occur saves time in the long run and ensures your plan is accurate when you need it.

  • As part of your change management process, identify potential updates to:
    • System documentation (e.g. configuration settings).
    • Recovery procedures (e.g. if a system has been virtualized, that changes the recovery procedure).
    • Your DR environment (e.g. system configuration updates for standby systems).
  • Keep track of how often a system has changed. Relevant DRP documentation might be due for a deeper review:
    • After a system has been changed ten times (even from routine changes), notify your DRP Manager to flag the relevant DRP documentation for review.
    • As part of formal DRP reviews, pay closer attention to DRP documentation for the flagged systems.
Preview of the Info-Tech template 'Disaster Recovery Change Management'.

This template asks the submitter to fill out the availability and criticality requirements for the project.

For change management best practices beyond DRP considerations, please see Optimize Change Management.

Integrate documentation into performance measurement and performance management

 Icon for process 'MEA01 Performance Measurement'.

Documentation is a necessary evil – few like to create it and more immediate tasks take priority. If it isn’t scheduled and prioritized, it won’t happen.

Why documentation is such a challenge

How management can address these challenges
We all know that IT staff typically do not like to write documentation. That’s not why they were hired, and good documentation is not what gets them promoted. Include documentation deliverables in your IT staff’s performance appraisal to stress the importance of ensuring documentation is up to date, especially where it might impact DR success.
Similarly, documentation is secondary to more urgent tasks. Time to write documentation is often not allocated by project managers. Schedule time for developing documentation, just like any other project, or it won’t happen.
Writing manuals is typically a time-intensive task. Focus on what is necessary for another experienced IT professional to execute the recovery. As discussed earlier, often a diagram or checklist is good enough and actually far more usable in a crisis.

“Our directors and our CIO have tied SOP work to performance evaluations, and SOP status is reviewed during management meetings. People have now found time to get this work done.” (Assistant Director – IT Operations, Healthcare Industry)

Step 3.2: Conduct an Annual Focused Review

PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
1.11.21.32.13.13.2
Start with a Recovery WorkflowCreate Supporting DocumentationWrite the DRP SummarySelect DRP Publishing StrategyIntegrate into Core IT ProcessesConduct an Annual Focused Review

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  1. Identify components of your DRP to refresh.
  2. Identify organizational changes requiring further focus.
  3. Test your DRP and identify problems.
  4. Correct problems identified with DRP.

This step involves the following participants:

  • DRP Owner
  • System SMEs
  • Backup DR Personnel

Outcomes of this step

  • An actionable, up-to-date DRP.

Info-Tech Insight

Testing is a waste of time and resources if you do not fix what’s broken. Tabletop testing is effective at uncovering gaps in your DR processes, but if you don’t address those gaps, then your DRP will still be unusable in a disaster.

Set up a safety net to capture changes that slipped through the cracks with a focused review process

Evaluate documentation supporting high-priority systems, as well as documentation supporting IT systems that have been significantly changed.

  • Ideally you’re maintaining documentation as you go along. But you need to have an annual review to catch items that may have slipped through.
  • Don’t review everything. Instead, review:
    • IT systems that have had 10+ changes: small changes and updates can add up over time. Ensure:
      • The plans for these systems are updated for changes (e.g. configuration changes).
      • SMEs and backup personnel are familiar with the changes.
    • Tier 1 / Gold Systems: Ensure that you can still recover tier 1 systems with your existing DRP documentation.
  • Track documentation issues that you discovered with your ticketing system or service desk tool to ensure necessary documentation changes are made.
  1. Annual Focused Review
  2. Tier 1 Systems
  3. Significantly Changed Systems
  4. Organizational Changes

Identify larger changes, both organizational and within IT, that necessitate DRP updates

During your focused review, consider how organizational changes have impacted your DRP.

The COBIT 5 Enablers provide a foundation for this analysis. Consider:

  • Changes in regulatory requirements: Are there new requirements for IT that are not reflected in your DRP? Is the organization required to comply with any additional regulations?
  • Changes to organizational structures, business processes, and how employees work: Can employees still be productive once tier 1 services are restored or have RTOs changed? Has organizational turnover impacted your DRP?
  • SMEs leaving or changing roles: Can IT still execute your DRP? Are there still people for all the key roles?
  • Changes to IT infrastructure and applications: Can the business still access the information they need during a disaster? Is your BIA still accurate? Do new services need to be considered tier 1?

Info-Tech Best Practice

COBIT 5 Enablers
What changes need to be reflected in your DRP?

A cycle visualization titled 'Disaster Recovery Plan'. Starting at 'Changes in Regulatory Requirements', it proceeds clockwise to 'Organizational Structure', 'Changes in Business Processes', and 'How Employees Work', before it returns to DRP. Then 'Changes to Applications', 'Changes to Infrastructure', 'SMEs Leaving or Changing Roles', and then back to the DRP.

Create a plan during your annual focused review to test your DRP throughout the year

Regardless of your documentation approach, training and familiarity with relevant procedures is critical.

  • Start with tabletop exercises and progress to technology-based testing (simulation, parallel, and full-scale testing).
  • Ask staff to reference documentation while testing, even if they do not need to. This practice helps to confirm documentation accuracy and accessibility.
  • Incorporate cross-training in DR testing. This gives important experience to backup personnel and will further validate that documents are complete and accurate.
  • Track any discovered documentation issues with your ticketing system or project tracking tools to ensure necessary documentation changes are made.

Example Test Schedule:

  1. Q1: Tabletop testing shadowed by backup personnel
  2. Q2: Tabletop testing led by backup personnel
  3. Q3: Technology-based testing
  4. Annual Focused Review: Review Results

Reference this blueprint for guidance on DRP testing plans: Reduce Costly Downtime Through DR Testing

Appendix A: XMPL Case Study

Follow XMPL Medical’s journey through DR documentation

CASE STUDY

Industry Healthcare
Source Created by amalgamating data from Info-Tech’s client base

Streamline your documentation and maintenance process by following the approach outlined in XMPL Medical’s journey to an end-to-end DRP.

Outline of the Disaster Recovery Plan

XMPL’s disaster recovery plan includes its business impact analysis and a subset of tier 1 and tier 2 patient care applications.

Its DRP includes incident response flowcharts, system recovery checklists, and a communication plan. Its DRP also references IT operations documentation (e.g. asset management documents, system specs, and system configuration docs), but this material is not published with the example documentation.

Resulting Disaster Recovery Plan

XMPL’s DRP includes actionable documents in the form of high-level disaster response plan flowcharts and system recovery checklists. During an incident, the DR team is able to clearly see the items for which they are responsible.

Disaster Recovery Plan
  • Recovery Workflow
  • Business Impact Analysis
  • DRP Summary
  • System Recovery Checklists
  • Communication, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan

Info-Tech Best Practice

XMPL Medical’s disaster recovery plan illustrates an effective DRP. Model your end-to-end disaster recovery plan after XMPL’s completed templates. The specific data points will differ from organization to organization, but the structure of each document will be similar.

Model your disaster recovery documentation off of our example

CASE STUDY

Industry Healthcare
Source Created by amalgamating data from Info-Tech’s client base

Recovery Workflow:

  • Recovery Workflows (PDF, VSDX)

Recovery Procedures (Systems Recovery Playbook):

  • DR Notification, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan
  • Systems Recovery Playbook
  • Network Topology Diagrams

Additional Reference Documentation:

  • DRP Workbook
  • Business Impact Analysis
  • DRP Summary Document

Use our structure to create your practical disaster recovery plan.

Appendix B: Summary, Next Steps, and Bibliography

Insight breakdown

Use visual-based documentation instead of a traditional DRP manual.

  • Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams are more concise, easier to maintain, and more effective in a crisis.
  • Write for an IT audience and focus on how to recover. You don’t need 30 pages of fluff describing the purpose of the document.

Create your DRP in layers to keep the work manageable.

  • Start with a recovery workflow to ensure a coordinated response, and build out supporting documentation over time.

Prioritize quick wins to make DRP maintenance easier and more likely to happen.

  • Incorporate DRP maintenance into change management and project intake procedures to systematically update and refine the DR documentation. Don’t save up changes for a year-end blitz, which turns document maintenance into an onerous project.

Summary of accomplishment

Knowledge Gained

  • How to create visual-based DRP documentation
  • How to integrate DRP maintenance into core IT processes

Processes Optimized

  • DRP documentation creation
  • DRP publishing tool selection
  • DRP documentation maintenance

Deliverables Completed

  • DRP documentation
  • Strategy for publishing your DRP
  • Modified project-intake form
  • Change management checklist for DR considerations

Project step summary

Client Project: Document and Maintain Your Disaster Recovery Plan

  • Create a recovery workflow.
  • Create supporting DRP documentation.
  • Write a summary for your DRP.
  • Decide on a publishing strategy.
  • Incorporate DRP maintenance into core IT processes.
  • Conduct an annual focused review.

Info-Tech Insight

This project has the ability to fit the following formats:

  • Onsite workshop by Info-Tech Research Group consulting analysts.
  • Do-it-yourself with your team.
  • Remote delivery (Info-Tech Guided Implementation).

Related Info-Tech research

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

Reduce Costly Downtime Through DR Testing
Improve the accuracy of your DRP and your team’s ability to efficiently execute recovery procedures through regular DR testing.

Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind
Go beyond satisfying auditors to drive process improvement, consistent IT operations, and effective knowledge transfer.

Prepare for a DRP Audit
Assess your current DRP maturity, identify required improvements, and complete an audit-ready DRP summary document.

Bibliography

A Structured Approach to Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and the Requirements of ISO 31000. The Association of Insurance and Risk Managers, Alarm: The Public Risk Management Association, and The Institute of Risk Management, 2010.

“APO012: Manage Risk.” COBIT 5: Enabling Processes. ISACA, 2012.

Bird, Lyndon, Ian Charters, Mel Gosling, Tim Janes, James McAlister, and Charlie Maclean-Bristol. Good Practice Guidelines: A Guide to Global Good Practice in Business Continuity. Global ed. Business Continuity Institute, 2013.

COBIT 5: A Business Framework for the Governance and Management of Enterprise IT. ISACA, 2012.

“EDM03: Ensure Risk Optimisation.” COBIT 5: Enabling Processes. ISACA, 2012.

Risk Management. ISO 31000:2009.

Rothstein, Philip Jan. Disaster Recovery Testing: Exercising Your Contingency Plan. Rothstein Associates: 1 Oct. 2007.

Societal Security – Business continuity management systems – Guidance. ISO 22313:2012.

Societal Security – Business continuity management systems – Requirements. ISO 22301:2012.

Understanding and Articulating Risk Appetite. KPMG, 2008.

Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A

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  • Assuming that all parties are compliant in their licensing is a risky proposition. Most organizations are deficient in some manner of licensing. Know where those gaps are before finalizing M&A activity and have a plan in place to mitigate them right away.
  • Vendors will target companies that have undergone recent M&A activity with an audit. Vendors know that the many moving parts of M&A activity often result in license shortfall, and they may look to capitalize during the transition with audit revenue.
  • New organizational structure can offer new licensing opportunities. Take advantage of the increased volume discounting, negotiation leverage, and consolidation opportunities afforded by a merger or acquisition.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • To mitigate risks and create accurate cost estimates, create a contingency fund to compensate for unavailability of information.
  • Gathering and analyzing information is an iterative process that is ongoing throughout due diligence. Update your assumptions, risks, and budget as you obtain new information.
  • Communication with the M&A team and business process owners should be constant throughout due diligence. IT integration does not exist in isolation.

Impact and Result

  • CIOs must be part of the conversation during the exploration/due diligence phase before the deal is closed to examine licensing compliance and software costs that could have a direct result on the valuation of the new organization.
  • Both organizations must conduct thorough due diligence (such as internal SAM audits), analyze the information, and define critical assumptions to create a strategy for the resultant IT enterprise.
  • The IT team is involved in integration, synergy realization, and cost considerations that the business often does not consider or take into account with respect to IT. License transfer, assignability, use, and geographic rights all come into play and can be overlooked.

Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you shouldn’t allow software licensing to derail your M&A deal, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Understand the M&A process with respect to software licensing

Grasp the key pain points of software licensing and the effects it has on an M&A. Review the benefits of early IT involvement and identify IT’s capabilities.

  • Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A – Phase 1: M&A Overview
  • M&A Software Asset Maturity Assessment

2. Perform due diligence

Understand the various steps and process when conducting due diligence. Request information and assess risks, make assumptions, and budget costs.

  • Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A – Phase 2: Due Diligence
  • License Inventory
  • IT Due Diligence Report
  • M&A Software Asset RACI Template

3. Prepare for integration

Take a deeper dive into the application portfolios and vendor contracts of both organizations. Review integration strategies and design the end-state of the resultant organization.

  • Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A – Phase 3: Pre-Integration Planning
  • Effective Licensing Position Tool
  • IT Integration Roadmap Tool

4. Execute on the integration plan

Review initiatives being undertaken to ensure successful integration execution. Discuss long-term goals and how to communicate with vendors to avoid licensing audits.

  • Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A – Phase 4: Integration Execution
[infographic]

Workshop: Don’t Allow Software Licensing to Derail Your M&A

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 M&A Overview

The Purpose

Identify the goals and objectives the business has for the M&A.

Understand cultural and organizational structure challenges and red flags.

Identify SAM/licensing challenges and red flags.

Conduct maturity assessment.

Clarify stakeholder responsibilities.

Build and structure the M&A team.

Key Benefits Achieved

The capabilities required to successfully examine software assets and licensing during the M&A transaction.

M&A business goals and objectives identified.

IT M&A team selected.

Severity of SAM challenges and red flags examined.

Activities

1.1 Document pain points from previous experience.

1.2 Identify IT opportunities during M&A.

Outputs

M&A Software Asset Maturity Assessment

2 Due Diligence

The Purpose

Take a structured due diligence approach that properly evaluates the current state of the organization.

Review M&A license inventory and use top five vendors as example sets.

Identify data capture and reporting methods/tools.

Scheduling challenges.

Scope level of effort and priority list.

Common M&A pressures (internal/external).

Key Benefits Achieved

A clear understanding of the steps that are involved in the due diligence process.

Recognition of the various areas from which information will need to be collected.

Licensing pitfalls and compliance risks to be examined.

Knowledge of terms and conditions that will limit ability in pre-integration planning.

Activities

2.1 Identify IT capabilities for an M&A.

2.2 Create your due diligence team and assign accountability.

2.3 Use Info-Tech’s IT Due Diligence Report Template to track key elements.

2.4 Document assumptions to back up cost estimates and risk.

Outputs

M&A Software Asset RACI Template

IT Due Diligence Report

3 Pre-Integration Planning

The Purpose

Review and map legal operating entity structure for the resultant organization.

Examine impact on licensing scenarios for top five vendors.

Identify alternative paths and solutions.

Complete license impact for top five vendors.

Brainstorm action plan to mitigate negative impacts.

Discuss and explore the scalable process for second level agreements.

Key Benefits Achieved

Identification of the ideal post-M&A application portfolio and licensing structures.

Recognition of the key considerations when determining the appropriate combination of IT integration strategies.

Design of vendor contracts for the resultant enterprise.

Recognition of how to create an IT integration budget.

Activities

3.1 Work with the senior management team to review how the new organization will operate.

3.2 Document the strategic goals and objectives of IT’s integration program.

3.3 Interview business leaders to understand how they envision their business units.

3.4 Perform internal SAM audit.

3.5 Create a library of all IT processes in the target organization as well as your own.

3.6 Examine staff using two dimensions: competency and capacity.

3.7 Design the end-state.

3.8 Communicate your detailed pre-integration roadmap with senior leadership and obtain sign-off.

Outputs

IT Integration Roadmap Tool

Effective License Position

4 Manage Post-M&A Activities

The Purpose

Finalize path forward for top five vendors based on M&A license impact.

Disclose findings and financial impact estimate to management.

Determine methods for second level agreements to be managed.

Provide listing of specific recommendations for top five list.

Key Benefits Achieved

Initiatives generated and executed upon to achieve the technology end-state of each IT domain.

Vendor audits avoided.

Contracts amended and vendors spoken to.

Communication with management on achievable synergies and quick wins.

Activities

4.1 Identify initiatives necessary to realize the application end-state.

4.2 Identify initiatives necessary to realize the end-state of IT processes.

4.3 Identify initiatives necessary to realize the end-state of IT staffing.

4.4 Prioritize initiatives based on ease of implementation and overall business impact.

4.5 Manage vendor relations.

Outputs

IT Integration Roadmap Tool

Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy

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  • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Applications
  • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-applications
  • Communication and collaboration portfolios are overburdened with redundant and overlapping services. Between Office 365, Slack, Jabber, and WebEx, IT is supporting a collection of redundant apps. This redundancy takes a toll on IT, and on the user.
  • Shadow IT is easier than ever, and cheap sharing tools are viral. Users are literally carrying around computers in their pockets (in the form of smartphones). IT often has no visibility into how these devices – and the applications on them – are used for work.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • You don’t know what you don’t know. Unstructured conversations with users will uncover insights.
  • Security is meaningless without usability. If security controls make a tool unusable, then users will rush to adopt something that’s free and easy.
  • Training users on a new tool once isn’t effective. Engage with users throughout the collaboration tool’s lifecycle.

Impact and Result

  • Few supported apps and fewer unsupported apps. This will occur by ensuring that your collaboration tools will be useful to and used by users. Give users a say through surveys, focus groups, and job shadowing.
  • Lower total cost of ownership and greater productivity. Having fewer apps in the workplace, and better utilizing the functionality of those apps, will mean that IT can be much more efficient at managing your ECS.
  • Higher end-user satisfaction. Tools will be better suited to users’ needs, and users will feel heard by IT.

Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a new approach to communication and collaboration apps, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Create a shared vision on the future of communication and collaboration

Identify and validate goals and collaboration tools that are used by your users, and the collaboration capabilities that must be supported by your desired ECS.

  • Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy – Phase 1: Create a Shared Vision on the Future of Communication and Collaboration
  • Enterprise Collaboration Strategy Template
  • Building Company Communication and Collaboration Technology Improvement Plan Executive Presentation
  • Communications Infrastructure Stakeholder Focus Group Guide
  • Enterprise Communication and Collaboration System Business Requirements Document

2. Map a path forward

Map a path forward by creating a collaboration capability map and documenting your ECS requirements.

  • Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy – Phase 2: Map a Path Forward
  • Collaboration Capability Map

3. Build an IT and end-user engagement plan

Effectively engage everyone to ensure the adoption of your new ECS. Engagement is crucial to the overall success of your project.

  • Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy – Phase 3: Proselytize the Change
  • Collaboration Business Analyst
  • Building Company Exemplar Collaboration Marketing One-Pager Materials
  • Communication and Collaboration Strategy Communication Plan
[infographic]

Workshop: Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Identify What Needs to Change

The Purpose

Create a vision for the future of your ECS.

Key Benefits Achieved

Validate and bolster your strategy by involving your end users.

Activities

1.1 Prioritize Components of Your ECS Strategy to Improve

1.2 Create a Plan to Gather Requirements From End Users

1.3 Brainstorm the Collaboration Services That Are Used by Your Users

1.4 Focus Group

Outputs

Defined vision and mission statements

Principles for your ECS

ECS goals

End-user engagement plan

Focus group results

ECS executive presentation

ECS strategy

2 Map Out the Change

The Purpose

Streamline your collaboration service portfolio.

Key Benefits Achieved

Documented the business requirements for your collaboration services.

Reduced the number of supported tools.

Increased the effectiveness of training and enhancements.

Activities

2.1 Create a Current-State Collaboration Capability Map

2.2 Build a Roadmap for Desired Changes

2.3 Create a Future-State Capability Map

2.4 Identify Business Requirements

2.5 Identify Use Requirements and User Processes

2.6 Document Non-Functional Requirements

2.7 Document Functional Requirements

2.8 Build a Risk Register

Outputs

Current-state collaboration capability map

ECS roadmap

Future-state collaboration capability map

ECS business requirements document

3 Proselytize the Change

The Purpose

Ensure the system is supported effectively by IT and adopted widely by end users.

Key Benefits Achieved

Unlock the potential of your ECS.

Stay on top of security and industry good practices.

Greater end-user awareness and adoption.

Activities

3.1 Develop an IT Training Plan

3.2 Develop a Communications Plan

3.3 Create Initial Marketing Material

Outputs

IT training plan

Communications plan

App marketing one-pagers

Master M&A Cybersecurity Due Diligence

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  • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
  • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance

This research is designed to help organizations who are preparing for a merger or acquisition and need help with:

  • Understanding the information security risks associated with the acquisition or merger.
  • Avoiding the unwanted possibility of acquiring or merging with an organization that is already compromised by cyberattackers.
  • Identifying best practices for information security integration post merger.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

The goal of M&A cybersecurity due diligence is to assess security risks and the potential for compromise. To succeed, you need to look deeper.

Impact and Result

  • A repeatable methodology to systematically conduct cybersecurity due diligence.
  • A structured framework to rapidly assess risks, conduct risk valuation, and identify red flags.
  • Look deeper by leveraging compromise diagnostics to increase confidence that you are not acquiring a compromised entity.

Master M&A Cybersecurity Due Diligence Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to master M&A cyber security due diligence, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand how we can support you in completing this project.

[infographic]

Manage the Active Directory in the Service Desk

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  • Actively maintaining the Active Directory is a difficult task that only gets more difficult with issues like stale accounts and privilege creep.
  • Adding permissions without removing them in lateral transfers creates access issues, especially when regulatory requirements like HIPAA require tight controls.
  • With the importance of maintaining and granting permissions within the Active Directory, organizations are hesitant to grant domain admin access to Tier 1 of the service desk. However, inundating Tier 2 analysts with requests to grant permissions takes away project time.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Do not treat the Active Directory like a black box. Strive for accurate data and be proactive by managing your monitoring and audit schedules.
  • Catch outage problems before they happen by splitting monitoring tasks between daily, weekly, and monthly routines.
  • Shift left to save resourcing by employing workflow automation or scripted authorization for Tier 1 technicians.
  • Design actionable metrics to monitor and manage your Active Directory.

Impact and Result

  • Consistent and right-sized monitoring and updating of the Active Directory is key to clean data.
  • Split monitoring activities between daily, weekly, and monthly checklists to raise efficiency.
  • If need be, shift-left strategies can be implemented for identity and access management by scripting the process so that it can be done by Tier 1 technicians.

Manage the Active Directory in the Service Desk Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should manage your Active Directory in the service desk, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Maintain your Active Directory with clean data

Building and maintaining your Active Directory does not have to be difficult. Standardized organization and monitoring with the proper metrics help you keep your data accurate and up to date.

  • Active Directory Standard Operating Procedure
  • Active Directory Metrics Tool

2. Structure your service desk Active Directory processes

Build a comprehensive Active Directory workflow library for service desk technicians to follow.

  • Active Directory Process Workflows (Visio)
  • Active Directory Process Workflows (PDF)
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Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform

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  • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
  • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
  • The proliferation of social media networks, customer data, and use cases has made ad hoc social media management challenging.
  • Many organizations struggle with shadow IT when it comes to technology enablement for social media; SMMP fragmentation leads to increased costs and no uniformity in enterprise social media management capabilities.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • SMMP selection must be driven by your overall customer experience management strategy; link your SMMP selection to your organization’s CXM framework.
  • Shadow IT will dominate if IT does not step in. Even more so than other areas, SMMP selection is rife with shadow IT.
  • Ensure strong points of integration between SMMP and other software such as CRM. SMMPs can contribute to a unified, 360-degree customer view.

Impact and Result

  • The value proposition of SMMPs revolves around enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of social media. Using an SMMP to manage social media is considerably more cost effective than ad hoc (manual) management.
  • IT must partner with other departments (e.g. Marketing) to successfully evaluate, select, and implement an SMMP. Before selecting an SMMP, the organization must have a solid overall strategy for leveraging social media in place. If IT does not work as a trusted advisor to the business, shadow IT in social media management will be rampant.

Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement an SMMP, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Develop a technology enablement approach

Conduct a maturity assessment to determine whether a dedicated SMMP is right for your organization.

  • Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform – Phase 1: Develop a Technology Enablement Approach for Social Media
  • Social Media Maturity Assessment Tool
  • Social Media Opportunity Assessment Tool
  • SMMP Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool

2. Select an SMMP

Use the Vendor Landscape findings and project guidance to develop requirements for your SMMP RFP, and evaluate and shortlist vendors based on your expressed requirements.

  • Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform – Phase 2: Select an SMMP
  • SMMP Vendor Shortlist & Detailed Feature Analysis Tool
  • SMMP Vendor Demo Script
  • SMMP RFP Template
  • SMMP RFP Evaluation and Scoring Tool
  • Vendor Response Template

3. Review implementation considerations

Even a solution that is a perfect fit for an organization will fail to generate value if it is not properly implemented or measured. Conduct the necessary planning before implementing your SMMP.

  • Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform – Phase 3: Review Implementation Considerations
  • Social Media Steering Committee Charter Template
[infographic]

Workshop: Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Launch Your SMMP Selection Project

The Purpose

Discuss the general project overview for the SMMP selection.

Key Benefits Achieved

Determine your organization’s readiness for SMMP.

Activities

1.1 Identify organizational fit for the technology.

1.2 Evaluate social media opportunities within your organization.

1.3 Determine the best use-case scenario for your organization.

Outputs

Organizational maturity assessment

SMMP use-case fit assessment

2 Plan Your Procurement and Implementation Process

The Purpose

Plan the procurement and implementation of the SMMP.

Key Benefits Achieved

Select an SMMP.

Review implementation considerations.

Activities

2.1 Review use-case scenario results, identify use-case alignment

2.2 Review the SMMP Vendor Landscape vendor profiles and performance.

2.3 Create a custom vendor shortlist and investigate additional vendors for exploration in the marketplace.

2.4 Meet with the project manager to discuss results and action items.

Outputs

Vendor shortlist

SMMP RFP

Vendor evaluations

Selection of an SMMP

Framework for SMMP deployment and integration

Further reading

Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform

Rein in social media by choosing a management platform that’s right for you.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Enterprise use of social media for customer interaction has exploded. Select the right management platform to maximize the value of your social initiatives.

“Social media has rapidly become a ubiquitous channel for customer interaction. Organizations are using social media for use cases from targeted advertising, to sales prospecting, to proactive customer service. However, the growing footprint of social media initiatives – and the constant proliferation of new social networks – has created significant complexity in effectively capturing the value of social.

Organizations that are serious about social manage this complexity by leveraging dedicated social media management platforms. These platforms provide comprehensive capabilities for managing multiple social media networks, creating engagement and response workflows, and providing robust social analytics. Selecting a best-fit SMMP allows for standardized, enterprise-wide capabilities for managing all aspects of social media.

This report will help you define your requirements for social media management and select a vendor that is best fit for your needs, as well as review critical implementation considerations such as CRM integration and security.”

Ben Dickie
Research Director, Enterprise Applications
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Situation

  • Social media has reached maturity as a proven, effective channel for customer interaction across multiple use cases, from customer analytics to proactive customer service.
  • Organizations are looking to IT to provide leadership with social media technology enablement and integration with other enterprise systems.

Complication

  • The proliferation of social media networks, customer data, and use cases has made ad hoc social media management challenging.
  • Many organizations struggle with shadow IT when it comes to technology enablement for social media; SMMP fragmentation leads to increased costs and no uniformity in enterprise social media management capabilities.

Resolution

  • Social media management platforms (SMMPs) reduce complexity and increase the results of enterprise social media initiatives. SMMPs integrate with a variety of different social media services, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. The platforms offer a variety of tools for managing social media, including account management, in-band response and engagement, and social monitoring and analytics.
  • The value proposition of SMMPs revolves around enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of social media. Using an SMMP to manage social media is considerably more cost effective than ad hoc (manual) management.
  • IT must partner with other departments (e.g. Marketing) to successfully evaluate, select, and implement an SMMP. Before selecting an SMMP, the organization must have a solid overall strategy for leveraging social media in place. If IT does not work as a trusted advisor to the business, shadow IT in social media management will be rampant.

Info-Tech Insight

  1. SMMP selection must be driven by your overall customer experience management strategy: link your SMMP selection to your organization’s CXM framework.
  2. Shadow IT will dominate if IT does not step in: even more so than other areas, SMMP selection is rife with shadow IT.
  3. Ensure strong points of integration between SMMP and other software such as customer relationship management (CRM). SMMPs can contribute to a unified, 360-degree customer view.

Framing the SMMP selection and implementation project

This Research Is Designed For:
  • IT directors advising the business on how to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of social media campaigns through technology.
  • IT professionals involved in evaluating, selecting, and deploying an SMMP.
  • Business analysts tasked with collection and analysis of SMMP business requirements.
 This Research Will Help You:
  • Clearly link your business requirements to SMMP selection criteria.
  • Select an SMMP vendor that meets your organization’s needs across marketing, sales, and customer service use cases.
  • Adopt standard operating procedures for SMMP deployment that address issues such as platform security and CRM integration.
This Research Will Also Assist:
  • Executive-level stakeholders in the following roles:
    • Vice-president of Sales, Marketing, or Customer Service.
    • Business unit managers tasked with ensuring strong end-user adoption of an SMMP.
 This Research Will Help Them
  • Understand what’s new in the SMMP market.
  • Evaluate SMMP vendors and products for your enterprise needs.
  • Determine which products are most appropriate for particular use cases and scenarios.

Social media management platforms augment social capabilities within a broader customer experience ecosystem

Customer Experience Management (CXM)

'Customer Relationship Management Platform' surrounded by supporting capabilities, one of which is highlighted, 'Social Media Management Platform'.

 Social Media Management Platforms are one piece of the overall customer experience management ecosystem, alongside tools such as CRM platforms and adjacent point solutions for sales, marketing, and customer service. Review Info-Tech’s CXM blueprint to build a complete, end-to-end customer interaction solution portfolio that encompasses SMMP alongside other critical components. The CXM blueprint also allows you to develop strategic requirements for SMMP based on customer personas and external market analysis.

SMMPs reduce complexity and increase the effectiveness of enterprise social media programs

  • SMMPs are solutions (typically cloud based) that offer a host of features for effectively monitoring the social cloud and managing your organization’s presence in the social cloud. SMMPs give businesses the tools they need to run social campaigns in a timely and cost-effective manner.
  • The typical SMMP integrates with two or more social media services (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) via the services’ API or a dedicated connector. SMMPs are not simply a revised “interface layer” for a single social media service. They provide layers for advanced management and analytics across multiple services.
  • The unique value of SMMPs comes from their ability to manage and track multiple social media services. Aggregating and managing data from multiple services gives businesses a much more holistic view of their organization’s social initiatives and reputation in the social cloud.
 Diagram with 'End Users (e.g. marketing managers)' at the top and social platforms like Facebook and Twitter at the bottom; in between them are 'SMMPs’: 'Account & Campaign Management', 'Social Engagement', and 'Social Monitoring/Analytics'.
SMMPs mediate interactions between end users and the social cloud.

Info-Tech Best Practice

The increasing complexity of social media, coupled with the rising importance of social channels, has led to a market for formal management platforms. Organizations with an active presence in social media (i.e. multiple services or pages) should strongly consider selecting and deploying an SMMP.

Failing to rein in social media initiatives leads to more work, uninformed decisions, and diminishing returns

  • The growth of social media services has made manually updating pages and feeds an ineffective and time-consuming process. The challenge is magnified when multiple brands, product lines, or geographic subsidiaries are involved.
    • Use the advanced account management features of an SMMP to reduce the amount of time spent updating social media services.
  • Engaging customers through social channels can be a delicate task – high volumes of social content can easily overwhelm marketing and service representatives, leading to missed selling opportunities and unacceptable service windows.
    • Use the in-band engagement capabilities of an SMMP to create an orderly queue for social interactions.
  • Consumer activity in the social cloud has been increasing exponentially. As the volume of content grows, separating the signal from the noise becomes increasingly difficult.
    • Use the advanced social analytics of an SMMP to ensure critical consumer insights are not overlooked.
 Ad Hoc Management vs. SMMPs:
What’s the difference?

Ad Hoc Social Media Management

Social media initiatives are managed directly through the services themselves. For example, a marketing professional would log in to multiple corporate Twitter accounts to post the same content for a promotional campaign.

Social Media Management Platform

Social media initiatives are managed through a third-party software platform. For example, a marketing professional would update all social account simultaneously with just a couple clicks. SMMPs also provide cross-service social analytics – highly valuable for decision makers!

Info-Tech Best Practice

Effectively managing a social media campaign is not a straightforward exercise. If you have (or plan to have) a large social media footprint, now is the time to procure formal software tools for social media management. Continuing to manage social media in an ad hoc manner is sapping time and money.

Review the critical success factors for SMMP across the project lifecycle, from planning to post-implementation

Info-Tech Insight

Executive management support is crucial. The number one overall critical success factor for an SMMP strategy is top management support. This emphasizes the importance of sales, service, and marketing and prudent corporate strategic alignment. A strategic objective in SMMP projects is to position top management as an enabler rather than a barrier.

Planning Implementation Post-Implementation Overall
1 Appropriate Selection Project Management Top Management Support Top Management Support
2 Clear Project Goals Top Management Support Project Management Appropriate Selection
3 Top Management Support Training Training Project Management
4 Business Mission and Vision Effective Communication Effective Communication Training
5 Project Management Supplier Supports Appropriate Selection Clear Project Goals

(Source: Information Systems Frontiers)

Dell uses a dedicated social media management platform to power a comprehensive social command center

CASE STUDY
Industry: High-Tech | Source: Dell
With a truly global customer base, Dell gets about 22,000 mentions on the social web daily, and does not sit idly by. Having established a physical Social Media Command Center powered by Salesforce’s Social Studio, Dell was one of the companies that pioneered the command center concept for social response.

The SMMP carries out the following activities:

  • Tracking mentions of Dell in the social cloud
  • Sentiment analysis
  • Connecting customers who need assistance with experts who can help them
  • Social media training
  • Maintenance of standards for social media interactions
  • Spreading best social media practices across the organization

Today the company claims impressive results, including:

  • “Resolution rate” of 99% customer satisfaction
  • Boosting its customer reach with the same number of employees
  • One third of Dell’s former critics are now fans

Logo for Dell.

Tools:
  • Salesforce Social Studio
  • Three rows of monitors offering instant insights into customer sentiment, share of voice, and geography.
Staff:
  • The center started with five people; today it is staffed by a team of 15 interacting with customers in 11 languages.
  • Dell values human interaction; the center is not running on autopilot, and any ambiguous activity is analyzed (and dealt with) manually on an individual basis.

Follow Info-Tech’s methodology for selection and implementation of enterprise applications

Prior to embarking on the vendor selection stage, ensure you have set the right building blocks and completed the necessary prerequisites.

Diagram with 'Enterprise Applications' at the center surrounded by a cycle of 'conceptual', 'consensus', 'concrete', and 'continuous'. The outer circle has three categories with three actions each, 'Governance and Optimization: Process Optimization, Support/ Maintenance, Transition to Operations', 'Strategy and Alignment: Foundation, Assessment, Strategy/ Business Case', and 'Implementation: System Implementation, Business Process Management, Select and Implement'. Follow Info-Tech’s enterprise applications program that covers the application lifecycle from the strategy stage, through selection and implementation, and up to governance and optimization.

The implementation and execution stage entails the following steps:

  1. Define the business case.
  2. Gather and analyze requirements.
  3. Build the RFP.
  4. Conduct detailed vendor evaluations.
  5. Finalize vendor selection.
  6. Review implementation considerations.

Info-Tech Insight

A critical preceding task to selecting a social media management platform is ensuring a strategy is in place for enterprise social media usage. Use our social media strategy blueprint to ensure the foundational elements are in place prior to proceeding with platform selection.

Use this blueprint to support your SMMP selection and implementation

Launch the SMMP Project and Collect Requirements — Phase 1

Benefits — Use the project steps and activity instructions outlined in this blueprint to streamline your selection process and implementation planning. Save time and money, and improve the impact of your SMMP selection by leveraging Info-Tech’s research and project steps.

Select Your SMMP Solution — Phase 2

Use Info-Tech’s SMMP Vendor Landscape contained in Phase 2 of this project to support your vendor reviews and selection. Refer to the use-case performance results to identify vendors that align with the requirements and solution needs identified by your earlier project findings.

Get Ready for Your SMMP Implementation — Phase 3

Info-Tech Insight — Not everyone’s connection and integration needs are the same. Understand your own business’s integration environment and the unique technical and functional requirements that accompany them to create criteria and select a best-fit SMMP solution.

Use Info-Tech’s use-case scenario approach to select a best-fit solution for your business needs

Readiness

Determine where you are right now and where your organization needs to go with a social media strategy.

Three stages eventually leading to shapes in a house, 'Distributed Stage', 'Loosely Coupled Stage', and 'Command Center Stage'.		 Use-Case Assessment

Identify the best-fit use-case scenario to determine requirements that best align with your strategy.

Three blocks labelled 'Social Listening & Analytics', 'Social Customer Care', and 'Social Publishing & Campaign Management'.		 Selection

Approach vendor selection through a use-case centric lens to balance the need for different social capabilities.

Logos for vendors including Adobe, Hootsuite, CISION, and more.

Info-Tech walks you through the following steps to help you to successfully select and implement your SMMP

Steps of this blueprint represented by circles of varying colors and sizes, labelled by text of different sizes.

Locate your starting point in the research based on the current stage of your project.

Legend for the diagram above: lines represent Major Milestones, size of circles represent Low or High effort, size of text represents Average or Greater importance, and color of the circles represents the phase.

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

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform – project overview

1. Develop a Technology Enablement Approach 2. Select an SMMP 3. Review Implementation Considerations
Supporting Tool icon

Best-Practice Toolkit

1.1 Determine if a dedicated SMMP is right for your organization

  • Social Media Maturity Assessment Tool
  • Social Media Opportunity Assessment Tool

1.2 Use an SMMP to enable marketing, sales, and service use cases

  • SMMP Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool

2.1 SMMP Vendor Landscape

  • CRM Suite Evaluation and RFP Scoring Tool

2.2 Select your SMMP

  • SMMP Vendor Demo Script Template
  • SMMP RFP Template

3.1 Establish best practices for SMMP implementation

  • Social Media Steering Committee

3.2 Assess the measured value from the project

Guided Implementations
  • Identify organizational fit for the technology.
  • Evaluate social media opportunities within your organization.
  • Evaluate which SMMP use-case scenario is best fit for your organization
  • Discuss the use-case fit assessment results and the Vendor Landscape.
  • Review contract.
  • Determine what is the right governance structure to overlook the SMMP implementation.
  • Identify the right deployment model for your organization.
  • Identify key performance indicators for business units using an SMMP.
Associated Activity icon

Onsite Workshop

 Module 1:
Launch Your SMMP Selection Project		 Module 2:
Plan Your Procurement and Implementation Process
Phase 1 Outcome:
  • Social Media Maturity Assessment
  • SMMP Use-Case Assessment
 Phase 2 Outcome:
  • Selection of an SMMP
 Phase 3 Outcome:
  • A plan for implementing the selected SMMP

SMMP selection and implementation workshop overview

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

Day 1

Preparation

 Day 2

Workshop Day

 Day 3

Workshop Day

 Day 4

Workshop Day

 Day 5

Working Session
Workshop Preparation
  • Facilitator meets with the project manager and reviews the current project plans and IT landscape of the organization.
  • A review of scheduled meetings and engaged IT and business staff is performed.
 Morning Itinerary
  • Conduct activities from Develop a technology enablement approach for social media phase, including social media maturity and readiness assessment.
  • Conduct overview of the market landscape, trends, and vendors.
Afternoon Itinerary
  • Interview business stakeholders.
  • Prioritize SMMP requirements.
 Morning Itinerary
  • Perform a use-case scenario assessment.
Afternoon Itinerary
  • Review use-case scenario results; identify use-case alignment.
  • Review the SMMP Vendor Landscape vendor profiles and performance.
 Morning Itinerary
  • Continue review of SMMP Vendor Landscape results and use-case performance results.
Afternoon Itinerary
  • Create a custom vendor shortlist.
  • Investigate additional vendors for exploration in the market.
 Workshop Debrief
  • Meet with project manager to discuss results and action items.
  • Wrap up outstanding items from workshop.
(Post-Engagement): Procurement Support
  • The facilitator will support the project team to outline the RFP contents and evaluation framework.
  • Planning of vendor demo script. Input: solution requirements and use-case results.
Example of a light blue slide. The light blue slides at the end of each section highlight the key activities and exercises that will be completed during the engagement with our analyst team.

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

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

A small monochrome icon of a wrench and screwdriver creating an X.

This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.
A small monochrome icon depicting a person in front of a blank slide.

This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.
A small monochrome icon depicting a descending bar graph.

This icon denotes a slide that pertains directly to the Info-Tech vendor profiles on marketing management technology. Use these slides to support and guide your evaluation of the MMS vendors included in the research.

Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform

PHASE 1

Develop a Technology Enablement Approach for Social Media

Phase 1: Develop a technology enablement approach for social media

Steps of this blueprint represented by circles of varying colors and sizes, labelled by text of different sizes. Only Phase 1 is highlighted.
Estimated Timeline: 1-3 Months

Info-Tech Insight

Before an SMMP can be selected, the organization must have a strategy in place for enterprise social media. Implementing an SMMP before developing a social media strategy would be akin to buying a mattress without knowing the size of the bed frame.

Major Milestones Reached
  • Project launch
  • Completion of requirements gathering and documentation

Key Activities Completed

  • Readiness assessment
  • Project plan / timeline
  • Stakeholder buy-in
  • Technical assessment
  • Functional assessment

Outcomes from This Phase

Social Media Maturity Assessment

Phase 1 outline

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

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

Guided Implementation 1: Develop a technology enablement approach for social media

Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks
Step 1.1: Determine if a dedicated SMMP is right for your organization Step 1.2: Use an SMMP to enable marketing, sales, and service use cases
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
  • Assess your readiness for the SMMP project.
  • Evaluate social media opportunities within your organization.
 Review findings with analyst:
  • Discuss how an SMMP can assist with marketing, sales, and customer service.
  • Evaluate which SMMP use case scenario is best fit for your organization.
Then complete these activities…
  • Assess your social media maturity.
  • Inventory social media networks to be supported by the SMMP.
 Then complete these activities…
  • Assess best-fit use-case scenario.
  • Build the metrics inventory.
With these tools & templates:
  • Social Media Maturity Assessment Tool
  • Social Media Opportunity Assessment Tool
 With these tools & templates:
  • SMMP Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool
Phase 1 Results & Insights:
  • Social Media Maturity Assessment
  • SMMP Use-Case Assessment

Phase 1, Step 1: Determine if a dedicated SMMP is right for your organization

1.1

1.2
Determine if a dedicated SMMP is right for your organization Use an SMMP to enable marketing, sales, and service use cases

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Assess where your organization sits on the social media maturity curve.
  • Inventory the current social media networks that must be supported by the SMMP.
  • Go/no-go assessment on SMMP.

This step involves the following participants:

  • Digital Marketing Executive
  • Digital Strategy Executive
  • Business stakeholders

Outcomes of this step

  • Social media maturity assessment
  • Inventory of enterprise social media
  • SMMP Go/no-go decision

Before selecting an SMMP, start with the fundamentals: build a comprehensive strategy for enterprise social media

Why build a social media strategy?

  • Social media is neither a fad nor a phenomenon; it is simply another tool in the business process. Social channels do not necessitate a radical departure from the organization’s existing customer interaction strategy. Rather, social media should be added to your channel mix and integrated within the existing CRM strategy.
  • Social media allows organizations to form direct and indirect connections through the Friend-of-a-Friend (FOAF) model, which increases the credibility of the information in the eyes of the consumer.
  • Social media enables organizations to share, connect, and engage consumers in an environment where they are comfortable. Having a social media presence is rapidly becoming a pre-requisite for successful business-to-consumer enterprises.

Important considerations for an enterprise social media strategy:

  • Determine how social media will complement existing customer interaction goals.
  • Assess which social media opportunities exist for your organization.
  • Consider the specific goals you want to achieve using social channels and pick your services accordingly.
  • Not all social media services (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) are equal. Consider which services will be most effective for goal achievement.
For more information on developing a strategy for enterprise social media, please refer to Info-Tech’s research on Social Media.

Implement a social media strategy by determining where you are right now and where your organization needs to go

Organizations pass through three main stages of social media maturity: distributed, loosely coupled, and command center. As you move along the maturity scale, the business significance of the social media program increases. Refer to Info-Tech’s Implement a Social Media Program for guidance on how to execute an ongoing social media program.
The y-axis 'Business Significance'.

Distributed Stage

Shapes labelled 'Sales', 'Customer Service', and 'Marketing'.

  • Open-source or low-cost solutions are implemented informally by individual depts. for specific projects.
  • Solutions are deployed to fulfill a particular function without an organizational vision. The danger of this stage is lack of consistent customer experience and wasted resources.

Loosely Coupled Stage

Same shapes with the addition of 'PR' and surrounded by a dotted-line house.

  • More point solutions are implemented across the organization. There is a formal cross-departmental effort to integrate some point solutions.
  • Risks include failing to put together an effective steering committee and not including IT in the decision-making process.

Command Center Stage

Same shapes with a solid line house.

  • There’s enterprise-level steering committee with representation from all areas: execution of social programs is handled by a fully resourced physical (or virtual) center.
  • Risks include improper resource allocation and lack of end-user training.
The x-axis 'Maturity Stages'.
Optimal stages for SMMP purchase

Assess where your organization sits on the social media maturity curve

Associated Activity icon 1.1.1 30 Minutes

INPUT: Social media initiatives, Current status

OUTPUT: Current State Maturity Assessment

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers, Sticky notes

PARTICIPANTS: Digital Strategy Executive, Business stakeholders

Before you can move to an objective assessment of your social media program’s maturity, take an inventory of your current efforts across different departments (e.g. Marketing, PR, Sales, and Customer Service). Document the results in the Social Media Maturity Assessment Tool to determine your social media readiness score.

Department Social Media Initiative(s) Current Status
Marketing Branded Facebook page with updates and promotions Stalled: insufficient resources
Sales LinkedIn prospecting campaign for lead generation, qualification, and warm open Active: however, new reps are poorly trained on LinkedIn prospect best practices
Customer Service Twitter support initiative: mentions of our brand are paired with sentiment analysis to determine who is having problems and to reach out and offer support Active: program has been highly successful to date
HR Recruitment campaign through LinkedIn and Branch Out Stalled: insufficient technology support for identifying leading candidates
Product Development Defect tracking for future product iterations using social media Partially active: Tracked, but no feedback loop present
Social Media Maturity Level Distributed

Determine your organization’s social media maturity with Info-Tech’s Maturity Assessment Tool

Supporting Tool icon 1.1 Social Media Maturity Assessment Tool

Assessing where you fit on the social media maturity continuum is critical for setting the future direction of your social media program. We’ll work through a short tool that assesses the current state of your social media program, then discuss the results.

Info-Tech’s Social Media Maturity Assessment Tool will help you determine your company’s level of maturity and recommend steps to move to the next level or optimize the status quo of your current efforts.

 INFO-TECH TOOL Sample of the Social Media Current State Assessment.

The social cloud is a dominant point of interaction: integrate social channels with existing customer interaction channels

  • Instead of thinking of customers as an island, think of them interacting with each other and with organizations in the social cloud. As a result, the social cloud itself becomes a point of interaction, not just individual customers.
  • The social cloud is accessible with services like social networks (e.g. Facebook) and micro-blogs (Twitter).
  • Previous lessons learned from the integration of Web 1.0 e-channels should be leveraged as organizations add the social media channel into their overall customer interaction framework:
    • Do not design exclusively around a single channel. Design hybrid-channel solutions that include social channels.
    • Balance customer segment goals and attributes, product and service goals and attributes, and channel capabilities.
 The 'Web 2.0 Customer Interaction Framework' with 'Social Cloud' above, connected to the below through 'Conversations & Information'. Below are two categories with their components interconnected, 'Communication Channels: Face to Face, Phone, E-mail, Web, and Social Media' and 'Customer Experience Management: Marketing, Sales, and Service'.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Don’t believe that social channel integration will require an entire rebuild of your CXM strategy. Social channels are just new interaction channels that need to be integrated – as you’ve done in the past with Web 1.0 e-channels.

Understand the different types of social media services and how they link to social media strategy and SMMP selection

Before adopting an SMMP, it’s important to understand the underlying services they manage. Social media services facilitate the creation and dissemination of user-generated content, and can be grouped according to their purpose and functionality:
  • Social Networking: Social networking services use the Friend-of-a-Friend model to allow users to communicate with their personal networks. Users can share a wide variety of information and media with one another. Social networking sites include Facebook and LinkedIn.
  • Blogging: Blogs are websites that allow users to upload text and media entries, typically displayed in reverse-chronological order. Prominent blogging services include Blogger and WordPress.
  • Micro-Blogging: Micro-blogging is similar to blogging, with the exception that written content is limited to a set number of characters. Twitter, the most popular service, allows users to post messages up to 140 characters.
  • Social Multimedia: Social multimedia sites provide an easy way for users to upload and share multimedia content (e.g. pictures, video) with both their personal contacts as well as the wider community. YouTube is extremely popular for video sharing, while Instagram is a popular option for sharing photos and short videos.

Info-Tech Best Practice

In many cases, services do not fit discretely within each category. With minor exceptions, creating an account on a social media service is free, making use of these services extremely cost effective. If your organization makes extensive use of a particular service, ensure it is supported by your SMMP vendor.

Four categories of social media company logos: 'Social multimedia', 'Micro-blogging', 'Blogging', and 'Social Networking'.

Inventory the current social media networks that must be supported by the SMMP

Associated Activity icon 1.1.2

INPUT: Social media services

OUTPUT: Inventory of enterprise social media

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers

PARTICIPANTS: Project team

  1. List all existing social media networks used by your organization.
  2. For each network, enumerate all the accounts that are being used for organizational objectives.
  3. Identify the line of business that administers and manages each service.
Network Use Case Account Ownership
Facebook
  • Branding
  • Marketing
  • Social Monitoring
  • Facebook recruitment
  • Corporate Communications
  • Marketing
Twitter
  • Social monitoring
  • Customer response
  • Corporate
  • Customer Service
... ... ...

An explosion of social media services and functionality has made effectively managing social interactions a complex task

  • Effectively managing social channels is an increasingly complicated task. Proliferation of social media services and rapid end-user uptake has made launching social interactions a challenge for small and large organizations.
  • Using multiple social media services can be a nightmare for account management (particularly when each brand or product line has its own set of social accounts).
  • The volume of data generated by the social cloud has also created barriers for successfully responding in-band to social stakeholders (social engagement), and for carrying out social analytics.
  • There are two methods for managing social media: ad hoc management and platform-based management.
    • Ad hoc social media management is accomplished using the built-in functionality and administrative controls of each social media service. It is appropriate for small organizations with a very limited scope for social media interaction, but poses difficulties once “critical mass” has been reached.
 Comparison of 'Ad Hoc Management' with each social media platform managed directly by the user and 'Platform-Based Management' with social platforms managed by a 'SMMP' which is managed by the user.
Ad hoc management results in a number of social media touch points. SMMPs serve as a single go-to point for all social media initiatives

Info-Tech Best Practice

Managing social media is becoming increasingly difficult to do through ad hoc methods, particularly for larger organizations and those with multiple brand portfolios. Ad hoc management is best suited for small organizations with an institutional client base who only need a bare bones social media presence.

Select social media services that will achieve your specific objectives – and look for SMMPs that integrate with them

What areas are different social media services helpful in?
Domain Opportunity Consumer Social Networks (Facebook) Micro-Blogging (Twitter) Professional Social Networks (LinkedIn) Consumer Video Sharing Networks (YouTube)
Marketing Building Positive Brand Image Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'.
Increase Mind Share Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'.
Gaining Customer Insights Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'.
Sales Gaining Sales Insights Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'.
Increase Revenue Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'.
Customer Acquisition Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'.
Service Customer Satisfaction Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'.
Increase Customer Retention Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'.
Reducing Cost of Service Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'. Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'. Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'. Green circle 'Proven Useful'.

Green circle 'Proven Useful'. Proven Useful*

Dark Blue circle 'Potentially Useful'. Potentially Useful

*Proven useful by Info-Tech statistical analysis carried out on a cross-section of real-world implementations.

Social media is invaluable for marketing, sales, and customer service. Some social media services have a higher degree of efficacy than others for certain functions. Be sure to take this into account when developing a social media strategy.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Different social media services are more effective than others for different goals. For example, YouTube is useful as an avenue for marketing campaigns, but it’s of substantially less use for sales functions like lead generation. The services you select while planning your social media strategy must reflect concrete goals.

Ad hoc social media management results in manual, resource-intensive processes that are challenging to measure

  • Most organizations that have pursued social media initiatives have done so in an ad hoc fashion rather than outlining a formal strategy and deploying software solutions (e.g. SMMP).
  • Social media is often a component of Customer Experience Management (CXM); Info-Tech’s research shows many organizations are handling CRM without a strategy in place, too.
  • Social media management platforms reduce the resource-intensive processes required for ongoing social media involvement and keep projects on track by providing reporting metrics.
Social media and CRM are often being done without a defined strategy in place.

Four-square matrix titled 'Strategy' presenting percentages with y-axis 'CRM', x-axis 'Social Media', both having two sections 'Ad hoc' and 'Defined'.
Source: Info-Tech Survey, N=64

 Many processes related to social media are being done manually, despite the existence of SMMPs.

Four-square matrix titled 'technology' presenting percentages with y-axis 'CRM', x-axis 'Social Media', both having two sections 'Ad hoc' and 'Defined'.
“When we started our social media campaign, it took 34 man-hours a week. An SMMP that streamlines these efforts is absolutely an asset.” (Edie May, Johnson & Johnson Insurance Company)

SMMPs provide functionality for robust account management, in-band customer response, and social monitoring/analytics

  • Features such as unified account management and social engagement capabilities boost the efficiency of social campaigns. These features reduce duplication of effort (e.g. manually posting the same content to multiple services). Leverage account management functionality and in-band response to “do more with less.”
  • Features such as comprehensive monitoring of the social cloud and advanced social analytics (i.e. sentiment analysis, trends and follower demographics) allow organizations to more effectively use social media. These features empower organizations with the information they need to make informed decisions around messaging and brand positioning. Use social analytics to zero in on your most important brand advocates.

The value proposition of SMMPs revolves around enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of social media initiatives.

 Three primary use cases for social media management:

Social Listening & Analytics — Monitor and analyze a variety of social media services: provide demographic analysis, frequency analysis, sentiment analysis, and content-centric analysis.

Social Publishing & Campaign Management — Executing marketing campaigns through social channels (e.g. Facebook pages).

Social Customer Care — Track customer conversations and provide the ability to respond in-platform to social interactions.

Info-Tech Best Practice

SMMPs are a technology platform, but this alone is insufficient to execute a social media program. Organization and process must be integrated as well. See Info-Tech’s research on developing a social media strategy for a step-by-step guide on how to optimize your internal organization and processes.

Social analytics vary: balance requirements among monitoring goals and social presence/property management

Segment your requirements around common SMMP vendor product design points. Current market capabilities vary between two primary feature categories: social cloud monitoring and social presence and property management.

Cloud-Centric

Social Monitoring

Content-Centric
Social cloud monitoring enables:
  • Brand and product monitoring
  • Reputation monitoring
  • Proactive identification of service opportunities
  • Competitive intelligence
 Social presence and property management enables:
  • Monitor and manage discussions on your social properties (e.g. Twitter feeds, Facebook Pages, YouTube channels)
  • Execute marketing campaigns within your social properties

Social Analytics

Social analytics provide insights to both dimensions of social media monitoring.

Some firms only need social cloud monitoring, some need to monitor their own social media properties, and others will need to do both. Some vendors do both while other vendors excel in only one feature dimension. If you are NOT prepared to act on results from social cloud monitoring, then don’t expand your reach into the social cloud for no reason. You can always add cloud monitoring services later. Likewise, if you only need to monitor the cloud and have no or few of your own social properties, don’t buy advanced management and engagement features.

Use social analytics to gain the most value from your SMMP

Research indicates successful organizations employ both social cloud monitoring and management of their own properties with analytical tools to enhance both or do one or the other well. Few vendors excel at both larger feature categories. But the market is segmented into vendors that organizations should be prepared to buy more than one product from to satisfy all requirements. However, we expect feature convergence over the next 1–3 years, resulting in more comprehensive vendor offerings.

Most sought social media analytics capabilities

Bar Chart of SM analytics capabilities, the most sought after being 'Demographic analysis', 'Geographic analysis', 'Semantic analysis', 'Automated identification of subject and content', and 'Predictive modeling'.
(Source: The State of Social Media Analytics (2016))

 Value driven from social analytics comes in the form of:
  • Improved customer service
  • Increased revenue
  • Uncovered insights for better targeted marketing
  • A more personalized customer experience offered
Social analytics is integral to the success of the SMMP – take advantage of this functionality!

Cost/Benefit Scenario: A mid-sized consumer products company wins big by adopting an SMMP

The following example shows how an SMMP at a mid-sized consumer products firm brought in $36 000 a year.

Before: Manual Social Media Management

  • Account management: a senior marketing manager was responsible for updating all twenty of the firm’s social media pages and feeds. This activity consumed approximately 20% of her time. Her annual salary was $80,000. Allocated cost: $16,000 per year.
  • In-band response: Customer service representatives manually tracked service requests originating from social channels. Due to the use of multiple Twitter feeds, several customers were inadvertently ignored and subsequently defected to competitors. Lost annual revenue due to customer defections: $10,000.
  • Social analytics: Analytics were conducted in a crude, ad hoc fashion using scant data available from the services themselves. No useful insights were discovered. Gains from social insights: $0.

Ad hoc management is costing this organization $26,000 a year.

After: Social Media Management Platform

  • Account management: Centralized account controls for rapidly managing several social media services meant the amount of time spent updating social media was cut 75%. Allocated cost savings: $12,000 per year.
  • In-band response: Using an SMMP provided customer service representatives with a console for quickly and effectively responding to customer service issues. Service window times were significantly reduced, resulting in increased customer retention. Revenue no longer lost due to defections: $10,000.
  • Social analytics: The product development group used keyword-based monitoring to assist with designing a successful new product. Social feedback noticeably boosted sales. Gains from social insights: $20,000
  • Cost of SMMP: $6,000 per year.

The net annual benefit of adopting an SMMP is $36,000.

Go with an SMMP if your organization needs a heavy social presence; stick with ad hoc management if it doesn’t

The value proposition of acquiring an SMMP does not resonate the same for all organizations: in some cases, it is more cost effective to forego an SMMP and stick with ad hoc social media management.

Follow these guidelines for determining if an SMMP is a natural fit for your organization.

Go with an SMMP if…

  • Your organization already has a large social footprint: you manage multiple feeds/pages on three or more social media services.
  • Your organization’s primary activity is B2C marketing; your target consumers are social media savvy. Example: consumer packaged goods.
  • The volume of marketing, sales and service inquiries received over social channels has seen a sharp increase in the last 12 months.
  • Your firm or industry is the topic of widespread discussion in the social cloud.

Stick with ad hoc management if…

  • Regulatory compliance prohibits the extensive use of social media in your organization.
  • Your organization is focused on a small number of institutional clients with well-defined organizational buying behaviors.
  • Your target market is antipathetic towards using social channels to interact with your organization.
  • Your organization is in a market space where only a bare-bones social media presence is seen as a necessity (for example, only a basic informational Facebook page is maintained).

Info-Tech Best Practice

Using an SMMP is definitively superior to ad hoc social media management for those organizations with multiple brands and product portfolios (e.g. consumer packaged goods). Ad hoc management is best for small organizations with an institutional client base who only need a bare bones social media presence.

Assess which social media opportunities exist for your organization with Info-Tech’s tool

Supporting Tool icon 1.2 Social Media Opportunity Assessment Tool

Use Info-Tech’s Social Media Opportunity Assessment Tool to determine, based on your unique criteria, where social media opportunities exist for your organization in marketing, sales, and service.

Info-Tech Best Practice

  1. Remember that departmental goals will overlap; gaining customer insight is valuable to marketing, sales, and customer service.
  2. The social media benefits you can expect to achieve will evolve as your processes mature.
  3. Often, organizations jump into social media because they feel they have to. Use this assessment to identify early on what your drivers should be.
Sample of the Social Media Opportunity Assessment Tool.

Go/no-go assessment on SMMP

Associated Activity icon 1.1.3

INPUT: Social Media Opportunity Questionnaire

OUTPUT: SMMP go/no-go decision

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Opportunity Assessment Tool

PARTICIPANTS: Digital Strategy Executive, Business stakeholders

Identify whether an SMMP will help you achieve your goals in sales, marketing, and customer service.

  1. Complete the questionnaire in the Social Media Opportunity Assessment Tool. Ensure all relevant stakeholders are present to answer questions pertaining to their business area.
  2. Evaluate the results to better understand whether your organization has the opportunity to achieve each established goal in marketing, sales, and customer service with an SMMP or you are not likely to benefit from investing in a social media management solution.

Phase 1, Step 2: Use an SMMP to enable marketing, sales, and service use cases

1.1

1.2
Determine if a dedicated SMMP is right for your organization Use an SMMP to enable marketing, sales, and service use cases

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Profile and rank your top use cases for social media management
  • Build the metrics inventory

This step involves the following participants:

  • Project Manager
  • Project Team

Outcomes of this step

  • Use case suitability
  • SMMP metrics inventory

SMMPs equip front-line sales staff with the tools they need for effective social lead generation

  • Content-centric social analytics allow sales staff to see click-through details for content posted on social networks. In many cases, these leads are warm and ready for immediate follow-up.
  • A software development firm uses an SMMP to post a whitepaper promoting its product to multiple social networks.
    • The whitepaper is subsequently downloaded by a number of potential prospects.
    • Content-centric analytics within the SMMP link the otherwise-anonymous downloads to named social media accounts.
    • Leads assigned to specific account managers, who use existing CRM software to pinpoint contact information and follow-up in a timely manner.
  • Organizations that intend to use their SMMP for sales purposes should ensure their vendor of choice offers integration with LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the business formal of social networks, and is the network with the greatest proven efficacy from a sales perspective.

Using an SMMP to assist the sales process can…

  • Increase the number of leads generated through social channels as a result of social sharing.
  • Increase the quality of leads generated through social channels by examining influence scores.
  • Increase prospecting efficiency by finding social leads faster.
  • Keep account managers in touch with prospects and clients through social media.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Social media is on the rise in sales organizations. Savvy companies are using social channels at all points in the sales process, from prospecting to account management. Organizations using social channels for sales will want an SMMP to manage the volume of information and provide content-centric analytics.

Incorporate social media into marketing workflows to gain customer insights, promote your brand, and address concerns

While most marketing departments have used social media to some extent, few are using it to its full potential. Identify marketing workflows that can be enhanced through the use of social channel integration.
  • Large organizations must define separate workflows for each stakeholder organization if marketing’s duties are divided by company division, brand, or product lines.
  • Inquiries stemming from marketing campaigns and advertising must be handled by social media teams. For example, if a recent campaign sparks customer questions on the company’s Facebook page, be ready to respond!
  • Social media can be used to detect issues that may indicate product defects, provided defect tracking is not already incorporated into customer service workflows. If defect tracking is part of customer service processes, then such issues should be routed to the customer service organization.
  • If social listening is employed, in addition to monitoring the company's own social properties, marketing teams may elect to receive notices of major trends concerning the company's products or those of competitors.
 Word jumble of different sized buzz words around 'Brand Building'.

“I’m typically using my social media team as a proactive marketing team in the social space, whereas I’m using my consumer relations team as a reactive marketing and a reactive consumer relations taskforce. So a little bit different perspective.” (Greg Brickl, IT Director, Organic Valley)

SMMPs allow marketers to satisfy all of their needs with one solution

  • Have a marketing manager jointly responsible for the selection of an SMMP to realize higher overall success. This will significantly improve customer acquisition approval and competitive intelligence, as well as the overall SMMP success.
  • The marketing manager should be involved in fleshing out the business requirements of the SMMP in order to select the most appropriate solution.
  • Once selected, the SMMP has multiple benefits for marketing professionals. One pivotal benefit of SMMPs for marketing is the capability for centralized account management. Multiple social pages and feeds can be rapidly managed at pre-determined times, through an easy-to-use dashboard delivered from one source.
  • Centralized account management is especially pertinent for organizations with a wide geographic client base, as they can manage wide social media campaigns within multiple time zones, delivering their messaging appropriately. (e.g. contests, product launches, etc.)
 Bar Chart comparing 'Average Success Scores' of different goals based on whether the 'Marketing Manager [was] Responsible' or not. Scores are always higher when they were.
(Source: Info-Tech Research Group N = 37)

Info-Tech Best Practice

Managing multiple social media accounts on an ad hoc basis is time consuming and costs money. Lower costs and get the best results out of your social media campaigns by involving the marketing team in the SMMP selection process and knowing their functional requirements.

Leverage SMMPs to proactively identify and respond to customer service issues occurring in the social cloud

  • SMMPs are an invaluable tool in customer service organizations. In-band response capabilities allow customer service representatives to quickly and effectively address customer service issues – either reactively or proactively.
  • Reactive customer service can be provided through SMMPs by providing response capabilities for private messages or public mentions (e.g. “@AcmeCo” on Twitter). Many SMMPs provide a queue of social media messages directed at the organization, and also give the ability to assign specific messages to an individual service representative or product expert. Responding to a high-volume of reactive social media requests can be time consuming without an SMMP.
  • Proactive customer service uses the ability of SMMPs to monitor the social cloud for specific keywords in order to identify customers having issues. Forward-thinking companies actively monitor the social cloud for customer service opportunities, to protect and improve their image.
 Illustration of reactive service where the customer initiates the process and then receives service.
Reactive service is customer-initiated.

Illustration of proactive service with a complaint through Twitter monitored by an SMMP allowing an associate to provide a 'Proactive Resolution'.
SMMPs enable organizations to monitor the social cloud for service opportunities and provide proactive service in-band.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Historically, customer service has been “reactive” (i.e. customer initiated) and solely between the customer and supplier. Social media forces proactive service interactions between customer, supplier, and the entire social cloud. Using an SMMP significantly improves reactive and proactive service. The ability to integrate with customer service applications is essential.

Customer service is a vital department to realize value from leveraging an SMMP

Info-Tech’s research shows that the more departments get involved with social media implementation, the higher the success score (calculated based on respondents’ report of the positive impact of social media on business objectives). On average, each additional department involved in social media programs increases the overall social media success score by 5%. For example, organizations that leveraged social media within the customer service department, achieved a higher success score than those that did not.

The message is clear: encourage broad participation in coordinated social media efforts to realize business goals.

Line graph comparing 'Social Media Success Score' with the 'Number of Departments Involved'. The line trends upward on both axes.
(Source: Info-Tech Research Group N=65)		 Bar chart comparing 'Social Media Success Scores' if 'Customer Service Involvement' was Yes or No. 'Yes' has a higher score.

Our research indicates that the most important stakeholder to ensure steering committee success is Customer Service. This has a major impact on CRM integration requirements – more on this later.

SMMPs are indispensable for allowing PR managers to keep tabs on the firm and its brands

  • Public relations is devoted to relationship management; as such, it is critical for savvy PR departments to have a social media presence.
  • SMMPs empower PR professionals with the ability to track the sentiment of what is said about their organization. Leverage keyword searches and heuristic analysis to proactively mitigate threats and capitalize on positive opportunities. For example, sentiment analysis can be used to identify detractors making false claims over social channels. These claims can then be countered by the Public Relations team.
  • Sentiment analysis can be especially important to the PR professional through change and crisis management situations. These tools allow an organization to track the flow of information, as well as the balance of positive and negative postings and their influence on others in the social cloud.
  • Social analytics provided by SMMPs also serve as a goldmine for competitive intelligence about rival firms and their products.

Benefits of Sentiment Analysis for PR

  • Take the pulse of public perception of your brands (and competitors).
  • Mitigate negative comments being made and respond immediately.
  • Identify industry and consumer thought leaders to follow on social networks.

Illustration of sentiment analysis.
Use sentiment analysis to monitor the social cloud.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Leaving negative statements unaddressed can cause harm to an organization’s reputation. Use an SMMP to track what is being said about your organization; take advantage of response capabilities to quickly respond and mitigate PR risk.

SMMPs for recruiting is an emerging talent recruitment technique and will lead to stronger candidates

  • Social media provides more direct connections between employer and applicant. It’s faster and more flexible than traditional e-channels.
  • SMMPs should be deployed to the HR silo to aid with recruiting top-quality candidates. Account management functionality can dramatically reduce the amount of time HR managers spend synchronizing content between various social media services.
  • In-band response capabilities flag relevant social conversations and allow HR managers to rapidly respond to prospective employee inquiries. Rapid response over social channels gives candidates a positive impression of the organization.
  • Analytics give HR managers insight into hiring trends and the job market at large – sentiment analysis is useful for gauging not just candidate interests, but also anonymous employee engagement.

A social media campaign managed via SMMP can…

  • Increase the size of the applicant pool by “fishing where the fish are.”
  • Increase the quality of applicants by using monitoring to create targeted recruitment materials.
  • Increase recruiting efficiency by having a well-managed, standing presence on popular social media sites – new recruiting campaigns require less “awareness generation” time.
  • Allow HR/recruiters to be more in-touch with hiring trends via social analytics.
Horizontal bar chart of social media platforms that recruiters use. LinkedIn is at the top with 87%. Only 4% of recruiters are NOT using social media for recruitment, while 50% of recruiters plan to increase their investment in SMR in the coming year. (Source: Jobvite, 2015)

Collapse your drivers for SMMP and link them to Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape use cases

Vendor Profiles icon

USE CASES

Social Listening and Analytics

What It Looks Like
Functionality for capturing, aggregating, and analyzing social media content in order to create actionable customer or competitive insights.

How It Works
Social listening and analytics includes features such as sentiment and contextual analysis, workflow moderation, and data visualization.

Social Publishing and Campaign Management

What It Looks Like
Functionality for publishing content to multiple networks or accounts simultaneously, and managing social media campaigns in-depth (e.g. social property management and post scheduling).

How It Works
Social publishing and campaign management include features such as campaign execution, social post integration, social asset management, and post time optimization.

 Social Customer Care

What It Looks Like
Functionality for management of the social customer service queue as well as tools for expedient resolution of customer issues.

How It Works
Social customer care use case primarily relies on strong social moderation and workflow management.

Identify the organizational drivers for social media management – whether it is recruiting, public relations, customer service, marketing, or sales – and align them with the most applicable use case.

Profile and rank your top use cases for social media management using the Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool

Associated Activity icon 1.2.1 1 Hour

INPUT: Project Manager, Core project team

OUTPUT: Use-case suitability

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers

PARTICIPANTS: Project Manager, Core project team

  1. Download your own version of the tool and complete the questionnaire on tab 2, Assessment.
    • Use the information gathered from your assessments and initial project scoping to respond to the prompts to identify the business and IT requirements for the tool.
    • Answer the prompts for each statement from a range of strongly disagree to strongly agree.
  2. Review the outcomes on tab 3, Results.
    • This tab provides a qualitative measure assessing the strength of your fit against the industry use-case scenarios.
  3. If not completed as a team, debrief the results and implications to your core project team.

Use the SMMP Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool to identify which areas you should focus on

Supporting Tool icon 1.3 Use Case Fit Assessment Tool
Use the Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool to understand how your unique requirements map into a specific SMMP use case.

This tool will assess your answers and determine your relative fit against the use-case scenarios.

Fit will be assessed as “Weak,” “Moderate,” or “Strong.”

Consider the common pitfalls, which were mentioned earlier, that can cause IT projects to fail. Plan and take clear steps to avoid or mitigate these concerns.

Note: These use-case scenarios are not mutually exclusive. Your organization can align with one or more scenarios based on your answers. If your organization shows close alignment to multiple scenarios, consider focusing on finding a more robust solution and concentrate your review on vendors that performed strongly in those scenarios or meet the critical requirements for each.

INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

Sample of the SMMP Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool.

Identify the marketing, sales, and customer service metrics that you will target for improvement using an SMMP

Create measurable S.M.A.R.T. goals for the project.

Consider the following questions when building your SMMP metrics:
  1. What are the top marketing objectives for your company? For example, is building initial awareness or driving repeat customers more important?
  2. What are the corresponding social media goals for this business objective?
  3. What are some of the metrics that could be used to determine if business and social media objectives are being attained?
Use Case Sample Metric Descriptions Target Metric
Social Listening and Analytics Use a listening tool to flag all mentions of our brands or company on social Increase in mentions with neutral or positive sentiment, decrease in mentions with negative sentiment
Social Publishing and Campaign Management Launch a viral video campaign showcasing product attributes to drive increased YT traffic Net increase in unaided customer recall
Social Customer Care Create brand-specific social media pages to increase customer sentiment for individual brand extensions Net increase in positive customer sentiment (i.e. as tracked by an SMMP)

Build the metrics inventory

Associated Activity icon 1.2.2 45 Minutes

INPUT: Marketing, sales, and customer service objectives

OUTPUT: Metrics inventory

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers

PARTICIPANTS: Project Manager, Core project team

  1. Identify the top marketing, sales, and customer service objectives for your company? For example, is building initial awareness or driving repeat customers more important?
  2. What are the corresponding social media goals for each business objective?
  3. What are some of the metrics that could be used to determine if business and social media objectives are being attained?
Marketing/PR Objectives Social Media Goals Goal Attainment Metrics
E.g. build a positive brand image
  • Create brand-specific social media pages to increase customer sentiment for individual brand extensions
 Net increase in positive customer sentiment (i.e. as tracked by an SMMP)
E.g. increase customer mind share
  • Launch a viral video campaign showcasing product attributes to drive increased YT traffic
 Net increase in unaided customer recall
E.g. monitor public mentions
  • Use a listening tool to flag all mentions of our brands or company on social
 Increase in mentions with neutral or positive sentiment, decrease in mentions with negative sentiment

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

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

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

1.1.1

 Sample of activity 1.1.1 'Assess where your organization sits on the social media maturity curve'. Assess your organization’s social media maturity

An Info-Tech analyst will facilitate a discussion to assess the maturity of your organization’s social media program and take an inventory of your current efforts across different departments (e.g. Marketing, PR, Sales, and Customer Service).

1.1.2

 Sample of activity 1.1.2 'Inventory the current social media networks that must be supported by SMMP'. Inventory your current social media networks

The analyst will facilitate an exercise to catalog all social media networks used in the organization.

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

1.1.3

 Sample of activity 1.1.3 'Go/no-go assessment on SMMP'. Go/no go assessment on SMMP

Based on the maturity assessment, the analyst will help identify whether an SMMP will help you achieve your goals in sales, marketing, and customer service.

1.2.1

 Sample of activity 1.2.1 'Profile and rank your top use cases for social media management using the Use Case Fit Assessment Tool'. Rank your top use cases for social media management

An analyst will facilitate the exercise to answer a series of questions in order to determine best-fit scenario for social media management for your organization.

1.2.2

 Sample of activity 1.2.2 'Build the metrics inventory'. Build the metrics inventory

An analyst will lead a whiteboarding exercise to brainstorm and generate metrics for your organization’s social media goals.

Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform

PHASE 2

Select an SMMP

This phase also includes Info-Tech’s SMMP Vendor Landscape Title icon for vendor slides.

Phase 2: Select an SMMP

Steps of this blueprint represented by circles of varying colors and sizes, labelled by text of different sizes. Only Phase 2 is highlighted.
Estimated Timeline: 1-3 Months

Info-Tech Insight

Taking a use-case-centric approach to vendor selection allows you to balance the need for different social capabilities between analytics, campaign management and execution, and customer service.

Major Milestones Reached
  • Vendor Selection
  • Finalized and Approved Contract

Key Activities Completed

  • RFP Process
  • Vendor Evaluations
  • Vendor Selection
  • Contract Negotiation

Outcomes from This Phase

The completed procurement of an SMMP solution.

  • Selected SMMP solution
  • Negotiated and finalized contract

Phase 2 outline

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

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

Guided Implementation 2: Select an SMMP

Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks
Step 2.1: Analyze and shortlist SMMP vendors Step 2.2: Evaluate vendor responses
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
  • Evaluate the SMMP marketspace.
  • Re-evaluate best-fit use case.
 Review findings with analyst:
  • Determine your SMMP procurement strategy.
  • Reach out to SMMP vendors.
Then complete these activities…
  • Review vendor profiles and analysis.
  • Create your own evaluation framework and shortlisting criteria.
 Then complete these activities…
  • Prioritize your requirements.
  • Create an RFP for SMMP procurement.
  • Evaluate vendor responses.
  • Set up product demonstrations.
With these tools & templates:
  • SMMP Vendor Landscape (included here)
  • SMMP Vendor Shortlist Tool
 With these tools & templates:
  • SMMP RFP Template
  • SMMP Vendor Demo Script Template
  • SMMP Evaluation and RFP Scoring Tool
Phase 1 Results & Insights:
  • Finalize vendor and product selection

Phase 2, Step 1: Analyze and shortlist vendors in the space

2.1

2.2
Analyze and shortlist vendors in the space Select your SMMP solution

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Review vendor landscape methodology
  • Shortlist SMMP vendors

This step involves the following participants:

  • Core team
  • Representative stakeholders from Digital Marketing, Sales, and IT

The SMMP Vendor Landscape includes the following sections:

VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Info-Tech's Methodology

 Vendor title icon.

Vendor Landscape use-case scenarios are evaluated based on weightings of features and vendor/product considerations

Vendor Profiles icon

Use cases were scored around the features from the general scoring identified as being relevant to the functional considerations and drivers for each scenario.

Calculation Overview
Advanced Features Score X Vendor Multiplier = Vendor Performance for Each Scenario
Pie Chart of Product and Vendor Weightings.
Product and Vendor Weightings		 Pie Chart of Advanced Features Weightings.
Advanced Features Weightings

Please note that both advanced feature scores and vendor multipliers are based on the specific weightings calibrated for each scenario.

Vendor performance for each use-case scenario is documented in a weighted bar graph

Vendor Profiles icon
Sample of the 'Vendor performance for the use-case scenario' slide. Vendor Performance

Vendors qualify and rank in each use-case scenario based on their relative placement and scoring for the scenario.

Vendor Ranking

Champion: The top vendor scored in the scenario

Leaders: The vendors who placed second and third in the scenario

Players: Additional vendors who qualified for the scenarios based on their scoring
Sample of the 'Value Index for the use case scenario' slide. Value ScoreTM

Each use-case scenario also includes a Value Index that identifies the Value Score for a vendor relative to their price point. This additional framework is meant to help price-conscious organizations identify vendors who provide the best “bang for the buck.”

VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Review the SMMP Vendor Evaluation

Vendor title icon.

SMMP market overview

Vendor Profiles icon

How It Got Here

  • The SMMP market was created in response to the exploding popularity of social media and the realization that it can be harnessed for a wide variety of enterprise purposes (from consumer intelligence to marketing campaigns and customer service).
  • As the number of social media services has expanded, and as the volume of content generated via social networks has ballooned, it became increasingly difficult to mine insights and manage social campaigns. A number of vendors (mostly start-ups) began offering platforms that attempted to streamline and harness social media processes.
  • As usage of social media expanded beyond just the marketing and PR function, being able to successfully scale a social strategy to a large number of customer care and sales interactions became paramount: SMMPs filled a niche by offering large-scale response and workflow management capabilities.

Where It’s Going

  • The market is segmented into two broad camps: SMMPs focused on social listening and analytics, and SMMPs focused on social engagement. Although the two have begun to converge, there continues to be a clear junction in the market between the two, with a surprising lack of vendors that are equally adept at both sides.
  • With the rise of SMMPs, the expectation was that CRM vendors would offer feature sets similar to those of standalone SMMPS. However, CRM vendors have been slow in incorporating the functionality directly into their products. While some major vendors have made ground in this direction in the last year, organizations that are serious about social will still need a best-of-breed SMMP.
  • Other major trends include using application integration to build a 360-degree view of the customer, workflow automation, and competitive benchmarking.

Info-Tech Insight

As the market evolves, capabilities that were once cutting edge become default and new functionality becomes differentiating. Supporting multiple social media services and accounts has become a Table Stakes capability and should no longer be used to differentiate solutions. Instead focus on an SMMP’s social listening, campaign management, and customer care to help you find a solution that best fits your requirements.

Review Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape of the SMMP market to identify vendors that meet your requirements

Vendors Evaluated

Various logos of the vendors who were evaluated.

Each vendor in this landscape was evaluated based on their features, product considerations, and vendor considerations. Each vendor was profiled using these evaluations and, based on their performance, qualified and placed in specific use-case scenarios.

These vendors were included due to consideration of their market share, mind share, and platform coverage

Vendor Profiles icon

Vendors included in this report provide a comprehensive, innovative, and functional solution for integrating applications and automating their messaging.

Included in this Vendor Landscape:

Adobe: Adobe Social is a key pillar of Adobe’s ecosystem that is heavily focused on social analytics and engagement.

Hootsuite: A freemium player with strong engagement and collaboration tools, particularly well suited for SMBs.

Salesforce: Social Studio is a leading social media management solution and is a key channel of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Sendible: A fairly new entrant to the social media management space, Sendible offers robust campaign management capability that is well suited for agencies and SMBs.

Sprinklr: A leading solution that focuses on social customer care, offering strong ability to prioritize, route, and categorize high-volume social messaging.

Sprout Social: A great choice for mid-sized companies looking to provide robust social engagement and customer care.

Sysomos: Their MAP and Heartbeat products offer customers in-depth analysis of a wide array of social channels.

Viralheat (Cision): Now a Cision product, Viralheat is an excellent option for analytics, social response workflow management, and in-band social engagement.

Table Stakes represent the minimum standard; without these, a product doesn’t even get reviewed

Vendor Profiles icon

The Table Stakes

Feature: What it is:
Multiple Services Supported The ability to mange or analyze at least two or more social media services.
Multiple Accounts Supported The ability to manage or analyze content from at least two or more social media accounts.
Basic Engagement The ability to post status updates to multiple social media sites.
Basic Analytics The ability to display inbound feeds and summary info from multiple social media sites.

What does this mean?

The products assessed in this Vendor Landscape meet, at the very least, the requirements outlined as Table Stakes.

Many of the vendors go above and beyond the outlined Table Stakes, some even do so in multiple categories. This section aims to highlight the products’ capabilities in excess of the criteria listed here.

Info-Tech Insight

If Table Stakes are all you need from your SMMP solution, the only true differentiator for the organization is price. Otherwise, dig deeper to find the best price to value for your needs.

Advanced Features are the capabilities that allow for granular differentiation of market players and use-case performance

Vendor Profiles icon

Scoring Methodology

Info-Tech scored each vendor’s features on a cumulative four-point scale. Zero points are awarded to features that are deemed absent or unsatisfactory, one point is assigned to features that are partially present, two points are assigned to features that require an extra purchase in the vendor’s product portfolio or through a third party, three points are assigned to features that are fully present and native to the solution, and four points are assigned to the best-of-breed native feature.

For an explanation of how Advanced Features are determined, see Information Presentation – Feature Ranks (Stoplights) in the Appendix.
Feature: What we looked for:
Social Media Channel Integration - Inbound Ability to monitor social media services, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more.
Social Media Channel Integration - Outbound Ability to publish to social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more.
Social Response Management Ability to respond in-band to social media posts.
Social Moderation and Workflow Management Ability to create end-to-end routing and escalation workflows from social content.
Campaign Execution Ability to manage social and media assets: tools for social campaign execution, reporting, and analytics.
Social Post Archival Ability to archive social posts and platform activity to create an audit trail.
Trend Analysis Ability to monitor trends and traffic on multiple social media sites.
Sentiment Analysis Ability to analyze and uncover insights from attitudes and opinions expressed on social media.
Contextual Analysis Ability to use NLP, deep learning and semantic analysis to extract meaning from social posts.
Social Asset Management Ability to access visual asset library with access permissions and expiry dates to be used on social media.
Post Time Optimization Ability to optimize social media posts by maximizing the level of interaction and awareness around the posts.
Dashboards and Visualization Ability to visualize data and create analytics dashboards.

Vendor scoring focused on overall product attributes and vendor performance in the market

Vendor Profiles icon

Scoring Methodology

Info-Tech Research Group scored each vendor’s overall product attributes, capabilities, and market performance.

Features are scored individually as mentioned in the previous slide. The scores are then modified by the individual scores of the vendor across the product and vendor performance features.

Usability, overall affordability of the product, and the technical features of the product are considered, and scored on a five-point scale. The score for each vendor will fall between worst and best in class.

The vendor’s performance in the market is evaluated across four dimensions on a five-point scale. Where the vendor places on the scale is determined by factual information, industry position, and information provided by customer references and/or available from public sources.

Product Evaluation Features

Usability The end-user and administrative interfaces are intuitive and offer streamlined workflow.
Affordability Implementing and operating the solution is affordable given the technology.
Architecture Multiple deployment options, platform support, and integration capabilities are available.

Vendor Evaluation Features

Viability Vendor is profitable, knowledgeable, and will be around for the long term.
Focus Vendor is committed to the space and has a future product and portfolio roadmap.
Reach Vendor offers global coverage and is able to sell and provide post-sales support.
Sales Vendor channel partnering, sales strategies, and process allow for flexible product acquisition.

Balance individual strengths to find the best fit for your enterprise

Vendor Profiles icon

A list of vendors with ratings for their 'Product: Overall, Usability, Affordability, and Architecture' and their 'Vendor: Overall, Viability, Focus, Reach, and Sales'. It uses a quarters rating system where 4 quarters of a circle is Exemplary and 0 quarters is Poor.

For an explanation of how the Info-Tech Harvey Balls are calculated, see Information Presentation – Criteria Scores (Harvey Balls) in the Appendix.

Balance individual strengths to find the best fit for your enterprise

Vendor Profiles icon

A list of vendors with ratings for their 'Evaluated Features'. Rating system uses Color coding with green being 'Feature is fully present...' and red being 'Feature is absent', and if a star is in the green then 'Feature is best in its class'.

For an explanation of how Advanced Features are determined, see Information Presentation – Feature Ranks (Stoplights) in the Appendix.

Vendor title icon.

USE CASE 1

Social Listening and Analytics

Seeking functionality for capturing, aggregating, and analyzing social media content in order to create actionable customer or competitive insights.

Feature weightings for the social listening and analytics use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Core Features

Sentiment Analysis Uncovering attitudes and opinions expressed on social media is important for generating actionable customer insights.
Dashboards and Visualization Capturing and aggregating social media insights is ineffective without proper data visualization and analysis.
Trend Analysis The ability to monitor trends across multiple social media services is integral for effective social listening.
Contextual Analysis Understanding and analyzing language and visual content on social media is important for generating actionable customer insights.

Additional Features

Social Media Channel Integration – Inbound

Social Moderation and Workflow Management

Social Post Archival

Feature Weightings

Pie chart of feature weightings.

Vendor considerations for the social listening and analytics use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Product Evaluation Features

Usability A clean and intuitive user interface is important for users to fully leverage the benefits of an SMMP.
Affordability Affordability is an important consideration as the price of SMMPs can vary significantly depending on the breadth and depth of capability offered.
Architecture SMMP is more valuable to organizations when it can integrate well with their applications, such as CRM and marketing automation software.

Vendor Evaluation Features

Viability Vendor viability is critical for long-term stability of an application portfolio.
Focus The vendor is committed to the space and has a future product and portfolio roadmap.
Reach Companies with processes that cross organizational and geographic boundaries require effective and available support.
Sales Vendors need to demonstrate flexibility in terms of industry and technology partnerships to meet evolving customer needs.

Pie chart for Product and Vendor Evaluation Features.

Vendor performance for the social listening and analytics use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon
Champion badge.

Champions for this use case:
Salesforce: Salesforce Social Studio offers excellent trend and in-depth contextual analysis and is among the best vendors in presenting visually appealing and interactive dashboards.
Leader badge.

Leaders for this use case:
Sysomos: Sysomos MAP and Heartbeat are great offerings for conducting social media health checks using in-depth contextual analytics.

Adobe: Adobe Social is a great choice for digital marketers that need in-depth sentiment and longitudinal analysis of social data – particularly when managing social alongside other digital channels.
Best Overall Value badge.

Best Overall Value Award
Sysomos: A strong analytics capability offered in Sysomos MAP and Heartbeat at a relatively low cost places Sysomos as the best bang for your buck in this use case.

Players in the social listening and analytics scenario

  • Sprinklr
  • Hootsuite
  • Sprout Social

Vendor performance for the social listening and analytics use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Stacked bar chart comparing vendors' use-case performance in multiple areas of 'Social Listening and Analytics'.

Value Index for the social listening and analytics scenario

Vendor Profiles icon
What is a Value Score?

The Value Score indexes each vendor’s product offering and business strength relative to its price point. It does not indicate vendor ranking.

Vendors that score high offer more bang-for-the-buck (e.g. features, usability, stability) than the average vendor, while the inverse is true for those that score lower.

Price-conscious enterprises may wish to give the Value Score more consideration than those who are more focused on specific vendor/product attributes.

 On a relative basis, Sysomos maintained the highest Info-Tech Value ScoreTM of the vendor group for this use-case scenario. Vendors were indexed against Sysomos’ performance to provide a complete, relative view of their product offerings.

Bar chart of vendors' Value Scores in social listening and analytics. Sysomos has the highest and the Average Score is 66.8.
For an explanation of how price is determined, see Information Presentation – Price Evaluation in the Appendix.

For an explanation of how the Info-Tech Value Index is calculated, see Information Presentation – Value Index in the Appendix.

Vendor title icon.

USE CASE 2

Social Publishing and Campaign Management

Seeking functionality for publishing content to multiple networks or accounts simultaneously, and managing social media campaigns in-depth (e.g. social property management and post scheduling).

Feature weightings for the social publishing and campaign management use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Core Features

Campaign Execution The ability to manage multiple social media services simultaneously is integral for carrying out social media campaigns.
Social Response Management Creating response workflows is equally important to publishing capability for managing social campaigns.

Additional Features

Social Media Channel Integration – Outbound

Social Moderation and Workflow Management

Social Post Archival

Social Asset Management

Post Time Optimization

Social Media Channel Integration – Inbound

Trend Analysis

Sentiment Analysis

Dashboards and Visualization

Feature Weightings

Pie chart of feature weightings.

Vendor considerations for the social publishing and campaign management use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Product Evaluation Features

Usability A clean and intuitive user interface is important for users to fully leverage the benefits of an SMMP.
Affordability Affordability is an important consideration as the price of SMMPs can vary significantly depending on the breadth and depth of capability offered.
Architecture SMMP is more valuable to organizations when it can integrate well with their applications, such as CRM and marketing automation software.

Vendor Evaluation Features

Viability Vendor viability is critical for long-term stability of an application portfolio.
Focus The vendor is committed to the space and has a future product and portfolio roadmap.
Reach Companies with processes that cross organizational and geographic boundaries require effective and available support.
Sales Vendors need to demonstrate flexibility in terms of industry and technology partnerships to meet evolving customer needs.

Pie chart of Product and Vendor Evaluation Features.

Vendor performance for the social publishing and campaign management use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Champion badge.

Champions for this use case:

Adobe: Adobe has the best social campaign execution capability in the market, enabling marketers to manage and auto-track multiple campaigns. It also offers a strong asset management feature that allows users to leverage Marketing Cloud content.
Leader badge.

Leaders for this use case:

Salesforce: SFDC has built a social marketing juggernaut, offering top-notch response workflows and campaign execution capability.

Hootsuite: Hootsuite has good response capabilities backed up by a strong team collaboration feature set. It offers simplified cross-platform posting and post-time optimization capabilities.

Best Overall Value badge.

Best Overall Value Award

Sendible: Sendible offers the best value for your money in this use case with good response workflows and publishing capability.

Players in the social publishing and campaign management scenario

  • Sprout Social
  • Sprinklr
  • Sendible

Vendor performance for the social publishing and campaign management use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Stacked bar chart comparing vendors' use-case performance in multiple areas of 'Social publishing and campaign management'.

Value Index for the social publishing and campaign management scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

What is a Value Score?

The Value Score indexes each vendor’s product offering and business strength relative to its price point. It does not indicate vendor ranking.

Vendors that score high offer more bang-for-the-buck (e.g. features, usability, stability) than the average vendor, while the inverse is true for those that score lower.

Price-conscious enterprises may wish to give the Value Score more consideration than those who are more focused on specific vendor/product attributes.

On a relative basis, Sendible maintained the highest Info-Tech Value ScoreTM of the vendor group for this use-case scenario. Vendors were indexed against Sendible’s performance to provide a complete, relative view of their product offerings.

Bar chart of vendors' Value Scores in social publishing and campaign management. Sendible has the highest and the Average Score is 72.9.

For an explanation of how Price is determined, see Information Presentation – Price Evaluation in the Appendix.

For an explanation of how the Info-Tech Value Index is calculated, see Information Presentation – Value Index in the Appendix.

Vendor title icon.

USE CASE 3

Social Customer Care

Seeking functionality for management of the social customer service queue as well as tools for expedient resolution of customer issues.

Feature weightings for the social customer care use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Core Features

Social Moderation and Workflow Management Creating escalation workflows is important for triaging customer service, managing the social customer service queue and offering expedient resolution to customer complaints.

Additional Features

Social Media Channel Integration – Outbound

Social Moderation and Workflow Management

Social Response Management

Social Post Archival

Sentiment Analysis

Dashboards and Visualization

Campaign Execution

Trend Analysis

Post Time Optimization

Feature Weightings

Pie chart with Feature Weightings.

Vendor considerations for the social customer case use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Product Evaluation Features

Usability A clean and intuitive user interface is important for users to fully leverage the benefits of an SMMP.
Affordability Affordability is an important consideration as the price of SMMPs can vary significantly depending on the breadth and depth of capability offered.
Architecture SMMP is more valuable to organizations when it can integrate well with their applications, such as CRM and marketing automation software.

Vendor Evaluation Features

Viability Vendor viability is critical for long-term stability of an application portfolio.
Focus The vendor is committed to the space and has a future product and portfolio roadmap.
Reach Companies with processes that cross organizational and geographic boundaries require effective and available support.
Sales Vendors need to demonstrate flexibility in terms of industry and technology partnerships to meet evolving customer needs.

Pie chart with Product and Vendor Evaluation Features.

Vendor performance for the social customer care use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Champion badge.

Champions for this use case:

Salesforce: Salesforce offers exceptional end-to-end social customer care capability with strong response escalation workflows.
Leader badge.

Leaders for this use case:

Sprinklr: Sprinklr’s offering gives users high flexibility to configure escalation workflows and role-based permissions for managing the social customer service queue.

Hootsuite: Hootsuite’s strength lies in the breadth of social networks that the platform supports in offering expedient resolution to customer complaints.

Best Overall Value badge.

Best Overall Value Award

Sysomos: Sysomos is the best bang for your buck in this use case, offering essential response and workflow capabilities.

Players in the social listening and analytics scenario

  • Sendible
  • Sysomos
  • Viralheat (Cision)

Vendor performance for the social customer care use-case scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

Stacked bar chart comparing vendors' use-case performance in multiple areas of 'Social customer care'.

Value Index for the social customer care scenario

Vendor Profiles icon

What is a Value Score?

The Value Score indexes each vendor’s product offering and business strength relative to its price point. It does not indicate vendor ranking.

Vendors that score high offer more bang-for-the-buck (e.g. features, usability, stability) than the average vendor, while the inverse is true for those that score lower.

Price-conscious enterprises may wish to give the Value Score more consideration than those who are more focused on specific vendor/product attributes.

On a relative basis, Sendible maintained the highest Info-Tech Value ScoreTM of the vendor group for this use-case scenario. Vendors were indexed against Sendible’s performance to provide a complete, relative view of their product offerings.

Bar chart of vendors' Value Scores in social customer care. Sysomos has the highest and the Average Score is 79.6.

For an explanation of how Price is determined, see Information Presentation – Price Evaluation in the Appendix.

For an explanation of how the Info-Tech Value Index is calculated, see Information Presentation – Value Index in the Appendix.

VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Vendor Profiles and Scoring

Vendor title icon.

Use the information in the SMMP Vendor Landscape analysis to streamline your own vendor analysis process

Vendor Profiles icon

This section of the Vendor Landscape includes the profiles and scoring for each vendor against the evaluation framework previously outlined.

Sample of the SMMP Vendor Landscape analysis. Vendor Profiles
  • Include an overview for each company.
  • Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the product and vendor.
  • Identify the three-year TCO of the vendor’s solution (based on a ten-tiered model).
Sample of the Vendor Landscape profiles slide.
Vendor Scoring

Use the Harvey Ball scoring of vendor and product considerations to assess alignment with your own requirements.

Review the use-case scenarios relevant to your organization’s Use-Case Fit Assessment results to identify a vendor’s fit to your organization's SMMP needs. (See the following slide for further clarification on the use-case assessment scoring process.)

Review the stoplight scoring of advanced features to identify the functional capabilities of vendors.

 Sample of the Vendor Scoring slide.

Adobe Social is a powerhouse for digital marketers, with extremely well-developed analytics capabilities

Vendor Profiles icon
Product Adobe Social
Employees 15,000+
Headquarters San Jose, CA
Website Adobe.com
Founded 1982
Presence NASDAQ: ADBE

Logo for Adobe.

3 year TCO for this solution falls into pricing tier 8 between $500,000 and $1,000,000.

Pricing tier for Adobe, tier 8.
Pricing provided by vendor

 OVERVIEW
  • Adobe Social is a strong offering included within the broader Adobe Marketing Cloud. The product is tightly focused on social analytics and social campaign execution. It’s particularly well-suited to dedicated digital marketers or social specialists.
STRENGTHS
  • Adobe Social provides broad capabilities across social analytics and social campaign management; its integration with Adobe Analytics is a strong selling point for organizations that need a complete, end-to-end solution.
  • It boasts great archiving capabilities (up to 7 years for outbound posts), meeting the needs of compliance-centric organizations and providing for strong longitudinal analysis capabilities.
CHALLENGES
  • The product plays well with the rest of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, but the list of third-party CRM and CSM integrations is shorter than some other players in the market.
  • While the product is unsurprisingly geared towards marketers, organizations that want a scalable platform for customer service use cases will need to augment the product due to its focus on campaigns and analytics – service-related workflow and automation capabilities are not a core focus for the company.

Adobe Social

Vendor Profiles icon
'Product' and 'Vendor' scores for Adobe. Overall product is 3/4; overall vendor is 4/4.
'Scenario Performance' awards and 'Value Index' in the three previous scenarios. Adobe earned 'Leader' in Social Listening & Analytics and 'Champion' in Social Publishing & Campaign Management.		 Info-Tech Recommends

Adobe Social provides impressive features, especially for companies that position social media within a larger digital marketing strategy. Organizations that need powerful social analytics or social campaign execution capability should have Adobe on their shortlist, though the product may be an overbuy for social customer care use cases.
Scores for Adobe's individual features, color-coded as they were previously.

Hootsuite is a capable vendor that offers a flexible solution for monitoring many different social media services

Vendor Profiles icon
Product Hootsuite
Employees 800
Headquarters Vancouver, BC
Website Hootsuite.com
Founded 2007
Presence Privately held

Logo for Hootsuite.

3 year TCO for this solution falls into pricing tier 6, between $100,000 and $250,000.

Pricing tier for Hootsuite, tier 6.
Pricing derived from public information

 OVERVIEW
  • In the past, Hootsuite worked on the freemium model by providing basic social account management features. The company has since expanded its offering and put a strong focus on enterprise feature sets, such as collaboration and workflow management.
STRENGTHS
  • Hootsuite is extremely easy to use, having one of the most straightforward interfaces of vendors evaluated.
  • It has extensive monitoring capabilities for a wide variety of social networks as well as related services, which are supported through an app store built into the Hootsuite platform.
  • The product provides a comprehensive model for team-based collaboration and workflow management, demonstrated through nice cross-posting and post-time optimization capabilities.
CHALLENGES
  • Hootsuite’s reporting and analytics capabilities are relatively basic, particularly when contrasted with more analytics-focused vendors in the market.
  • Running cross-channel campaigns is challenging without integration with third-party applications.

Hootsuite

Vendor Profiles icon
'Product' and 'Vendor' scores for Hootsuite. Overall product is 3/4; overall vendor is 4/4.
'Scenario Performance' awards and 'Value Index' in the three previous scenarios. Hootsuite earned 5th out of 6 in Social Listening & Analytics, 'Leader' in Social Publishing & Campaign Management, and 'Leader' in Social Customer Care.		 Info-Tech Recommends

The free version of Hootsuite is useful for getting your feet wet with social management. The paid version is a great SMMP for monitoring and engaging your own social properties with good account and team management at an affordable price. This makes it ideal for SMBs. However, organizations that need deep social analytics may want to look elsewhere.
Scores for Hootsuite's individual features, color-coded as they were previously.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud continues to be a Cadillac solution; it’s a robust platform with a host of features

Vendor Profiles icon
Product Salesforce Social Studio
Employees 24,000+
Headquarters San Francisco, CA
Website Salesforce.com
Founded 1999
Presence NASDAQ: CRM

Logo for Salesforce.

3 year TCO for this solution falls into pricing tier 7, between $250,000 and $500,000

Pricing tier for Salesforce, tier 7.
Pricing provided by vendor

 OVERVIEW
  • Social Studio is a powerful solution fueled by Salesforce’s savvy acquisitions in the marketing automation and social media management marketspace. The product has rapidly matured and is adept at both marketing and customer service use cases.
STRENGTHS
  • Salesforce continues to excel as one of the best SMMP vendors in terms of balancing inbound analytics and outbound engagement. The recent addition of Salesforce Einstein to the platform bolsters deep learning capabilities and enhances the product’s value proposition to those that want a tool for robust customer intelligence.
  • Salesforce’s integration of Marketing Cloud, with its Sales and Service Clouds, also creates a good 360-degree customer view.
CHALLENGES
  • Salesforce’s broad and deep feature set comes at a premium: the solution is priced materially higher than many other vendors. Before you consider Marketing Cloud, it’s important to evaluate which social media capabilities you want to develop: if you only need basic response workflows or dashboard-level analytics, purchasing Marketing Cloud runs the risk of overbuying.
  • In part due to its price point and market focus, Marketing Cloud is more suited to enterprise use cases than SMB use cases.

Salesforce

Vendor Profiles icon
'Product' and 'Vendor' scores for . Overall product is 3/4; overall vendor is 4/4.
'Scenario Performance' awards and 'Value Index' in the three previous scenarios. Salesforce earned 'Champion' in Social Listening & Analytics, 'Leader' in Social Publishing & Campaign Management, and 'Champion' in Social Customer Care.		 Info-Tech Recommends

Social Studio in Salesforce Marketing Cloud remains a leading solution. Organizations that need to blend processes across the enterprise that rely on social listening, deep analytics, and customer engagement should have the product on their shortlist. However, companies with more basic needs may be off-put by the solution’s price point.
Scores for 's individual features, color-coded as they were previously.

Sendible offers multiple social media management capabilities for SMBs and agencies

Vendor Profiles icon
Product Sendible
Employees 27
Headquarters London, UK
Website Sendible.com
Founded 2009
Presence Privately held

Logo for Sendible.

3 year TCO for this solution falls into pricing tier 4, between $25,000 and $50,000

Pricing tier for Sendible, tier 4.
Pricing derived from public information

 OVERVIEW
  • Founded in 2009, Sendible is a rising player in the SMMP market. Sendible is primarily focused on the SMB space. A growing segment of its client base is digital marketing agencies and franchise companies.
STRENGTHS
  • Sendible’s user interface is very intuitive and user friendly.
  • The product offers the ability to manage multiple social accounts simultaneously as well as schedule posts to multiple groups on different social networks, making Sendible a strong choice for social engagement and customer care.
  • Its affordability is strong given its feature set, making it an attractive option for organizations that are budget conscious.
CHALLENGES
  • Sendible remains a smaller vendor in the market – its list of channel partners lags behind larger incumbents.
  • Sendible’s contextual and visual content analytics are lacking vis-à-vis more analytics-centric vendors.

Sendible

Vendor Profiles icon
'Product' and 'Vendor' scores for Sendible. Overall product is 3/4; overall vendor is 4/4.
'Scenario Performance' awards and 'Value Index' in the three previous scenarios. Sendible earned 6th out of 6 and 'Best Overall Value' in Social Publishing & Campaign Management and 4th out of 6 in Social Customer Care.		 Info-Tech Recommends

Sendible offers a viable solution for small and mid-market companies, as well as social agencies with a focus on customer engagement for marketing and customer service use cases. However, organizations that need deep social analytics may want to look elsewhere.
Scores for Sendible's individual features, color-coded as they were previously.

Sprinklr

Vendor Profiles icon
Product Sprinklr
Employees 1,100
Headquarters New York, NY
Website Sprinklr.com
Founded 2009
Presence Privately held

Logo for Sprinklr.

Pricing tier for Sprinklr, tier 6.
Pricing derived from public information

 OVERVIEW
  • Sprinklr has risen rapidly as a best-of-breed player in the social media management market. It markets a solution geared towards multiple use cases, from customer intelligence and analytics to service-centric response management.
STRENGTHS
  • Sprinklr’s breadth of capabilities are impressive: the vendor has maintained a strong focus on social-specific functionality. As a result of this market focus, they have invested prudently in advanced social analytics and moderation workflow capabilities.
  • Sprinklr’s user experience design and data visualization capabilities are top-notch, making it a solution that’s easy for end users and decision makers to get up and running with quickly.
CHALLENGES
  • Relative to other players in the market, the breadth and scope of Sprinklr’s integrations with other customer experience management solutions is limited.
  • Based on its feature set and price point, Sprinklr is best suited for mid-to-large organizations. SMBs run the risk of an overbuy situation.

Sprinklr

Vendor Profiles icon

'Product' and 'Vendor' scores for Sprinklr. Overall product is 3/4; overall vendor is 3/4.
'Scenario Performance' awards and 'Value Index' in the three previous scenarios. Sprinklr earned 4th out of 6 in Social Listening & Analytics, 5th out of 6 in Social Publishing & Campaign Management, and 'Leader' in Social Customer Care.		 Info-Tech Recommends

Sprinklr is a strong choice for small and mid-market organizations offering breadth of social media management capabilities that covers social analytics, engagement, and customer service.
Scores for Sprinklr's individual features, color-coded as they were previously.

Sprout Social provides small-to-medium enterprises with robust social response capabilities at a reasonable price

Vendor Profiles icon
Product Sprout Social
Employees 200+
Headquarters Chicago, IL
Website Sproutsocial.com
Founded 2010
Presence Privately held

Logo for Sprout Social.

3 year TCO for this solution falls into pricing tier 6, between $100,000 and $250,000

Pricing tier for Sprout Social, tier 6.
Pricing derived from public information

 OVERVIEW
  • Sprout Social has built out its enterprise capabilities over the last several years. It offers strong feature sets for account management, social monitoring and analytics, and customer care – it particularly excels at the latter.
STRENGTHS
  • Sprout’s unified inbox and response management features are some of the most intuitive we’ve seen. This makes it a natural option for providing customer service via social channels.
  • Sprout Social is priced competitively in relation to other vendors.
  • The product provides strong social asset management capabilities where users can set content permissions and expiration dates, and limit access.
CHALLENGES
  • Deep contextual analysis is lacking: the solution clearly falls more to the engagement side of the spectrum, and is particularly suited for social customer service.
  • Sprout Social has a limited number of technology partners for integrations with applications such as CRM and marketing automation software.
  • It still has a predominantly North American market focus.

Sprout Social

Vendor Profiles icon
'Product' and 'Vendor' scores for Sprout Social. Overall product is 3/4; overall vendor is 3/4.
'Scenario Performance' awards and 'Value Index' in the three previous scenarios. Sprout Social earned 6th out of 6 in Social Listening & Analytics and 4th out of 6 in Social Publishing & Campaign Management.		 Info-Tech Recommends

Sprout Social’s easy-to-understand benchmarking and dashboards, paired with strong response management, make it a great choice for mid-sized enterprises concerned with social engagement. However, organizations that want to do deep social analytics will need to augment the solution.
Scores for Sprout Social's individual features, color-coded as they were previously.

Sysomos’ prime feature is its hardy analytics built atop a plethora of inbound social channels

Vendor Profiles icon

Product Sysomos MAP and Heartbeat
Employees 200+
Headquarters Toronto, ON
Website Sysomos.com
Founded 2007
Presence Privately held

Logo for Sysomos.

3 year TCO for this solution falls into pricing tier 4, between $25,000 and $50,000

Pricing tier for Sysomos, tier 4.
Pricing derived from public information

OVERVIEW
  • Sysomos began life as a project at the University of Toronto prior to its acquisition by Marketwire in 2010.
  • It split from Marketwire in 2015 and redesigned its product to focus on social monitoring, analysis, and engagement.

STRENGTHS

  • MAP and Heartbeat offer extensive contextual and sentiment analytics, consolidating findings through a spam-filtering process that parses out a lot of the “noise” inherent in social media data.
  • The solution provides an unlimited number of profiles, enabling more opportunities for collaboration.
  • It provides workflow summaries, documenting the actions of staff and providing an audit trail through the entire process.

CHALLENGES

  • Sysomos has introduced a publishing tool for social campaigns. However, its outbound capabilities continue to lag, and there are currently no tools for asset management.
  • Sysomos’ application integration stack is limited relative to other vendors.

Sysomos

Vendor Profiles icon
'Product' and 'Vendor' scores for Sysomos. Overall product is 3/4; overall vendor is 3/4.
'Scenario Performance' awards and 'Value Index' in the three previous scenarios. Sysomos earned 'Leader' and 'Best Overall Value' in Social Listening & Analytics and 5th out of 6 as well as 'Best Overall Value' in Social Customer Care.		 Info-Tech Recommends

Sysomos’ broad array of good features has made it a frequent challenger to Marketing Cloud on analytics-centric SMMP evaluation shortlists. Enterprise-scale customers specifically interested in social listening and analytics, rather than customer engagement and campaign execution, will definitely want to take a look.
Scores for Sysomos's individual features, color-coded as they were previously.

Viralheat offers a clean analysis of an organization’s social media activity and has beefed up response workflows

Vendor Profiles icon

Product Viralheat
Employees 1,200
Headquarters Chicago, IL
Website Cision.com
Founded 2015
Presence Privately held

Logo for Cision (Viralheat).

3 year TCO for this solution falls into pricing tier 6, between $100,000 and $250,000

Pricing tier for Cision (Viralheat), tier 6.
Pricing derived from public information

OVERVIEW
  • Viralheat has been in the social media market since 2009. It provides tools for analytics and in-band social engagement.
  • The company was acquired by Cision in 2015, a Chicago-based public relations technology company.

STRENGTHS

  • Viralheat offers robust workflow management capabilities for social response and is particularly useful for customer service.
  • The product has strong post time optimization capability through its ViralPost scheduling feature.
  • Cision’s acquisition of Viralheat makes the product a great choice for third-party social media management, namely public relations and digital marketing agencies.

CHALLENGES

  • Viralheat remains a smaller vendor in the market – its list of channel partners lags behind larger incumbents.
  • Contextual and sentiment analysis are lacking relative to other vendors.

Cision (Viralheat)

Vendor Profiles icon
'Product' and 'Vendor' scores for Cision (Viralheat). Overall product is 3/4; overall vendor is 2/4.
'Scenario Performance' awards and 'Value Index' in the three previous scenarios. Cision (Viralheat) earned in Social Listening & Analytics, in Social Publishing & Campaign Management, and in Social Customer Care.		 Info-Tech Recommends

Cision has upped its game in terms of social workflow and response management and it monitors an above-average number of services. It is a steadfast tool for brands that are primarily interested in outbound customer engagement for marketing and customer service use cases.
Scores for Cision (Viralheat)'s individual features, color-coded as they were previously.

Use the SMMP Vendor Shortlist Tool to customize the vendor analysis for your organization

Vendor Profiles icon SMMP Vendor Shortlist & Detailed Feature Analysis Tool

Instructions

  1. Eliminate misaligned vendors with knock-out criteria
    Use the SMMP Vendor Shortlist &am; Detailed Feature Analysis Tool to eliminate vendors based on specific knock-out criteria on tab 2, Knock-Out Criteria.
  2. Create your own evaluation framework
    Tailor the vendor evaluation to include your own product and vendor considerations on tab 3, Weightings. Identify the significance of advanced features for your own procurement on a scale of Mandatory, Optional, and Not Required on tab 4, Detailed Feature Analysis.
  3. Review the results of your customized evaluation
    Review your custom vendor shortlist on tab 5, Results.
 This evaluation uses both functional and architectural considerations to eliminate vendors.

Knock-Out Criteria

COTS vs. Open Source
Deployment Models

Sample of the SMMP Vender Shortlist & Detailed Feature Analysis Tool tab 5, Results.
Sample Vendor Shortlist from tab 5, Results

Interpreting the Results
Your custom shortlist will rank vendors that passed the initial knock-out criteria based on their overall score.
The shortlist will provide broken-down scoring, as well as a custom value index based on the framework set in the tool.

Phase 2, Step 2: Select your SMMP solution

2.1

2.2
Analyze and shortlist vendors in the space Select your SMMP solution

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Prioritize your solution requirements.
  • Create an RFP to submit to vendors.
  • Solicit and review vendor proposals.
  • Conduct onsite vendor demonstrations.
  • Select the right solution.

This step involves the following participants:

  • Core Project Team
  • Procurement Manager
  • Representative Stakeholders from Digital Marketing, Sales, and IT

Outcomes of this step:

  • SMMP Selection Strategy

Determine your SMMP procurement strategy

Critical Points and Checks in Your Procurement
  • Follow your own organization’s procurement procedures to ensure that you adhere to your organization’s policies.
  • Based on your organization’s policies, identify if you are going to conduct a private or public RFP process.
    • If your RFP will contain sensitive information, use a private RFP process that is directed to specific vendors in order to protect the proprietary practices of your business.

Info-Tech Insight

If you are still not sure of a vendor’s capabilities, we recommend sending an RFI before proceeding with an RFP.

INFO-TECH OPPORTUNITY

If your organization lacks a clear procurement process, refer to Info-Tech's Optimize IT Procurement research to help construct a formal process for selecting application technology.

Info-Tech’s 15-Step Procurement Process

Use Info-Tech's procurement process to ensure that your SMMP selection is properly planned and executed.

  1. Initiate procurement.
  2. Select procurement manager.
  3. Prepare for procurement; check that prerequisites are met.
  4. Select appropriate procurement vehicle.
  5. Assemble procurement teams.
  6. Create procurement project plan.
  7. Identify and notify vendors about procurement.
  8. Configure procurement process.
  9. Gather requirements.
  10. Prioritize requirements.
  11. Build the procurement documentation package.
  12. Issue the procurement.
  13. Evaluate proposals.
  14. Recommend a vendor.
  15. Present to management.
    16.

Much of your procurement process should already be outlined from your charter and initial project structuring.
In this stage of the process, focus on the successful completion of steps 7-15.

Prioritize your solution requirements based on your business, architecture, and performance needs

Associated Activity icon

INPUT: Requirements Workbook and requirements gathering findings

OUTPUT: Full documentation of requirements for the RFP and solution evaluation process

Completed in Section 3

  1. Identify Your Requirements
    Use the findings being collected in the Requirements Workbook and related materials to define clear requirements around your organization’s desired SMMP.
  2. Prioritize Your Requirements
    • Identify the significance of each requirement for your solution evaluation.
    • Identify features and requirements as mandatory, important, or optional.
    • Control the number of mandatory requirements you document. Too many mandatory requirements could create an unrealistic framework for evaluating solutions.
  3. Create a Requirements Package
    • Consolidate your identified requirements into one list, removing redundancies and conflicts.
    • Categorize the requirements based on their priority and nature.
      • Use this requirements package as you evaluate vendors and create your RFP for shortlisted vendors.

Info-Tech Insight

No solution will meet 100% of your requirements. Control the number of mandatory requirements you place in your procurement process to ensure that vendors that are the best fit for your organization are not eliminated unnecessarily.

Create an RFP to submit to vendors

Supporting Tool icon Request for Proposal Template
Associated Activity icon Activity: Interpreting the Results

INPUT: Requirements package, Organization’s procurement procedures

OUTPUT: RFP

MATERIALS: Whiteboard and markers

PARTICIPANTS: Project manager, Core project team

Leverage Info-Tech’s SMMP RFP Template to convey your desired suite requirements to vendors and outline the proposal and procurement steps set by your organization.

Build Your RFP
  1. Outline the organization's procurement instructions for vendors (Sections 1, 3, and 5).
  2. Input the requirements package created in Activity 5.2 into your RFP (Section 4).
  3. Create a scenario overview to provide vendors an opportunity to give an estimated price.

Approval Process

Each organization has a unique procurement process; follow your own organization’s process as you submit your RFPs to vendors.

  1. Ensure compliance with your organization's standards and gain approval for submitting your RFP.

Info-Tech RFP
Table of Contents

  1. Statement of Work
  2. General Information
  3. Proposal Preparation Instructions
  4. Scope of Work, Specifications, and Requirements
  5. Vendor Qualifications and References
  6. Budget and Estimated Pricing
  7. Vendor Certification

Standardize the potential responses from vendors and streamline your evaluation with a response template

Supporting Tool icon Vendor Response Template
Sample of the Vendor Response Template. Adjust the scope and content of the Vendor Response Template to fit your SMMP procurement process and vendor requirements.

Section

Why is this section important?
About the Vendor This is where the vendor will describe itself and prove its organizational viability.
Understanding of the Challenge Demonstrates that understanding of the problem is the first step in being able to provide a solution.
Methodology Shows that there is a proven methodology to approach and solve the challenge.
Proposed Solution Describes how the vendor will address the challenge. This is a very important section as it articulates what you will receive from the vendor as a solution.
Project Management, Plan, and Timeline Provides an overview of the project management methodology, phases of the project, what will be delivered, and when.
Vendor Qualifications Provides evidence of prior experience with delivering similar projects for similar clients.
References Provides contact information for individuals/organizations for which the vendor has worked and who can vouch for the experience and success of working with this vendor.
Value Added Services Remember, this could lead to a long-term relationship. It’s not only about what you need now, but also what you may need in the future.
Requirements Confirmation from the vendor as to which requirements it can meet and how it will meet them.

Evaluate the RFPs you receive within a clear scoring process

Supporting Tool icon SMMP RFP Evaluation and Scoring Tool
Steps to follow: 'Review, Evaluate, Shortlist, Brief, Select' with the first 3 highlighted.

Associated Activity icon Activity

Build a fair evaluation framework that evaluates vendor solutions against a set criteria rather than relative comparisons.

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Have members of the SMMP evaluation team review the RFP responses given by vendors.
  2. Input vendor solution information into the SMMP RFP Evaluation and Scoring Tool.
  3. Analyze the vendors against your identified evaluation framework.
  4. Identify vendors with whom you wish to arrange vendor briefings.
  5. Contact vendors and arranging briefings.
 How to use this tool
  • Review the feature list and select where each feature is mandatory, desirable, or not applicable.
  • Select if each feature has been met by the vendor RFP response.
  • Enter the costing information provided by each vendor.
  • Determine the relative importance of the features, architecture, and support.
Tool Output
  • Costing
  • Overall score
  • Evaluation notes and comments

Vendor product demonstration

Vendor Profiles icon Demo Script Template

Demo

 Invite vendors to come onsite to demonstrate the product and to answer questions. Use a demo script to help identify how a vendor’s solution will fit your organization’s particular business capability needs.
Make sure the solution will work for your business

Provide the vendor with some usage patterns for the SMMP tool in preparation for the vendor demo.

Provide the following information to vendors in your script:

  • Usage for different groups.
  • SMMP usage and [business analytics] usage.
  • The requirements for administration.
 How to challenge the vendors in the demo
  • Change visualization/presentation.
  • Change the underlying data.
  • Add additional datasets to the artifacts.
  • Collaboration capabilities.
  • Perform an investigation in terms of finding BI objects and identifying previous changes, and examine the audit trail.
 Sample of the SMMP Demo Script Template
SMMP Demo Script Template

INFO-TECH ACTIVITY

INPUT: Requirements package, Use-case results

OUTPUT: Onsite demo

  1. Create a demo script that will be sent to vendors that outlines SMMP usage patterns from your organization.
  2. Construct the demo script with your SMMP evaluation team, providing both prompts for the vendor to display the capabilities and some sample data for the vendor to model.

Use vendor RFPs and demos to select the SMMP that best fits your organization’s needs

Supporting Tool icon Suite Evaluation and Scoring Tool: Tab 5, Overall Score

Don’t just choose the vendor who gave the best presentation. Instead, select the vendor who meets your functional requirements and organizational needs.

Category Weight Vendor 1 Vendor 2 Vendor 3 Vendor 4
SMMP Features 60% 75% 80% 80% 90%
Architecture 25% 55% 60% 90% 90%
Support 15% 10% 70% 60% 95%
Total Score 100% 60% 74% 80% 91%
Use your objective evaluation to select a vendor to recommend to management for procurement. Arrow from 'Vendor 4' to post script.

Don’t automatically decide to go with the highest score; validate that the vendor is someone you can envision working with for the long term.

  • Select a vendor based not only on their evaluation performance, but also on your belief that you could form a lasting and supportive relationship with them.
  • Integration needs are dynamic, not static. Find an SMMP tool and vendor that have strong capabilities and will fit with the application and integration plans of the business.
  • In many cases, you will require professional services together with your SMMP purchase to make sure you have some guidance in the initial development and your own staff are trained properly.

Following the identification of your selected suite, submit your recommendation to the organization’s management or evaluation team for final approval.

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

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

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

Sample of 'Create an RFP to submit to vendors' slide with 'Request for Proposal Template'. Create an RFP for SMMP procurement

Our Info-Tech analyst will walk you through the RFP preparation to ensure the SMMP requirements are articulated clearly to vendors in this space.
Sample of 'Vendor product demonstration' slide with 'Demo Script Template'. Create SMMP demo scripts

An analyst will walk you through the demo script preparation to guide the SMMP product demonstrations and briefings offered by vendors. The analyst will ensure the demo script addresses key requirements documented earlier in the process.

Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform

PHASE 3

Review Implementation Considerations

Phase 3: Review implementation considerations

Steps of this blueprint represented by circles of varying colors and sizes, labelled by text of different sizes. Only Phase 3 is highlighted.
Estimated Timeline:

Info-Tech Insight

Even a solution that is a perfect fit for an organization will fail to generate value if it is not properly implemented or measured. Conduct the necessary planning before implementing your SMMP.

Major Milestones Reached
  • Plan for implementation and expected go-live date

Key Activities Completed

  • SMMP Implementation Plan
  • Governance Plan
  • Change Control Methods

Outcomes from This Phase

Plans for implementing the selected SMMP tool.

Phase 3 outline

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

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

Guided Implementation 3: Review Implementation Considerations

Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks
Step 3.1: Establish best practices for SMMP implementation Step 3.2: Assess the measured value from the project
Start with an analyst kick-off call:
  • Determine the right governance structure to overlook the SMMP implementation.
  • Identify integrations with other applications.
  • Establish an ongoing maintenance plan.
  • Assess the different deployment models.
 Review findings with analyst:
  • Determine the key performance indicators for each department using the SMMP
  • Identify key performance indicators for business units using an SMMP
Then complete these activities…
  • Establish a governance structure for social media.
  • Specify data linkages with CRM.
  • Identify risks and mitigation strategies
  • Determine the right deployment model for your organization.
 Then complete these activities…
  • Identify key performance indicators for business units using an SMMP
With these tools & templates:
  • Social Media Steering Committee
Phase 3 Results & Insights:
  • Implementation Plan
  • SMMP KPIs

Phase 3, Step 1: Establish best practices for SMMP implementation

3.1

3.2
Establish best practices for SMMP implementation Assess the measured value from the project

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Establish a governance structure for social media management.
  • Specify the data linkages you will need between your CRM platform and SMMP.

This step involves the following participants:

  • Core Project Team

Outcomes of this step

  • Social Media Steering Committee Charter
  • SMMP data migration Inventory
  • Determination of the deployment model that works best for your organization
  • Deployment Model

Follow these steps for effective SMMP implementation

What to Consider

  • Creating an overall social media strategy is the critical first step in implementing an SMMP.
  • Selecting an SMMP involves gathering business requirements, then translating those requirements into specific selection criteria. Know exactly what your business needs are to ensure the right SMMP is selected.
  • Implement the platform with an eye toward creating business value: establish points of integration with the existing CRM solution, establish ongoing maintenance policies, select the right deployment model, and train end users around role-based objectives.
Arrow pointing down.

Plan
  • Develop a strategy for customer interaction
  • Develop a formal strategy for social media
  • Determine business requirements
Arrow pointing down.

Create RFP
  • Translate into functional requirements
  • Determine evaluation criteria
Arrow pointing down.

Evaluate
  • Evaluate vendors against criteria
  • Shortlist vendors
  • Perform in-depth vendor review

Implement
  • Integrate with existing CRM ecosystem (if applicable)
  • Establish ongoing maintenance policies
  • Map deployment to organizational models
  • Train end-users and establish acceptable use policies
  • Designate an SMMP subject matter expert

Before deploying the SMMP, ensure the right social media governance structures are in place to oversee implementation

An SMMP is a tool, not a substitute, for adequate cross-departmental social media oversight. You must coordinate efforts across constituent stakeholders.

  • Successful organizations have permanent governance structures in place for managing social media. For example, mature companies leverage Social Media Steering Committees (SMSCs) to coordinate the social media initiatives of different business units and departments. Large organizations with highly complex needs may even make use of a physical command center.
  • Compared to traditional apps projects (like CRM or ERP), social media programs tend to start as grassroots initiatives. Marketing and Public Relations departments are the most likely to spearhead the initial push, often selecting their own tools without IT involvement or oversight. This causes application fragmentation and a proliferation of shadow IT.
  • This organic adoption contrasts with the top-down approach many IT leaders are accustomed to. Bottom-up growth can ensure rapid response to social media opportunities, but it also leads to insufficient coordination. A conscious effort should be made to mature your social media strategy beyond this disorganized initial state.
  • IT can help be a “cat herder” to shepherd departments into shared initiatives.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Before implementing the SMMP, go through the appropriate organizational governance structures to ensure they have input into the deployment. If a social media steering committee is not already in place, rolling out an SMMP is a great opportunity to get one going. See our research on social media program execution for more details.

Establish a governance structure for social media management

Associated Activity icon 3.1.1 60 minutes

INPUT: Project stakeholders, SMMP mandate

OUTPUT: Social Media Governance Structure

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers

PARTICIPANTS: Project Manager, Core project team

  1. Describe the unique role that the governance team will play in social media management.
  2. Describe the overall purpose statement of the governance team.
  3. Define the roles and responsibilities of the governance team.
  4. Document the outcome in the Social Media Steering Committee Charter.

EXAMPLE

Executive Sponsorship
Social Media Steering Committee
VP Marketing VP Sales VP Customer Service VP Public Relations CIO/ IT Director
Marketing Dept. Sales Dept. Customer Service Dept. Public Relations Dept. IT Dept.

Use Info-Tech’s Social Media Steering Committee Charter Template to define roles and ensure value delivery

Supporting Tool icon 3.1

Leaders must ensure that the SMSC has a formal mandate with clear objectives, strong executive participation, and a commitment to meeting regularly. Create an SMSC Charter to formalize the committee governance capabilities.

Developing a Social Media Steering Committee Charter:
  • Outline the committee’s structure, composition, and responsibilities using the Info-Tech Social Media Steering Committee Charter Template.
  • This template also outlines the key tasks and responsibilities for the committee:
    • Providing strategic leadership for social media
    • Leading SMMP procurement efforts
    • Providing process integration
    • Governing social media initiatives
    • Ensuring open communications between departments with ownership of social media processes
  • Keep the completed charter on file and available to all committee members. Remember to periodically update the document as organizational priorities shift to ensure the charter remains relevant.

INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

Sample of the Social Media Steering Committee Charter Template.

Integrate your social media management platform with CRM to strengthen the realization of social media goals

  • Linking social media to existing customer relationship management solutions can improve information accuracy, reduce manual effort and provide more in-depth customer insights.
    • Organizations Info-Tech surveyed, and who integrated their solutions, achieved more goals as a result.
  • Several major CRM vendors are now offering products that integrate with popular social networking services (either natively or by providing support for third-party add-ons).
    • For example, Salesforce.com now allows for native integration with Twitter, while an add-on available for Oracle gathers real-time information about prospects by pulling their extended information from publicly available LinkedIn profiles.
  • Some CRM vendors are acquiring established SMMPs outright.
    • For example, Salesforce.com acquired Radian6 for their clients that have advanced social media requirements.
 Bar chart comparing the social media goal realization of organizations that integrated their SMMP and CRM technology and those that didn't.

Info-Tech Best Practice

CRM vendors still lag in out-of-the-box social features, making a separate SMMP purchase a given. For companies that have not formally integrated social media with CRM, IT should develop the business case in conjunction with the applicable business-side partner (e.g. Marketing, Sales, Service, PR, etc.).

Establish points of integration between SMMPs and CRM suites to gain a 360 degree view of the customer

  • Social media is a valuable tool from a standalone perspective, but its power is considerably magnified when it’s paired with the CRM suite.
  • Many SMMPs offer native integration with CRM platforms. IT should identify and enable these connectors to strengthen the business value of the platform.
    • An illustrated example of how an SMMP linked via CRM can provide proactive service while contributing to sales and marketing.
    An example of how an SMMP linked via CRM can provide proactive service while contributing to sales and marketing.
  • New channels do not mean they stand alone and do not need to be integrated into the rest of the customer interaction architecture.
  • Challenge SMMP vendors to demonstrate integration experience with CRM vendors and multimedia queue vendors.
  • Manual integration – adding resolved social inquiries yourself to a CRM system after closure – cannot scale given the rapid increase in customer inquiries originating in the social cloud. Integration with interaction management workflows is most desirable.

“These tools are enabling sales, and they help us serve our customers better. And anything that does that, is a good investment on our part.” Chip Meyers, (Sales Operation Manager, Insource)

Info-Tech Best Practice

SMMPs are a necessary single-channel evolutionary step, just like there used to be email-only and web chat-only customer service options in the late 1990s. But they are temporary. SMMPs will eventually be subsumed into the larger marketing automation ecosystem. Only a few best of breed will survive in 10 years.

Specify the data linkages you will need between your CRM platform and SMMP

Associated Activity icon 3.1.2 1 hour

INPUT: SMMP data sources

OUTPUT: SMMP data migration inventory

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers

PARTICIPANTS: Project Manager, Core project team

  1. Build a list of sources of information that you’ll need to integrate with your CRM tool.
  2. Identify:
    1. Data Source
    2. Integration Direction
    3. Data Type and Use Case
Data Source Migration/Integration Direction Data Type/Use Case
Social Platform Bidirectional Recent Social Posts
Customer Data Warehouse Bidirectional Contact Information, Cases, Tasks, Opportunities

Establish a plan for ongoing platform maintenance

  • Like other enterprise applications, the SMMP will require periodic upkeep. IT must develop and codify policies around ongoing platform maintenance.
  • Platform maintenance should touch on the following areas:
    • Account access and controls – periodically, access privileges for employees no longer with the organization should be purged.
    • Platform security – cloud-based platforms will be automatically updated by the vendor to plug security holes, but on-premises solutions must be periodically updated to ensure that there are no gaps in security.
    • Pruning of old or outdated material – pages (e.g. Facebook Groups, Events, and Twitter feeds) that are no longer in use should be pruned. For example, a management console for an event that was held two years ago is unnecessary. Remove it from the platform (and the relevant service) to cut down on clutter (and reduce costs for “per-topic” priced platforms.)
 SMMP being fixed by a wrench.

IT: SMMP Maintenance Checklist

  • Account upkeep and pruning
  • Security, privacy, and access
  • Content upkeep and pruning

Info-Tech Best Practice

Even cloud-based platforms like SMMPs require a certain degree of maintenance around account controls, security, and content pruning. IT should assist the business units in carrying out periodic maintenance.

Social media is a powerful medium, but organizations must develop a prudent strategy for minimizing associated risks

Using an SMMP can help mitigate many of the risks associated with social media. Review the risk categories on the next several slides to determine which ones can be mitigated by effective utilization of a dedicated SMMP.

Risk Category Likelihood Risk(s) Suggested Mitigation Strategy
Privacy and Confidentiality High
  • Risk of inappropriate exchange of information between personal and business social networks (e.g. a personal account used for company business).
  • Abuse of privacy and confidentiality laws.
  • Whenever possible, implement separate social network accounts for business, and train your employees to avoid using personal accounts at work.
  • Have a policy in place for how to treat pre-existing accounts versus newly created ones for enterprise use.
  • Use the “unified sign-on” capabilities of an SMMP to prevent employees from directly accessing the underlying social media services.

Good governance means being proactive in mitigating the legal and compliance risks of your social media program

Risk Category Likelihood Risk(s) Suggested Mitigation Strategy
Trademark and Intellectual Property Medium
  • Copyrighted information could inappropriately be used for promotional and other business purposes (e.g. using a private user’s images in collateral).
  • Legal should conduct training to make sure the organization’s social media representatives only use information in the public domain, nothing privileged or confidential. This is particularly sensitive for Marketing and PR.
Control over Brand Image and Inappropriate Content Medium
  • Employees on social media channels may post something inappropriate to the nature of your business.
  • Employees can post something that compromises industry and/or ethical standards.
  • Use SMMP outbound filtering/post approval workflows to censor certain inappropriate keywords.
  • Select the team carefully and ensure they are fully trained on both official company policy and social media etiquette.
  • Ensure strong enforcement of Social Media AUPs: take a zero tolerance approach to flagrant abuses.

Security is a top-of-mind risk, though bandwidth is a low priority issue for most organizations

Risk Category Likelihood Risk(s) Suggested Mitigation Strategy
IT Security Medium Risk of employees downloading or being sent malware through social media services. Your clients are also exposed to this risk; this may undermine their trust of your brand.
  • Implement policies that outline appropriate precautions by employees, such as using effective passwords and not downloading unauthorized software.
  • Use web-filtering and anti-malware software that incorporates social media as a threat vector.
Bandwidth Low Increase in bandwidth needs to support social media efforts, particularly when using video social media such as YouTube.
  • Plan for any bandwidth requirements with IT network staff.
  • Most social media strategies shouldn’t have a material impact on bandwidth.

Poaching of client lists and increased costs are unlikely to occur, but address as a worst case scenario

Risk Category Likelihood Risk(s) Suggested Mitigation Strategy
Competitors Poaching Client Lists Low The ability for a competitor to view lists of clients that have joined your organization’s social media groups.
  • In a public social network, you cannot prevent this. Monitor your own brand as well as competitors’. If client secrecy must be maintained, then you should use a private social network (e.g. Jive, Lithium, private SharePoint site), not a public network.
Increased Cost of Servicing Customers Low Additional resources may be allocated to social media without seeing immediate ROI.
  • Augment existing customer service responsibilities with social media requests.
  • If a dedicated resource is not available, dedicate a specific amount of time per employee to be spent addressing customer concerns via social media.

Determine your top social media risks and develop an appropriate mitigation strategy that incorporates an SMMP

Associated Activity icon 3.1.3 20 minutes

INPUT: Risk assessment inventory

OUTPUT: Top social media risks and mitigation plan

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers

PARTICIPANTS: Project Manager, Core project team

  1. Based on your unique business variables, which social media risk categories are most applicable to your organization? In what order?
  2. Summarize the top risks below and identify mitigation steps (which often involve effective use of a dedicated SMMP).
Rank Risk Category Mitigation Steps
High Confidentiality We have strong records retention requirements, so using a rules-based SMMP like SocialVolt is a must.
Medium Brand Image Ensure that only personnel who have undergone mandatory training can touch our social accounts via an SMMP.
Low Competitors’ Poaching Lists Migrate our Business Services division contacts onto LinkedIn – maintain no Facebook presence for these clients.

Determine the workflows that will be supported using your social media management platform

Determine when, where, and how social media services should be used to augment existing workflows across (and between) the business process domains. Establish escalation rules and decide whether workflows will be reactive or proactively.

  • Fine tune your efforts in each business process domain by matching social technologies to specific business workflows. This will clearly delineate where value is created by leveraging social media.
  • Common business process domains that should be targeted include marketing, sales, and customer service. Public relations, human resources, and analyst relations are other areas to consider for social process support.
  • For each business process domain, IT should assist with technology enablement and execution.
 Target domains: 'Marketing', 'Sales', 'Customer Service', 'Public Relations', 'Human Resources'.

Info-Tech Best Practice

The social media governance team should have high-level supervision of process workflows. Ask to see reports from line managers on what steps they have taken to put process in place for reactive and proactive customer interactions, as well as escalations and channel switching. IT helps orchestrate these processes through knowledge and expertise with SMMP workflow capability.

There are three primary models for SMMP deployment: the agency model uses the SMMP as a third-party offering

There are three models for deploying an SMMP: agency, centralized, and distributed.

Agency Model
Visual of the Agency Model with the 'Social Cloud' attached to the 'SMMP' attached to the 'Agency (e.g. marketing or public relations agency)' attached to the 'Client Organization (Marketing, Sales, Service)'
  • In the agency model of SMMP deployment, the platform is managed on behalf of the organization by a third party – typically a marketing or public relations agency.
  • The agency serves as the primary touch point for the client organization: the client requests the types of market research it wants done, or the campaigns it wants managed. The agency uses its own SMMP(s) to execute the requests. Often, the SMMP’s results or dashboards will be rebranded by the agency.
  • Pros: The agency model is useful when large portions of marketing, service, or public relations are already being outsourced to a third-party provider. Going with an agency also splits the cost of more expensive SMMPs over multiple clients, and limits deployment costs.
  • Cons: The client organization has no direct control over the platform; going with an agency is not cost effective for firms with in-house marketing or PR capabilities.
  • Advice: Go with an agency-managed SMMP if you already use an agency for marketing or PR.

Select the centralized deployment model when SMMP functionality rests in the hands of a single department

Centralized Model
Visual of the Centralized Model with the 'Social Cloud' attached to the 'SMMP' attached to 'Marketing' attached to the 'Sales' and 'Service'
In this example, marketing owns and manages a single SMMP
  • In the centralized model, a single SMMP workspace is owned and operated predominantly by a single business unit or department. Unlike the agency model, the SMMP functionality is utilized in-house.
  • Information from the SMMP may occasionally be shared with other departments, but normally the platform is used almost exclusively by a single group in the company. Marketing or public relations are usually the groups that maintain ownership of the SMMP in the centralized model (with selection and deployment assistance from the IT department).
  • Pros: The centralized model provides small organizations with an in-house, dedicated SMMP without having to go through an agency. Having a single group own and manage the SMMP is considerably more cost effective than having SMMPs licensed to multiple business units in a small company.
  • Cons: If more and more departments start clamoring for control of SMMP resources, the centralized model will fail to meet the overall needs of the organization.
  • Advice: Small-to-medium enterprises with mid-sized topic or brand portfolios should use the centralized model.

Go with a distributed deployment if multiple business units require advanced SMMP functionality

Distributed Model
Visual of the Distributed Model with the 'Social Cloud' attached to two 'SMMPs', one attached to 'Marketing' and 'Sales', the other to 'Customer Service' and 'Public Relations'.
  • In the distributed model, multiple SMMPs (sometimes from different vendors) or multiple SMMP workspaces (from a single vendor) are deployed to several groups (e.g. multiple departments or brand portfolios) in the organization.
  • Pros: The distributed model is highly effective in large organizations with multiple departments or brands that each are interested in SMMP functionality. Having separate workspaces for each business group enables customizing workspaces to satisfy different goals of the different business groups.
  • Cons: The cost of deploying multiple SMMP workspaces can be prohibitive.
  • Advice: Go with the distributed model if your organization is large and has multiple relevant departments or product marketing groups, with differing social media goals.

Determine which deployment model works best for your organization

Associated Activity icon 3.1.4 1 Hour

INPUT: Deployment models

OUTPUT: Best fit deployment model

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers

PARTICIPANTS: Project Manager, Core project team

  1. Assess and understand the three models of SMMP deployments: agency, centralized and distributed. Consider the pros and cons of each model.
  2. Understand how your organization manages enterprise social media. Consider the follow questions:
    • What is the size of your organization?
    • Who owns the management of social media in your organization?
    • Is social media managed in-house or outsourced to an agency?
    • What are the number of departments that use and rely on social media?
  3. Select the best deployment model for your organization.
Agency Model Centralized Model Distributed Model
Visual of the Agency Model with the 'Social Cloud' attached to the 'SMMP' attached to the 'Agency (e.g. marketing or public relations agency)' attached to the 'Client Organization (Marketing, Sales, Service)' Visual of the Centralized Model with the 'Social Cloud' attached to the 'SMMP' attached to 'Marketing' attached to the 'Sales' and 'Service' Visual of the Distributed Model with the 'Social Cloud' attached to two 'SMMPs', one attached to 'Marketing' and 'Sales', the other to 'Customer Service' and 'Public Relations'.

Create an SMMP training matrix based on social media roles

IT must assist the business by creating and executing a role-based training program. An SMMP expert in IT should lead training sessions for targeted groups of end users, training them only on the functions they require to perform their jobs.

Use the table below to help identify which roles should be trained on which SMMP features.

PR Professionals Marketing Brand, Product, and Channel Managers Customer Service Reps and Manager Product Development and Market Research IT Application Support
Account Management Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field.
Response and Engagement Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field.
Social Analytics and Data Mining Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field.
Marketing Campaign Execution Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field.
Mobile Access Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field. Circle indicating a positive field.
Archiving Circle indicating a positive field.
CRM Integration Circle indicating a positive field.

Phase 3, Step 2: Track your metrics

3.1

3.2
Establish best practices for SMMP implementation Assess the measured value from the project

This step will walk you through the following activities:

  • Identify metrics and KPIs for business units using a dedicated SMMP

This step involves the following participants:

  • Core Project Team
  • Representative Stakeholders from Digital Marketing, Sales, and IT

Outcomes of this step

  • Key Performance Indicators

Know key performance indicators (KPIs) for each department that employs a dedicated social media management platform

Share of Voice
How often a brand is mentioned, relative to other brands competing in a defined market.

User Engagement
Quantity and quality of customer interactions with a brand or with each other, either on- or offline.

Campaign Success
Tracking reception of campaigns and leads brought in as a result.		 Marketing KPIs Reach
Measurement of the size of market your brand advertisements and communications reach.

Impressions
The number of exposures your content, ad, or social post has to people in your target audience.

Cost per Point (CPP)
Cost to reach one percent of your organization’s audience.

Product Innovation
The quantity and quality of improvements, updates, and changes to existing products.

Time-to-Market
Time that passes between idea generation and the product being available to consumers.

 Product Development KPIs

New Product Launches
A ratio of completely new product types released to brand extensions and improvements.

Cancelled Projects
Measure of quality of ideas generated and quality of idea assessment method.

Use social media metrics to complement your existing departmental KPIs – not usurp them

Cost per Lead
The average amount an organization spends to find leads.

Conversion Rate
How many sales are made in relation to the number of leads.

Quantity of Leads
How many sales leads are in the funnel at a given time.		 Sales KPIs Average Cycle Time
Average length of time it takes leads to progress through the sales cycle.

Revenue by Lead
Total revenue divided by total number of leads.

Avg. Revenue per Rep
Total revenue divided by number of sales reps.

Time to Resolution
Average amount of time it takes for customers to get a response they are satisfied with.

First Contact Resolution
How often customer issues are resolved on the first contact.

 Customer Service KPIs

Contact Frequency
The number of repeated interactions from the same customers.

Satisfaction Scores
Determined from customer feedback – either through surveys or gathered sporadically.

Social analytics don’t operate alone; merge social data with traditional data to gain the deepest insights

Employee Retention
The level of effort an organization exerts to maintain its current staff.

Employee Engagement
Rating of employee satisfaction overall or with a given aspect of the workplace.

Preferred Employer
A company where candidates would rather work over other companies.		 Marketing KPIs Recruitment Cycle Time
Average length of time required to recruit a new employee.

Employee Productivity
A comparison of employee inputs (time, effort, etc.) and outputs (work).

Employee Referrals
The ratio of employee referrals that complete the recruitment process.

“There are conversations going on behind your back, and if you're not participating in them, then you're either not perpetuating the positive conversation or not diffusing the negative. And that's irresponsible in today's business world.” (Lon Safko, Social Media Bible)

Identify key performance indicators for business units using an SMMP

Associated Activity icon 3.2.1 30 minutes

INPUT: Social media goals

OUTPUT: SMMP KPIs

MATERIALS: Whiteboard, Markers

PARTICIPANTS: Representative stakeholders from different business units

For each listed department, identify the social media goals and departmental key performance indicators to measure the impact of the SMMP.

DepartmentSocial Media GoalsKPI
Marketing
  • E.g. build a positive brand image
  • Net increase in brand recognition
Product Development
  • Launch a viral video campaign showcasing product attributes to drive increased YT traffic
  • Net increase in unaided customer recall
Sales
  • Enhance sales lead generation through social channels
  • Net increase in sales lead generation in the social media sales funnel
Customer Service
  • Produce more timely responses to customer enquiries and complaints
  • Reduced time to resolution
HR
  • Enhance social media recruitment channels
  • Number of LinkedIn recruitment

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

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

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

3.1.1

 Sample of activity 3.1.1 'Establish a governance structure for social media management'. Establish a governance structure for social media management

Our Info-Tech analyst will walk you through the exercise of developing roles and responsibilities to govern your social media program.

3.1.2

 Sample of activity 3.1.2 'Specify the data linkages you will need between your CRM platform and SMMP'. Specify the data linkages you will need between your CRM and SMMP

The analyst will help you identify the points of integration between the SMMP and your CRM platform.

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

3.1.3

 Sample of activity 3.1.3 'Determine your top social media risks and develop an appropriate mitigation strategy that incorporates an SMMP'. Determine your top social media risks

Our Info-Tech analyst will facilitate the discussion to identify the top risks associated with the SMMP and determine mitigation strategies for each risk.

3.1.4

 Sample of activity 3.1.4 'Determine which deployment model works best for your organization'. Determine the best-fit deployment model

An analyst will demonstrate the different SMMP deployment models and assist in determining the most suitable model for your organization.

3.2.1

 Sample of activity 3.2.1 'Identify key performance indicators for business units using an SMMP'. Identify departmental KPIs

An analyst will work with different stakeholders to determine the top social media goals for each department.

Appendices

Works Cited

Ashja, Mojtaba, Akram Hadizadeh, and Hamid Bidram. “Comparative Study of Large Information Systems’ CSFs During Their Life Cycle.” Information Systems Frontiers. September 8, 2013.

UBM. “The State of Social Media Analytics.” January, 2016.

Jobvite. “2015 Recruiter Nation Survey.” September, 2015.

Vendor Landscape Analysis Appendices

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Overview

Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscapes are research materials that review a particular IT market space, evaluating the strengths and abilities of both the products available in that space, as well as the vendors of those products. These materials are created by a team of dedicated analysts operating under the direction of a senior subject matter expert over a period of several weeks.

Evaluations weigh selected vendors and their products (collectively “solutions”) on the following eight criteria to determine overall standing:

  • Features: The presence of advanced and market-differentiating capabilities.
  • User Interface: The intuitiveness, power, and integrated nature of administrative consoles and client software components.
  • Affordability: The three-year total cost of ownership of the solution; flexibility of the pricing and discounting structure.
  • Architecture: The degree of integration with the vendor’s other tools, flexibility of deployment, and breadth of platform applicability.
  • Viability: The stability of the company as measured by its history in the market, the size of its client base, and its percentage of growth.
  • Focus: The commitment to both the market space, as well as to the various sized clients (small, mid-sized, and enterprise clients).
  • Reach: The ability of the vendor to support its products on a global scale.
  • Sales: The structure of the sales process and the measure of the size of the vendor’s channel and industry partners.

Evaluated solutions within scenarios are visually represented by a Pathway to Success, based off a linear graph using above scoring methods:

  • Use-case scenarios are decided upon based on analyst expertise and experience with Info-Tech clients.
  • Use-case scenarios are defined through feature requirements, predetermined by analyst expertise.
  • Placement within scenario rankings consists of features being evaluated against the other scoring criteria.

Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscapes are researched and produced according to a strictly adhered to process that includes the following steps:

  • Vendor/product selection
  • Information gathering
  • Vendor/product scoring
  • Information presentation
  • Fact checking
  • Publication

This document outlines how each of these steps is conducted.

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Vendor/Product Selection & Information Gathering

Info-Tech works closely with its client base to solicit guidance in terms of understanding the vendors with whom clients wish to work and the products that they wish evaluated; this demand pool forms the basis of the vendor selection process for Vendor Landscapes. Balancing this demand, Info-Tech also relies upon the deep subject matter expertise and market awareness of its Senior Analysts to ensure that appropriate solutions are included in the evaluation. As an aspect of that expertise and awareness, Info-Tech’s analysts may, at their discretion, determine the specific capabilities that are required of the products under evaluation, and include in the Vendor Landscape only those solutions that meet all specified requirements.

Information on vendors and products is gathered in a number of ways via a number of channels.

Initially, a request package is submitted to vendors to solicit information on a broad range of topics. The request package includes:

  • A detailed survey.
  • A pricing scenario (see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Price Evaluation and Pricing Scenario, below).
  • A request for reference clients.
  • A request for a briefing and, where applicable, guided product demonstration.

These request packages are distributed approximately eight weeks prior to the initiation of the actual research project to allow vendors ample time to consolidate the required information and schedule appropriate resources.

During the course of the research project, briefings and demonstrations are scheduled (generally for one hour each session, though more time is scheduled as required) to allow the analyst team to discuss the information provided in the survey, validate vendor claims, and gain direct exposure to the evaluated products. Additionally, an end-user survey is circulated to Info-Tech’s client base and vendor-supplied reference accounts are interviewed to solicit their feedback on their experiences with the evaluated solutions and with the vendors of those solutions.

These materials are supplemented by a thorough review of all product briefs, technical manuals, and publicly available marketing materials about the product, as well as about the vendor itself.

Refusal by a vendor to supply completed surveys or submit to participation in briefings and demonstrations does not eliminate a vendor from inclusion in the evaluation. Where analyst and client input has determined that a vendor belongs in a particular evaluation, it will be evaluated as best as possible based on publicly available materials only. As these materials are not as comprehensive as a survey, briefing, and demonstration, the possibility exists that the evaluation may not be as thorough or accurate. Since Info-Tech includes vendors regardless of vendor participation, it is always in the vendor’s best interest to participate fully.

All information is recorded and catalogued, as required, to facilitate scoring and for future reference.

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Scoring

Once all information has been gathered and evaluated for all vendors and products, the analyst team moves to scoring. All scoring is performed at the same time so as to ensure as much consistency as possible. Each criterion is scored on a ten-point scale, though the manner of scoring for criteria differs slightly:

  • Features is scored via Cumulative Scoring.
  • Affordability is scored via Scalar Scoring.
  • All other criteria are scored via Base5 Scoring.

Cumulative Scoring is on a four-point scale. Zero points are awarded to features that are deemed absent or unsatisfactory, one point is assigned to features that are partially present, two points are assigned to features that require an extra purchase in the vendor’s product portfolio or through a third party, three points are assigned to features that are fully present and native to the solution, and four points are assigned to the best-of-breed native feature. The assigned points are summed and normalized to a value out of ten. For example, if a particular Vendor Landscape evaluates eight specific features in the Feature Criteria, the summed score out of eight for each evaluated product would be multiplied by 1.25 to yield a value out of ten to represent in a Harvey Ball format.

In Scalar Scoring, a score of ten is assigned to the lowest cost solution, and a score of one is assigned to the highest cost solution. All other solutions are assigned a mathematically-determined score based on their proximity to / distance from these two endpoints. For example, in an evaluation of three solutions, where the middle cost solution is closer to the low end of the pricing scale it will receive a higher score, and where it is closer to the high end of the pricing scale it will receive a lower score; depending on proximity to the high or low price it is entirely possible that it could receive either ten points (if it is very close to the lowest price) or one point (if it is very close to the highest price). Where pricing cannot be determined (vendor does not supply price and public sources do not exist), a score of 0 is automatically assigned.

In Base5 scoring a number of sub-criteria are specified for each criterion (for example, Longevity, Market Presence, and Financials are sub-criteria of the Viability criterion), and each one is scored on the following scale:

  • 5 - The product/vendor is exemplary in this area (nothing could be done to improve the status).
  • 4 - The product/vendor is good in this area (small changes could be made that would move things to the next level).
  • 3 - The product/vendor is adequate in this area (small changes would make it good, more significant changes required to be exemplary).
  • 2 - The product/vendor is poor in this area (this is a notable weakness and significant work is required).
  • 1 - The product/vendor fails in this area (this is a glaring oversight and a serious impediment to adoption).

The assigned points are summed and normalized to a value out of ten as explained in Cumulative Scoring above.

Scores out of ten, known as Raw scores, are transposed as is into Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape Shortlist Tool, which automatically determines Vendor Landscape positioning (see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation – Vendor Landscape, below), Criteria Score (see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation – Criteria Score, below), and Value Index (see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation – Value Index, below).

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Information Presentation – Criteria Scores (Harvey Balls)

Info-Tech’s criteria scores are visual representations of the absolute score assigned to each individual criterion, as well as of the calculated overall vendor and product scores. The visual representation used is Harvey Balls.

Harvey Balls are calculated as follows:

  1. Raw scores are transposed into the Info-Tech Vendor Landscape Shortlist Tool (for information on how raw scores are determined, see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Scoring, above).
  2. Each individual criterion raw score is multiplied by a pre-assigned weighting factor for the Vendor Landscape in question. Weighting factors are determined prior to the evaluation process, based on the expertise of the Senior or Lead Research Analyst, to eliminate any possibility of bias. Weighting factors are expressed as a percentage, such that the sum of the weighting factors for the vendor criteria (Viability, Strategy, Reach, Channel) is 100%, and the sum of the product criteria (Features, Usability, Affordability, Architecture) is 100%.
  3. A sum-product of the weighted vendor criteria scores and of the weighted product criteria scores is calculated to yield an overall vendor score and an overall product score.
  4. Both overall vendor score / overall product score, as well as individual criterion raw scores are converted from a scale of one to ten to Harvey Ball scores on a scale of zero to four, where exceptional performance results in a score of four and poor performance results in a score of zero.
  5. Harvey Ball scores are converted to Harvey Balls as follows:
    • A score of four becomes a full Harvey Ball.
    • A score of three becomes a three-quarter full Harvey Ball.
    • A score of two becomes a half-full Harvey Ball.
    • A score of one becomes a one-quarter full Harvey Ball.
    • A score of zero becomes an empty Harvey Ball.
  6. Harvey Balls are plotted by solution in a chart where rows represent individual solutions and columns represent overall vendor / overall product, as well as individual criteria. Solutions are ordered in the chart alphabetically by vendor name.
Harvey Balls
Overall Harvey Balls represent weighted aggregates. Example of Harvey Balls with 'Overall' balls at the beginning of each category followed by 'Criteria' balls for individual raw scores. Criteria Harvey Balls represent individual raw scores.

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Use-Case Scoring

Within each Vendor Landscape a set of use-case scenarios are created by the analysts by considering the different outcomes and purposes related to the technology being evaluated. To generate the custom use-case vendor performances, the feature and Harvey Ball scoring performed in the Vendor Landscapes are set with custom weighting configurations.

Calculations

Each product has a vendor multiplier calculated based on its weighted performance, considering the different criteria scored in the Harvey Ball evaluations.

To calculate each vendor’s performance, the advanced feature scores are multiplied against the weighting for the feature in the use-case scenario’s configuration.

The weighted advanced feature score is then multiplied against the vendor multiplier.

The sum of each vendor’s total weighted advanced features is calculated. This sum is used to identify the vendor’s qualification and relative rank within the use case.

Example pie charts.

Each use case’s feature weightings and vendor/product weighting configurations are displayed within the body of slide deck.

Use-Case Vendor Performance

Example stacked bar chart of use-case vendor performance.

Vendors who qualified for each use-case scenario are ranked from first to last in a weighted bar graph based on the features considered.

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Information Presentation – Feature Ranks (Stoplights)

Advanced features are determined by analyst expertise, leveraging information gained from conversations with clients. Advanced features chosen as part of the evaluation are representative of what Info-Tech clients have indicated are of importance to their vendor solution. Advanced features are evaluated through a series of partial marks, dedicated to whether the solution performs all aspects of the Info-Tech definition of the feature and whether the feature is provided within the solution. Analysts hold the right to determine individual, unique scoring criteria for each evaluation. If a feature does not meet the criteria, Info-Tech holds the right to score the feature accordingly.

Use cases use features as a baseline of the inclusion and scoring criteria.

 'Stoplight Legend' with green+star 'Feature category is present: best in class', green 'Feature category is present: strong', yellow 'Feature category is present: average', orange 'Feature category is partially present: weak', and red 'Feature category is absent or near-absent'.

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Information Presentation – Value Index

Info-Tech’s Value Index is an indexed ranking of solution value per dollar as determined by the raw scores assigned to each criteria (for information on how raw scores are determined, see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Scoring, above).

Value scores are calculated as follows:

  1. The TCO Affordability criterion is removed from the Affordability score and the remaining product score criteria (Features, Usability, Architecture). Affordability scoring is adjusted with the TCO weighting distributed in proportion to the use case’s weighting for Affordability. Weighting is adjusted as to retain the same weightings relative to one another, while still summing to 100%.
  2. An adjusted multiplier is determined for each vendor using the recalculated Affordability scoring.
  3. The multiplier vendor score and vendor’s weighted feature score (based on the use-case scenario’s weightings), are summed. This sum is multiplied by the TCO raw score to yield an interim Value Score for each solution.
  4. All interim Value Scores are then indexed to the highest performing solution by dividing each interim Value Score by the highest interim Value Score. This results in a Value Score of 100 for the top solution and an indexed Value Score relative to the 100 for each alternate solution.
  5. Solutions are plotted according to Value Score, with the highest score plotted first, and all remaining scores plotted in descending numerical order.

Where pricing is not provided by the vendor and public sources of information cannot be found, an Affordability raw score of zero is assigned. Since multiplication by zero results in a product of zero, those solutions for which pricing cannot be determined receive a Value Score of zero. Since Info-Tech assigns a score of zero where pricing is not available, it is always in the vendor’s best interest to provide accurate and up-to-date pricing. In the event that insufficient pricing is available to accurately calculate a Value Index, Info-Tech will omit it from the Vendor Landscape.

Value Index

Vendors are arranged in order of Value Score. The Value Score each solution achieved is displayed, and so is the average score.

Example bar chart indicating the 'Value Score' vs the 'Average Score'.

Those solutions that are ranked as Champions are differentiated for point of reference.

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Information Presentation – Price Evaluation: Mid-Market

Info-Tech’s Price Evaluation is a tiered representation of the three-year Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a proposed solution. Info-Tech uses this method of communicating pricing information to provide high-level budgetary guidance to its end-user clients while respecting the privacy of the vendors with whom it works. The solution TCO is calculated and then represented as belonging to one of ten pricing tiers.

Pricing tiers are as follows:

  1. Between $1 and $2,500
  2. Between $2,500 and $10,000
  3. Between $10,000 and $25,000
  4. Between $25,000 and $50,000
  5. Between $50,000 and $100,000
  6. Between $100,000 and $250,000
  7. Between $250,000 and $500,000
  8. Between $500,000 and $1,000,000
  9. Between $1,000,000 and $2,500,000
  10. Greater than $2,500,000

Where pricing is not provided, Info-Tech makes use of publicly available sources of information to determine a price. As these sources are not official price lists, the possibility exists that they may be inaccurate or outdated, and so the source of the pricing information is provided. Since Info-Tech publishes pricing information regardless of vendor participation, it is always in the vendor’s best interest to supply accurate and up to date information.

Info-Tech’s Price Evaluations are based on pre-defined pricing scenarios (see Product Pricing Scenario, below) to ensure a comparison that is as close as possible between evaluated solutions. Pricing scenarios describe a sample business and solicit guidance as to the appropriate product/service mix required to deliver the specified functionality, the list price for those tools/services, as well as three full years of maintenance and support.

Price Evaluation

Call-out bubble indicates within which price tier the three-year TCO for the solution falls, provides the brackets of that price tier, and links to the graphical representation.

Example price evaluation with a '3 year TCO...' statement, a visual gauge of bars, and a statement on the source of the information.

Scale along the bottom indicates that the graphic as a whole represents a price scale with a range of $1 to $2.5M+, while the notation indicates whether the pricing was supplied by the vendor or derived from public sources.

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Information Presentation – Vendor Awards

At the conclusion of all analyses, Info-Tech presents awards to exceptional solutions in three distinct categories. Award presentation is discretionary; not all awards are extended subsequent to each Vendor Landscape and it is entirely possible, though unlikely, that no awards may be presented.

Awards categories are as follows:

  • Champion Awards are presented to the top performing solution in a particular use-case scenario. As a result, only one Champion Award is given for each use case, and the entire Vendor Landscape will have the same number of Champion Awards as the number of evaluated use cases.
  • Leader Awards are presented to top performing solutions for each use-case scenario. Depending on the use-case scenario and the number of solutions being evaluated, a variable number of leader awards will be given. This number is at the discretion of the analysts, but is generally placed at two, and given to the solutions ranking second and third respectively for the use case.
  • Best Overall Value Awards are presented to the solution for each use-case scenario that ranked the highest in the Info-Tech Value Index for each evaluated scenario (see Vendor Landscape Methodology: Information Presentation – Value Index, above). If insufficient pricing information is made available for the evaluated solutions, such that a Value Index cannot be calculated, no Best Overall Value Award will be presented. Only one Best Overall Value Award is available for each use-case scenario.

Vendor Awards for Use-Case Performance

Vendor Award: 'Champion'. Info-Tech’s Champion Award is presented to solutions that placed first in an use-case scenario within the Vendor Landscape.
Vendor Award: 'Leader'. Info-Tech Leader Award is given to solutions who placed in the top segment of a use-case scenario.
Vendor Award: 'Best Overall Value'. Info-Tech’s Best Overall Value Award is presented to the solution within each use-case scenario with the highest Value Index score.

Vendor Landscape Methodology:
Fact Check & Publication

Info-Tech takes the factual accuracy of its Vendor Landscapes, and indeed of all of its published content, very seriously. To ensure the utmost accuracy in its Vendor Landscapes, we invite all vendors of evaluated solutions (whether the vendor elected to provide a survey and/or participate in a briefing or not) to participate in a process of fact check.

Once the research project is complete and the materials are deemed to be in a publication ready state, excerpts of the material specific to each vendor’s solution are provided to the vendor. Info-Tech only provides material specific to the individual vendor’s solution for review encompassing the following:

  • All written review materials of the vendor and the vendor’s product that comprise the evaluated solution.
  • Info-Tech’s Criteria Scores / Harvey Balls detailing the individual and overall vendor / product scores assigned.
  • Info-Tech’s Feature Rank / stoplights detailing the individual feature scores of the evaluated product.
  • Info-Tech’s Raw Pricing for the vendor either as received from the vendor or as collected from publicly available sources.
  • Info-Tech’s Scenario ranking for all considered scenarios for the evaluated solution.

Info-Tech does not provide the following:

  • Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape placement of the evaluated solution.
  • Info-Tech’s Value Score for the evaluated solution.
  • End-user feedback gathered during the research project.
  • Info-Tech’s overall recommendation in regard to the evaluated solution.

Info-Tech provides a one-week window for each vendor to provide written feedback. Feedback must be corroborated (be provided with supporting evidence), and where it does, feedback that addresses factual errors or omissions is adopted fully, while feedback that addresses opinions is taken under consideration. The assigned analyst team makes all appropriate edits and supplies an edited copy of the materials to the vendor within one week for final review.

Should a vendor still have concerns or objections at that time, they are invited to a conversation, initially via email, but as required and deemed appropriate by Info-Tech, subsequently via telephone, to ensure common understanding of the concerns. Where concerns relate to ongoing factual errors or omissions, they are corrected under the supervision of Info-Tech’s Vendor Relations personnel. Where concerns relate to ongoing differences of opinion, they are again taken under consideration with neither explicit not implicit indication of adoption.

Publication of materials is scheduled to occur within the six weeks following the completion of the research project, but does not occur until the fact check process has come to conclusion, and under no circumstances are “pre-publication” copies of any materials made available to any client.

Pricing Scenario

Info-Tech Research Group is providing each vendor with a common pricing scenario to enable normalized scoring of Affordability, calculation of Value Index rankings, and identification of the appropriate solution pricing tier as displayed on each vendor scorecard.

Vendors are asked to provide list costs for SMMP software licensing to address the needs of a reference organization described in the pricing scenario. Please price out the lowest possible 3-year total cost of ownership (TCO) including list prices for software and licensing fees to meet the requirements of the following scenario.

Three-year total acquisition costs will be normalized to produce the Affordability raw scores and calculate Value Index ratings for each solution.

The pricing scenario:

  • Enterprise Name: Imperial Products Incorporated
  • Enterprise Size: SMB
  • Enterprise Vertical: Consumer packaged goods
  • Total Number of Sites: Three office locations
  • Total Number of Employees: 500
  • Total Number SMMP End Users: 50
    • 20 dedicated CSRs who are handling all customer service issues routed to them
    • 5 PR managers who need the ability to monitor the social cloud
    • 24 brand portfolio managers – each portfolio has 5 products (25 total)
    • Each product has its own Facebook and Twitter presence
    • 1 HR manager (using social media for recruiting)
  • Total Number of IT Staff: 20
  • Operating System Environment: Windows 7
  • Functional Requirements and Additional Information: Imperial Products Incorporated is a mid-sized consumer packaged goods firm operating in the United States. The organization is currently looking to adopt a platform for social media monitoring and management. Functional requirements include the ability to monitor and publish to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs. The platform must have the ability to display volume trends, show follower demographics, and conduct sentiment analysis. It must also provide tools for interacting in-platform with social contacts, provide workflow management capabilities, and offer the ability to manage specific social properties (e.g. Facebook Pages). Additional features that are desirable are the ability to archive social interactions, and a dedicated mobile application for one of the major smartphone/tablet operating systems (iOS, Android etc.).

Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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  • Parent Category Name: Engage
  • Parent Category Link: /engage
  • The uncertainty of the pandemic means that employee engagement is at higher risk.
  • Organizations need to think beyond targeting traditional audiences by considering engagement of onsite, remote, and laid-off employees.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • The changing way of work triggered by this pandemic means engagement efforts must be easy to implement and targeted for relevant audiences.

Impact and Result

  • Identify key drivers to leverage during the pandemic to boost engagement as well as at-risk drivers to focus efforts on.
  • Select quick-win tactics to sustain and boost engagement for relevant target audiences.

Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Determine the scope

Evaluate the current state, stakeholder capacity, and target audience of engagement actions.

  • Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic Storyboard
  • Pandemic Engagement Workbook

2. Identify engagement drivers

Review impact to engagement drivers in order to prioritize and select tactics for addressing each.

  • Tactics Catalog: Maintain Employee Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic
  • Employee Engagement During COVID-19: Manager Tactics

3. Determine ownership and communicate engagement actions

Designate owners of tactics, select measurement tools and cadence, and communicate engagement actions.

  • Crisis Communication Guide for HR
  • Crisis Communication Guide for Leaders
  • Leadership Crisis Communication Guide Template
  • HR Action and Communication Plan
[infographic]

Agile Readiness Assessment Survey

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  • Parent Category Name: Development
  • Parent Category Link: /development
  • Today’s realities are driving organizations to digitize faster and become more Agile.
  • Agile transformations are difficult and frequently fail for a variety of reasons.
  • To achieve the benefits of Agile, organizations need to be ready for the significant changes that Agile demands.
  • Challenges to your Agile transformation can come from a variety of sources.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Use Info-Tech’s CLAIM+G model to examine potential roadblocks to Agile on six different organizational dimensions.
  • Use survey results to identify and address the issues that are most likely to derail your Agile transformation.

Impact and Result

  • Better understand where and how your organization needs to change to support your Agile transformation.
  • Focus your attention on your organization’s biggest roadblocks to Agile.
  • Improve your organization’s chances of a successful Agile transformation.

Agile Readiness Assessment Survey Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Agile Readiness Assessment Deck – A guide to help your organization survey its Agile readiness.

Read this deck to see how an Agile Readiness Assessment can help your organization understand its readiness for Agile transformation. The storyboard guides you through how to collect, consolidate, and examine survey responses and create an actionable list of improvements to make your organization more Agile ready.

  • Agile Readiness Assessment Storyboard

2. Survey Templates (Excel or MS Forms, available in English and French) – Use these templates to create and distribute the survey broadly within your organization.

The Agile Readiness Assessment template is available in either Excel or Microsoft Forms (both English and French versions are available). Download the Excel templates here or use the links in the above deck to access the online versions of the survey.

  • Agile Readiness Survey – English
  • Agile Readiness Survey – French

3. Agile Readiness Assessment Consolidated Results Tool – Use this tool to consolidate and analyze survey responses.

The Agile Readiness Assessment Consolidated Results Tool allows you to consolidate survey responses by team/role and produces your heatmap for analysis.

  • Agile Readiness Assessment Consolidated Results Tool
[infographic]

Further reading

Agile Readiness Assessment

Understand how ready your organization is for an Agile transformation.

Info-Tech Research Group Inc. is a global leader in providing IT research and advice. Info-Tech’s products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.

Analyst Perspective

Use the wisdom of crowds to understand how ready you are for Agile transformation.

Photo of Alex Ciraco, Principal Research Director, Application Delivery and Management, Info-Tech Research Group

Agile transformations can be difficult and complex to implement. That’s because they require fundamental changes in the way an organization thinks and behaves (and many organizations are not ready for these changes).

Use Info-Tech’s Agile Readiness Assessment to broadly survey the organization’s readiness for Agile along six dimensions:

  • Culture
  • Learning
  • Automation
  • Integrated teams
  • Metrics
  • Governance

The survey results will help you to examine and address those areas that are most likely to hinder your move to Agile.

Alex Ciraco
Principal Research Director, Application Delivery and Management
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

  • Your organization wants to shorten delivery time and improve quality by adopting Agile practices.
  • Your organization has not yet used Agile successfully.
  • You know that Agile transformations are complex and difficult to implement.
  • You want to maximize your Agile transformation’s chances of success.

Common Obstacles

  • Risks to your Agile transformation can come from a variety of sources, including:
    • Organizational culture
    • Learning practices
    • Use of automation
    • Ability to create integrated teams
    • Use of metrics
    • Governance practices

Info-Tech’s Approach

  • Use Info-Tech’s Agile Readiness Assessment to broadly survey your organization’s readiness for Agile.
  • Examine the consolidated results of this survey to identify challenges that are most likely to hinder Agile success.
  • Discuss and address these challenges to increase your chances of success.

Info-Tech Insight

By first understanding the numerous challenges to Agile transformations and then broadly surveying your organization to identify and address the challenges that are at play, you are more likely to have a successful Agile transformation.

Info-Tech’s methodology

1. Distribute Survey 2. Consolidate Survey Results 3. Examine Results and Problem Solve
Phase Steps

1.1 Identify the teams/roles you will survey.

1.2 Configure the survey to reflect your teams/roles.

1.3 Distribute the Agile Readiness Assessment Survey broadly in the organization.

2.1 Collect survey responses from all participants.

2.2 Consolidate the results using the template provided.

3.1 Examine the consolidated results (both OVERALL and DETAILED Heatmaps)

3.2 Identify key challenge areas (those which are most “red”) and discuss these challenges with participants

3.3 Brainstorm, select and refine potential solutions to these challenges
Phase Outcomes An appreciation for the numerous challenges associated with Agile transformations Identified challenges to Agile within your organization (both team-specific and organization-wide challenges) An actionable list of solutions/actions to address your organization’s Agile challenges.

Blueprint deliverables

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

Agile Readiness Assessment Survey

Survey the organization to understand your readiness for an Agile transformation on six dimensions.

Sample of the Agile Readiness Assessment Survey blueprint deliverable.

 Agile Readiness Assessment Consolidated Results

Examine your readiness for Agile and identify team-specific and organization-wide challenges.

Sample of the Agile Readiness Assessment Consolidated Results blueprint deliverable.

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

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

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 1 to 2 months.

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1: Distribute Survey

  • Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges (identify potential participants).
  • Call #2: First call with participants (introduce Phase 1 and assign survey for completion).
  • Call #3: Gather survey responses (prep for Phase 2 calls).

    • Phase 2: Consolidate Survey Results

  • Call #4: Consolidate all survey responses using the template.
  • Call #5: Conduct initial review of consolidated results (prep for Phase 3 calls).

    • Phase 3: Examine Results and Problem Solve

  • Call #6: Present consolidated results to participants and agree on most pressing challenges.
  • Call #7: Brainstorm, identify, and refine potential solutions to most pressing challenges.
  • Call #8: Conduct closing and communication call.

Phase 1 — Phase 1 of 3, 'Distribute Survey'.

Customize and distribute the survey

Decide which teams/roles will participate in the survey.

Decide which format and language(s) you will use for your Agile Readiness Assessment Survey.

Configure the survey templates to reflect your selected teams/roles.

Distribute the survey for participants to complete.

  • 1.1 The Agile Readiness Assessment Survey will help you to identify both team-specific and organization-wide challenges to your Agile transformation. It is best to distribute the survey broadly across the organization and include several teams and roles. Identify and make note of the teams/roles that will be participating in the survey.
  • 1.2 Select which format of survey you will be using (Excel or online), along with the language(s) you will use (links to the survey templates can be found in the table below). Then configure the survey templates to reflect your list of teams/roles from Step 1.1.
    • Format Language Download Survey Template
    Excel English Agile Readiness Assessment Excel Survey Template – EN and FR
    Excel French
    Online English Agile Readiness Assessment Online Survey Template – EN
    Online French Agile Readiness Assessment Online Survey Template – FR

  • 1.3 Distribute your Agile Readiness Assessment Survey broadly in the organization. Give all participants a deadline date for completion of the survey.

Phase 2 — Phase 2 of 3, 'Consolidate Results'.

Consolidate Survey Results

Collect and consolidate all survey responses using the template provided.

Review the OVERALL and DETAILED Heatmaps generated by the template.

  • 2.1 Collect the survey responses from all participants. All responses completed using the online form will be anonymous (for responses returned using the Excel form, assign each a unique identifier so that anonymity of responses is maintained).
  • 2.2 Consolidate the survey responses using the template below. Follow the instructions in the template to incorporate all survey responses.

    • Download the Agile Readiness Assessment Consolidated Results Tool

    Sample of the Agile Readiness Assessment Consolidated Results Tool, ranking maturity scores in 'Culture', 'Learning', 'Automation', 'Integrated Teams', 'Metrics', and 'Governance'.

Phase 3 — Phase 3 of 3, 'Examine Results'.

Examine Survey Results and Problem Solve

Review the consolidated survey results as a team.

Identify the challenges that need the most attention.

Brainstorm potential solutions. Decide which are most promising and create a plan to implement them.

  • 3.1 Examine the consolidated results (both OVERALL and DETAILED Heatmaps) and look at both team-specific and organization-wide challenge areas.
  • 3.2 Identify which challenge areas need the most attention (typically those that are most red in the heatmap) and discuss these challenges with survey participants.
  • 3.3 As a team, brainstorm potential solutions to these challenges. Select from and refine the solutions that are most promising, then create a plan to implement them.

3.1 Exercise: Collaborative Problem Solving — Phase 3 of 3, 'Examine Results'.

60 Mins

Input: Consolidated survey results

Output: List of actions to address your most pressing challenges along with a timeline to implement them

Materials: Agile Readiness Assessment Consolidated Results Tool, Whiteboard and markers

Participants: Survey participants, Other interested parties

This exercise will create a plan for addressing your most pressing Agile-related challenges.

  • As a team, agree on which survey challenges are most important to address (typically the most red in the heatmap).
  • Brainstorm potential solutions/actions to address these challenges.
  • Assign solutions/actions to individuals and set a timeline for completion.
Challenge Proposed Solution Owner Timeline
Enrichment
lack of a CoE		 Establish a service-oriented Agile Center of Excellence (CoE) staffed with experienced Agile practitioners who can directly help new-to-Agile teams be successful. Bill W. 6 Months
Tool Chain
(lack of Agile tools)		 Select a standard Agile work management tool (e.g. Jira, Rally, ADO) that will be used by all Agile teams. Cindy K. 2 Months

Related Info-Tech Research

Sample of an Info-Tech blueprint. Modernize Your SDLC
  • Strategically adopt today’s SDLC good practices to streamline value delivery.
Sample of an Info-Tech blueprint. Implement Agile Practices That Work
  • Guide your organization through its Agile transformation journey.
Sample of an Info-Tech blueprint. Implement DevOps Practices That Work
  • Streamline business value delivery through the strategic adoption of DevOps practices.
Sample of an Info-Tech blueprint. Mentoring for Agile Teams
  • Leverage an experience Agile Mentor to give your in-flight Agile project a helping hand.

Research Contributors and Experts

  • Columbus Brown, Senior Principal – Practice Lead – Business Alignment, Daugherty Business Solutions
  • Saeed Khan, Founder, Transformation Labs
  • Brenda Peshak, Product Owner/Scrum Master/Program Manager, John Deere/Source Allies/Widget Industries LLC
  • Vincent Mirabelli, Principal, Global Project Synergy Group
  • Len O'Neill, Sr. Vice President and Chief Information Officer, The Suddath Companies
  • Shameka A. Jones, MPM, CSM, Lead Business Management Consultant, Mainspring Business Group, LLC
  • Ryland Leyton, Lead Business Analyst, Aptos Retail
  • Ashish Nangia, Lead Business System Analyst, Ashley Furniture Industries
  • Barbara Carkenord, CBAP, IIBA-AAC, PMI-PBA, PMP, SAFe POPM, President, Carkenord Consulting
  • Danelkis Serra, CBAP, Chapter Operations Manager, Regions & Chapters, IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis)
  • Lorrie Staples-Ellis, CyberSecurity Integration Strategist, Wealth Management, Truist Bank
  • Ginger Sundberg, Independent Consultant
  • Kham Raven, Project Manager, Fraud Strategy & Execution, Truist Bank
  • Sarah Vollett, PMP, Business Analyst, Operations, College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia
  • Nicole J Coyle, ICP-ACC, CEAC, SPC4, SASM, POPM, CSM, ECM, CCMP, CAPM, Team Agile Coach and Team Facilitator, HCQIS Foundational Components
  • Joe Glower, IT Director, Jet Support Services, Inc. (JSSI)
  • Harsh Daharwal, Senior Director, Application Delivery, J.R. Simplot
  • Hans Eckman, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Valence Howden, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology

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  • Parent Category Name: Disruptive & Emerging Technologies
  • Parent Category Link: /disruptive-emerging-technologies
  • New technology can hit like a meteor. Not only disruptive to IT, technology provides opportunities for organization-wide advantage.
  • Your role is endangered. If you don’t prepare for the most disruptive technologies, you could be overshadowed. Don’t let the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) set the technological innovation agenda
  • Predicting the future isn’t easy. Most IT leaders fail to realize how quickly technology increases in capability. Even for the tech savvy, predicting which specific technologies will become disruptive is difficult.
  • Communication is difficult when the sky is falling. Even forward-looking IT leaders struggle with convincing others to devote time and resources to monitoring technologies with a formal process.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Establish the core working group, select a leader, and select a group of visionaries to help brainstorm emerging technologies.
  • Brainstorm about creating a better future, begin brainstorming an initial longlist.
  • Train the group to think like futurists.
  • Evaluate the shortlist.
  • Define your PoC list and schedule.
  • Finalize, present the plan to stakeholders and repeat.

Impact and Result

  • Create a disruptive technology working group.
  • Produce a longlist of disruptive technologies.
  • Evaluate the longlist to produce a shortlist of disruptive technologies.
  • Develop a plan for a proof-of-concept project for each shortlisted technology.

Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology – A guide to help IT leaders make the most of disruptive impacts.

As a CIO, there is a need to move beyond day-to-day technology management with an ever-increasing need to forecast technology impacts. Not just from a technical perspective but to map out the technical understandings aligned to potential business impacts and improvements. Technology transformation and innovation is moving more quickly than ever before and as an innovation champion, the CIO or CTO should have foresight in specific technologies with the understanding of how the company could be disrupted in the near future.

  • Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology – Phases 1-3

2. Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template – A guide to develop the plan for exploiting disruptive technology.

The Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template acts as an implementation plan for developing a long-term strategy for monitoring and implementing disruptive technologies.

  • Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

3. Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool – A tool to keep track of the missed technology disruption from previous opportunities.

The Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool will assist you to collect reasonability test notes when evaluating potential disruptive technologies.

  • Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool

4. Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool – A tool to keep track of the research conducted by members of the working group.

The Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool will help you to keep track of the independent research that is conducted by members of the disruptive technology exploitation working group.

  • Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool

5. Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool

The Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool will help you to codify the results of the disruptive technology working group's longlist winnowing process.

  • Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool

6. Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool – A tool to systematize notional evaluations of the value and readiness of potential disruptive technologies.

The Disruptive Technology Value Readiness & SWOT Analysis Tool will assist you to systematize notional evaluations of the value and readiness of potential disruptive technologies.

  • Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

7. Proof of Concept Template – A handbook to serve as a reference when deciding how to proceed with your proposed solution.

The Proof of Concept Template will guide you through the creation of a minimum-viable proof-of-concept project.

  • Proof of Concept Template

8. Disruptive Technology Executive Presentation Template – A template to help you create a brief progress report presentation summarizing your project and program progress.

The Disruptive Technology Executive Presentation Template will assist you to present an overview of the disruptive technology process, outlining the value to your company.

  • Disruptive Technology Executive Presentation Template

Infographic

Workshop: Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Pre-work: Establish the Disruptive Tech Process

The Purpose

Discuss the general overview of the disruptive technology exploitation process.

Develop an initial disruptive technology exploitation plan.

Key Benefits Achieved

Stakeholders are on board, the project’s goals are outlined, and the working group is selected.

Activities

1.1 Get execs and stakeholders on board.

1.2 Review the process of analyzing disruptive tech.

1.3 Select members for the working group.

1.4 Choose a schedule and time commitment.

1.5 Select a group of visionaries.

Outputs

Initialized disruptive tech exploitation plan

Meeting agenda, schedule, and participants

2 Hold the Initial Meeting

The Purpose

Understand how disruption will affect the organization, and develop an initial list of technologies to explore.

Key Benefits Achieved

Knowledge of how to think like a futurist.

Understanding of organizational processes vulnerable to disruption.

Outline of potentially disruptive technologies.

Activities

2.1 Start the meeting with introductions.

2.2 Train the group to think like futurists.

2.3 Brainstorm about disruptive processes.

2.4 Brainstorm a longlist.

2.5 Research and brainstorm separate longlists.

Outputs

List of disruptive organizational processes

Initial longlist of disruptive tech

3 Create a Longlist and Assess Shortlist

The Purpose

Evaluate the specific value of longlisted technologies to the organization.

Key Benefits Achieved

Defined list of the disruptive technologies worth escalating to the proof of concept stage.

Activities

3.1 Converge the longlists developed by the team.

3.2 Narrow the longlist to a shortlist.

3.3 Assess readiness and value.

3.4 Perform a SWOT analysis.

Outputs

Finalized longlist of disruptive tech

Shortlist of disruptive tech

Value-readiness analysis

SWOT analysis

Candidate(s) for proof of concept charter

4 Create an Action Plan

The Purpose

Understand how the technologies in question will impact the organization.

Key Benefits Achieved

Understanding of the specific effects of the new technology on the business processes it is intended to disrupt.

Business case for the proof-of-concept project.

Activities

4.1 Build a problem canvas.

4.2 Identify affected business units.

4.3 Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted.

4.4 Map disrupted business processes.

4.5 Recognize how the new technology will impact business processes.

4.6 Make the case.

Outputs

Problem canvas

Map of business processes: current state

Map of disrupted business processes

Business case for each technology

Further reading

Analyst Perspective

The key is in anticipation.

“We all encounter unexpected changes and our responses are often determined by how we perceive and understand those changes. We react according to the unexpected occurrence. Business organizations are no different.

When a company faces a major technology disruption in its markets – one that could fundamentally change the business or impact its processes and technology – the way its management perceive and understand the disruption influences how they describe and plan for it. In other words, the way management sets the context of a disruption – the way they frame it – shapes the strategy they adopt. Technology leaders can vastly influence business strategy by adopting a proactive approach to understanding disruptive and innovative technologies by simply adopting a process to review and evaluate technology impacts to the company’s lines of business.”

This is a picture of Troy Cheeseman

Troy Cheeseman
Practice Lead, Infrastructure & Operations Research
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

  • New technology can hit like a meteor. Not only disruptive to IT, technology provides opportunities for organization-wide advantage.
  • Your role is endangered. If you don’t prepare for the most disruptive technologies, you could be overshadowed. Don’t let the chief marketing officer (CMO) set the technological innovation agenda.

Common Obstacles

  • Predicting the future isn’t easy. Most IT leaders fail to realize how quickly technology increases in capability. Even for the tech savvy, predicting which specific technologies will become disruptive is difficult.
  • Communication is difficult when the sky is falling. Even forward-looking IT leaders struggle with convincing others to devote time and resources to monitoring technologies with a formal process.

Info-Tech’s Approach

  • Identify, resolve, and evaluate. Use an annual process as described in this blueprint: a formal evaluation of new technology that turns analysis into action.
  • Lead the analysis from IT. Establish a team to carry out the annual process as a cure for the causes of “airline magazine syndrome” and to prevent it from happening in the future.
  • Train your team on the patterns of progress, track technology over time in a central database, and read Info-Tech’s analysis of upcoming technology.
  • Create your KPIs. Establish your success indicators to create measurable value when presenting to your executive.
  • Produce a comprehensive proof-of-concept plan that will allow your company to minimize risk and maximize reward when engaging with new technology.

Info-Tech Insight

Proactively monitoring, evaluating, and exploiting disruptive tech isn’t optional.
This will protect your role, IT’s role, and the future of the organization.

A diverse working group maximizes the insight brought to bear.
An IT background is not a prerequisite.

The best technology is only the best when it brings immediate value.
Good technology might not be ready; ready technology might not be good.

Review

We help IT leaders make the most of disruptive impacts.

This research is designed for:

Target Audience: CIO, CTO, Head of Infrastructure

This research will help you:

  • Develop a process for anticipating, analyzing, and exploiting disruptive technology.
  • Communicate the business case for investing in disruptive technology.
  • Categorize emerging technologies to decide what to do with them.
  • Develop a plan for taking action to exploit the technology that will most affect your organization.

Problem statement:

As a CIO, there is a need to move beyond day-to-day technology management with an ever-increasing need to forecast technology impacts. Not just from a technical perspective but to map out the technical understandings aligned to potential business impacts and improvements. Technology transformation and innovation is moving more quickly than ever before and as an innovation champion, the CIO or CTO should have foresight in specific technologies with the understanding of how the company could be disrupted in the near future. Foresight + Current Technology + Business Understanding = Understanding the Business Disruption. This should be a repeatable process, not an exception or reactionary response.

Insight Summary

Establish the core working group, select a leader, and select a group of visionaries to help brainstorm emerging technologies.

The right team matters. A core working group will keep focus through the process and a leader will keep everyone accountable. Visionaries are out-of-the-box thinkers and once they understand how to think like a "futurists," they will drive the longlist and shortlist actions.

Train the group to think like futurists

To keep up with exponential technology growth you need to take a multi-threaded approach.

Brainstorm about creating a better future; begin brainstorming an initial longlist

Establish the longlist. The longlist helps create a holistic view of most technologies that could impact the business. Assigning values and quadrant scoring will shortlist the options and focus your PoC option.

Converge everyone’s longlists

Long to short...that's the short of it. Using SWOT, value readiness, and quadrant mapping review sessions will focus the longlist, creating a shortlist of potential POC candidates to review and consider.

Evaluate the shortlist

There is no such thing as a risk-free endeavor. Use a systematic process to ensure that the risks your organization takes have the potential to produce significant rewards.

Define your PoC list and schedule

Don’t be afraid to fail! Inevitably, some proof-of-concept projects will not benefit the organization. The projects that are successful will more than cover the costs of the failed projects. Roll out small scale and minimize losses.

Finalize, present the plan to stakeholders, and repeat!

Don't forget the C-suite. Effectively communicate and present the working group’s finding with a well-defined and succinct presentation. Start the process again!

This is a screenshot of the Thought map for Exploit disruptive infrastructure Technology.
  1. Identify
    • Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
    • Train the group to think like futurists
    • Hold your initial meeting
  2. Resolve
  • Create and winnow a longlist
  • Assess and create the shortlist
  • Evaluate
    • Create process maps
    • Develop proof of concept charter

    • The Key Is in Anticipation!

    Use Info-Tech’s approach for analyzing disruptive technology in your own disruptive tech working group

    Phase 1: Identify Phase 2: Resolve Phase 3: Evaluate

    Phase Steps

    1. Establish the disruptive technology working group
    2. Think like a futurist (Training)
    3. Hold initial meeting or create an agenda for the meeting
    1. Create and winnow a longlist
    2. Assess shortlist
    1. Create process maps
    2. Develop proof of concept charter

    Phase Outcomes

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group who will provide insight and direction.
    • Introduce the core working group members.
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances.
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes.
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist.
    • Finalized longlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist
    • Business process maps before and after disruption
    • Proof of concept charter
    • Key performance indicators
    • Estimation of required resources
    • Executive presentation

    Four key challenges make it essential for you to become a champion for exploiting disruptive technology

    1. New technology can hit like a meteor. It doesn’t only disrupt IT; technology provides opportunities for organization-wide advantage.
    2. Your role is endangered. If you don’t prepare for the most disruptive technologies, you could be overshadowed. Don’t let the CMO rule technological innovation.
    3. Predicting the future isn’t easy. Most IT leaders fail to realize how quickly technology increases in capability. Even for the tech savvy, predicting which specific technologies will become disruptive is difficult.
    4. Communication is difficult when the sky is falling. Even forward-looking IT leaders struggle with convincing others to devote time and resources to monitoring emerging technologies with a formal process.

    “Look, you have never had this amount of opportunity for innovation. Don’t forget to capitalize on it. If you do not capitalize on it, you will go the way of the dinosaur.”
    – Dave Evans, Co-Founder and CTO, Stringify

    Technology can hit like a meteor

    “ By 2025:

    • 38.6 billion smart devices will be collecting, analyzing, and sharing data.
    • The web hosting services market is to reach $77.8 billion in 2025.
    • 70% of all tech spending is expected to go for cloud solutions.
    • There are 1.35 million tech startups.
    • Global AI market is expected to reach $89.8 billion.”

    – Nick Gabov

    IT Disruption

    Technology disrupts IT by:

    • Affecting the infrastructure and applications that IT needs to use internally.
    • Affecting the technology of end users that IT needs to support and deploy, especially for technologies with a consumer focus.
    • Allowing IT to run more efficiently and to increase the efficiency of other business units.
    • Example: The rise of the smartphone required many organizations to rethink endpoint devices.

    Business Disruption

    Technology disrupts the business by:

    • Affecting the viability of the business.
    • Affecting the business’ standing in relation to competitors that better deal with disruptive technology.
    • Affecting efficiency and business strategy. IT should have a role in technology-related business decisions.
    • Example: BlackBerry failed to anticipate the rise of the apps ecosystem. The company struggled as it was unable to react with competitive products.

    Senior IT leaders are expected to predict disruptions to IT and the business, while tending to today’s needs

    You are expected to be both a firefighter and a forecaster

    • Anticipating upcoming disruptions is part of your job, and you will be blamed if you fail to anticipate future business disruptions because you are focusing on the present.
    • However, keeping IT running smoothly is also part of your job, and you will be blamed if today’s IT environment breaks down because you are focusing on the future.

    You’re caught between the present and the future

    • You don’t have a process that anticipates future disruptions but runs alongside and integrates with operations in the present.
    • You can’t do it alone. Tending to both the present and the future will require a team that can help you keep the process running.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Be prepared when disruptions start coming down, even though it isn’t easy. Use this research to reduce the effort to a simple process that can be performed alongside everyday firefighting.

    Make disruptive tech analysis and exploitation part of your innovation agenda

    A scatter plot graph is depicted, plotting IT Innovative Leadership (X axis), and Satisfaction with IT(Y axis). IT innovative leadership explains 75% of variation in satisfaction with IT

    Organizations without high satisfaction with IT innovation leadership are only 20% likely to be highly satisfied with IT

    “You rarely see a real-world correlation of .86!”
    – Mike Battista, Staff Scientist, Cambridge Brain Sciences, PhD in Measurement

    There is a clear relationship between satisfaction with IT and the IT department’s innovation leadership.

    Prevent “airline magazine syndrome” by proactively analyzing disruptive technologies

    “The last thing the CIO needs is an executive saying ‘I don’t what it is or what it does…but I want two of them!”
    – Tim Lalonde

    Airline magazine syndrome happens to IT leaders caught between the business and IT. It usually occurs in this manner:

    1. While on a flight, a senior executive reads about an emerging technology that has exciting implications for the business in an airline magazine.
    2. The executive returns and approaches IT, demanding that action be taken to address the disruptive technology – and that it should have been (ideally) completed already.

    Without a Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan:

    “I don’t know”

    With a Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan:

    “Here in IT, we have already considered that technology and decided it was overhyped. Let me show you our analysis and invite you to join our working group.”

    OR

    “We have already considered that technology and have started testing it. Let me show you our testing lab and invite you to join our working group.”

    Info-Tech Insight

    Airline magazine syndrome is a symptom of a wider problem: poor CEO-CIO alignment. Solve this problem with improved communication and documentation. Info-Tech’s disruptive tech iterative process will make airline magazine syndrome a thing of the past!

    IT leaders who do not keep up with disruptive technology will find their roles diminished

    “Today’s CIO dominion is in a decaying orbit with CIOs in existential threat mode.”
    – Ken Magee

    Protect your role within IT

    • IT is threatened by disruptive technology:
      • Trends like cloud services, increased automation, and consumerization reduce the need for IT to be involved in every aspect of deploying and using technology.
      • In the long term, machines will replace even intellectually demanding IT jobs, such as infrastructure admin and high-level planning.
    • Protect your role in IT by:
      • Anticipating new technology that will disrupt the IT department and your place within it.
      • Defining new IT roles and responsibilities that accurately reflect the reality of technology today.
      • Having a process for the above that does not diminish your ability to keep up with everyday operations that remain a priority today.

    Protect your role against other departments

    • Your role in the business is threatened by disruptive technology:
      • The trends that make IT less involved with technology allow other executives – such as the CMO – to make IT investments.
      • As the CMO gains the power and data necessary to embrace new trends, the CIO and IT managers have less pull.
    • Protect your role in the business by:
      • Being the individual to consult about new technology. It isn’t just a power play; IT leaders should be the ones who know technology thoroughly.
      • Becoming an indispensable part of the entire business’ innovation strategy through proposing and executing a process for exploiting disruptive technology.

    IT leaders who do keep up have an opportunity to solidify their roles as experts and aggregators

    “The IT department plays a critical role in [innovation]. What they can do is identify a technology that potentially might introduce improvements to the organization, whether it be through efficiency, or through additional services to constituents.”
    – Michael Maguire, Management Consultant

    The contemporary CIO is a conductor, ensuring that IT works in harmony with the rest of the business.

    The new CIO is a conductor, not a musician. The CIO is taking on the role of a business engineer, working with other executives to enable business innovation.

    The new CIO is an expert and an aggregator. Conductor CIOs increasingly need to keep up on the latest technologies. They will rely on experts in each area and provide strategic synthesis to decide if, and how, developments are relevant in order to tune their IT infrastructure.

    The pace of technological advances makes progress difficult to predict

    “An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense ‘intuitive linear’ view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century – it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).”
    – Ray Kurzweil

    Technology advances exponentially. Rather than improving by the same amount of capability each year, it multiplies in capability each year.

    Think like a futurist to anticipate technology before it goes mainstream.

    Exponential growth happens much faster than linear growth, especially when it hits the knee of the curve. Even those who acknowledge exponential growth underestimate how capabilities can improve.

    To predict new advances, turn innovation into a process

    “We spend 70 percent of our time on core search and ads. We spend 20 percent on adjacent businesses, ones related to the core businesses in some interesting way. Examples of that would be Google News, Google Earth, and Google Local. And then 10 percent of our time should be on things that are truly new.”
    – Eric Schmidt, Google

    • Don’t get caught in the trap of refining your core processes to the exclusion of innovation. You should always be looking for new processes to improve, new technology to pilot, and where possible, new businesses to get into.
    • Devote about 10% of your time and resources to exploring new technology: the potential rewards are huge.

    You and your team need to analyze technology every year to predict where it’s going.

    A bar graph is shown which depicts the proportion of technology use from 2018-2022. the included devices are: Tablets; PCs; TVs; Non-smartphones; Smartphones; M2M
    • Foundational technologies, such as computing power, storage, and networks, are improving exponentially.
    • Disruptive technologies are specific manifestations of foundational advancements. Advancements of greater magnitude give rise to more manifestations; therefore, there will be more disruptive technologies every year.
    • There is a lot of noise to cut through. Remember Google Glasses? As technology becomes ubiquitous and consumerization reigns, everybody is a technology expert. How do you decide which technologies to focus on?

    Protect IT and the business from disruption by implementing a simple, repeatable disruptive technology exploitation process

    “One of the most consistent patterns in business is the failure of leading companies to stay at the top of their industries when technologies or markets change […] Managers must beware of ignoring new technologies that can’t initially meet the needs of their mainstream customers.”
    – Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen

    Challenge

    		Solution

    New technology can hit like a meteor, but it doesn’t have to leave a crater:

    Use the annual process described in this blueprint to create a formal evaluation of new technology that turns analysis into action.

    Predicting the future isn’t easy, but it can be done:

    Lead the analysis from the office of the CIO. Establish a team to carry out the annual process as a cure for airline magazine syndrome.

    Your role is endangered, but you can survive:

    Train your team on the patterns of progress, track technology over time in a central database, and read Info-Tech’s analysis of upcoming technology.

    Communication is difficult when the sky is falling, so have a simple way to get the message across:

    Track metrics that communicate your progress, and summarize the results in a single, easy-to-read exploitation plan.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Use Info-Tech’s tools and templates, along with this storyboard, to walk you through creating and executing an exploitation process in six steps.

    Create measurable value by using Info-Tech’s process for evaluating the disruptive potential of technology

    This image contains a bar graph with the following Title: Which are the primary benefits you've either realized or expect to realize by deploying hyperconverged infrastructure in the near term.

    No business process is perfect.

    • Use Info-Tech’s Proof of Concept Template to create a disruptive technology proof of concept implementation plan.
    • Harness your company’s internal wisdom to systematically vet new technology. Engage only in calculated risk and maximize potential benefit.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Inevitably, some proof of concept projects will not benefit the organization. The projects that are successful will more than cover the costs of the failed projects. Roll out small scale and minimize losses.

    Establish your key performance indicators (KPIs)

    Key performance indicators allow for rigorous analysis, which generates insight into utilization by platform and consumption by business activity.

    • Brainstorm metrics that indicate when process improvement is actually taking place.
    • Have members of the group pitch KPIs; the facilitator should record each suggestion on a whiteboard.
    • Make sure to have everyone justify the inclusion of each metric: how does it relate to the improvement that the proof of concept project is intended to drive? How does it relate to the overall goals of the business?
    • Include a list of KPIs, along with a description and a target (ensuring that it aligns with SMART metrics).
    Key Performance Indicator Description Target Result

    Number of Longlist technologies

    		Establish a range of Longlist technologies to evaluate 10-15
    Number of Shortlist technologies Establish a range of Shortlist technologies to evaluate 5-10
    number of "look to the past" likes/dislikes Minimum number of testing characteristics 6
    Number of POCs Total number of POCs Approved 3-5

    Communicate your plan with the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    Use the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template to summarize everything that the group does. Update the report continuously and use it to show others what is happening in the world of disruptive technology.

    Section Title Description
    1 Rationale and Summary of Exploitation Plan A summary of the current efforts that exist for exploring disruptive technology. A summary of the process for exploiting disruptive technology, the resources required, the team members, meeting schedules, and executive approval.
    2 Longlist of Potentially Disruptive Technologies A summary of the longlist of identified disruptive technologies that could affect the organization, shortened to six or less that have the largest potential impact based on Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.
    3 Analysis of Shortlist Individually analyze each technology placed on the shortlist using Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.
    4 Proof of Concept Plan Use the results from Section 3 to establish a plan for moving forward with the technologies on the shortlist. Determine the tasks required to implement the technologies and decide who will complete them and when.
    5 Hand-off Pass the project along to identified stakeholders with significant interest in its success. Continue to track metrics and prepare to repeat the disruptive technology exploitation process annually.

    Whether you need a process for exploiting disruptive technology, or an analysis of current trends, Info-Tech can help

    Two sets of research make up Info-Tech’s disruptive technology coverage:

    This image contains four screenshots from each of the following Info-Tech Blueprints: Exploit disruptive Infrastructure Technology; Infrastructure & operations priorities 2022

    This storyboard, and the associated tools and templates, will walk you through creating a disruptive technology working group of your own.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key deliverable:

    Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    The Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template acts as an implementation plan for developing a long-term strategy for monitoring and implementing disruptive technologies.

    Proof of Concept Template

    The Proof of Concept Template will guide you through the creation of a minimum-viable proof-of-concept project.

    Executive Presentation

    The Disruptive Technology Executive Presentation Template will assist you to present an overview of the disruptive technology process, outlining the value to your company.

    Disruptive Technology Value Readiness & SWOT Analysis Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Value Readiness & SWOT Analysis Tool will assist you to systematize notional evaluations of the value and readiness of potential disruptive technologies.

    Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool will help you to keep track of the independent research that is conducted by members of the disruptive technology exploitation working group.

    Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool will help you to codify the results of the disruptive technology working group's longlist winnowing process.

    Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool will assist you to collect reasonability test notes when evaluating potential disruptive technologies.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Call #1: Explore the need for a disruptive technology working group.

    Call #3: Review the agenda for the initial meeting.

    Call #5: Review how you’re brainstorming and your sources of information.

    Call #7: Review the final shortlist and assessment.

    Call #9: Review the progress of your team.

    Call #2: Review the team name, participants, and timeline.

    Call #4: Assess the results of the initial meeting.

    Call #6: Review the final longlist and begin narrowing it down.

    Call #8: Review the next steps.

    Call #10: Review the communication plan.

    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

    Pre-Work Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
    Establish the Disruptive Tech Process Hold Your Initial Meeting Create a Longlist and Assess Shortlist Create Process Maps Develop a Proof of Concept Charter

    Activities

    1.1.a Get executives and stakeholders on board.

    1.1.b Review the process of analyzing disruptive tech.

    1.1.c Select members for the working group.

    1.1.d Choose a schedule and time commitment.

    1.1.e Select a group of visionaries.

    1.2.a Start the meeting with introductions.

    1.2.b Train the group to think like futurists.

    1.2.c Brainstorm about disruptable processes.

    1.2.d Brainstorm a longlist.

    1.2.e Research and brainstorm separate longlists.

    2.1.a Converge the longlists developed by the team.

    2.2.b Narrow the longlist to a shortlist.

    2.2.c Assess readiness and value.

    2.2.d Perform a SWOT analysis.

    3.1.a Build a problem canvas.

    3.1.b Identify affected business units.

    3.1.c Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted.

    3.1.d Map disrupted business processes.

    3.1.e Recognize how the new technology will impact business processes.

    3.1.f Make the case.

    3.2.a Develop key performance indicators (KPIs).

    3.2.b Identify key success factors.

    3.2.c Outline project scope.

    3.2.d Identify responsible team.

    3.2.e Complete resource estimation.

    Deliverables

    1. Initialized Disruptive Tech Exploitation Plan
    1. List of Disruptable Organizational Processes
    2. Initial Longlist of Disruptive Tech
    1. Finalized Longlist of Disruptive Tech
    2. Shortlist of Disruptive Tech
    3. Value-Readiness Analysis
    4. SWOT Analysis
    5. Candidate(s) for Proof of Concept Charter
    1. Problem Canvas
    2. Map of Business Processes: Current State
    3. Map of Disrupted Business Processes
    4. Business Case for Each Technology
    1. Completed Proof of Concept Charter

    Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology

    Disrupt or be disrupted.

    Identify

    Create your working group.

    PHASE 1

    Use Info-Tech’s approach for analyzing disruptive technology in your own disruptive tech working group

    1. Identify
      1. Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
      2. Train the group to think like futurists
      3. Hold your initial meeting
    2. Resolve
      1. Create and winnow a longlist
      2. Assess and create the shortlist
    3. Evaluate
      1. Create process maps
      2. Develop proof of concept charter

    The Key Is in Anticipation!

    Phase 1: Identify

    Create your working group.

    Activities:

    Step 1.1: Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
    Step 1.2: Train the group to think like futurists
    Step 1.3: Hold the initial meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    IT Infrastructure Manager

    CIO or CTO

    Potential members and visionaries of the working group

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group who will provide insight and direction.
    • Introduce the core working group members.
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances.
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes.
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist.

    Step 1.1

    Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries.

    Activities:

    • Articulate the long- and short-term benefits and costs to the entire organization
    • Gain support by articulating the long- and short-term benefits and costs to the IT department
    • Gain commitment from key stakeholders and executives
    • Help stakeholders understand what goes into formally exploiting disruptive tech by reviewing this process
    • Establish the core working group and select a leader
    • Create a schedule with a time commitment appropriate to your organization’s size; it doesn’t need to take long
    • Select a group of visionaries external to IT to help the working group brainstorm disruptive technologies

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Potential members and visionaries of the working group

    Outcomes of this step

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group that will provide insight and direction.

    1.1.A Articulate the long- and short-term benefits and costs to the entire organization

    A cost/benefit analysis will give stakeholders a picture of how disruptive technology could affect the business. Use the chart as a starting point and customize it based on your organization.

    Disruptive Technology Affects the Organization

    Benefits Costs

    Short Term

    • First-mover advantage from implementing new technology in the business before competitors – and before start-ups.
    • Better brand image as an organization focused on innovation.
    • Increased overall employee satisfaction by implementing new technology that increases employee capabilities or lowers effort.
    • Possibility of increased IT budget for integrating new technology.
    • Potential for employees to reject wide-scale use of unfamiliar technology.
    • Potential for technology to fail in the organization if it is not sufficiently tested.
    • Executive time required for making decisions about technology recommended by the team.

    Long Term

    • Increased internal business efficiencies from the integration of new technology (e.g. energy efficiency, fewer employees needed due to automation).
    • Better services or products for customers, resulting in increased long-term revenue.
    • Lowered costs of services or products and potential to grow market share.
    • Continued relevance of established organizations in a world changed by disruptive technologies.
    • Technology may not reach the capabilities initially expected, requiring waiting for increased value or readiness.
    • Potential for customers to reject new products resulting from technology.
    • Lack of focus on current core capabilities if technology is massively disruptive.

    1.1.B Gain support by articulating the long- and short-term benefits and costs to the IT department

    A cost/benefit analysis will give stakeholders a picture of how disruptive technology could affect the business. Use the chart as a starting point and customize it based on your organization.

    Disruptive Technology Affects IT

    BenefitsCosts

    Short Term

    • Perception of IT as a core component of business practices.
    • Increase IT’s capabilities to better serve employees (e.g. faster network speeds, better uptime, and storage and compute capacity that meet demands).
    • Cost for acquiring or implementing new technology and updating infrastructure to integrate with it.
    • Cost for training IT staff and end users on new IT technology and processes.
    • Minor costs for initial setup of disruptive technology exploitation process and time taken by members.

    Long Term

    • More efficient and powerful IT infrastructure that capitalizes on emerging trends at the right time.
    • Lower help desk load due to self-service and automation technology.
    • Increased satisfaction with IT due to implementation of improved enterprise technology and visible IT influence on improvements.
    • Increased end-user satisfaction with IT due to understanding and support of consumer technology that affects their lives.
    • New technology may result in lower need for specific IT roles. Cultural disruptions due to changing role of IT.
    • Perception of failure if technology is tested and never implemented.
    • Expectation that IT will continue to implement the newest technology available, even when it has been dismissed as not having value.

    1.1.C Gain commitment from key stakeholders and executives

    Gaining approval from executives and key stakeholders is the final obstacle. Ensure that you cover the following items to have the best chance for project approval.

    • Use a sample deck similar to this section for gaining buy-in, ensuring that you add/remove information to make it specific to your organization. Cover this section, including:
      • Who: Who will lead the team and who will be on it (working group)?
      • What: What resources will be required by the team (costs)?
      • Where/When: How often and where will the team meet (meeting schedule)?
      • Why: Why is there a need to exploit disruptive technology (benefits and examples)?
      • How: How is the team going to exploit disruptive technology (the process)?
    • Go through this blueprint prior to presenting the plan to stakeholders so that you have a strong understanding of the details behind each process and tool.
    • Frame the first iteration of the cycle as a pilot program. Use the completed results of the pilot to establish exploiting disruptive technology as a necessary company initiative.

    Insert the resources required by the disruptive tech exploitation team into Section 1.5 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template. Have executives sign-off on the project in Section 1.6.

    Disruption has undermined some of the most successful tech companies

    “The IT department plays a critical role in [innovation]. What they can do is identify a technology that potentially might introduce improvements to the organization, whether it be through efficiency or through additional services to constituents.”
    - Michael Maguire, Management Consultant

    VoIP’s transformative effects

    Disruptive technology:
    Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a modern means of making phone calls through the internet by sending voice packets using data, as opposed to the traditional circuit transmissions of the PSTN.

    Who won:
    Organizations that realized the cost savings that VoIP provided for businesses with a steady internet connection saved as much as 60% on telephony expenses. Even in the early stages, with a few more limitations, organizations were able to save a significant amount of money and the technology has continued to improve.

    Who lost?
    Telecom-related companies that failed to realize VoIP was a potential threat to their market, and organizations that lacked the ability to explore and implement the disruptive technology early.

    Digital photography — the new norm

    Disruptive technology:
    Digital photography refers to the storing of photographs in a digital format, as opposed to traditional photography, which exposes light to sensitive photographic film.

    Who won:
    Photography companies and new players that exploited the evolution of data storage and applied it to photography succeeded. Those that were able to balance providing traditional photography and exploiting and introducing digital photography, such as Nikon, left competitors behind. Smartphone manufacturers also benefited by integrating digital cameras.

    Who lost?
    Photography companies, such as Kodak, that failed to respond to the digital revolution found themselves outcompeted and insolvent.

    1.1.D Help stakeholders understand what goes into formally exploiting disruptive tech by reviewing this process

    There are five steps to formally exploiting disruptive technology, each with its own individual outputs and tools to take analysis to the next level.

    Step 1.2:
    Hold Initial Meeting

    Output:

    • Initial list of disruptable processes;
    • Initial longlist

    Step 2.1:

    Brainstorm Longlist

    Output:

    • Finalized longlist;
    • Shortlist

    Step 2.2:

    Assess Shortlist

    Output:

    • Final shortlist;
    • SWOT analysis;
    • Tech categorization

    Step 3.1:
    Create Process Maps

    Output:

    • Completed process maps

    Step 3.2:
    Develop a proof of concept charter

    Output:

    • Proof-of-concept template with KPIs

    Info-Tech Insight

    Before going to stakeholders, complete the entire blueprint to better understand the tools and outputs of the process.

    1.1.E Establish the core working group and select a leader

    • Selecting your core membership for the working group is a critical step to the group’s success. Ensure that you satisfy the following criteria:
      • This is a team of subject matter experts. They will be overseeing the learning and piloting of disruptive technologies. Their input will also be valuable for senior executives and for implementing these technologies.
      • Choose members that can take time away from firefighting tasks to dedicate time to meetings.
      • It may be necessary to reach outside of the organization now or in the future for expertise on certain technologies. Use Info-Tech as a source of information.
    Organization Size Working Group Size
    Small 02-Jan
    Medium 05-Mar
    Large 10-May
    • Once the team is established, you must decide who will lead the group. Ensure that you satisfy the following criteria:
      • A leader should be credible, creative, and savvy in both technology and business.
      • The leader should facilitate, acting as both an expert and an aggregator of the information gathered by the team.

    Choose a compelling name

    The working group needs a name. Be sure to select one with a positive connotation within your organization.

    Section 1.3 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    1.1.F Create a schedule with a time commitment appropriate to your organization’s size; it doesn’t need to take long

    Time the disruptive technology working group’s meetings to coincide and integrate with your organization’s strategic planning — at least annually.

    Size Meeting Frequency Time per Meeting Example Meeting Activities
    Small Annually One day A one-day meeting to run through phase 2 of the project (SWOT analysis and shortlist analysis).
    Medium Two days A two-day meeting to run through the project. The additional meeting involves phase 3 of this deck, developing a proof-of-concept plan.
    Large Two+ days Two meetings, each two days. Two days to create and winnow the longlist (phase 2), and two further days to develop a proof of concept plan.

    “Regardless of size, it’s incumbent upon every organization to have some familiarity of what’s happening over the next few years, [and to try] to anticipate what some of those trends may be. […] These trends are going to accelerate IT’s importance in terms of driving business strategy.”
    – Vern Brownell, CEO, D-Wave

    Section 1.4 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    1.1.G Select a group of visionaries external to IT to help the working group brainstorm disruptive technologies

    Selecting advisors for your group is an ongoing step, and the roster can change.

    Ensure that you satisfy the following criteria:

    • Look beyond IT to select a team representing several business units.
    • Check for self-professed “geeks” and fans of science fiction that may be happy to join.
    • Membership can be a reward for good performance.

    This group does not have to meet as regularly as the core working group. Input from external advisors can occur between meetings. You can also include them on every second or third iteration of the entire process.

    However, the more input you can get into the group, the more innovative it can become.

    “It is … important to develop design fictions based on engagement with directly or indirectly implicated publics and not to be designed by experts alone.”
    – Emmanuel Tsekleves, Senior Lecturer in Design Interactions, University of Lancaster

    Section 1.3 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    The following case study illustrates the innovative potential that is created when you include a diverse group of people

    INDUSTRY - Chip Manufacturing
    SOURCE - Clayton Christensen, Intel

    To achieve insight, you need to collaborate with people from outside of your department.

    Challenge

    • Headquartered in California, through the 1990s, Intel was the largest microprocessor chip manufacturer in the world, with revenue of $25 billion in 1997.
    • All was not perfect, however. Intel faced a challenge from Cyrix, a manufacturer of low-end chips. In 18 months, Cyrix’s share of the low-margin entry-level chip manufacturing business mushroomed from 10% to 70%.

    Solution

    • Troubled by the potential for significant disruption of the microprocessor market, Intel brought in external consultants to hold workshops to educate managers about disruptive innovation.
    • Managers would break into groups and discuss ways Intel could facilitate the disruption of its competitors. In one year, Intel hosted 18 workshops, and 2,000 managers went through the process.

    Results

    • Intel launched the Celeron chip to serve the lower end of the PC market and win market share back from Cyrix (which no longer exists as an independent company) and other competitors like AMD.
    • Within one year, Intel had captured 35% of the market.

    “[The models presented in the workshops] gave us a common language and a common way to frame the problem so that we could reach a consensus around a counterintuitive course of action.” – Andy Grove, then-CEO, Intel Corporation

    Phase 1: Identify

    Create your working group.

    Activities:

    Step 1.1: Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
    Step 1.2: Train the group to think like futurists
    Step 1.3: Hold the initial meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Potential members and visionaries of the working group

    Outcomes of this phase:

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group who will provide insight and direction.
    • Introduce the core working group members.
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances.
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes.
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist.

    Step 1.2

    Train the group to think like futurists

    Activities:

    1. Look to the past to predict the future:
      • Step 1: Review the technology opportunities you missed
      • Step 2: Review and record what you liked about the tech
      • Step 3: Review and record your dislikes
      • Step 4: Record and test the reasonability
    2. Crash course on futurology principles
    3. Peek into the future

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Core working group members
    • Visionaries

    Outcomes of this step

    • Team members thinking like futurists
    • Better understanding of how technology advances
    • List of past examples and characteristics

    Info-Tech Insight

    Business buy-in is essential. Manage your business partners by providing a summary of the EDIT methodology and process. Validate the process value, which will allow you create a team of IT and business representatives.

    1.2 Train the group to think like futurists

    1 hour

    Ensure the team understands how technology advances and how they can identify patterns in upcoming technologies.

    1. Lead the group through a brainstorming session.
    2. Follow the next phases and steps.
    3. This session should be led by someone who can facilitate a thought-provoking discussion.
    4. This training deck finishes with a video.

    Input

    • Facilitated creativity
    • Training deck [following slides]

    Output

    • Inspiration
    • Anonymous ideas

    Materials

    • Futurist training “steps”
    • Pen and paper

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries
    • Facilitator

    1.2.A Look to the past to predict the future

    30 minutes

    Step 1

    		Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

    Review what you missed.

    What did you like?

    What did you dislike?

    Test the reasonability.

    Think about a time you missed a technical disruptive opportunity.

    Start with a list of technologies that changed your business and processes.

    Consider those specifically you could have identified with a repeatable process.

    What were the most impactful points about the technology?

    Define a list of “characteristics” you liked.

    Create a shortlist of items.

    Itemize the impact to process, people, and technology.

    Why did you pass on the tech?

    Define a list of “characteristics” you did not like.

    Create a shortlist of items.

    Itemize the impact to process, people, and technology.

    Avoid the “arm chair quarterback” view.

    Refer to the six positive and negative points.

    Check against your data points at the end of each phase.

    Record the list of missed opportunities

    Record 6 characteristics

    Record 6 characteristics

    Completed “Think like a Futurists” tool

    Use the Disruptive Technology Research Look to the Past Tool to record your output.

    Input

    • Facilitated creativity
    • Speaker’s notes

    Output

    • Inspiration
    • Anonymous ideas
    • Recorded missed opportunities
    • Recorded positive points
    • Recorded dislikes
    • Reasonability test list

    Materials

    • Futurist training “steps”
    • Pen and paper
    • “Look to the Past” tool

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries
    • Facilitator

    Understand how the difference between linear and exponential growth will completely transform many organizations in the next decade

    “The last ten years have seen exponential growth in research on disruptive technologies and their impact on industries, supply chains, resources, training, education and employment markets … The debate is still open on who will be the winners and losers of future industries, but what is certain is that change has picked up pace and we are now in a new technology revolution whose impact is potentially greater than the industrial revolution.”
    – Gary L. Evans

    Exponential advancement will ensure that life in the next decade will be very different from life today.

    • Linear growth happens one step at a time.
    • The difference between linear and exponential is hard to notice, at first.
    • We are now at the knee of the curve.

    What about email?

    • Consider the amount of email you get daily
    • Double it
    • Triple it

    Exponential growth happens much faster than linear growth, especially when it hits the knee of the curve. Technology grows exponentially, and we are approaching the knee of the curve.

    This graph is adapted from research by Ray Kurzweil.

    Growth: Linear vs. Exponential

    This image contains a graph demonstrating examples of exponential and linear trends.

    1.2.B Crash course on futurology principles

    1 hour

    “An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense ‘intuitive linear’ view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).”
    - Ray Kurzweil

    Review the differences between exponential and linear growth

    The pace of technological advances makes progress difficult to predict.

    Technology advances exponentially. Rather than improving by the same amount of capability each year, it multiplies in capability each year.

    Think like a futurist to anticipate technology before it goes mainstream.

    Exponential growth happens much faster than linear growth, especially when it hits the knee of the curve. Even those who acknowledge exponential growth underestimate how capabilities can improve.

    The following case study illustrates the rise of social media providers

    “There are 7.7 billion people in the world, with at least 3.5 billion of us online. This means social media platforms are used by one in three people in the world and more than two-thirds of all internet users.”
    – Esteban Ortiz-Ospina

    This graph depicts the trend of the number of people using social media platforms between 2005 and 2019

    The following case study illustrates the rapid growth of Machine to Machine (M2M) connections

    A bar graph is shown which depicts the proportion of technology use from 2018-2022. the included devices are: Tablets; PCs; TVs; Non-smartphones; Smartphones; M2M

    Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns

    “Ray Kurzweil has been described as ‘the restless genius’ by The Wall Street Journal, and ‘the ultimate thinking machine’ by Forbes. He was ranked #8 among entrepreneurs in the United States by Inc Magazine, calling him the ‘rightful heir to Thomas Edison,’ and PBS included Ray as one of 16 ‘revolutionaries who made America,’ along with other inventors of the past two centuries.”
    Source: KurzweilAI.net

    Growth is linear?

    “Information technology is growing exponentially. That’s really my main thesis, and our intuition about the future is not exponential, it’s really linear. People think things will go at the current pace …1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 30 steps later, you’re at 30.”

    Better IT strategy enables future business innovation

    “The reality of information technology like computers, like biological technologies now, is it goes exponentially … 2, 4, 8, 16. At step 30, you’re at a billion, and this is not an idle speculation about the future.” [emphasis added]

    “When I was a student at MIT, we all shared a computer that cost tens of millions of dollars. This computer [pulling his smartphone out of his pocket] is a million times cheaper, a thousand times more powerful — that’s a billion-fold increase in MIPS per dollar, bits per dollar… and we’ll do it again in 25 years.”
    Source: “IT growth and global change: A conversation with Ray Kurzweil,” McKinsey & Company

    1.2.C Peak into the future

    1 hour

    Leverage industry roundtables and trend reports to understand the art of the possible

    • Uncover important business and industry trends that can inform possibilities for technology disruption.
    • Market research is critical in identifying factors external to your organization and identifying technology innovation that will provide a competitive edge. It’s important to evaluate the impact each trend or opportunity will have in your organization and market.

    Visit Info-Tech’s Trends & Priorities Research Center

    Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to get started.

    Phase 1: Identify

    Create your working group

    Activities:

    Step 1.1: Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
    Step 1.2: Train the group to think like futurists
    Step 1.3: Hold the initial meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Potential members and visionaries of the working group

    Outcomes of this phase:

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group who will provide insight and direction.
    • Introduce the core working group members.
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances.
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes.
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Establish the longlist. The longlist help create a holistic view of most technologies that could impact the business. Assigning values and quadrant scoring will shortlist the options and focus your PoC option.

    Step 1.3

    Hold the initial meeting

    Activities:

    1. Create an agenda for the meeting
    2. Start the kick-off meeting with introductions and a recap
    3. Brainstorm about creating a better future
    4. Begin brainstorming an initial longlist
    5. Have team members develop separate longlists for their next meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Core working group members
    • Visionaries

    Outcomes of this step

    • Introduce the core working group members
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist

    1.3.A Create an agenda for the meeting

    1 hour

    Kick-off this cycle of the disruptive technology process by welcoming your visionaries and introducing your core working group.

    The purpose of the initial meeting is to brainstorm where new technology will be the most disruptive within the organization. You’ll develop two longlists: one of business processes and one of disruptive technology. These longlists are in addition to the independent research your core working group will perform before Phase 2.

    • Find an outgoing facilitator. Sitting back will let you focus more on ideating, and an engaging presenter will help bring out ideas from your visionaries.
    • The training deck (see step 1.2c) includes presenting a video. We’ve included some of our top choices for you to choose from.
      • Feel free to find your own video or bring in a keynote speaker.
      • The object of the video is to get the group thinking about the future.
      • Customize the training deck as needed.
    • If a cycle has been completed, present your findings and all of the group’s completed deliverables in the first section.
    • This session is the only time you have with your visionaries. Get their ideas on what technologies will be disruptive to start forming a longlist.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The disruptive tech team is prestigious. If your organization is large enough or has the resources, consider having this meeting in an offsite location. This will drive excitement to join the working group if the opportunity arises and incentivize good work.

    Meeting Agenda (Sample)

    Time

    Activity

    8:00am-8:30am Introductions and previous meeting recap
    8:30am-9:30am Training deck
    9:30 AM-10:00am Brainstorming
    10:00am-10:15am Break
    10:15am-10:45am Develop good research techniques
    10:45am-12:00pm Begin compiling your longlist

    Info-Tech Insight

    The disruptive tech team is prestigious. If your organization is large enough or has the resources, consider having this meeting in an offsite location. This will drive excitement to join the working group if the opportunity arises and incentivize good work.

    1.3.B Start the kick-off meeting with introductions and a summary of what work has been done so far

    30 minutes

    1. Start the meeting off with an icebreaker activity. This isn’t an ordinary business meeting – or even group – so we recommend starting off with an activity that will emphasize this unique nature. To get the group in the right mindset, try this activity:
      1. Go around the group and have people present:
      2. Their names and roles
      3. Pose some or all of the following questions/prompts to the group:
        • “Tell me about something you have created.”
        • “Tell me about a time you created a process or program considered risky.”
        • “Tell me about a situation in which you had to come up with several new ideas in a hurry. Were they accepted? Were they successful?”
        • “Tell me about a time you took a risk.”
        • “Tell me about one of your greatest failures and what you learned from it.”
    2. Once everyone has been introduced, present any work that has already been completed.
      1. If you have already completed a cycle, give a summary of each technology that you investigated and the results from any piloting.
      2. If this is the first cycle for the working group, present the information decided in Step 1.1.

    Input

    • Disruptive technology exploitation plan

    Output

    • Networking
    • Brainstorming

    Materials

    • Meeting agenda

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries
    • Facilitator

    1.3.C Brainstorm about creating a better future for the company, the stakeholders, and the employees

    30 minutes

    Three sticky notes are depicted, at the top of each note are the following titles: What can we do better; How can we make a better future; How can we continue being successful

    1. Have everyone put up at least two ideas for each chart paper.
    2. Go around the room and discuss their ideas. You may generate some new ideas here.

    These generated ideas are organizational processes that can be improved or disrupted with emerging technologies. This list will be referenced throughout Phases 2 and 3.

    Input

    • Inspiration
    • Anonymous ideas

    Output

    • List of processes

    Materials

    • Chart paper and markers
    • Pen and paper

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries

    1.3.D Begin brainstorming a longlist of future technology, and discuss how these technologies will impact the business

    30 minutes

    • Use the Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool to organize technologies and ideas. Longstanding working groups can track technologies here over the course of several years, updating the tool between meetings.
    • Guide the discussion with the following questions, and make sure to focus on the processes generated from Step 1.2.d.

    Focus on

    The Technology

    • What is the technology and what does it do?
    • What processes can it support?

    Experts and Other Organizations

    • What are the vendors saying about the technology?
    • Are similar organizations implementing the technology?

    Your Organization

    • Is the technology ready for wide-scale distribution?
    • Can the technology be tested and implemented now?

    The Technology’s Value

    • Is there any indication of the cost of the technology?
    • How much value will the technology bring?

    Download the Disruptive Technology Database Tool

    Input

    • Inspiration
    • List of processes

    Output

    • Initial longlist

    Materials

    • Chart paper and markers
    • Pen and paper
    • Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries

    1.3.E Explore these sources to generate your disruptive technology longlist for the next meeting

    30 Minutes

    There are many sources of information on new and emerging technology. Explore as many sources as you can.

    Science fiction is a valid source of learning. It drives and is influenced by disruptive technology.

    “…the inventor of the first liquid-fuelled rocket … was inspired by H.G. Wells’ science fiction novel War of the Worlds (1898). More recent examples include the 3D gesture-based user interface used by Tom Cruise’s character in Minority Report (2002), which is found today in most touch screens and the motion sensing capability of Microsoft’s Kinect. Similarly, the tablet computer actually first appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the communicator – which we’ve come to refer today as the mobile phone – was first used by Captain Kirk in Star Trek (1966).”
    – Emmanuel Tsekleves, senior lecturer, University of Lancaster

    Right sources: blogs, tech news sites, tech magazines, the tech section of business sites, popular science books about technology, conferences, trade publications, and vendor announcements

    Quantity over quality: early research is not the time to dismiss ideas.

    Discuss with your peers: spark new and innovative ideas

    Insert a brief summary of how independent research is conducted in Section 2.1 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template.

    1.3.E (Cont.) Explore these sources to generate your disruptive technology longlist for the next meeting

    30 Minutes

    There are many sources of information on new and emerging technology. Use this list to kick-start your search.

    Connect with practitioners that are worth their weight in Reddit gold. Check out topic-based LinkedIn groups and subreddits such as r/sysadmin and r/tech. People experienced with technology frequent these groups.

    YouTube is for more than cat videos. Many vendors use YouTube for distributing their previous webinars. There are also videos showcasing various technologies that are uploaded by lecturers, geeks, researchers, and other technology enthusiasts.

    Test your reasonability. Check your “Think Like a Futurist” Tool

    Resolve

    Evaluate Disruptive Technologies

    PHASE 2

    Phase 2: Resolve

    Evaluate disrupted technologies

    Activities:

    Step 2.1: Create and Winnow a Longlist
    Step 2.2: Assess Shortlist

    Info-Tech Insight

    Long to short … that’s the short of it. Using SWOT, value readiness, and quadrant mapping review sessions will focus the longlist, creating a shortlist of potential PoC candidates to review and consider.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure Management

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Finalized longlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist

    Step 2.1

    Create and winnow a longlist

    Activities:

    1. Converge everyone’s longlists
    2. Narrow technologies from the longlist down to a shortlist using Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool
    3. Use the shortlisting tool to help participants visualize the potential
    4. Input the technologies on your longlist into the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool to produce a shortlist

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group members

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Finalized longlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist

    2.1 Organize a meeting with the core working group to combine your longlists and create a shortlist

    1 hour

    Plan enough time to talk about each technology on the list. Each technology was included for a reason.

    • Start with the longlist. Review the longlist compiled at the initial meeting, and then have everyone present the lists that they independently researched.
    • Focus on the company’s context. Make sure that the working group analyzes these disruptive technologies in the context of the organization.
    • Start to compile the shortlist. Begin narrowing down the longlist by excluding technologies that are not relevant.

    Meeting Agenda (Sample)

    TimeActivity
    8:00am-9:30amConverge longlists
    9:30am-10:00amBreak
    10:00am-10:45amDiscuss tech in organizational context
    10:45am-11:15amBegin compiling the shortlist

    Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    2.1.A Converge the longlists developed by your team

    90 minutes

    • Start with the longlist developed at the initial meeting. Write this list on the whiteboard.
    • If applicable, have a member present the longlist that was created in the last cycle. Remove technologies that:
      • Are no longer disruptive (e.g. have been implemented or rejected).
      • Have become foundational.
    • Eliminate redundancy: remove items that are very similar.
    • Have members “pitch” items on their lists:
      • Explain why their technologies will be disruptive (2-5 minutes maximum)
      • Add new technologies to the whiteboard
    • Record the following for metrics:
      • Each presented technology
      • Reasons the technology could be disruptive
      • Source of the information
    • Use Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool as a starting point.

    Insert the final longlist into Section 2.2 of your Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template.

    Input

    • Longlist developed at first meeting
    • Independent research
    • Previous longlist

    Output

    • Finalized longlist

    Materials

    • Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • Virtual whiteboard

    Participants

    • Core working group

    Review the list of processes that were brainstormed by the visionary group, and ask for input from others

    • IT innovation is most highly valued by the C-suite when it improves business processes, reduces costs, and improves core products and services.
    • By incorporating this insight into your working group’s analysis, you help to attract the attention of senior management and reinforce the group’s necessity.
    • Any input you can get from outside of IT will help your group understand how technology can be disruptive.
      • Visionaries consulted in Phase 1 are a great source for this insight.
    • The list of processes that they helped to brainstorm in Step 1.2 reflects processes that can be impacted by technology.
    • Info-Tech’s research has shown time and again that both CEOs and CIOs want IT to innovate around:
      • Improving business processes
      • Improving core products and services
      • Reducing costs

    Improved business processes

    		80%

    Core product and service improvement

    48%

    Reduced costs

    		48%

    Increased revenues

    		23%

    Penetration into new markets

    		21%

    N=364 CXOs & CIOs from the CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic Questions were asked on a 7-point scale of 1 = Not at all to 7 = Very strongly. Results are displayed as percentage of respondents selecting 6 or 7.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The disruptive tech team is prestigious. If your organization is large enough or has the resources, consider having this meeting in an offsite location. This will drive excitement to join the working group if the opportunity arises and incentivize good work.

    2.1.B Narrow technologies from the longlist down to a shortlist using Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool

    90 minutes

    To decide which technology has potential for your organization, have the working group or workshop participants evaluate each technology:

    1. Record each potentially disruptive technology in the longlist on a whiteboard.
    2. Making sure to carefully consider the meaning of the terms, have each member of the group evaluate each technology as “high” or “low” along each of the axes, innovation and transformation, on a piece of paper.
    3. The facilitator collects each piece of paper and inputs the results by technology into the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.
    Technology Innovation Transformation
    Conversational Commerce High High

    Insert the final shortlist into Section 2.2 of your Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template.

    Input

    • Longlist
    • Futurist brainstorming

    Output

    • Shortlist

    Materials

    • Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • Virtual whiteboard

    Participants

    • Core working group

    Disruptive technologies are innovative and transformational

    Innovation

    Transformation

    • Elements:
      • Creative solution to a problem that is relatively new on the scene.
      • It is different, counterintuitive, or insightful or has any combination of these qualities.
    • Questions to Ask:
      • How new is the technology?
      • How different is the technology?
      • Have you seen anything like it before? Is it counterintuitive?
      • Does it offer an insightful solution to a persistent problem?
    • Example:
      • The sharing economy: Today, simple platforms allow people to share rides and lodgings cheaply and have disrupted traditional services.
    • Elements:
      • Positive change to the business process.
      • Highly impactful: impacts a wide variety of roles in a company in a nontrivial way or impacts a smaller number of roles more significantly.
    • Questions to Ask:
      • Will this technology have a big impact on business operations?
      • Will it add substantial value? Will it change the structure of the company?
      • Will it impact a significant number of employees in the organization?
    • Example:
      • Flash memory improved storage technology incrementally by building on an existing foundation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Technology can be transformational but not innovative. Not every new technology is disruptive. Even where technology has improved the efficiency of the business, if it does this in an incremental way, it might not be worth exploring using this storyboard.

    2.1.C Use the shortlisting tool to help participants visualize the potential

    1 hour

    Use the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool, tabs 2 and 3.

    Assign quadrants

    • Input group members’ names and the entire longlist (up to 30 technologies) into tab 2 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.
    • On tab 3 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool, input the quadrant number that corresponds to the innovation and transformation scores each participant has assigned to each technology.

    Note

    This is an assessment meant to serve as a guide. Use discretion when moving forward with a proof-of-concept project for any potentially disruptive technology.

    Participant Evaluation Quadrant
    High Innovation, High Transformation 1
    High Innovation, Low Transformation 2
    Low Innovation, Low Transformation 3
    Low Innovation, High Transformation 4

    four quadrants are depicted, labeled 1-4. The quadrants are coloured as follows: 1- green; 2- yellow; 3; red; 4; yellow

    2.1.D Use the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool to produce a shortlist

    1 hour

    Use the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool, tabs 3 and 4.

    Use the populated matrix and the discussion list to arrive at a shortlist of four to six potentially disruptive technologies.

    • The tool populates each quadrant based on how many votes it received in the voting exercise.
    • Technologies selected for a particular quadrant by a majority of participants are placed in the quadrant on the graph. Where there was no consensus, the technology is placed in the discussion list.
    • Technologies in the upper right quadrant – high transformation and high innovation – are more likely to be good candidates for a proof-of-concept project. Those in the bottom left are likely to be poor candidates, while those in the remaining quadrants are strong on one of the axes and are unlikely candidates for further systematic evaluation.

    This image contains a screenshot from tab 3 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.

    Input the results of the vote into tab 3 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.

    This image contains a screenshot from tab 4 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.

    View the results on tab 4.

    Phase 2: Resolve

    Evaluate disrupted technologies

    Activities:

    Step 2.1: Create and Winnow a Longlist
    Step 2.2:- Assess Shortlist

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure Management

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Finalized longlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist

    Assess Shortlist

    Activities:

    1. Assess the value of each technology to your organization by breaking it down into quality and cost
    2. Investigate the overall readiness of the technologies on the shortlist
    3. Interpret each technology’s value score
    4. Conduct a SWOT analysis for each technology on the shortlist
    5. Use Info-Tech’s disruptive technology shortlist analysis to visualize the tool’s outputs
    6. Select the shortlisted technologies you would like to move forward with

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group members
    • IT Management

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist

    2.2 Evaluate technologies based on their value and readiness, and conduct a SWOT analysis for each one

    Use the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    • A technology monitor diagram prioritizes investment in technology by analyzing its readiness and value.
      • Readiness: how close the technology is to being practical and implementable in your industry and organization.
      • Value: how worthwhile the technology is, in terms of its quality and its cost.
    • Value and readiness questionnaires are included in the tool to help determine current and future values for each, and the next four slides explain the ratings further.
    • Categorize technology by its value-readiness score, and evaluate how much potential value each technology has and how soon your company can realize that value.
    • Use a SWOT analysis to qualitatively evaluate the potential that each technology has for your organization in each of the four categories (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats).

    The technology monitor diagram appears in tab 9 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    This image depicts tab 9 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    2.2.A Assess the value of each technology to your organization by breaking it down into quality and cost

    1 hour

    Update the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool, tab 4.

    Populate the chart to produce a score for each technology’s overall value to the company conceptualized as the interaction of quality and cost.

    Overall Value

    Quality Cost

    Each technology, if it has a product associated with it, can be evaluated along eight dimensions of quality. Consider how well the product performs, its features, its reliability, its conformance, its durability, its serviceability, its aesthetics, and its perceived quality.

    IT budgets are broken down into capital and operating expenditures. A technology that requires a significant investment along either of these lines is unlikely to produce a positive return. Also consider how much time it will take to implement and operate each technology.

    The value assessment is part of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    This image contains a screenshot from tab 4 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Watch your costs: Technology that seems cheap at first can actually be expensive over time. Be sure to account for operational and opportunity costs as well.

    2.2.B Investigate the overall readiness of the technologies on the shortlist

    1 hour

    Update the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool, tab 4.

    Overall Readiness

    Age

    How much time has the technology had to mature? Older technology is more likely to be ready for adoption.

    Venture Capital

    The amount of venture capital gathered by important firms in the space is an indicator of market faith.

    Market Size

    How big is the market for the technology? It is more difficult to break into a giant market than a niche market.

    Market Players

    Have any established vendors (Microsoft, Facebook, Google, etc.) thrown their weight behind the technology?

    Fragmentation

    A large number of small companies in the space indicates that the market has yet to reach equilibrium.

    The readiness assessment is part of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    This image contains a screenshot of the Readiness Scoring tab of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    Use a variety of sources to populate the chart

    Google is your friend: search each shortlisted technology to find details about its development and important vendors.

    Websites like Crunchbase, VentureBeat, and Mashable are useful sources for information on the companies involved in a space and the amount of money they have each raised.

    2.2.C Interpret each technology’s value score

    1 hour

    Insert the result of the SWOT analysis into tab 7 of Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    Visualize the results of the quality-cost analysis

    • Quality and cost are independently significant; it is essential to understand how each technology stacks up on the axes.
    • Use tab 6 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool for an illustration of how quality and cost interact to produce each technology’s final position on the tech monitor graph.
    • Remember: the score is notional and reflects the values that you have assigned. Be sure to treat it accordingly.

    This image contains a screenshot of the Value Analysis tab of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    Green represents a technology that scores extremely high on one axis or the other, or quite high on both. These technologies are the best candidates for proof-of-concept projects from a value perspective.

    Red represents a technology that has scored very low on both axes. These technologies will be expensive, time consuming, and of poor quality.

    Yellow represents the fuzzy middle ground. These technologies score moderately on both axes. Be especially careful when considering the SWOT analysis of these technologies.

    2.2.D Conduct a SWOT analysis for each technology on the shortlist

    1 hour

    Use tab 6 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    A formal process for analyzing disruptive technology is the only way to ensure that it is taken seriously.

    Write each technology as a heading on a whiteboard. Spend 10-15 minutes on each technology conducting a SWOT analysis together.

    Consider four categories for each technology:

    • Strengths: Current uses of the technology or supporting technology and ways in which it helps your organization.
    • Weaknesses: Current limitations of the technology and challenges or barriers to adopting it in your organization.
    • Opportunities: Potential uses of the technology, especially as it advances or improves.
    • Threats: Potential negative disruptions resulting from the technology, especially as it advances or improves.

    The list of processes generated at the cycle’s initial meeting is a great source for opportunities and threats.

    Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    This image contains screenshots of the technology tab of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    2.2.E Use Info-Tech’s disruptive technology shortlist analysis to visualize the tool’s outputs

    1 hour

    Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool, tab 9

    The tool’s final tab displays the results of the value-readiness analysis and the SWOT analysis in a single location.

    This image contains a screenshot from tab 9 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    Insert the shortlist analysis report into Section 3 of your Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template.

    2.2.F Select the shortlisted technologies you would like to move forward with

    1 hour

    Present your findings to the working group.

    • The Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool aggregates your inputs in an easy-to-read, consistent way.
    • Present the tool’s outputs to members of the core working group.
    • Explain the scoring and present the graphic to the group. Go over each technology’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats it presents/poses to the organization.
    • Go through the proof-of-concept planning phase before striking any technologies from the list.

    This image contains a screenshot of the disruptive technology shortlist analysis from the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    Info-Tech Insight

    A technology’s exceptional value and immediate usability make it the best. A technology can be promising and compelling, but it is unsuitable unless it can bring immediate and exceptional value to your organization. Don’t get caught up in the hype.

    Evaluate

    Create an Action Plan to Exploit Disruptive Technologies

    PHASE 3

    Phase 3: Evaluate

    Create an Action Plan to Exploit Disruptive Technologies

    Activities:

    Step 3.1: Create Process Maps
    Step 3.2: Develop Proof of Concept Charter

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure Management
    • Working group leader
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Business process maps before and after disruption
    • Proof of concept charter
    • Key performance indicators
    • Estimation of required resources

    Step 3.1

    Create Process Maps

    Activities:

    1. Creating a problem canvas by identifying stakeholders, jobs, pains, and gains
    2. Clarify the problem the proof-of-concept project will solve
    3. Identify jobs and stakeholders
    4. Outline how disruptive technology will solve the problem
    5. Map business processes
    6. Identify affected business units
    7. Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted
    8. Recognize how the new technology will impact business processes
    9. Make the case: Outline why the new business process is superior to the old

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Working group leader
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Business process maps before and after disruption

    3.1 Create an action plan to exploit disruptive technologies

    Clarify the problem in order to make the case. Fill in section 1.1 of Info-Tech’s Proof of Concept Template to clearly outline the problem each proof of concept is designed to solve.

    Establish roles and responsibilities. Use section 1.2 of the template to outline the roles and responsibilities that fall to each member of the team. Ensure that clear lines of authority are delineated and that the list of stakeholders is exhaustive: include the executives whose input will be required for project approval, all the way to the technicians on the frontline responsible for implementing it.

    Outline the solution to the problem. Demonstrate how each proof-of-concept project provides a solution to the problem outlined in section 1.1. Be sure to clarify what makes the particular technology under investigation a potential solution and record the results in section 1.3.

    This image contains a screenshot of the Proof of concept project template

    Use the Proof of Concept Project Template to track the information you gather throughout Phase 3.

    3.1.A Creating a problem canvas by identifying stakeholders, jobs, pains, and gains

    2 hours

    Instructions:

    1. On a whiteboard, draw the visual canvas supplied below.
    2. Select your issue area, and list jobs, pains, and gains in the associated sections.
    3. Record the pains, jobs, and gains in sections 1.1-1.3 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    Gains

    1. More revenue

    2. Job security

    3. ……

    Jobs

    1. Moving product

    2. Per sale value

    3. ……

    Pains

    1. Clunky website

    2. Bad site navigation

    3. ……

    Input

    • Inspiration
    • Anonymous ideas

    Output

    • List of processes

    Materials

    • Chart paper and markers
    • Pen and paper

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries

    3.1.B Clarify the problem the proof-of-concept project will solve

    2 hours

    What is the problem?

    • Every technology is designed to solve a problem faced by somebody somewhere. For each technology that your team has decided to move forward with, identify and clearly state the problem it would solve.
    • A clear problem statement is a crucial part of a new technology’s business case. It is impossible to earn buy-in from the rest of the organization without demonstrating the necessity of a solution.
    • Perfection is impossible to achieve: during the course of their work, everyone encounters pain points. Identify those pain points to arrive at the problem that needs to be solved.

    Example:

    List of pains addressed by conversational commerce:

    • Search functions can be clunky and unresponsive.
    • Corporate websites can be difficult to navigate.
    • Customers are uncomfortable in unfamiliar internet environments.
    • Customers do not like waiting in a long queue to engage with customer service representatives when they have concerns.

    “If I were given one hour to solve a problem, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.”
    – Albert Einstein

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 1.1 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.1.C Identify jobs and stakeholders

    1 hour

    Jobs

    Job: Anything that the “customer” (the target of the solution) needs to get done but that is complicated by a pain.

    Examples:
    The job of the conversational commerce interface is to make selling products easier for the company.
    From the customer perspective, the job of the conversational interface is to make the act of purchasing a product simpler and easier.

    Stakeholders

    Stakeholder: Anyone who is impacted by the new technology and who will end up using, approving, or implementing it.

    Examples:
    The executive is responsible for changing the company’s direction and approving investment in a new sales platform.
    The IT team is responsible for implementing the new technology.
    Marketing will be responsible for selling the change to customers.
    Customers, the end users, will be the ones using the conversational commerce user interface.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 1.2 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Process deconstruction reveals strengths and weaknesses. Promising technology should improve stakeholders’ abilities to do jobs.

    3.1.D Outline how disruptive technology will solve the problem

    1 hour

    How will the technology in question make jobs easier?

    • How will the disruptive technology you have elected to move forward with create gains for the organization?
    • First, identify the gains that are supposed to come with the project. Consider the benefits that the various stakeholders expect to derive from the jobs identified.
    • Second, make note of how the technology in question facilitates the gains you have noted. Be sure to articulate the exclusive features of the new technology that make it an improvement over the current state.

    Note: The goal of this exercise is to make the case for a particular technology. Sell it!

    Expected Gain: Increase in sales.

    Conversational Commerce’s Contribution: Customers are more likely to purchase products using interfaces they are comfortable with.

    Expected Gain: Decrease in costs.

    Conversational Commerce’s Contribution: Customers who are satisfied with the conversational interface are less likely to interact with live agents, saving labor costs.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 1.3 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.1.E Map business processes

    1 hour

    Map the specific business processes the new technology will impact.

    • Disruptive technologies will impact a wide variety of business processes.
    • Map business processes to visualize what parts of your organization (departments, silos, divisions) will be impacted by the new technology, should it be adopted after the proof of concept.
    • Identify how the disruption will take place.
    • Demonstrate the value of each technology by including the results of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool with your process map.

    This image contains a screenshot of the Proof of concept project template

    Use the Proof of Concept Project Template to track the information you gather throughout Phase 3.

    3.1.F Identify affected business units

    30 minutes per technology

    Disruptive technology will impact business units.

    • Using the stakeholders identified earlier in the project, map each technology to the business units that will be affected.
    • Make your list exhaustive. While some technologies will have a limited impact on the business as a whole, others will have ripple effects throughout the organization.
    • Examine affected units at all scales: How will the technology impact operations at the team level? The department level? The division level?

    “The disruption is not just in the technology. Sometimes a good business model can be the disruptor.”
    – Jason Hong, Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon

    Example:

    • Customer service teams: Conversational commerce will replace some of the duties of the customer service representative. They will have to reorganize to account for this development.
    • IT department: The IT department will be responsible for building/maintaining the conversational interface (or, more likely, they will be responsible for managing the contract with the vendor).
    • Sales analytics: New data from customers in natural language might provide a unique opportunity for the analytics team to develop new initiatives to drive sales growth.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 2.1 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.1.G Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted

    15 minutes per technology

    Leverage the insights of the diverse working group.

    • Processes are designed to transform inputs into outputs. All business activities can be mapped into processes.
    • A process map illustrates the sequence of actions and decisions that transform an input into an output.
    • Effective mapping gives managers an “aerial” view of the company’s processes, making it easier to identify inefficiencies, reduce waste, and ultimately, streamline operations.
    • To identify business processes, have group members familiar with the affected business units identify how jobs are typically accomplished within those units.

    “To truly understand a business process, we need information from both the top-down and bottom-up points of view. Informants higher in the organizational hierarchy with a strategic focus are less likely to know process details or problems. But they might advocate and clearly articulate an end-to-end, customer-oriented philosophy that describes the process in an idealized form. Conversely, the salespeople, customer service representatives, order processors, shipping clerks, and others who actually carry out the processes will be experts about the processes, their associated documents, and problems or exception cases they encounter.”
    – Robert J. Glushko, Professor at UC Berkeley and Tim McGrath, Business Consultant

    Info-Tech Insight

    Opinions gathered from a group that reflect the process in question are far more likely to align with your organization’s reality. If you have any questions about a particular process, do not be afraid to go outside of the working group to ask someone who might know.

    3.1.G Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted (continued)

    15 minutes per technology

    Create a simple diagram of identified processes.

    • Use different shapes to identify different points in the process.
    • Rectangles represent actions, diamonds represent decisions.
    • On a whiteboard, map out the actions and decisions that take place to transform an input into an output.
    • Input the result into section 2.2 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    This image contains a screenshot of the Software Service Cross-Function Process tab from Edraw Visualization Solutions.

    Source: Edraw Visualization Solutions

    Example: simplified process map

    1. User: visits company website
    2. User: engages search function or browses links
    3. User: selects and purchases product from a menu
    4. Company: ships product to customer

    3.1.H Recognize how the new technology will impact business processes

    15 minutes per technology

    Using the information gleaned from the previous activities, develop a new process map that takes the new technology into account.

    Identify the new actions or decisions that the new technology will affect.

    User: visits company website; User: engages conversational; commerce platform; User: engages search function or browses links; User: makes a natural language query; User: selects and purchases product from a menu</p data-verified=

    User: selects and purchases product from a menu; Company: ships product to customer; Company: ships product to customer">

    Info-Tech Insight

    It’s ok to fail! The only way to know you’re getting close to the “knee of curve" is from multiple failed PoC tests. The more PoC options you have, the more likely it will be that you will have two to three successful results.

    3.1.I Make the case: Outline why the new business process is superior to the old

    15 minutes per technology

    Articulate the main benefits of the new process.

    • Using the revised process map, make the case for each new action.
    • Questions to consider: How does the new technology relieve end-user/customer pains? How does the new technology contribute to the streamlining of the business process? Who will benefit from the new action? What are the implications of those benefits?
    • Record the results of this exercise in section 2.4 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    This image contains an example of an outline comparing the benefits of new and the old business processes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you cannot articulate how a new technology will benefit a business process, reconsider moving forward with the proof-of-concept project.

    Phase 3: Evaluate

    Create an Action Plan to Exploit Disruptive Technologies

    Activities:

    Step 3.1: Create Process Maps
    Step 3.2: Develop Proof of Concept Charter

    Develop Proof of Concept Charter

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure Management
    • Working group leader
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Business process maps before and after disruption
    • Proof of concept charter
    • Key performance indicators
    • Estimation of required resources

    Step 3.2

    Develop Proof of Concept Charter

    Activities:

    1. Use SMART success metrics to define your objectives
    2. Develop key performance indicators (KPIs)
    3. Identify key success factors for the project
    4. Outline the project’s scope
    5. Identify the structure of the team responsible for the proof-of-concept project
    6. Estimate the resources required by the project
    7. Be aware of common IT project concerns
    8. Communicate your working group’s findings and successes to a wide audience
    9. Hand off the completed proof-of-concept project plan
    10. Disruption is constant: Repeat the evaluation process regularly to protect the business

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Working group leader
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Proof of concept charter
    • Key performance indicators
    • Estimation of required resources

    3.2 Develop a proof of concept charter

    Keep your proof of concept on track by defining five key dimensions.

    1. Objective: Giving an overview of the planned proof of concept will help to focus and clarify the rest of this section. What must the proof of concept achieve? Objectives should be: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. Outline and track key performance indicators.
    2. Key Success Factors: These are conditions that will positively impact the proof of concept’s success.
    3. Scope: High-level statement of scope. More specifically, state what is in scope and what is out of scope.
    4. Project Team: Identify the team’s structure, e.g. sponsors, subject-matter experts.
    5. Resource Estimation: Identify what resources (time, materials, space, tools, expertise, etc.) will be needed to build and socialize your prototype. How will they be secured?

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.A Use SMART success metrics to define your objectives

    Specific

    Measurable

    Actionable

    Realistic

    Time Bound

    Make sure the objective is clear and detailed.

    Objectives are measurable if there are specific metrics assigned to measure success. Metrics should be objective.

    Objectives become actionable when specific initiatives designed to achieve the objective are identified.

    Objectives must be achievable given your current resources or known available resources.

    An objective without a timeline can be put off indefinitely. Furthermore, measuring success is challenging without a timeline.

    Who, what, where, why?

    How will you measure the extent to which the goal is met?

    What is the action-oriented verb?

    Is this within my capabilities?

    By when: deadline, frequency?

    Examples:

    1. Increase in sales by $40,000 per month by the end of next quarter.
    2. Immediate increase in web traffic by 600 unique page views per day.
    3. Number of pilots approved per year.
    4. Number of successfully deployed solutions per year.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.B Develop key performance indicators (KPIs)

    30 minutes per technology

    Key performance indicators allow for rigorous analysis, which generates insight into utilization by platform and consumption by business activity.

    • Use the process improvements identified in step 3.1 to brainstorm metrics that indicate when process improvement is actually taking place.
    • Have members of the group pitch KPIs; the facilitator should record each suggestion on a whiteboard.
    • Make sure to have everyone justify the inclusion of each metric: How does it relate to the improvement that the proof of concept project is intended to drive? How does it relate to the overall goals of the business?
    • Include a list of KPIs, along with a description and a target (ensuring that it aligns with SMART metrics) in section 3.1 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    “An estimated 70% of performance measurement systems fail after implementation. Carefully select your KPIs and avoid this trap!”
    Source: Collins et al. 2016

    Key Performance Indicator Description Target

    Result

    Conversion rate What percentage of customers who visit the site/open the conversational interface continue on to make a purchase? 40%
    Average order value

    How much does each customer spend per visit to the website?

    		$212
    Repeat customer rate What percentage of customers have made more than one purchase over time? 65%
    Lifetime customer value Over the course of their interaction with the company, what is the typical value each customer brings? $1566

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.1 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.C Identify key success factors for the project

    30 minutes per technology

    Effective project management involves optimizing four key success factors (Clarke, 1999)

    • Communication: Communicate the expected changes to stakeholders, making sure that everyone who needs to know does know. Example: Make sure customer service representatives know their duties will be impacted by the conversational UI well before the proof-of-concept project begins.
    • Clarity: All involved in the project should be apprised of what the project is intended to accomplish and what the project is not intended to accomplish. Example: The conversational commerce project is not intended to be rolled out to the entire customer base all at once; it is not intended to disrupt normal online sales.
    • Compartmentalization: The working group should suggest some ways that the project can be broken down to facilitate its effective implementation. Example: Sales provides details of customers who might be amenable to a trial, IT secures a vendor, customer service writes a script.
    • Flexibility: The working group’s final output should not be treated as gospel. Ensure that the document can be altered to account for unexpected events. Example: The conversational commerce platform might drive sales of a particular product more than others, necessitating adjustments at the warehouse and shipping level.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.D Outline the project’s scope

    10 minutes per technology

    Create a high-level outline of the project’s scope.

    • Questions to consider: Broadly speaking, what are the project’s goals? What is the desired future state? Where in the company will the project be rolled out? What are some of the company’s goals that the project is not designed to cover?
    • Be sure to avoid scope creep! Remember: The goal of the proof-of-concept project is to produce a minimum case for viability in a carefully defined area. Reserve a detailed accounting of costs and benefits for the post-proof-of-concept stage.
    • Example: The conversational user interface will only be rolled out in an e-commerce setting. Other business units (HR, for example) are beyond the scope of this particular project.

    “Although scope creep is not the only nemesis a project can have, it does tend to have the farthest reach. Without a properly defined project and/or allowing numerous changes along the way, a project can easily go over budget, miss the deadline, and wreak havoc on project success.”
    – University Alliance, Villanova University

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.E Identify the structure of the team responsible for the proof-of-concept project

    10 minutes per technology

    Brainstorm who will be involved in project implementation.

    • Refer back to the list of stakeholders identified in 3.1.a. Which stakeholders should be involved in implementing the proof-of-concept plan?
    • What business units do they represent?
    • Who should be accountable for the project? At a high level, sketch the roles of each of the participants. Who will be responsible for doing the work? Who will approve it? Who needs to be informed at every stage? Who are the company’s internal subject matter experts?

    Example

    Name/Title Role
    IT Manager Negotiate the contract for the software with vendor
    CMO Promote the conversational interface to customers

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.F Estimate the resources required by the project

    10 minutes per technology

    Time and Money

    • Recall: Costs can be operational, capital, or opportunity.
    • Revisit the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool. Record the capital and operational expenses expected to be associated with each technology, and add detail where possible (use exact figures from particular vendors instead of percentages).
    • Write the names and titles of each expected participant in the project on a whiteboard. Next to each name, write the number of hours they are expected to devote to the project and include a rough estimate of the cost of their participation to the company. Use full-time employee equivalent (FTE measures) as a base.
    • Outline how other necessary resources (space, tools, expertise, etc.) will be secured.

    Example: Conversational Commerce

    • OpEx: $149/month + 2.9¢/transaction* (2,000 estimated transactions)
    • CapEx: $0!
    • IT Manager: 5 hours at $100/hour
    • IT Technician: 40 hours at $45/hour
    • CMO: 1 hour at $300/hour
    • Customer Service Representative: 10 hours at $35/hour
    • *Estimated total cost for a one-month proof-of-concept project: $3,157

    *This number is a sample taken from the vendor Rhombus

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.G Be aware of common IT project concerns

    Of projects that did not meet business expectations or were cancelled, how significant were the following issues?

    A bar graph is depicted, comparing small, medium, and large businesses for the following datasets: Over budget; Project failed to be delivered on time; Breach of scope; Low quality; Failed to deliver expected benefit or value

    This survey data did not specifically address innovation projects.

    • Disruptive technology projects will be under increased scrutiny in comparison to other projects.
    • Be sure to meet deadlines and stay within budget.
    • Be cognizant that your projects can go out of scope, and there will be projects that may have to be cancelled due to low quality. Remember: Even a failed test is a learning opportunity!

    Info-Tech’s CIO-CEO Alignment Survey, N=225

    Organization size was determined by the number of IT employees within the organization

    Small = 10 or fewer IT staff, medium = 11 to 25 IT staff, and large/enterprise = 26 or greater IT staff

    3.2.H Communicate your working group’s findings and successes to a wide audience

    Advertise the group’s successes and help prevent airline magazine syndrome from occurring.

    • Share your group’s results internally:
      • Run your own analysis by senior management and then share it across the organization.
      • Maintain a list of technologies that the working group has analyzed and solicit feedback from the wider organization.
      • Post summaries of the technologies in a publicly available repository. The C-suite may not read it right away, but it will be easy to provide when they ask.
      • If senior management has declined to proceed with a certain technology, avoid wasting time and resources on it. However, include notes about why the technology was rejected.
    • These postings will also act as an advertisement for the group. Use the garnered interest to attract visionaries for the next cycle.
    • These postings will help to reiterate the innovative value of the IT department and help bring you to the decision-making table.

    “Some CIOs will have to battle the bias that they belong in the back office and shouldn’t be included in product architecture planning. CIOs must ‘sell’ IT’s strength in information architecture.”
    – Chris Curran, Chief Technologist, PwC (Curran, 2014)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Cast a wide net. By sharing your results with as many people as possible within your organization, you’ll not only attract more attention to your working group, but you will also get more feedback and ideas.

    3.2.I Hand off the completed proof-of-concept project plan

    The proof of concept template is filled out – now what?

    • The core working group is responsible for producing a vision of the future and outlining new technology’s disruptive potential. The actual implementation of the proof of concept (purchasing the hardware, negotiating the SLA with the vendor) is beyond the working group’s responsibilities.
    • If the proof of concept goes ahead, the facilitator should block some time to evaluate the completed project against the key performance indicators identified in the initial plan.
    • A cure for airline magazine syndrome: Be prepared when executives ask about new technology. Present them with the results of the shortlist analysis and the proof-of-concept plan. A clear accounting of the value, readiness, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats posed by each technology, along with its impact on business processes, is an invaluable weapon against poor technology choices.

    Use section 3.2.b to identify the decision-making stakeholder who has the most to gain from a successful proof-of-concept project. Self-interest is a powerful motivator – the project is more likely to succeed in the hands of a passionate champion.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Set a date for the first meeting of the new iteration of the disruptive technology working group before the last meeting is done. Don’t risk pushing it back indefinitely.

    3.2.J Hand off the completed proof-of-concept project plan

    Record the results of the proof of concept. Keep track of what worked and what didn’t.

    Repeat the process regularly.

    • Finalize the proof of concept template, but don’t stop there: Keep your ear to the ground; follow tech developments using the sources identified in step 1.2.
    • Continue expanding the potential longlist with independent research: Be prepared to expand your longlist. Remember, the more technologies you have on the longlist, the more potential airline magazine syndrome cures you have access to.
    • Have the results of the previous session’s proof of concept plan on hand: At the start of each new iteration, conduct a review. What technologies were successful beyond the proof of concept phase? Which parts of the process worked? Which parts did not? How could they be improved?

    Info-Tech Insight

    The key is in anticipation. This is not a one-and-done exercise. Technology innovation operates at a faster pace than ever before, well below the Moores Law "18 month" timeline as an example. Success is in making EDIT a repeatable process.

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    Research contributors and experts

    Nitin Babel

    Nitin Babel, Co-Founder, niki.ai

    Nitin Babel, MSc, co-created conversational commerce platform niki.ai in early 2015. Since then, the technology has been featured on the front page of the Economic Times, and has secured the backing of Ratan Tata, former chairman of the Tata Group, one of the largest companies in the world.

    Mark Hubbard

    Mark Hubbard, Senior Vice President, FirstOnSite

    Mark is the SVP for Information Technology in Canada with FirstOnSite, a full service disaster recovery and property restoration company. Mark has over 25 years of technology leadership guiding global organizations through the development of strategic and tactical plans to strengthen their technology platforms and implement business aligned technology strategies.

    Chris Green

    Chris Green, Enterprise Architect, Boston Private
    Chris is an IT architect with over 15 years’ experience designing, building, and implementing solutions. He is a results-driven leader and contributor, skilled in a broad set of methods, tools, and platforms. He is experienced with mobile, web, enterprise application integration, business process, and data design.

    Andrew Kope

    Andrew Kope, Head of Data Analytics
    Big Blue Bubble
    Andrew Kope, MSc, oversees a team that develops and maintains a user acquisition tracking solution and a real-time metrics dashboard. He also provides actionable recommendations to the executive leadership of Big Blue Bubble – one of Canada’s largest independent mobile game development studios.

    Jason Hong

    Jason Hong, Associate Professor, School of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

    Jason Hong is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science. His research focus lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction, privacy and security, and systems. He is a New America National Cyber Security Fellow (2015-2017) and is widely published in academic and industry journals.

    Tim Lalonde

    Tim Lalonde, Vice President, Mid-Range

    Tim Lalonde is the VP of Technical Operations at Mid-Range. He works with leading-edge companies to be more competitive and effective in their industries. He specializes in developing business roadmaps leveraging technology that create and support change from within — with a focus on business process re-engineering, architecture and design, business case development and problem-solving. With over 30 years of experience in IT, Tim’s guiding principle remains simple: See a problem, fix a problem.

    Jon Mavor

    Jon Mavor, Co-Founder and CTO, Envelop VR
    Jon Mavor is a programmer and entrepreneur, whose past work includes writing the graphics engine for the PC game Total Annihilation. As Chief Technology Officer of Envelop VR, a virtual reality start-up focused on software for the enterprise, Jon has overseen the launch of Envelop for Windows’s first public beta.

    Dan Pitt

    Dan Pitt, President, Palo Alto Innovation Advisors
    Dan Pitt is a network architect who has extensive experience in both the academy and industry. Over the course of his career, Dan has served as Executive Director of the Open Networking Foundation, Dean of Engineering at Santa Clara University, Vice President of Technology and Academic Partnerships at Nortel, Vice President of the Architecture Lab at Bay Networks, and, currently, as President of Palo Alto Innovation Advisors, where he advises and serves as an executive for technology start-ups in the Palo Alto area and around the world.

    Courtney Smith

    Courtney Smith, Co-Founder, Executive Creative Director
    PureMatter
    Courtney Smith is an accomplished creative strategist, storyteller, writer, and designer. Under her leadership, PureMatter has earned hundreds of creative awards and been featured in the PRINT International Design Annual. Courtney has juried over 30 creative competitions, including Creativity International. She is an invited member of the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts.

    Emmanuel Tsekleves

    Emmanuel Tsekleves, Senior Lecturer in Design Interactions, University of Lancaster
    Dr. Emmanuel Tsekleves is a senior lecturer and writer based out of the United Kingdom. Emmanuel designs interactions between people, places, and products by forging creative design methods along with digital technology. His design-led research in the areas of health, ageing, well-being, and defence has generated public interest and attracted media attention by the national press, such as the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Times, the Daily Mail, Discovery News, and several other international online media outlets.

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    Tactics to Retain IT Talent

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}549|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Engage
    • Parent Category Link: /engage
    • Regrettable turnover is impacting organizational productivity and leading to significant costs associated with employee departures and the recruitment required to replace them.
    • Many organizations focus on increasing engagement to improve retention, but this approach doesn’t address the entire problem.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Engagement surveys mask the volatility of the employee experience and hide the reason why individual employees leave. You must also talk to employees to understand the moments that matter and engage managers to understand turnover triggers.

    Impact and Result

    • Build the case for creating retention plans by leveraging employee data and feedback to identify the key reasons for turnover that need to be addressed.
    • Target employee segments and work with management to develop solutions to retain top talent.

    Tactics to Retain IT Talent Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Tactics to Retain IT Talent Storyboard – Use this storyboard to develop a targeted talent retention plan to retain top and core talent in the organization.

    Integrate data from exit surveys and interviews, engagement surveys, and stay interviews to understand the most commonly cited reasons for employee departure in order to select and prioritize tactics that improve retention. This blueprint will help you identify reasons for regrettable turnover, select solutions, and create an action plan.

    • Tactics to Retain IT Talent Storyboard

    2. Retention Plan Workbook – Capture key information in one place as you work through the process to assess and prioritize solutions.

    Use this tool to document and analyze turnover data to find suitable retention solutions.

    • Retention Plan Workbook

    3. Stay Interview Guide – Managers will use this guide to conduct regular stay interviews with employees to anticipate and address turnover triggers.

    The Stay Interview Guide helps managers conduct interviews with current employees, enabling the manager to understand the employee's current engagement level, satisfaction with current role and responsibilities, suggestions for potential improvements, and intent to stay with the organization.

    • Stay Interview Guide

    4. IT Retention Solutions Catalog – Use this catalog to select and prioritize retention solutions across the employee lifecycle.

    Review best-practice solutions to identify those that are most suitable to your organizational culture and employee needs. Use the IT Retention Solutions Catalog to explore a variety of methods to improve retention, understand their use cases, and determine stakeholder responsibilities.

    • IT Retention Solutions Catalog
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Tactics to Retain IT Talent

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Identify Reasons for Regrettable Turnover

    The Purpose

    Identify the main drivers of turnover at the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Find out what to explore during focus groups.

    Activities

    1.1 Review data to determine why employees join, stay, and leave.

    1.2 Identify common themes.

    1.3 Prepare for focus groups.

    Outputs

    List of common themes/pain points recorded in the Retention Plan Workbook.

    2 Conduct Focus Groups

    The Purpose

    Conduct focus groups to explore retention drivers.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Explore identified themes.

    Activities

    2.1 Conduct four 1-hour focus groups with the employee segment(s) identified in the pre-workshop activities.

    2.2 Info-Tech facilitators independently analyze results of focus groups and group results by theme.

    Outputs

    Focus group feedback.

    Focus group feedback analyzed and organized by themes.

    3 Identify Needs and Retention Initiatives

    The Purpose

    Home in on employee needs that are a priority.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A list of initiatives to address the identified needs

    Activities

    3.1 Create an empathy map to identify needs.

    3.2 Shortlist retention initiatives.

    Outputs

    Employee needs and shortlist of initiatives to address them.

    4 Prepare to Communicate and Launch

    The Purpose

    Prepare to launch your retention initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clear action plan for implementing your retention initiatives.

    Activities

    4.1 Select retention initiatives.

    4.2 Determine goals and metrics.

    4.3 Plan stakeholder communication.

    4.4 Build a high-level action plan.

    Outputs

    Finalized list of retention initiatives.

    Goals and associated metrics recorded in the Retention Plan Workbook.

    Further reading

    Tactics to Retain IT Talent

    Keep talent from walking out the door by discovering and addressing moments that matter and turnover triggers.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Many organizations are facing an increase in voluntary turnover as low unemployment, a lack of skilled labor, and a rise in the number of vacant roles have given employees more employment choices.

    Common Obstacles

    Regrettable turnover is impacting organizational productivity and leading to significant costs associated with employee departures and the recruitment required to replace them.

    Many organizations tackle retention from an engagement perspective: Increase engagement to improve retention. This approach doesn't consider the whole problem.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Build the case for creating retention plans by leveraging employee data and feedback to identify the key reasons for turnover that need to be addressed.

    Target employee segments and work with management to develop solutions to retain top talent.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Engagement surveys mask the volatility of the employee experience and hide the reason why individual employees leave. You must also talk to employees to understand the moments that matter and engage managers to understand turnover triggers.

    This research addresses regrettable turnover

    This is an image of a flow chart with three levels. The top level has only one box, labeled Turnover. the Second level has 2 boxes, labeled Voluntary, and Involuntary. The third level has two boxes under Voluntary, labeled Non-regrettable: The loss of employees that the organization did not wish to keep, e.g. low performers, and Regrettable: The loss of employees that the organization wishes it could have kept.

    Low unemployment and rising voluntary turnover makes it critical to focus on retention

    As the economy continues to recover from the pandemic, unemployment continues to trend downward even with a looming recession. This leaves more job openings vacant, making it easier for employees to job hop.

    This image contains a graph of the US Employment rate between 2020 - 2022 from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 2022, the percentage of individuals who change jobs every one to five years from 2022 Job Seeker Nation Study, Jobvite, 2022, and voluntary turnover rates from BLS, 2022

    With more employees voluntarily choosing to leave jobs, it is more important than ever for organizations to identify key employees they want to retain and put plans in place to keep them.

    Retention is a challenge for many organizations

    The number of HR professionals citing retention/turnover as a top workforce management challenge is increasing, and it is now the second highest recruiting priority ("2020 Recruiter Nation Survey," Jobvite, 2020).

    65% of employees believe they can find a better position elsewhere (Legaljobs, 2021). This is a challenge for organizations in that they need to find ways to ensure employees want to stay at the organization or they will lose them, which results in high turnover costs.

    Executives and IT are making retention and turnover – two sides of the same coin – a priority because they cost organizations money.

    • 87% of HR professionals cited retention/turnover as a critical and high priority for the next few years (TINYpulse, 2020).
    • $630B The cost of voluntary turnover in the US (Work Institute, 2020).
    • 66% of organizations consider employee retention to be important or very important to an organization (PayScale, 2019).

    Improving retention leads to broad-reaching organizational benefits

    Cost savings: the price of turnover as a percentage of salary

    • 33% Improving retention can result in significant cost savings. A recent study found turnover costs, on average, to be around a third of an employee's annual salary (SHRM, 2019).
    • 37.9% of employees leave their organization within the first year. Employees who leave within the first 90 days of being hired offer very little or no return on the investment made to hire them (Work Institute, 2020).

    Improved performance

    Employees with longer tenure have an increased understanding of an organization's policies and processes, which leads to increased productivity (Indeed, 2021).

    Prevents a ripple effect

    Turnover often ripples across a team or department, with employees following each other out of the organization (Mereo). Retaining even one individual can often have an impact across the organization.

    Transfer of knowledge

    Retaining key individuals allows them to pass it on to other employees through communities of practice, mentoring, or other knowledge-sharing activities.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Improving retention goes beyond cost savings: Employees who agree with the statement "I expect to be at this organization a year from now" are 71% more likely to put in extra hours and 32% more likely to accomplish more than what is expected of their role (McLean & Company Engagement Survey, 2021; N=77,170 and 97,326 respectively).

    However, the traditional engagement-focused approach to retention is not enough

    Employee engagement is a strong driver of retention, with only 25% of disengaged employees expecting to be at their organization a year from now compared to 92% of engaged employees (McLean & Company Engagement Survey, 2018-2021; N=117,307).

    Average employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

    This image contains a graph of the Average employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

    Individual employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS)

    This image contains a graph of the Individual employee Net Promoter Scores (eNPS)

    However, engagement surveys mask the volatility of the employee experience and hide the reason why individual employees leave.

    This analysis of McLean & Company's engagement survey results shows that while an organization's average employee net promoter score (eNPS) stays relatively static, at an individual level there is a huge amount of volatility.

    This demonstrates the need for an approach that is more capable of responding to or identifying employees' in-the-moment needs, which an annual engagement survey doesn't support.

    Turnover triggers and moments that matter also have an impact on retention

    Retention needs to be monitored throughout the employee lifecycle. To address the variety of issues that can appear, consider three main paths to turnover:

    1. Employee engagement – areas of low engagement.
    2. Turnover triggers that can quickly lead to departures.
    3. Moments that matter in the employee experience (EX).

    Employee engagement

    Engagement drivers are strong predictors of turnover.

    Employees who are highly engaged are 3.6x more likely to believe they will be with the organization 12 months from now than disengaged employees (McLean & Company Engagement Survey, 2018-2021; N=117,307).

    Turnover triggers

    Turnover triggers are events that act as shocks or catalysts that quickly lead to an employee's departure.

    Turnover triggers are a cause for voluntary turnover more often than accumulated issues (Lee et al.).

    Moments that matter

    Employee experience is the employee's perception of the accumulation of moments that matter within their employee lifecycle.

    Retention rates increase from 21% to 44% when employees have positive experiences in the following categories: belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness, and vigor at work. (Workhuman, 2020).

    While managers do not directly impact turnover, they do influence the three main paths to turnover

    Research shows managers do not appear as one of the common reasons for employee turnover.

    Top five most common reasons employees leave an organization (McLean & Company, Exit Survey, 2018-2021; N=107 to 141 companies,14,870 to 19,431 responses).

    Turnover factorsRank
    Opportunities for career advancement1
    Satisfaction with my role and responsibilities2
    Base pay3
    Opportunities for career-related skill development4
    The degree to which my skills were used in my job5

    However, managers can still have a huge impact on the turnover of their team through each of the three main paths to turnover:

    Employee engagement

    Employees who believe their managers care about them as a person are 3.3x more likely to be engaged than those who do not (McLean & Company, 2021; N=105,186).

    Turnover triggers

    Managers who are involved with and aware of their staff can serve as an early warning system for triggers that lead to turnover too quickly to detect with data.

    Moments that matter

    Managers have a direct connection with each individual and can tailor the employee experience to meet the needs of the individuals who report to them.

    Gallup has found that 52% of exiting employees say their manager could have done something to prevent them from leaving (Gallup, 2019). Do not discount the power of managers in anticipating and preventing regrettable turnover.

    Addressing engagement, turnover triggers, and moments that matter is the key to retention

    This is an image of a flow chart with four levels. The top level has only one box, labeled Turnover. the Second level has 2 boxes, labeled Voluntary, and Involuntary. The third level has two boxes under Voluntary, labeled Non-regrettable, and Regrettable. The fourth level has three boxes under Regrettable, labeled Employee Engagement, Turnover triggers, and Moments that matter

    Info-Tech Insight

    HR traditionally seeks to examine engagement levels when faced with retention challenges, but engagement is only a part of the full picture. You must also talk to employees to understand the moments that matter and engage managers to understand turnover triggers.

    Follow Info-Tech's two-step process to create a retention plan

    1. Identify Reasons for Regrettable Turnover

    2. Select Solutions and Create an Action Plan

    Step 1

    Identify Reasons for Regrettable Turnover

    After completing this step you will have:

    • Analyzed and documented why employees join, stay, and leave your organization.
    • Identified common themes and employee needs.
    • Conducted employee focus groups and prioritized employee needs.

    Step 1 focuses on analyzing existing data and validating it through focus groups

    Employee engagement

    Employee engagement and moments that matter are easily tracked by data. Validating employee feedback data by speaking and empathizing with employees helps to uncover moments that matter. This step focuses on analyzing existing data and validating it through focus groups.

    Engagement drivers such as compensation or working environment are strong predictors of turnover.
    Moments that matter
    Employee experience (EX) is the employee's perception of the accumulation of moments that matter with the organization.
    Turnover triggers
    Turnover triggers are events that act as shocks or catalysts that quickly lead to an employee's departure.

    Turnover triggers

    This step will not touch on turnover triggers. Instead, they will be discussed in step 2 in the context of the role of the manager in improving retention.

    Turnover triggers are events that act as shocks or catalysts that quickly lead to an employee's departure.

    Info-Tech Insight

    IT managers often have insights into where and why retention is an issue through their day-to-day work. Gathering detailed quantitative and qualitative data provides credibility to these insights and is key to building a business case for action. Keep an open mind and allow the data to inform your gut feeling, not the other way around.

    Gather data to better understand why employees join, stay, and leave

    Start to gather and examine additional data to accurately identify the reason(s) for high turnover. Begin to uncover the story behind why these employees join, stay, and leave your organization through themes and trends that emerge.

    Look for these icons throughout step 2.

    Join

    Why do candidates join your organization?

    Stay

    Why do employees stay with your organization?

    Leave

    Why do employees leave your organization?

    For more information on analysis, visualization, and storytelling with data, see Info-Tech's Start Making Data-Driven People Decisions blueprint.

    Employee feedback data to look at includes:

    Gather insights through:

    • Focus groups
    • Verbatim comments
    • Exit interviews
    • Using the employee value proposition (EVP) as a filter (does it resonate with the lived experience of employees?)

    Prepare to draw themes and trends from employee data throughout step 1.

    Uncover employee needs and reasons for turnover by analyzing employee feedback data.

    • Look for trends (e.g. new hires join for career opportunities and leave for the same reason, or most departments have strong work-life balance scores in engagement data).
    • Review if there are recurring issues being raised that may impact turnover.
    • Group feedback to highlight themes (e.g. lack of understanding of EVP).
    • Identify which key employee needs merit further investigation or information.

    This is an image showing how you can draw out themes and trends using employee data throughout step 1.

    Classify where key employee needs fall within the employee lifecycle diagram in tab 2 of the Retention Plan Workbook. This will be used in step 2 to pinpoint and prioritize solutions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The employee lifecycle is a valuable way to analyze and organize engagement pain points, moments that matter, and turnover triggers. It ensures that you consider the entirety of an employee's tenure and the different factors that lead to turnover.

    Examine new hire data and begin to document emerging themes

    Join

    While conducting a high-level analysis of new hire data, look for these three key themes impacting retention:

    Issues or pain points that occurred during the hiring process.

    Reasons why employees joined your organization.

    The experience of their first 90 days. This can include their satisfaction with the onboarding process and their overall experience with the organization.

    Themes will help to identify areas of strength and weakness organization-wide and within key segments. Document in tab 3 of the Retention Plan Workbook.

    1. Start by isolating the top reasons employees joined your organization. Ask:
      • Do the reasons align with the benefits you associate with working at your organization?
      • How might this impact your EVP?
      • If you use a new hire survey, look at the results for the following questions:
      • For which of the following reasons did you apply to this organization?
      • For what reasons did you accept the job offer with this organization?
    2. then, examine other potential problem areas that may not be covered by your new hire survey, such as onboarding or the candidate experience during the hiring process.
      • If you conduct a new hire survey, look at the results in the following sections:
        • Candidate Experience
        • Acclimatization
        • Training and Development
        • Defining Performance Expectations

      Analyze engagement data to identify areas of strength that drive retention

      Employees who are engaged are 3.6x more likely to believe they will be with the organization 12 months from now (McLean & Company Engagement Survey, 2018-2021; N=117,307). Given the strength of this relationship, it is essential to identify areas of strength to maintain and leverage.

      1. Look at the highest-performing drivers in your organization's employee engagement survey and drivers that fall into the "leverage" and "maintain" quadrants of the priority matrix.
        • These drivers provide insight into what prompts broader groups of employees to stay.

      This is an image of a quadrant analysis, with the following quadrants in order from left to right, top to bottom. Improve; Leverage; Evaluate; Maintain.

      1. Look into what efforts have been made to maintain programs, policies, and practices related to these drivers and ensure they are consistent across the entire organization.
      2. Document trends and themes related to engagement strengths in tab 2 of the Retention Plan Workbook.

      If you use Info-Tech's Engagement Survey, look in detail at what are classified as "Retention Drivers": total compensation, working environment, and work-life balance.

      Identify areas of weakness that drive turnover in your engagement data

      1. Look at the lowest-performing drivers in your organization's employee engagement survey and drivers that fall into the "improve" and "evaluate" quadrants of the priority matrix.
        • These drivers provide insight into what pushes employees to leave the organization.
      2. Delve into organizational efforts that have been made to address issues with the programs, policies, and practices related to these drivers. Are there any projects underway to improve them? What are the barriers preventing improvements?
      3. Document trends and themes related to engagement weaknesses in tab 2 of the Retention Plan Workbook.

      If you use a product other than Info-Tech's Engagement Survey, your results will look different. The key is to look at areas of weakness that emerge from the data.

      This is an image of a quadrant analysis, with the following quadrants in order from left to right, top to bottom. Improve; Leverage; Evaluate; Maintain.

      If you use Info-Tech's Engagement Survey, look in detail at what are classified as "Retention Drivers": total compensation, working environment, and work-life balance.

      Mine exit surveys to develop an integrated, holistic understanding of why employees leave

      Conduct a high-level analysis of the data from your employee exit diagnostic. While analyzing this data, consider the following:

      • What are the trends and quantitative data about why employees leave your organization that may illuminate employee needs or issues at specific points throughout the employee lifecycle?
      • What are insights around your key segments? Data on key segments is easily sliced from exit survey results and can be used as a starting point for digging deeper into retention issues for specific groups.
      • Exit surveys are an excellent starting point. However, it is valuable to validate the data gathered from an exit survey using exit interviews.
      1. Isolate results for key segments of employees to target with retention initiatives (e.g. by age group or by department).
      2. Identify data trends or patterns over time; for example, that compensation factors have been increasing in importance.
      3. Document trends and themes taken from the exit survey results in tab 2 of the Retention Plan Workbook.

      If your organization conducts exit interviews, analyze the results alongside or in lieu of exit survey data.

      Compare new hire data with exit data to identify patterns and insights

      Determine if new hire expectations weren't met, prompting employees to leave your organization, to help identify where in the employee lifecycle issues driving turnover may be occurring.

      1. Look at your new hire data for the top reasons employees joined your organization.
        • McLean & Company's New Hire Survey database shows that the top three reasons candidates accept job offers on average are:
          1. Career opportunities
          2. Nature of the job
          3. Development opportunities
      2. Next, look at your exit data and the top reasons employees left your organization.
        1. McLean & Company's Exit Survey database shows that the top three reasons employees leave on average are:
          1. Opportunities for career advancement
          2. Base pay
          3. Satisfaction with my role and responsibilities
      3. Examine the results and ask:
        • Is there a link between why employees join and leave the organization?
        • Did they cite the same reasons for joining and for leaving?
        • What do the results say about what your employees do and do not value about working at your organization?
      4. Document the resulting insights in tab 2 of the Retention Plan Workbook.

      Example:

      A result where employees are leaving for the same reason they're joining the organization could signal a disconnect between your organization's employee value proposition and the lived experience.

      Revisit your employee value proposition to uncover misalignment

      Your employee value proposition (EVP), formal or informal, communicates the value your organization can offer to prospective employees.

      If your EVP is mismatched with the lived experience of your employees, new hires will be in for a surprise when they start their new job and find out it isn't what they were expecting.

      Forty-six percent of respondents who left a job within 90 days of starting cited a mismatch of expectations about their role ("Job Seeker Nation Study 2020," Jobvite, 2020).

      1. Use the EVP as a filter through which you look at all your employee feedback data. It will help identify misalignment between the promised and the lived experience.
      2. If you have EVP documentation, start there. If not, go to your careers page and put yourself in the shoes of a candidate. Ask what the four elements of an EVP look like for candidates:
        • Compensation and benefits
        • Day-to-day job elements
        • Working conditions
        • Organizational elements
      3. Next, compare this to your own day-to-day experiences. Does it differ drastically? Are there any contradictions with the lived experience at your organization? Are there misleading statements or promises?
      4. Document any insights or patterns you uncover in tab 2 of the Retention Plan Workbook.

      Conduct focus groups to examine themes

      Through focus groups, explore the themes you have uncovered with employees to discover employee needs that are not being met. Addressing these employee needs will be a key aspect of your retention plan.

      Identify employee groups who will participate in focus groups:

      • Incorporate diverse perspectives (e.g. employees, managers, supervisors).
      • Include employees from departments and demographics with strong and weak engagement for a full picture of how engagement impacts your employees.
      • Invite boomerang employees to learn why an individual might return to your organization after leaving.

      image contains two screenshots Mclean & Company's Standard Focus Group Guide.

      Customize Info-Tech's Standard Focus Group Guide based on the themes you have identified in tab 3 of the Retention Plan Workbook.

      The goal of the focus group is to learn from employees and use this information to design or modify a process, system, or other solution that impacts retention.

      Focus questions on the employees' personal experience from their perspective.

      Key things to remember:

      • It is vital for facilitators to be objective.
      • Keep an open mind; no feelings are wrong.
      • Beware of your own biases.
      • Be open and share the reason for conducting the focus groups.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Maintaining an open dialogue with employees will help flesh out the context behind the data you've gathered and allow you to keep in mind that retention is about people first and foremost.

      Empathize with employees to identify moments that matter

      Look for discrepancies between what employees are saying and doing.

      1. Say

      "What words or quotes did the employee use?"

      3.Think

      "What might the employee be thinking?"

      Record feelings and thoughts discussed, body language observed, tone of voice, and words used.

      Look for areas of negative emotion to determine the moments that matter that drive retention.

      2. Do

      "What actions or behavior did the employee demonstrate?"

      4. Feel

      "What might the employee be feeling?"

      Record them in tab 3 of the Retention Plan Workbook.

      5. Identify Needs

      "Needs are verbs (activities or desires), not nouns (solutions)"

      Synthesize focus group findings using Info-Tech's Empathy Map Template.

      6. Identify Insights

      "Ask yourself, why?"

      (Based on Stanford d.school Empathy Map Method)

      Distill employee needs into priority issues to address first

      Take employee needs revealed by your data and focus groups and prioritize three to five needs.

      Select a limited number of employee needs to develop solutions to ensure that the scope of the project is feasible and that the resources dedicated to this project are not stretched too thin. The remaining needs should not be ignored – act on them later.

      Share the needs you identify with stakeholders so they can support prioritization and so you can confirm their buy-in and approval where necessary.

      Ask yourself the following questions to determine your priority employee needs:

      • Which needs will have the greatest impact on turnover?
      • Which needs have the potential to be an easy fix or quick win?
      • Which themes or trends came up repeatedly in different data sources?
      • Which needs evoked particularly strong or negative emotions in the focus groups?

      This image contains screenshots of two table templates found in tab 5 of the Retention Plan Workbook

      In the Retention Plan Workbook, distill employee needs on tab 2 into three to five priorities on tab 5.

      Step 2

      Select Solutions and Create an Action Plan

      After completing this step, you will have:

      • Selected and prioritized solutions to address employee needs.
      • Created a plan to launch stay interviews.
      • Built an action plan to implement solutions.

      Select IT-owned solutions and implement people leader–driven initiatives

      Solutions

      First, select and prioritize solutions to address employee needs identified in the previous step. These solutions will address reasons for turnover that influence employee engagement and moments that matter.

      • Brainstorm solutions using the Retention Solutions Catalog as a starting point. Select a longlist of solutions to address your priority needs.
      • Prioritize the longlist of solutions into a manageable number to act on.

      People leaders

      Next, create a plan to launch stay interviews to increase managers' accountability in improving retention. Managers will be critical to solving issues stemming from turnover triggers.

      • Clarify the importance of harnessing the influence of people leaders in improving retention.
      • Discover what might cause individual employees to leave through stay interviews.
      • Increase trust in managers through training.

      Action plan

      Finally, create an action plan and present to senior leadership for approval.

      Look for these icons in the top right of slides in this step.

      Select solutions to employee needs, starting with the Retention Solutions Catalog

      Based on the priority needs you have identified, use the Retention Solutions Catalog to review best-practice solutions for pain points associated with each stage of the lifecycle.

      Use this tool as a starting point, adding to it and iterating based on your own experience and organizational culture and goals.

      This image contains three screenshots from Info-Tech's Retention Solutions Catalog.

      Use Info-Tech's Retention Solutions Catalog to start the brainstorming process and produce a shortlist of potential solutions that will be prioritized on the next slide.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Unless you have the good fortune of having only a few pain points, no single initiative will completely solve your retention issues. Combine one or two of these broad solutions with people-leader initiatives to ensure employee needs are addressed on an individual and an aggregate level.

      Prioritize solutions to be implemented

      Target efforts accordingly

      Quick wins are high-impact, low-effort initiatives that will build traction and credibility within the organization.

      Long-term initiatives require more time and need to be planned for accordingly but will still deliver a large impact. Review the planning horizon to determine how early these need to begin.

      Re-evaluate low-impact and low-effort initiatives and identify ones that either support other higher impact initiatives or have the highest impact to gain traction and credibility. Look for low-hanging fruit.

      Deprioritize initiatives that will take a high degree of effort to deliver lower-value results.

      When assessing the impact of potential solutions, consider:

      • How many critical segments or employees will this solution affect?
      • Is the employee need it addresses critical, or did the solution encompass several themes in the data you analyzed?
      • Will the success of this solution help build a case for further action?
      • Will the solution address multiple employee needs?

      Info-Tech Insight

      It's better to master a few initiatives than under-deliver on many. Start with a few solutions that will have a measurable impact to build the case for further action in the future.

      Solutions

      Low ImpactMedium ImpactLarge Impact
      Large EffortThis is an image of the used to help you prioritize solutions to be implemented.
      Medium Effort
      Low Effort

      Use tab 3 of the Retention Plan Workbook to prioritize your shortlist of solutions.

      Harness the influence of people leaders to improve employee retention

      Leaders at all levels have a huge impact on employees.

      Effective people leaders:

      • Manage work distribution.
      • Create a motivating work environment.
      • Provide development opportunities.
      • Ensure work is stimulating and challenging, but not overwhelming.
      • Provide clear, actionable feedback.
      • Recognize team member contributions.
      • Develop positive relationships with their teams.
      • Create a line of sight between what the employee is doing and what the organization's objectives are.

      Support leaders in recommitting to their role as people managers through Learning & Development initiatives with particular emphasis on coaching and building trust.

      For coaching training, see Info-Tech's Build a Better Manager: Team Essentials – Feedback and Coaching training deck.

      For more information on supporting managers to become better people leaders, see Info-Tech's Build a Better Manager: Manage Your People blueprint.

      "HR can't fix turnover. But leaders on the front line can."
      – Richard P. Finnegan, CEO, C-Suite Analytics

      Equip managers to conduct regular stay interviews to address turnover triggers

      Managers often have the most visibility into their employees' personal and work lives and have a key opportunity to anticipate and address turnover triggers.

      Stay interviews are an effective way of uncovering potential retention issues and allowing managers to act as an early warning system for turnover triggers.

      Examples of common turnover triggers and potential manager responses:

      • Moving, creating a long commute to the office.
        • Through stay interviews, a manager can learn that a long commute is an issue and can help find workarounds such as flexible/remote work options.
      • Not receiving an expected promotion.
        • A trusted manager can anticipate issues stemming from this, discuss why the decision was made, and plan development opportunities for future openings.

      Stay interview best practices

      1. Conducted by an employee's direct manager.
      2. Happen regularly as a part of an ongoing process.
      3. Based on the stay interview, managers produce a turnover forecast for each direct report.
        1. The method used by stay interview expert Richard P. Finnegan is simple: red for high risk, yellow for medium, and green for low.
      4. Provide managers with training and a rough script or list of questions to follow.
        1. Use and customize Info-Tech's Stay Interview Guide to provide a guide for managers on how to conduct a stay interview.
      5. Managers use the results to create an individualized retention action plan made up of concrete actions the manager and employee will take.

      Sources: Richard P. Finnegan, CEO, C-Suite Analytics; SHRM

      Build an action plan to implement the retention plan

      For each initiative identified, map out timelines and actions that need to be taken.

      When building actions and timelines:

      • Refer to the priority needs you identified in tab 4 of the Retention Plan Workbook and ensure they are addressed first.
      • Engage internal stakeholders who will be key to the development of the initiatives to ensure they have sufficient time to complete their deliverables.
        • For example, if you conduct manager training, Learning & Development needs to be involved in the development and launch of the program.
      • Include a date to revisit your baseline retention and engagement data in your project milestones.
      • Designate process owners for new processes such as stay interviews.

      Plan for stay interviews by determining:

      • Whether stay interviews will be a requirement for all employees.
      • How much flexibility managers will have with the process.
      • How you will communicate the stay interview approach to managers.
      • If manager training is required.
      • How managers should record stay interview data and how you will collect this data from them as a way to monitor retention issues.
        • For example, managers can share their turnover forecasts and action plans for each employee.

      Be clear about manager accountabilities for initiatives they will own, such as stay interviews. Plan to communicate the goals and timelines managers will be asked to meet, such as when they must conduct interviews or their responsibility to follow up on action items that come from interviews.

      Track project success to iterate and improve your solutions

      Analyze measurements

      • Regularly remeasure your engagement and retention levels to identify themes and trends that provide insights into program improvements.
      • For example, look at the difference in manager relationship score to see if training has had an impact, or look at changes in critical segment turnover to calculate cost savings.

      Revisit employee and manager feedback

      • After three to six months, conduct additional surveys or focus groups to determine the success of your initiatives and opportunities for improvement. Tweak the program, including stay interviews, based on manager and employee feedback.

      Iterate frequently

      • Revisit your initiatives every two or three years to determine if a refresh is necessary to meet changing organizational and employee needs and to update your goals and targets.

      Key insights

      Insight 1Insight 2Insight 3

      Retention and turnover are two sides of the same coin. You can't fix retention without first understanding turnover.

      Engagement surveys mask the volatility of the employee experience and hide the reason why individual employees leave. You must also talk to employees to understand the moments that matter and engage managers to understand turnover triggers.

      Improving retention isn't just about lowering turnover, it's about discovering what healthy retention looks like for your organization.

      Insight 4Insight 5Insight 6

      HR professionals often have insights into where and why retention is an issue. Gathering detailed employee feedback data through surveys and focus groups provides credibility to these insights and is key to building a case for action. Keep an open mind and allow the data to inform your gut feeling, not the other way around.

      Successful retention plans must be owned by both IT leaders and HR.

      IT leaders often have the most visibility into their employees' personal and work lives and have a key opportunity to anticipate and address turnover triggers.

      Stay interviews help managers anticipate potential retention issues on their teams.

      Workshop Overview

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

      Info-Tech AnalystsPre-workPost-work
      Client Data Gathering and PlanningImplementation Supported Through Analyst Calls

      1.1 Discuss participants, logistics, overview of workshop activities

      1.2 Provide support to client for below activities through calls.

      		2.1 Schedule follow-up calls to work through implementation of retention solutions based on identified needs.
      Client

      1.Gather results of engagement survey, new hire survey, exit survey, and any exit and stay interview feedback.

      2.Gather and analyze turnover data.

      3.Identify key employee segment(s) and identify and organize participants for focus groups.

      4.Complete cost of turnover analysis.

      5.Review turnover data and prioritize list of employee segments.

      1.Obtain senior leader approval to proceed with retention plan.

      2.Finalize and implement retention solutions.

      3.Prepare managers to conduct stay interviews.

      4.Communicate next steps to stakeholders.

      Workshop Overview

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

      ActivitiesDay 1Day 2Day 3Day 4
      Assess Current StateConduct Focus GroupsIdentify Needs and Retention InitiativesPrepare to Communicate and Launch

      1.1 Review data to determine why employees join, stay, and leave.

      1.2 Identify common themes.

      1.3 Prepare for focus groups.

      2.1 Conduct four 1-hour focus groups with the employee segment(s) identified in the pre-workshop activities..

      2.2 Info-Tech facilitators independently analyze results of focus groups and group results by theme.

      3.1 Create an empathy map to identify needs

      3.2 Shortlist retention initiatives

      4.1 Select retention initiatives

      4.2 Determine goals and metrics

      4.3 Plan stakeholder communication4.4 Build a high-level action plan

      Deliverables

      1.List of common themes/pain points recorded in the Retention Plan Workbook

      2.Plan for focus groups documented in the Focus Group Guide

      1.Focus group feedback

      2.Focus group feedback analyzed and organized by themes

      		1.Employee needs and shortlist of initiatives to address them1.Finalized list of retention initiatives

      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

      Research Contributors and Experts

      Jeff Bonnell
      VP HR
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Phillip Kotanidis
      CHRO
      Michael Garron Hospital

      Michael McGuire
      Director, Organizational Development
      William Osler Health System

      Dr. Iris Ware
      Chief Learning Officer
      City of Detroit

      Richard P. Finnegan
      CEO
      C-Suite Analytics

      Dr. Thomas Lee
      Professor of Management
      University of Washington

      Jane Moughon
      Specialist in increasing profits, reducing turnover, and maximizing human potential in manufacturing companies

      Lisa Kaste
      Former HR Director
      Citco

      Piyush Mathur
      Head of Workforce Analytics
      Johnson & Johnson

      Gregory P. Smith
      CEO
      Chart Your Course

      Works Cited

      "17 Surprising Statistics about Employee Retention." TINYpulse, 8 Sept. 2020. Web.
      "2020 Job Seeker Nation Study." Jobvite, April 2020. Web.
      "2020 Recruiter Nation Survey." Jobvite, 2020. Web.
      "2020 Retention Report: Insights on 2019 Turnover Trends, Reasons, Costs, & Recommendations." Work Institute, 2020. Web.
      "25 Essential Productivity Statistics for 2021." TeamStage, 2021. Accessed 22 Jun. 2021.
      Agovino, Theresa. "To Have and to Hold." SHRM, 23 Feb. 2019. Web.
      "Civilian Unemployment Rate." Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2020. Web.
      Foreman, Paul. "The domino effect of chief sales officer turnover on salespeople." Mereo, 19 July 2018. Web.
      "Gross Domestic Product." U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 27 May 2021. Accessed 22 Jun. 2020.
      Kinne, Aaron. "Back to Basics: What is Employee Experience?" Workhuman, 27August 2020. Accessed 21 Jun. 2021.
      Lee, Thomas W, et al. "Managing employee retention and turnover with 21st century ideas." Organizational Dynamics, vol 47, no. 2, 2017, pp. 88-98. Web.
      Lee, Thomas W. and Terence R. Mitchell. "Control Turnover by Understanding its Causes." The Blackwell Handbook of Principles of Organizational Behaviour. 2017. Print.
      McFeely, Shane, and Ben Wigert. "This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion." Gallup. 13 March 2019. Web.
      "Table 18. Annual Quit rates by Industry and Region Not Seasonally Adjusted." Bureau of Labor Statistics. June 2021. Web.
      "The 2019 Compensation Best Practices Report: Will They Stay or Will They Go? Employee Retention and Acquisition in an Uncertain Economy." PayScale. 2019. Web.
      Vuleta, Branka. "30 Troubling Employee Retention Statistics." Legaljobs. 1 Feb. 2021. Web.
      "What is a Tenured Employee? Top Benefits of Tenure and How to Stay Engaged as One." Indeed. 22 Feb. 2021. Accessed 22 Jun. 2021.

      Passwordless Authentication

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}466|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: N/A
      • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
      • member rating average days saved: N/A
      • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing
      • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing
      • Stakeholders believe that passwords are still good enough.
      • You don’t know how the vendor products match to the capabilities you need to offer.
      • What do you need to test when you prototype these new technologies?
      • What associated processes/IT domains will be impacted or need to be considered?

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      Passwordless is the right direction even if it’s not your final destination.

      Impact and Result

      • Be able to handle objections from those who believe passwords are still “fine.”
      • Prioritize the capabilities you need to offer the enterprise, and match them to products/features you can buy from vendors.
      • Integrate passwordless initiatives with other key functions (cloud, IDaM, app rationalization, etc.).

      Passwordless Authentication Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Passwordless Authentication – Know when you’ve been beaten!

      Back in 2004 we were promised "the end of passwords" – why, then, are we still struggling with them today?

      • Passwordless Authentication Storyboard
      [infographic]

      Further reading

      Passwordless Authentication

      Know when you've been beaten!

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      • The IT world is an increasingly dangerous place.
      • Every year literally billions of credentials are compromised and exposed on the internet.
      • The average employee has between 27 and 191 passwords to manage.
      • The line between business persona and personal persona has been blurred into irrelevancy.
      • You need a method of authenticating users that is up to these challenges

      Common Obstacles

      • Legacy systems aside (wouldn't that be nice) this still won't be easy.
      • Social inertia – passwords worked before, so surely, they can still work today! Besides, users don't want to change.
      • Analysis paralysis – I don't want to get this wrong! How do I choose something that is going to be at the core of my infrastructure for the next 10 years?
      • Identity management – how can you fix authentication when people have multiple usernames?

      Info-Tech's Approach

      • Inaction is not an option.
      • Most commercial, off-the-shelf apps are moving to a SaaS model, so start your efforts with them.
      • Your existing vendors already have technologies you are underusing or ignoring – stop that!
      • Your users want this change – they just might not know it yet…
      • Much like zero trust network access, the journey is more important than the destination. Incremental steps on the path toward passwordless authentication will still yield significant benefits.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Users have been burdened with unrealistic expectations when it comes to their part in maintaining enterprise security. Given the massive rise in the threat landscape, it is time for Infrastructure to adopt a user-experience-based approach if we want to move the needle on improving security posture.

      Password Security Fallacy

      "If you buy the premise…you buy the bit."
      Johnny Carson

      We've had plenty of time to see this coming.

      Why haven't we done something?

      • Passwords are a 1970s construct.
      • End-users are complexity averse.
      • Credentials are leaked all the time.
      • New technologies will defeat even the most complex passwords.

      Build the case, both to business stakeholders and end users, that "password" is not a synonym for "security."

      Be ready for some objection handling!

      This is an image of Bill Gates and Gavin Jancke at the 2004 RSA Conference in San Francisco, CA

      Image courtesy of Microsoft

      RSA Conference, 2004
      San Francisco, CA

      "There is no doubt that over time, people are going to rely less and less on passwords. People use the same password on different systems, they write them down and they just don't meet the challenge for anything you really want to secure."
      Bill Gates

      What about "strong" passwords?

      There has been a password arms race going on since 1988

      A massive worm attack against ARPANET prompted the initial research into password strength

      Password strength can be expressed as a function of randomness or entropy. The greater the entropy the harder for an attacker to guess the password.

      This is an image of Table 1 from Google Cloud Solutions Architects. it shows the number of bits of entropy for a number of Charsets.

      Table: Modern password security for users
      Ian Maddox and Kyle Moschetto, Google Cloud Solutions Architects

      From this research, increasing password complexity (length, special characters, etc.) became the "best practice" to secure critical systems.

      How many passwords??

      XKCD Comic #936 (published in 2011)

      This is an image of XKCD Comic # 936.

      Image courtesy of Randall Munroe XKCD Comics (CC BY-NC 2.5)

      It turns out that humans however are really bad at remembering complex passwords.

      An Intel study (2016) suggested that the average enterprise employee needed to remember 27 passwords. A more recent study from LastPass puts that number closer to 191.

      PEBKAC
      Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair

      Increasing entropy is the wrong way to fight this battle – which is good because we'd lose anyway.

      Over the course of a single year, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley identified and tracked nearly 2 billion compromised credentials.

      3.8 million were obtained via social engineering, another 788K from keyloggers. That's approx. 250,000 clear text credentials harvested every week!

      The entirety of the password ecosystem has significant vulnerabilities in multiple areas:

      • Unencrypted server- and client-side storage
      • Sharing
      • Reuse
      • Phishing
      • Keylogging
      • Question-based resets

      Even the 36M encrypted credentials compromised every week are just going to be stored and cracked later.

      Source: Google, University of California, Berkeley, International Computer Science Institute

      data-verified=22B hash/s">

      Image courtesy of NVIDIA, NVIDIA Grace
      • Current GPUs (2021) have 200+ times more cracking power than CPU systems.

      <8h 2040-bit RSA Key

      Image: IBM Quantum System One (CES 2020) by IBM Research is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
      • Quantum computing can smash current encryption methods.
      • Google engineers have demonstrated techniques that reduce the number of qubits required from 1B to a mere 20 million

      Enabling Technologies

      "Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world."
      Archimedes

      Technology gives us (too many) options

      The time to prototype is NOW!

      Chances are you are already paying for one or more of these technologies from a current vendor:

      • SSO, password managers
      • Conditional access
      • Multifactor
      • Hardware tokens
      • Biometrics
      • PINs

      Address all three factors of authentication

      • Something the user knows
      • Something the user has
      • Something the user is

      Global Market of $12.8B
      ~16.7% CAGR
      Source: Report Linker, 2022.

      Focus your prototype efforts in four key testing areas

      • Deployment
      • User adoption/training
      • Architecture (points of failure)
      • Disaster recovery

      Three factors for positive identification

      Passwordless technologies focus on alternate authentication factors to supplement or replace shared secrets.

      Knows: A secret shared between the user and the system; Has: A token possessed by the user and identifiable as unique by the system; Is: A distinctive and repeatable attribute of the user sampled by the system

      Something you know

      Shared secrets have well-known significant modern-day problems, but only when used in isolation. For end users, consider time-limited single use options, password managers, rate-limited login attempts, and reset rather than retrieval requests. On the system side, never forget strong cryptographic hashing along with a side of salt and pepper when storing passwords.

      Something you have

      A token (now known as a cryptographic identification device) such as a pass card, fob, smartphone, or USB key that is expected to be physically under the control of the user and is uniquely identifiable by the system. Easily decoupled in the event the token is lost, but potentially expensive and time-consuming to reprovision.

      Something you are or do

      Commonly referred to as biometrics, there are two primary classes. The first is measurable physical characteristics of the user such as a fingerprint, facial image, or retinal scan. The second class is a series of behavioral traits such as expected location, time of day, or device. These traits can be linked together in a conditional access policy.

      Unlike other authentication factors, biometrics DO NOT provide for exact matches and instead rely on a confidence interval. A balance must be struck against the user experience of false negatives and the security risk of a false positive.

      Prototype testing criteria

      Deployment

      Does the solution support the full variety of end-user devices you have in use?

      Can the solution be configured with your existing single sign-on or central identity broker?

      User Experience

      Users already want a better experience than passwords.

      What new behavior are you expecting (compelling) from the user?

      How often and under what conditions will that behavior occur?

      Architecture

      Where are the points of failure in the solution?

      Consider technical elements like session thresholds for reauthorization, but also elements like automation and self-service.

      Disaster Recovery

      Understand the exact responsibilities Infra&Ops have in the event of a system or user failure.

      As many solutions are based in the public cloud, manage stakeholder expectations accordingly.

      Next Steps

      "Move the goalposts…and declare victory."
      Informal Fallacy (yet very effective…)

      It is more a direction than a destination…

      Get the easy wins in the bank and then lay the groundwork for the long campaign ahead.

      You're not going to get to a passwordless world overnight. You might not even get there for many years. But an agile approach to the journey ensures you will realize value every step of the way:

      • Start in the cloud:
      • Choose a single sign-on platform such as Azure Active Directory, Okta, Auth0, AWS IAM, TruSONA, HYPR, or others. Document Your Cloud Strategy.
      • Integrate the SaaS applications from your portfolio with your chosen platform.
      • Establish visibility and rationalize identity management:
        • Accounts with elevated privileges present the most risk – evaluate your authentication factors for these accounts first.
        • There is elegance (and deployment success) in Simplifying Identity & Access Management.
      • Pay your tech debt:

      Fast IDentity Online (2) is now part of the web's DNA and is critical for digital transformation

      • IoT
      • Anywhere remote work
      • Government identity services
      • Digital wallets

      Bibliography

      "Backup Vs. Archiving: Know the Difference." Open-E. Accessed 05 Mar 2022.Web.
      G, Denis. "How to Build Retention Policy." MSP360, Jan 3, 2020. Accessed 10 Mar 2022.
      Ipsen, Adam. "Archive Vs. Backup: What's the Difference? A Definition Guide." BackupAssist, 28 Mar 2017. Accessed 04 Mar 2022.
      Kang, Soo. "Mitigating the Expense of E-Discovery; Recognizing the Difference Between Back-Ups and Archived Data." Zasio Enterprises, 08 Oct 2015. Accessed 3 Mar 2022.
      Mayer, Alex. "The 3-2-1 Backup Rule – An Efficient Data Protection Strategy." Naviko. Accessed 12 Mar 2022.
      Steel, Amber. "LastPass Reveals 8 Truths about Passwords in the New Password Exposé." LastPass Blog, 1 Nov. 2017. Web.
      "The Global Passwordless Authentication Market Size Is Estimated to Be USD 12.79 Billion in 2021 and Is Predicted to Reach USD 53.64 Billion by 2030 With a CAGR of 16.7% From 2022-2030." Report Linker, 9 June 2022. Web.
      "What Is Data-Archiving?" Proofpoint. Accessed 07 Mar 2022.

      Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}232|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: 8.0/10 Overall Impact
      • member rating average dollars saved: $10,000 Average $ Saved
      • member rating average days saved: 20 Average Days Saved
      • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
      • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
      • Customer maturity levels with Agile are low, with 67% of organizations using Agile for less than five years.
      • Customer competency levels with Agile are also low, with 84% of organizations stating they are below a high level of competency.
      • Contract disputes are the number one or two types of disputes faced by organizations across all industries.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Agile contracts require different wording and protections than traditional or waterfall contracts.
      • Agile buzzwords by themselves do not create an Agile contract.
      • There is a delicate balance between being overly prescriptive in an Agile contract and too lax.

      Impact and Result

      • Identify options for Agile contract provisions.
      • Manage Agile contract risk by selecting the appropriate level of protections for an Agile project.
      • Harness the power of Agile development and collaboration with the vendor while preserving contractual flexibility.
      • Focus on the correct contract clauses to manage Agile risk.

      Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should treat Agile contracts differently from traditional or waterfall contracts, and review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the twelve contract clauses that are different for Agile contracts.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Identify and evaluate options

      Use the information in this blueprint and Info-Tech’s Agile Contract Playbook-Checklist to review and assess your Agile contracts, ensuring that the provisions and protections are suitable for Agile contracts specifically.

      • Agile Contracts Playbook-Checklist
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Identify and Evaluate Options

      The Purpose

      To understand Agile-specific contract clauses, to improve risk identification, and to be more effective at negotiating Agile contract terms.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Increased awareness of how Agile contract provisions are different from traditional or waterfall contracts in 12 key areas.

      Understanding available options.

      Understanding the impact of being too prescriptive.

      Activities

      1.1 Review the Agile Contract Playbook-Checklist.

      1.2 Review 12 contract provisions and reinforce key learnings with exercises.

      Outputs

      Configured Playbook-Checklist as applicable

      Exercise results and debrief

      Into the Metaverse

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      • Parent Category Name: Innovation
      • Parent Category Link: /innovation
      • Define the metaverse.
      • Understand where Meta and Microsoft are going and what their metaverse looks like today.
      • Learn about other solution providers implementing the enterprise metaverse.
      • Identify risks in deploying metaverse solutions and how to mitigate them.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • A metaverse experience must combine the three Ps: user presence is represented, the world is persistent, and data is portable.

      Impact and Result

      • Understand how Meta and Microsoft define the Metaverse and the coming challenges that enterprises will need to solve to harness this new digital capability.

      Into the Metaverse Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Into the Metaverse – A deck that examines how IT can prepare for the new digital world

      Push past the hype and understand what the metaverse really means for IT.

      • Into the Metaverse Storyboard

      Infographic

      Further reading

      Into the Metaverse

      How IT can prepare for the new digital world.

      Analyst Perspective

      The metaverse is still a vision of the future.

      Photo of Brian Jackson, Research Director, CIO, Info-Tech Research Group.

      On October 28, 2021, Mark Zuckerberg got up on stage and announced Facebook's rebranding to Meta and its intent to build out a new business line around the metaverse concept. Just a few days later, Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella put forward his own idea of the metaverse at Microsoft Ignite. Seeing two of Silicon Valley's most influential companies pitch a vision of avatar-driven virtual reality collaboration sparked our collective curiosity. At the heart of it lies the question, "What is the metaverse, anyway?“

      If you strip back the narrative of the companies selling you the solutions, the metaverse can be viewed as technological convergence. Years of development on mixed reality, AI, immersive digital environments, and real-time communication are culminating in a totally new user experience. The metaverse makes the digital as real as the physical. At least, that's the vision.

      It will be years yet before the metaverse visions pitched to us from Silicon Valley stages are realized. In the meantime, understanding the individual technologies contributing to that vision can help CIOs realize business value today. Join me as we delve into the metaverse.

      Brian Jackson
      Research Director, CIO
      Info-Tech Research Group

      From pop culture to Silicon Valley

      Sci-fi visionaries are directly involved in creating the metaverse concept

      The term “metaverse” was coined by author Neal Stephenson in the 1992 novel “Snow Crash.” In the novel, main character Hiro Protagonist interacts with others in a digitally defined space. Twenty-five years after its release, the cult classic is influential among Silicon Valley's elite. Stephenson has played some key roles in Silicon Valley firms. He became the first employee at Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Jeff Bezos, in 2006, and later became chief futurist at augmented reality firm Magic Leap in 2014. Stephenson also popularized the Hindu concept "avatar" in his writing, paving the way for people to embody digitally rendered models to participate in the metaverse (Vanity Fair, 2017).

      Even earlier concepts of the metaverse were examined in the 1980s, with William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” exploring the same idea as cyberspace. Gibson's novel was influenced by his time in Seattle, where friend and Microsoft executive Eileen Gunn took him to hacker bars where he'd eavesdrop on "the poetics of the technological subculture" (Medium, 2022). Other visions of a virtual reality mecca were brought to life in the movies, including the 1982 Disney release “Tron,” the 1999 flick “The Matrix,” and 2018’s “Ready Player One.”

      There's a common set of traits among these sci-fi narratives that help us understand what Silicon Valley tech firms are now set to commercialize: users interact with one another in a digitally rendered virtual world, with a sense of presence provided through the use of a head-mounted display.

      Cover of the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

      Image courtesy nealstephenson.com

      Meta’s view of the metaverse

      CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook to make his intent clear

      Mark Zuckerberg is all in on the metaverse, announcing October 28, 2021, that Facebook would be rebranded to Meta. The new brand took effect on December 1, and Facebook began trading under the new stock ticker MVRS on certain exchanges. On February 15, 2022, Zuckerberg announced at a company meeting that his employees will be known as Metamates. The company's new values are to live in the future, build awesome things, and focus on long-term impact. Its motto is simply "Meta, Metamates, me" (“Out With the Facebookers. In With the Metamates,” The New York Times, 2022).

      Meta's Reality Labs division will be responsible for developing its metaverse product, using Meta Quest, its virtual reality head-mounted displays. Meta's early metaverse environment, Horizon Worlds, rolled out to Quest users in the US and Canada in early December 2021. This drove a growth in its monthly user base by ten times, to 300,000 people. The product includes Horizon Venues, tailored to attending live events in VR, but not Horizon Workrooms, a VR conferencing experience that remains invite-only. Horizon Worlds provides users tools to construct their own 3D digital environments and had been used to create 10,000 separate worlds by mid-February 2022 (“Meta’s Social VR Platform Horizon Hits 300,000 Users,“ The Verge, 2022).

      In the future, Meta plans to amplify the building tools in its metaverse platform with generative AI. For example, users can give speech commands to create scenes and objects in VR. Project CAIRaoke brings a voice assistant to an augmented reality headset that can help users complete tasks like cooking a stew. Zuckerberg also announced Meta is working on a universal speech translator across all languages (Reuters, 2022).

      Investment in the metaverse:
      $10 billion in 2021

      Key People:
      CEO Mark Zuckerberg
      CTO Andrew Bosworth
      Chief Product Officer Chris Cox

      (Source: “Meta Spent $10 Billion on the Metaverse in 2021, Dragging Down Profit,” The New York Times, 2022)

      Microsoft’s view of the metaverse

      CEO Satya Nadella showcased a mixed reality metaverse at Microsoft Ignite

      In March 2021 Microsoft announced Mesh, an application that allows organizations to build out a metaverse environment. Mesh is being integrated into other Microsoft hardware and software, including its head-mounted display, the HoloLens, a mixed reality device. The Mesh for HoloLens experience allows users to collaborate around digital content projected into the real world. In November, Microsoft announced a Mesh integration with Microsoft Teams. This integration brings users into an immersive experience in a fully virtual world. This VR environment makes use of AltspaceVR, a VR application Microsoft first released in May 2015 (Microsoft Innovation Stories, 2021).

      Last Fall, Microsoft also announced it is rebranding its Dynamics 365 Connected Store solution to Dynamics 365 Connected Spaces, signaling its expansion from retail to all spaces. The solution uses cognitive vision to create a digital twin of an organization’s physical space and generate analytics about people’s behavior (Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog, 2021).

      In the future, Microsoft wants to make "holoportation" a part of its metaverse experience. Under development at Microsoft Research, the technology captures people and things in photorealistic 3D to be projected into mixed reality environments (Microsoft Research, 2022). It also has plans to offer developers AI-powered tools for avatars, session management, spatial rendering, and synchronization across multiple users. Open standards will allow Mesh to be accessed across a range of devices, from AR and VR headsets, smartphones, tablets, and PCs.

      Microsoft has been developing multi-user experiences in immersive 3D environments though its video game division for more than two decades. Its capabilities here will help advance its efforts to create metaverse environments for the enterprise.

      Investment in the metaverse:
      In January 2022, Microsoft agreed to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. In addition to acquiring several major gaming studios for its own gaming platforms, Microsoft said the acquisition will play a key role in the development of its metaverse.

      Key People:
      CEO Satya Nadella
      CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer
      Microsoft Technical Research Fellow Alex Kipman

      Current state of metaverse applications from Meta and Microsoft

      Meta

      • Horizon Worlds (formerly Facebook Horizon). Requires an Oculus Rift S or Quest 2 headset to engage in an immersive 3D world complete with no-code building tools for users to construct their own environments. Users can either interact in the space designed by Meta or travel to other user-designed worlds through the plaza.
      • Horizon Workrooms (beta, invite only). An offshoot of Horizon Worlds but more tailored for business collaboration. Users can bring in their physical desks and keyboards and connect to PC screens from within the virtual setting. Integrates with Facebook’s Workplace solution.

      Microsoft

      • Dynamics 365 Connected Spaces (preview). Cognitive vision combined with surveillance cameras provide analytics on people's movement through a facility.
      • Mesh for Microsoft Teams (not released). Collaborate with your colleagues in a virtual reality space using personalized avatars. Use new 2D and 3D meeting experiences.
      • Mesh App for HoloLens (preview). Interact with colleagues virtually in a persistent digital environment that is overlaid on top of the real world.
      • AltspaceVR. A VR space accessible via headset or desktop computer that's been available since 2015. Interact through use of an avatar to participate in daily events

      Current providers of an “enterprise metaverse”

      Other providers designing mixed reality or digital twin tools may not have used the “metaverse” label but provide the same capabilities via platforms

      Logo for NVIDIA Omniverse. Logo for TeamViewer.
      NVIDIA Omniverse
      “The metaverse for engineers,” Omniverse is a developer toolset to allow organizations to build out their own unique metaverse visions.
      • Omniverse Nucleus is the platform database that allows clients to publish digital assets or subscribe to receive changes to them in real-time.
      • Omniverse Connectors are used to connect to Nucleus and publish or subscribe to individual assets and entire worlds.
      • NVIDIA’s core physics engine provides a scalable and physically accurate world simulation.
      		 TeamViewer’s Remote as a Service Platform
      Initially focusing on providing workers remote connectivity to work desktops, devices, and robotics, TeamViewer offers a range of software as a service products. Recent acquisitions to this platform see it connecting enterprise workflows to frontline workers using mixed reality headsets and adding more 3D visualization development tools to create digital twins. Clients include Coca-Cola and BMW.

      “The metaverse matters in the future. TeamViewer is already making the metaverse tangible in terms of the value that it brings.” (Dr. Hendrik Witt, Chief Product Officer, TeamViewer)

      The metaverse is a technological convergence

      The metaverse is a platform combining multiple technologies to enable social and economic activity in a digital world that is connected to the physical world.

      A Venn diagram with four circles intersecting and one circle unconnected on the side, 'Blockchain, Emerging'. The four circles, clock-wise from top, are 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Real-Time Communication', 'Immersive Digital Space', and 'Mixed Reality'. The two-circle crossover sections, clock-wise from top-right are AI + RTC: 'Smart Agent-Facilitated Communication', RTC + IDS: 'Avatar-Based Social Interaction', IDS + MR: 'Digital Immersive UX', and MR + AI: 'Perception AI'. There are only two three-circle crossover sections labelled, AI + RTC + MR: 'Generative Sensory Environments' and RTC + IDS + MR: 'Presence'. The main cross-section is 'METAVERSE'.

      Info-Tech Insight

      A metaverse experience must combine the three P’s: user presence is represented, the world is persistent, and data is portable.

      Mixed reality provides the user experience (UX) for the metaverse

      Both virtual and augmented reality will be part of the picture

      Mixed reality encompasses both virtual reality and augmented reality. Both involve allowing users to immerse themselves in digital content using a head-mounted device or with a smartphone for a less immersive effect. Virtual reality is a completely digital world that is constructed as separate from the physical world. VR headsets take up a user's entire field of vision and must also have a mechanism to allow the user to interact in their virtual environment. Augmented reality is a digital overlay mapped on top of the real world. These headsets are transparent, allowing the user to clearly see their real environment, and projects digital content on top of it. These headsets must have a way to map the surrounding environment in 3D in order to project digital content in the right place and at the right scale.

      Meta’s Plans

      Meta acquired virtual reality developer Oculus VR Inc. and its set of head-mounted displays in 2014. It continues to develop new hardware under the Oculus brand, most recently releasing the Oculus Quest 2. Oculus Quest hardware is required to access Meta's early metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds.

      Microsoft’s Plans

      Microsoft's HoloLens hardware is a mixed reality headset. Its visor that can project digital content into the main portion of the user's field of vision and speakers capable of spatial audio. The HoloLens has been deployed at enterprises around the world, particularly in scenarios where workers typically have their hands busy. For example, it can be used to view digital schematics of a machine while a worker is performing maintenance or to allow a remote expert to "see through the eyes" of a worker.

      Microsoft's Mesh metaverse platform, which allows for remote collaboration around digital content, was demonstrated on a HoloLens at Microsoft Ignite in November 2021. Mesh is also being integrated into AltspaceVR, an application that allows companies to hold meetings in VR with “enterprise-grade security features including secure sign-ins, session management and privacy compliance" (Microsoft Innovation Stories, 2021).

      Immersive digital environments provide context in the metaverse

      The interactive environment will be a mix of digital and physical worlds

      If you've played a video game in the past decade, you've experienced an immersive 3D environment, perhaps even in a multiplayer environment with many other users at the same time. The video game industry grew quickly during the pandemic, with users spending more time and money on video games. Massive multiplayer online games like Fortnite provide more than a gaming environment. Users socialize with their friends and attend concerts featuring famous performers. They also spend money on different appearances or gestures to express themselves in the environment. When they are not playing the game, they are often watching other players stream their experience in the game. In many ways, the consumer metaverse already exists on platforms like Fortnite. At the same time, gaming developers are improving the engines for these experiences and getting closer to approximating the real world both visually and in terms of physics.

      In the enterprise space, immersive 3D environments are also becoming more popular. Manufacturing firms are building digital twins to represent entire factories, modeling their real physical environments in digital space. For example, BMW’s “factory of the future” uses NVIDIA Omniverse to create a digital twin of its assembly system, simulated down to the detail of digital workers. BMW uses this simulation to plan reconfiguration of its factory to accommodate new car models and to train robots with synthetic data (“NVIDIA Omniverse,” NVIDIA, 2021).

      Meta’s Plans

      Horizon Workrooms is Meta's business-focused application of Horizon Worlds. It facilitates a VR workspace where colleagues can interact with others’ avatars, access their computer, use videoconferencing, and sketch out ideas on a whiteboard. With the Oculus Quest 2 headset, passthrough mode allows users to add their physical desk to the virtual environment (Oculus, 2022).

      Microsoft’s Plans

      AltspaceVR is Microsoft's early metaverse environment and it can be accessed with Oculus, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, or in desktop mode. Separately, Microsoft Studios has been developing digital 3D environments for its Xbox video game platform for yeas. In January 2022, Microsoft acquired games studio Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, saying the games studio would play a key role in the development of the metaverse.

      Real-time communications allow for synchronous collaboration

      Project your voice to a room full of avatars for a presentation or whisper in someone’s ear

      If the metaverse is going to be a good place to collaborate, then communication must feel as natural as it does in the real world. At the same time, it will need to have a few more controls at the users’ disposal so they can focus in on the conversation they choose. Audio will be a major part of the communication experience, augmented by expressive avatars and text.

      Mixed reality headsets come with integrated microphones and speakers to enable voice communications. Spatial audio will also be an important component of voice exchange in the metaverse. When you are in a videoconference conversation with 50 participants, every one of those people will sound as though they are sitting right next to you. In the metaverse, each person will sound louder or quieter based on how distant their avatar is from you. This will allow large groups of people to get together in one digital space and have multiple conversations happening simultaneously. In some situations, there will also be a need for groups to form a “party” as they navigate the metaverse, meaning they would stay linked through a live audio connection even if their avatars were not in the same digital space. Augmented reality headsets also allow remote users to “see through the eyes” of the person wearing the headset through a front-facing camera. This is useful for hands-on tasks where expert guidance is required.

      People will also need to communicate with people not in the metaverse. More conventional videoconference windows or chat boxes will be imported into these environments as 2D panels, allowing users to integrate them into the context of their digital space.

      Meta’s Plans

      Facebook Messenger is a text chat and video chat application that is already integrated into Facebook’s platform. Facebook also owns WhatsApp, a messaging platform that offers group chat and encrypted messaging.

      Microsoft’s Plans

      Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s application that combines presence-based text chat and videoconferencing between individuals and groups. Dynamics 365 Remote Assist is its augmented reality application designed for HoloLens wearers or mobile device users to share their real-time view with experts.

      Generative AI will fill the metaverse with content at the command of the user

      No-code and low-code creation tools will be taken to the next level in the metaverse

      Metaverse platforms provide users with no-code and low-code options to build out their own environments. So far this looks like playing a game of Minecraft. Users in the digital environment use native tools to place geometric shapes and add textures. Other metaverse platforms allow users to design models or textures with tools outside the platform, often even programming behaviors for the objects, and then import them into the metaverse. These tools can be used effectively, but it can be a tedious way to create a customized digital space.

      Generative AI will address that by taking direction from users and quickly generating content to provide the desired metaverse setting. Generative AI can create content that’s meaningful based on natural inputs like language or visual information. For example, a user might give voice commands to a smart assistant and have a metaverse environment created or take photos of a real-world object from different angles to have its likeness digitally imported.

      Synthetic data will also play a role in the metaverse. Instead of relying only on people to create a lot of relevant data to train AI, metaverse platform providers will also use simulated data to provide context. NVIDIA’s Omniverse Replicator engine provides this capability and can be used to train self-driving cars and manipulator robots for a factory environment (NVIDIA Newsroom, 2021).

      Meta’s Plans

      Meta is planning to use generative AI to allow users to construct their VR environments. It will allow users to describe a world to a voice assistant and have it created for them. Users could also speak to each other in different languages with the aid of a universal translator. Separately, Project CAIRaoke combines cognitive vision with a voice assistant to help a user cook dinner. It keeps track of where the ingredients are in the kitchen and guides the user through the steps (Reuters, 2022).

      Microsoft’s Plans

      Microsoft Mesh includes AI resources to help create natural interactions through speech and vision learning models. HoloLens 2 already uses AI models to track users’ hands and eye movements as well as map content onto the physical world. This will be reinforced in the cloud through Microsoft Azure’s AI capabilities (Microsoft Innovation Stories, 2021).

      Blockchain will provide a way to manage digital identity and assets across metaverse platforms

      Users will want a way to own their metaverse identity and valued digital possessions

      Blockchain technology provides a decentralized digital ledger that immutably records transactions. A specific blockchain can either be permissioned, with one central party determining who gets access, or permissionless, in which anyone with the means can transact on the blockchain. The permissionless variety emerged in 2008 as the foundation of Bitcoin. It's been a disruptive force in the financial industry, with Bitcoin inspiring a long list of offshoot cryptocurrencies, and now even central banks are examining moving to a digital currency standard.

      In the past couple of years, blockchain has spurred a new economy around digital assets. Smart contracts can be used to create a token on a blockchain and bind it to a specific digital asset. These assets are called non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Owners of NFTs can prove their chain of ownership and sell their tokens to others on a variety of marketplaces.

      Blockchain could be useful in the metaverse to track digital identity, manage digital assets, and enable data portability. Users could register their own avatars as NFTs to prove they are the real person behind their digital representation. They may also want a way to verify they own a virtual plot of land or demonstrate the scarcity of the digital clothing they are wearing in the metaverse. If users want to leave a certain metaverse platform, they could export their avatar and digital assets to a digital wallet and transfer them to another platform that supports the same standards.

      In the past, centralized platforms that create economies in a virtual world were able to create digital currencies and sell specific assets to users without the need for blockchain. Second Life is a good example, with Linden Labs providing a virtual token called Linden Dollars that users can exchange to buy goods and services from each other within the virtual world. Second Life processes 345 million transactions a year for virtual goods and reports a GDP of $650 million, which would put it ahead of some countries (VentureBeat, 2022). However, the value is trapped within Second Life and can't be exported elsewhere.

      Meta’s Plans

      Meta ended its Diem project in early 2022, winding down its plan to offer a digital currency pegged to US dollars. Assets were sold to Silvergate Bank for $182 million. On February 24, blockchain developer Atmos announced it wanted to bring the project back to life. Composed of many of the original developers that created Diem while it was still a Facebook project, the firm plans to raise funds based on the pitch that the new iteration will be "Libra without Facebook“ (CoinDesk, 2022).

      Microsoft’s Plans

      Microsoft expanded its team of blockchain developers after its lead executive in this area stated the firm is closely watching cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Blockchain Director York Rhodes tweeted on November 8, 2021, that he was expanding his team and was interested to connect with candidates "obsessed with Turing complete, scarce programmable objects that you can own & transfer & link to the real world through a social contract.”

      The enterprise metaverse holds implications for IT across several functional areas

      Improve maturity in these four areas first

      • Infrastructure & Operations
        • Lay the foundation
      • Security & Risk
        • Mitigate the risks
      • Apps
        • Deploy the precursors
      • Data & BI
        • Prepare to integrate
      		 Info-Tech and COBIT5's IT Management & Governance Framework with processes arranged like a periodic table. Highlighted process groups are 'Infrastructure & Operations', 'Security & Risk', 'Apps', and 'Data & BI'.

      Infrastructure & Operations

      Make space for the metaverse

      Risks

      • Network congestion: Connecting more devices that will be delivering highly graphical content will put new pressures on networks. Access points will have more connections to maintain and transit pathways more bandwidth to accommodate.
      • Device fragmentation: Currently many different vendors are selling augmented reality headsets used in the enterprise, including Google, Epson, Vuzix, and RealWear. More may enter soon, creating various types of endpoints that have different capabilities and different points of failure.
      • New workflows: Enterprises will only be able to benefit from deploying mixed reality devices if they're able to make them very useful to workers. Serving up relevant information in the context of a hands-free interface will become a new competency for enterprises to master.

      Mitigations

      • Dedicated network: Some companies are avoiding the congestion issue by creating a separate network for IoT devices on different infrastructure. For example, they might complement the Wi-Fi network with a wireless network on 5G or LoRaWAN standards.
      • Partner with systems integrators: Solutions vendors bringing metaverse solutions to the enterprise are already working with systems integrator partners to overcome integration barriers. These vendors are solving the problems of delivering enterprise content to a variety of new mixed reality touchpoints and determining just the right information to expose to users, at the right time.

      Security & Risk

      Mitigate metaverse risks before they take root

      Risks

      • Broader attack surface: Adding new mixed reality devices to the enterprise network will create more potential points of ingress for a cyberattack. Previous enterprise experiences with IoT in the enterprise have seen them exploited as weak points and used to create botnets or further infiltrate company networks.
      • More data in transit: Enterprise data will be flowing between these new devices and sometimes outside the company firewall to remote connections. Data from industrial IoT could also be integrated into these solutions and exposed.
      • New fraud opportunities: When Web 1.0 was first rolling out, not every company was able to secure the rights to the URL address matching its brand. Those not quick enough on the draw saw "domain squatters" use their brand equity to negotiate for a big pay day or, worse yet, to commit fraud. With blockchain opening up similar new digital real estate in Web3, the same risk arises.

      Mitigations

      • Mobile device management (MDM): New mixed reality headsets can be secured using existing MDM solutions on the market.
      • Encryption: Encrypting data end to end as it flows between IoT devices ensures that even if it does leak, it's not likely to be useful to a hacker.
      • Stake your claim: Claiming your brand's name in new Web3 domains may seems tedious, but it is likely to be cheap and might save you a headache down the line.

      Apps

      Deploy to your existing touchpoints

      Risks

      • Learning curves: Using new metaverse applications to complete tasks and collaborate with colleagues won’t be a natural progression for everyone. New headsets, gesture-based controls, and learning how to navigate the metaverse will present hurdles for users to overcome before they can be productive.
      • Is there a dress code in the metaverse? Avatars in the metaverse won’t necessarily look like the people behind the controls. What new norms will be needed to ensure avatars are appropriate for a work setting?
      • Fragmentation: Metaverse experiences are already creating islands. Users of Horizon Worlds can’t connect with colleagues using AltspaceVR. Similar to the challenges around different videoconferencing software, users could find they are divided by applications.

      Mitigations

      • Introduce concepts over time: Ask users to experiment with meeting in a VR context in a small group before expanding to a companywide conference event. Or have them use a headset for a simple video chat before they use it to complete a task in the field.
      • Administrative controls: Ensure that employees have some boundaries when designing their avatars, enforced either through controls placed on the software or through policies from HR.
      • Explore but don’t commit: It’s early days for these metaverse applications. Explore opportunities that become available through free trials and new releases to existing software suites but maintain flexibility to pivot should the need arise.

      Data & BI

      Deploy to your existing touchpoints

      Risks

      • Interoperability: There is no established standard for digital objects or behaviors in the metaverse. Meta and Microsoft say they are committed to open standards that will ensure portability of data across platforms, but how that will be executed isn’t clear yet.
      • Privacy: Sending data to another platform carries risks that it will be exfiltrated and stored elsewhere, presenting some challenges for companies that need to be compliant with legislation such as GDPR.
      • High-fidelity models: 3D models with photorealistic textures will come with high CPU requirements to render properly. Some head-mounted displays will run into limitations.

      Mitigations

      • Adopt standard interfaces: Using open APIs will be the most common path to integrating enterprise systems to metaverse applications.
      • Maintain compliance: The current approach enterprises take to creating data lakes and presenting them to platforms will extend to the metaverse. Building good controls and anonymizing data that resides in these locations will enable firms to interact in new platforms and remain compliant.
      • Right-sized rendering: Providing enough data to a device to make it useful without overburdening the CPU will be an important consideration. For example, TeamViewer uses polygon reduction to display 3D models on lower-powered head-mounted displays.

      More Info-Tech research to explore

      CIO Priorities 2022
      Priorities to compete in the digital economy.

      Microsoft Teams Cookbook
      Recipes for best practices and use cases for Microsoft Teams.

      Run Better Meetings
      Hybrid, virtual, or in person – set meeting best practices that support your desired meeting norms.

      Double Your Organization’s Effectiveness With a Digital Twin
      Digital twin: A living, breathing reflection.

      Contributing experts

      Photo of Dr. Hendrik Witt, Chief Product Officer, TeamViewer

      Dr. Hendrik Witt
      Chief Product Officer,
      TeamViewer

      		 Photo of Kevin Tucker, Principal Research Director, Industry Practice, INFO-TECH RESEARCH GROUP

      Kevin Tucker
      Principal Research Director, Industry Practice,
      INFO-TECH RESEARCH GROUP

      Bibliography

      Cannavò, Alberto, and F. Lamberti. “How Blockchain, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Are Converging, and Why.” IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, vol. 10, no. 5, Sept. 2020, pp. 6-13. IEEE Xplore. Web.

      Culliford, Elizabeth. “Meta’s Zuckerberg Unveils AI Projects Aimed at Building Metaverse Future.” Reuters, 24 Feb. 2022. Web.

      Davies, Nahla. “Cybersecurity and the Metaverse: Pioneering Safely into a New Digital World.” GlobalSign Blog, 10 Dec. 2021. GlobalSign by GMO. Web.

      Doctorow, Cory. “Neuromancer Today.” Medium, 10 Feb. 2022. Web.

      Heath, Alex. “Meta’s Social VR Platform Horizon Hits 300,000 Users.” The Verge, 17 Feb. 2022. Web.

      “Holoportation™.” Microsoft Research, 22 Feb. 2022. Microsoft. Accessed 3 March 2022.

      Isaac, Mike. “Meta Spent $10 Billion on the Metaverse in 2021, Dragging down Profit.” The New York Times, 2 Feb. 2022. Web.

      Isaac, Mike, and Sheera Frenkel. “Out With the Facebookers. In With the Metamates.” The New York Times, 15 Feb. 2022. Web.

      Langston, Jennifer. “‘You Can Actually Feel like You’re in the Same Place’: Microsoft Mesh Powers Shared Experiences in Mixed Reality.” Microsoft Innovation Stories, 2 Mar. 2021. Microsoft. Web.

      “Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment and AWS Team Up to Transform Experiences for Canadian Sports Fans.” Amazon Press Center, 23 Feb. 2022. Amazon.com. Accessed 24 Feb. 2022. Web.

      Marquez, Reynaldo. “How Microsoft Will Move To The Web 3.0, Blockchain Division To Expand.” Bitcoinist.com, 8 Nov. 2021. Web.

      Metinko, Chris. “Securing The Metaverse—What’s Needed For The Next Chapter Of The Internet.” Crunchbase News, 6 Dec. 2021. Web.

      Metz, Rachel Metz. “Why You Can’t Have Legs in Virtual Reality (Yet).” CNN, 15 Feb. 2022. Accessed 16 Feb. 2022.

      “Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard to Bring the Joy and Community of Gaming to Everyone, across Every Device.” Microsoft News Center, 18 Jan. 2022. Microsoft. Web.

      Nath, Ojasvi. “Big Tech Is Betting Big on Metaverse: Should Enterprises Follow Suit?” Toolbox, 15 Feb. 2022. Accessed 24 Feb. 2022.

      “NVIDIA Announces Omniverse Replicator Synthetic-Data-Generation Engine for Training AIs.” NVIDIA Newsroom, 9 Nov. 2021. NVIDIA. Accessed 9 Mar. 2022.

      “NVIDIA Omniverse - Designing, Optimizing and Operating the Factory of the Future. 2021. YouTube, uploaded by NVIDIA, 13 April 2021. Web.

      Peters, Jay. “Disney Has Appointed a Leader for Its Metaverse Strategy.” The Verge, 15 Feb. 2022. Web.

      Robinson, Joanna. The Sci-Fi Guru Who Predicted Google Earth Explains Silicon Valley’s Latest Obsession.” Vanity Fair, 23 June 2017. Accessed 13 Feb. 2022.

      Scoble, Robert. “New Startup Mixes Reality with Computer Vision and Sets the Stage for an Entire Industry.” Scobleizer, 17 Feb. 2022. Web.

      Seward, Zack. “Ex-Meta Coders Raising $200M to Bring Diem Blockchain to Life: Sources.” CoinDesk, 24 Feb. 2022. Web.

      Shrestha, Rakesh, et al. “A New Type of Blockchain for Secure Message Exchange in VANET.” Digital Communications and Networks, vol. 6, no. 2, May 2020, pp. 177-186. ScienceDirect. Web.

      Sood, Vishal. “Gain a New Perspective with Dynamics 365 Connected Spaces.” Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog, 2 Nov. 2021. Microsoft. Web.

      Takahashi, Dean. “Philip Rosedale’s High Fidelity Cuts Deal with Second Life Maker Linden Lab.” VentureBeat, 13 Jan. 2022 Web.

      “TeamViewer Capital Markets Day 2021.” TeamViewer, 10 Nov. 2021. Accessed 22 Feb. 2022.

      VR for Work. Oculus.com. Accessed 1 Mar. 2022.

      Wunderman Thompson Intelligence. “New Trend Report: Into the Metaverse.” Wunderman Thompson, 14 Sept. 2021. Accessed 16 Feb. 2022.

      Operations management

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      • Parent Category Name: Infra and Operations
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      • byline: It's all about delivering your services effectively.
      IT Operations is all about effectiveness. We make sure that you deliver reliable services to the clients and users within the company.

      Break Open Your DAM With Intuitive Metadata

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      • Parent Category Name: Data Management
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      • Organizations are facing challenges from explosive information growth in both volume and complexity, as well as the need to use more new sources of information for social media just to remain in business.
      • A lot of content can be created quickly, but managing those digital assets properly through metadata tagging that will be used consistently and effectively requires processes to be in place to create standardized and informational metadata at the source of content creation.
      • Putting these processes in place changes the way the organization handles its information, which may generate pushback, and requires socialization and proper management of the metadata strategy.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Metadata is an imperative part of the organization’s broader information management strategy. Some may believe that metadata is not needed anymore; Google search is not a magic act – it relies on information tagging that reflects cultural sentiment.
      • Metadata should be pliable. It needs to grow with the changing cultural and corporate vernacular and knowledge, and adapt to changing needs.
      • Build a map for your metadata before you dig for buried treasure. Implement metadata standards and processes for current digital assets before chasing after your treasure troves of existing artifacts.

      Impact and Result

      • Create a sustainable and effective digital asset management (DAM) program by understanding Info-Tech’s DAM framework and how the framework fits within your organization for better management of key digital assets.
      • Create an enterprise-wide metadata design principles handbook to keep track of metadata schemas and standards, as well as communicate the standards to the entire organization.
      • Gather requirements for your DAM program, as well as the DAM system and roles, by interviewing key stakeholders and identifying prevalent pains and opportunities. Understand where digital assets are created, used, and stored throughout the enterprise to gain a high-level perspective of DAM requirements.
      • Identify the organization’s current state of metadata management along with the target state, identify the gaps, and then define solutions to fill those gaps. Ensure business initiatives are woven into the mix.
      • Create a comprehensive roadmap to prioritize initiatives and delineate responsibilities.

      Break Open Your DAM With Intuitive Metadata Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a digital asset management program focused on metadata, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Build a foundation for your DAM project

      Gain an in-depth understanding of what digital asset management is as well as how it is supported by Info-Tech’s DAM framework.

      • Break Open Your DAM With Intuitive Metadata – Phase 1: Build a Foundation for Your DAM Project
      • DAM Design Principles Handbook
      • Where in the World Is My Digital Asset? Tool
      • Digital Asset Inventory Tool
      • DAM Requirements Gathering Tool

      2. Dive into the DAM strategy

      Create a metadata program execution strategy and assess current and target states for the organization’s DAM.

      • Break Open Your DAM With Intuitive Metadata – Phase 2: Dive Into the DAM Strategy
      • DAM Roadmap Tool
      • DAM Metadata Execution Strategy Document

      3. Create intuitive metadata for your DAM

      Design a governance plan for ongoing DAM and metadata management.

      • Break Open Your DAM With Intuitive Metadata – Phase 3: Create Intuitive Metadata for Your Digital Assets
      • Metadata Manager Tool
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Break Open Your DAM With Intuitive Metadata

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Structure the Metadata Project

      The Purpose

      Develop a foundation of knowledge regarding DAM and metadata, as well as the best practices for organizing the organization’s information and digital assets for ideal findability.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Design standardized processes for metadata creation and digital asset management to help to improve findability of key assets.

      Gain knowledge of how DAM can benefit both IT and the business.

      Activities

      1.1 Build a DAM and metadata knowledge foundation.

      1.2 Kick-start creation of the organization’s DAM design principles handbook.

      1.3 Interview key business units to understand drivers for the program.

      1.4 Develop a DAM framework.

      Outputs

      DAM Design Principles Handbook

      DAM Execution Strategy Document

      2 Assess Requirements for the DAM Program

      The Purpose

      Inventory the organization’s key digital assets and their repositories.

      Gather the organization’s requirements for a full-time digital asset librarian, as well as the DAM system.  

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Determine clear and specific requirements for the organization from the DAM system and the people involved.

      Activities

      2.1 Conduct a digital asset inventory to identify key assets to include in DAM.

      2.2 Prioritize digital assets to determine their risk and value to ensure appropriate support through the information lifecycle.

      2.3 Determine the requirements of the business and IT for the DAM system and its metadata.

      Outputs

      Digital Asset Inventory Tool

      DAM Requirements Gathering Tool

      3 Design Roadmap and Plan Implementation

      The Purpose

      Determine strategic initiatives and create a roadmap outlining key steps required to get the organization to start enabling data-driven insights.

      Determine timing of the initiatives. 

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Establish a clear direction for the DAM program.

      Build a step-by-step outline of how to create effective metadata with true business-IT collaboration.

      Have prioritized initiatives with dependencies mapped out.

      Activities

      3.1 Assess current and target states of DAM in the organization.

      3.2 Brainstorm and document practical initiatives to close the gap.

      3.3 Discuss strategies rooted in business requirements to execute the metadata management program to improve findability of digital assets.

      Outputs

      DAM Roadmap Tool

      4 Establish Metadata Governance

      The Purpose

      Identify the roles required for effective DAM and metadata management.

      Create sample metadata according to established guiding principles and implement a feedback method to create intuitive metadata in the organization. 

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Metadata management is an ongoing project. Implementing it requires user input and feedback, which governance will help to support.

      By integrating metadata governance with larger information or data governance bodies, DAM and metadata management will gain sustainability. 

      Activities

      4.1 Discuss and assign roles and responsibilities for initiatives identified in the roadmap.

      4.2 Review policy requirements for the information assets in the organization and strategies to address enforcement.

      4.3 Integrate the governance of metadata into larger governance committees.

      Outputs

      DAM Execution Strategy

      Cybersecurity Priorities in Times of Pandemic

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      • Parent Category Name: Security Processes & Operations
      • Parent Category Link: /security-processes-and-operations
      • Novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has thrown organizations around the globe into chaos as they attempt to continue operations while keeping employees safe.
      • IT needs to support business continuity – juggling available capacity and ensuring that services are available to end users – without clarity of duration, amid conditions that change daily, on a scale never seen before.
      • Security has never been more important than now. But…where to start? What are the top priorities? How do we support remote work while remaining secure?

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • There is intense pressure to enable employees to work remotely, as soon as possible. IT is scrambling to enable access, source equipment to stage, and deploy products to employees, many of whom are unfamiliar with working from home.
      • There is either too much security to allow people to be productive or too little security to ensure that the organization remains protected and secure.
      • These events are unprecedented, and no plan currently exists to sufficiently maintain a viable security posture during this interim new normal.

      Impact and Result

      • Don’t start from scratch. Leverage your current security framework, processes, and mechanisms but tailor them to accommodate the new way of remote working.
      • Address priority security items related to remote work capability and its implications in a logical sequence. Some security components may not be as time sensitive as others.
      • Remain diligent! Circumstances may have changed, but the importance of security has not. In fact, IT security is likely more important now than ever before.

      Cybersecurity Priorities in Times of Pandemic Research & Tools

      Start here – read our Cybersecurity Priorities research.

      Our recommendations and the accompanying checklist tool will help you quickly get a handle on supporting a remote workforce while maintaining security in your organization.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      • Cybersecurity Priorities in Times of Pandemic Storyboard
      • Cybersecurity Priorities Checklist Tool
      [infographic]

      Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience

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      • Amid the pandemic-fueled surge in online services, organizations require secure solutions to safeguard digital interactions. These solutions must be uniform, interoperable, and fortified against security threats.
      • Although the digital identity ecosystem has garnered significant attention and investment, many organizations remain uncertain about its potential for authentication and the authorization required for B2B and B2C transactions, and in turn reducing their cost of operations and transferring their data risks.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Limited / lack of understanding of the global digital ID ecosystem and its varying approaches across countries handicaps businesses in defining the benefits digital ID can bring to customer interactions and overall business management.
      • In addition, key obstacles exist in balancing customer privacy, data security, and regulatory requirements while pursuing excellent end-user experience and high customer adoption.
      • Info-Tech Insight: Focusing on customer touchpoints and transforming them are key to excellent experience and increasing their life-time value (LTV) to them and to your organization. Digital ID is that tool of transformation.

      Impact and Result

      • Digital ID has many dimensions, and its ecosystem's sustainability lies in the key principles it is built on. Understanding the digital identity ecosystem and its responsibilities is crucial to formulating an approach to adopt it. Also, focusing on key success factors drives digital ID adoption.
      • Before embarking on the digital identity adoption journey, it is essential to assess your readiness. It is also necessary to understand the risks and challenges. Specific steps to digital ID adoption can help realize the potential of digital identity and enhance the customers' experience.

      Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience Storyboard – Learn how to adopt Digital ID to drive benefits, enhance customer experience, improve efficiency, manage data risks, and uncover new opportunities.

      This research focuses on verified digital identity ecosystems and explores risks, opportunities, and challenges of relying on verified digital IDs and also how adopting digital identity initiatives can improve customer experience and operational efficiency. It covers:

    • Definition and dimensions of digital identity
    • Key responsibilities and principles of digital identity ecosystem
    • Success factors for digital identity adoption
    • Global evolution and unique approaches in Estonia, India, Canada, UK, and Australia
    • Industries that benefit most from digital ID development
    • Key use cases of digital ID
    • Benefits to governments, ID providers, ID consumers, and end users
    • Readiness checklist and ten steps to digital ID adoption
    • Risks and challenges of digital identity adoption
    • Key recommendations to realize potential of digital identity
    • Taxonomy and definitions of terms in the digital identity ecosystem

      • Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience Storyboard
      • Familiarize Yourself With the Digital ID Ecosystem Taxonomy
      • Assess Your Digital ID Adoption Readiness

      Infographic

      Further reading

      Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience

      Beyond the hype: How it can help you become more customer-focused?

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      Common Obstacles

      Info-Tech’s Approach

      Amid the pandemic-fueled surge of online services, organizations require secure solutions to safeguard digital interactions. These solutions must be uniform, interoperable, and fortified against security threats.

      Although the digital identity ecosystem has garnered significant attention and investment, many organizations remain uncertain about its potential for authentication and authorization required for B2B and B2C transactions.

      They still wonder if digital ID can help reduce cost of operations and transfer data risks.

      Limited or lack of understanding of the global Digital ID ecosystem and its varying approaches across countries handicap businesses in defining the potential benefits Digital ID can bring to customer interactions and overall business management.

      In addition, key obstacles exist in balancing customer privacy (including the right to be forgotten), data security, and regulatory requirements while pursuing desired end-user experience and high customer adoption.

      Digital ID has many dimensions, and its ecosystem's sustainability lies in the key principles it is built on. Understanding the digital identity ecosystem and its responsibilities is crucial to formulate an approach to adopt it. Also, focusing on key success factors drives digital ID adoption.

      Before embarking on the digital identity adoption journey, it is essential to assess your readiness. It is also necessary to understand the risks and challenges. Specific steps to digital ID adoption can help realize the potential of digital identity and enhance the customers' experience.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Focusing on customer touchpoints and transforming them is key to excellent user experience and increasing their lifetime value (LTV) to them and to your organization. Digital ID is that tool of transformation.

      Analyst Perspective

      Manish Jain.

      Manish Jain

      Principal Research Director

      Analyst Profile

      “I just believed. I believed that the technology would change people's lives. I believed putting real identity online - putting technology behind real identity - was the missing link.”

      - Sheryl Sandberg (Brockes, Emma. “Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg: who are you calling bossy?” The Guardian, 5 April 2014)

      Sometimes dismissed as mere marketing gimmicks, digital identity initiatives are anything but. While some argue that any online credential is a "Digital ID," rendering the hype around it pointless, the truth is that a properly built digital ID ecosystem has the power to transform laggard economies into global digital powerhouses. Moreover, digital IDs can help businesses transfer some of their cybersecurity risks and unlock new revenue channels by enabling a foundation for secure and efficient value delivery.

      In addition, digital identity is crucial for digital and financial inclusion, simplifying onboarding processes and opening up new opportunities for previously underserved populations. For example, in India, the Aadhaar digital ID ecosystem brought over 481 million1 people into the formal economy by enabling access to financial services. Similarly, in Indonesia, the e-KIP digital ID program paved the way for 10 million new bank accounts, 94% of which were for women2.

      However, digital identity initiatives also come with valid concerns, such as the risk of a single point of failure and the potential to widen the digital divide.

      This research focuses on the verified digital identity ecosystem, exploring the risks, opportunities, and challenges organizations face relying on these verified digital IDs to know their customers before delivering value. By understanding and adopting digital identity initiatives, organizations can unlock their full potential and provide a seamless customer experience while ensuring operational efficiency.

      1 India Aadhaar PMJDY (https://pmjdy.gov.in/account)
      2 Women’s World Banking, 2020.

      Digital Identity Ecosystem and vital ingredients of adoption

      Digital Identity Ecosystem.

      What is digital identity?

      Definitions may vary, depending on the focus.

      “Digital identity (ID) is a set of attributes that links a physical person with their online interactions. Digital ID refers to one’s online persona - an online footprint. It touches important aspects of one’s everyday life, from financial services to health care and beyond.” - DIACC Canada

      “Digital identity is a digital representation of a person. It enables them to prove who they are during interactions and transactions. They can use it online or in person.” - UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework

      “Digital identity is an electronic representation of an entity (person or other entity such as a business) and it allows people and other entities to be recognized online.” - Australia Trusted Digital Identity Framework

      A digital identity is primarily an electronic form of identity representing an entity uniquely , while abstracting all other identity attributes of the entity. In addition to an electronic form, it may also exist in a physical form (identity certificate), linked through an identifier representing the same entity.

      Digital identity has many dimensions*, and in turn categories

      Trust

      • Verified (Govt. issued IDs)
      • Unverified (Email Id)

      Subject

      • Individual
      • Organization
      • Device
      • Service

      Usability

      • Single-purpose (Disposable)
      • Multi-purpose (Reusable)

      Provider

      • Sovereign Government
      • Provincial Government
      • Local Government
      • Public Organization
      • Private Organization
      • Self

      Jurisdiction

      • Global (Passport)
      • National (DL)
      • State/Provincial (Health Card)
      • Local (Voting Card)
      • Private (Social)

      Form

      • Physical Card
      • Virtual Identifier
      • Online/App Account
      • PKI Keys
      • Tokens

      Governance

      • Sovereign
      • Federated
      • Decentralized
      • Trust Framework -based
      • Self-sovereign

      Expiry

      • Permanent (Lifetime, Years)
      • Temporary (Minutes, Hours)
      • Revocable

      Usage Mode

      • online only
      • offline only
      • Online/offline

      Purpose

      • Authorization (driver’s license, passport, employment)
      • Authentication (birth certificate, social security number)
      • Activity Linking (preferences, habits, and priorities)
      • Historical Record (Resume, educational financial, health history)
      • Social Interactions (Social Media)
      • Machine Connectivity

      Info-Tech Insight

      Digital ID has taken different meanings for different people, serving different purposes in different environments. Based on various aspects of Digital Identification, it can be categorized in several types. However, most of the time when people refer to a form of identification as Digital ID, they refer to a verified id with built-in trust either from the government OR the eco-system.

      * Please refer to Taxonomy for the definition of each of the dimensions

      Understanding a digital identity ecosystem is key to formulating your approach to adopt it

      The image contains a screenshot of a digital identity ecosystem diagram.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Digital identity ecosystems comprise many entities playing different roles, and sometimes more than one. In addition, variations in approach by jurisdictions drive how many active players are in the ecosystem for that jurisdiction.

      For example, in countries like Estonia and India, government plays the role of trust and governance authority as well as ID provider, but didn’t start with any Digital ID wallet. In contrast, in Ukraine, Diia App is primarily a Digital ID Wallet. Similarly, in the US, different states are adopting private Digital ID Wallet providers like Apple.

      Digital ID ecosystem’s sustainability lies in the key principles it is built on

      Social, economic, and legal alignment with target stakeholders
      Transparent governance and operation
      Legally auditable and enforceable
      Robust and Resilient – High availability
      Security – At rest, in progress, and in transit
      Privacy and Control with users
      Omni-channel Convenience – User and Operations
      Minimum data transfer between entities
      Technical interoperability enabled through open standards and protocol
      Scalable and interoperable at policy level
      Cost effective – User and operations
      Inclusive and accessible

      Info-Tech Insight

      A transparent, resilient, and auditable digital ID system must be aligned with socio-economic realities of the target stakeholders. It not only respects their privacy and security of their data by minimizing the data transfer between entities, but also drives desired customer experience by providing an omni-channel, interoperable, scalable, and inclusive ecosystem while still being cost-effective for the collaborators.

      Source: Adapted from Canada PCTF, UK Trust framework, European Commission, Australia TDIF, and others

      Focus on key success factors to drive the digital ID adoption

      Digital ID success factors

      Legislative regulatory framework – Removes uncertainty
      Security & Privacy Assurance- builds trust
      Smooth user experience – Drives preferences
      Transparent ecosystem – Drives inclusivity
      Multi-channel – Drive consistent experience online / offline
      Inter-operability thorough open standards
      Digital literacy – Education and awareness
      Multi-purpose & reusable – Reduce consumer burden
      Collaborative ecosystem –Build network effect

      Source: Adapted from Canada PCTF, UK digital identity & attributes trust framework , European eIDAS, and others

      Info-Tech Insight

      Driving adoption of Digital ID requires affirmative actions from all ecosystem players including governing authorities, identity providers, and identity consumers (relying parties).

      These nine success factors can help drive sustainable adoption of the Digital ID.

      Among many responsibilities the ecosystem players have, identity governance is the key to sustainability

      • Digital identity provision
        • Creating identity attributes
        • Create a reusable identity and attribute service
        • Create a digital identity
        • Assess and manage quality of an identity and attributes
        • Making identity provision inclusive and accessible
      • Digital identity resolution
        • Enabling inclusive access to products and services through digital identity
        • Authenticate and authorize identity subjects before permitting access to their identity and attributes
      • Digital identity governance
        • Manage digital identity and attributes
        • Make Identity service interoperable, and sharable
        • Recover digital identity and attribute accounts
        • Notifying users on accessing identity or making changes on more attributes
        • Report and audit – exclusion, accessibility
        • Retiring an identity or attribute service
        • Respond to complaints and disputes
      • Enterprise risk management and governance
      		 The image contains a screenshot of a diagram to demonstrate how identity governance is the key to sustainability.
      • Privacy and security
        • Use encryption
        • Privacy compliance framework
        • Consumer Privacy Protection laws (CPPA, GDPR etc.)
        • Acquiring and managing user consents & agreements
        • Prohibited processing of personal data
        • Security controls and governance
      • Information management
        • Record management
        • Archival
        • Disposal (on expiry or to comply with regulations)
        • CIA (confidentiality, integrity, availability)
      • Fraud management
        • Fraud monitoring and reporting
        • Fraud intelligence and analysis
        • Sharing threat indicators
        • Legal, policies and procedures for fraud management
      • Incident response
        • Respond to fraud incidents
        • Respond to a service delivery incident
        • Responding to data breaches
        • Performing and participating in investigation

      Global evolution of digital ID is following the socio-economic aspirations of countries

      The image contains a screenshot of a graph that demonstrates global evolution of digital ID.

      Source: Adapted from the book: Identification Revolution: Can Digital ID be harnessed for Development? (Gelb & Metz), 2018

      Info-Tech Insight

      The world became global a long time ago; however, it sustained economic progress without digital IDs for most of the world's population.

      With the pandemic, when political rhetoric pointed to the demand for localized supply chains, economies became irreversibly digital. In this digital economy, the digital ID ecosystem is the fulcrum of sustainable growth.

      At a time in overlapping jurisdictions, multiple digital IDs can exist. For example, one is issued by a local municipality, one by the province, and another by the national government.

      Global footprint of digital ID is evolving rapidly, but varies in approach

      The image contains a screenshot of a Global footprint of digital ID.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Countries’ approach to the digital ID is rooted in their socio-economic environment and global aspirations.

      Emerging economies with large underserved populations prioritize fast implementation of digital ID through centralized systems.

      Developed economies with smaller populations, low trust in government, and established ID systems prioritize developing trust frameworks to drive decentralized full-scale implementation.

      There is no right way except the one which follows Digital ID principles and aligns with a country’s and its people’s aspirations.

      Estonia's e-identity is the key to its digital agenda 2030

      • Regulatory Body and Operational Governance: Estonian Information System Authority (RIA).
      • Identity Providers: Government of Estonia; Private sector doesn’t issue IDs but can leverage Digital ID ecosystem.
      • Decentralized Approach: Permissioned Blockchain Architecture with built-in data traceability implemented on KSI (Keyless Signature Infrastructure).
      • X-Road – Secure, interoperable open-source data exchange platform between collection point where Data is stored.
      • Digital Identity Form: e-ID
      • Key Use cases:
        • Financial, Telecom: e-KYC, e-Banking
        • Digital Authentication: ID Card, Mobile ID, Smart ID, Digital Signatures
        • E-governance: e-Voting, e-Residency, e-Services Registries, e-Business Register
        • Smart City and mobility: Freight Transportation, Passenger Mobility
        • Healthcare: e-Health Record, e-Prescription, e-Ambulance
      • ID-card
      • Smart ID
      • Mobile ID
      • e-Residency

      Uniqueness

      Estonia pioneered the digital ID implementation with a centralized approach and later transitioned to a decentralized ecosystem driving trust to attract non-citizens into Estonia’s digital economy.

      99% Of Estonian residents have an ID card enabling use of electronic ID

      1.4 B Digital signatures given (2021)

      99% Public Services available as e-Services

      17K+ Productive years saved (five working days/citizen/year saved accessing public services)

      25K E-resident companies contributed more than €32 million in tax

      *Source: https://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/e-estonia-211022_eng.pdf ;

      https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/dashboard

      The image contains a timeline of events from 2001-2020 for Estonia..

      India’s Aadhaar is the foundation of its digital journey through “India stack”

      • Regulatory Accountability and Operational Governance: Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
      • Identity Provider: Govt. of India.
      • Digital Identity Form: Physical and electronic ID Card; Online (Identifier + OTP), and offline (identifier + biometric) usage; mAadhaar App & Web Portal
      • India Stack: a set of open APIs and digital assets to leverage Aadhaar in identity, data, and payments at scale.
      • Key Use cases:
        • Financial, Telecom: eKYC, Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
        • Digital Wallet: Digi Locker
        • Digital Authentication: eSign, and Aadhaar Auth.
        • Public Welfare: Public Distribution of Service, Social Pension, Employment Guarantee
        • Public service access: Enrollment to School, Healthcare

      1.36B People enrolled

      80% Beneficiaries feel Aadhaar has made PDS, employment guarantee and social pensions more reliable

      91.6% Are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with Aadhaar

      14B eKYC transactions done by 218 eKYC authentication agencies (KUA)

      Source: https://uidai.gov.in/aadhaar_dashboard/india.php; https://www.stateofaadhaar.in/

      World Bank Report on Private Sector Impacts from ID

      Uniqueness

      “The Aadhaar digital identity system could reduce onboarding costs for Indian firms from 1,500 rupees to as low as an estimated 10 rupees.”

      -World Bank Report on Private Sector Impacts from ID

      With lack of public trust in private sector, government brought in private sector executives in public ecosystem to lead the largest identity program globally and build the India stack to leverage the power of Digital Identity.

      The image contains a screenshot of India's Aadhaar timeline from 2009-2022.

      Ukraine’s Diia is a resilient act to preserve their identities during threat to their existence

      Regulatory Accountability and Operational Governance: Ministry of Digital Transformation.

      Identity provider: Federated govt. agencies.

      Digital identity form: Diia App & Portal as a digital wallet for all IDs including digital driving license.

      • Key use cases:
        • eGovernance – Issuing license and permits, business registration, vaccine certificates.
        • Public communication: air-raid alerts, notifications, court decisions and fines.
        • Financial, Telecom: KYC compliance, mobile donations.
        • eBusiness: Diia City legal framework for IT industry, Diia Business Portal for small and medium businesses.
        • Digital sharing and authentication: Diia signature and Diia QR.
        • Public service access: Diia Education Portal for digital education and digital skills development, healthcare.

      18.5M People downloaded the Diia app.

      14 Digital IDs provided by other ID providers are available through Diia.

      70 Government services are available through Diia.

      ~1M Private Entrepreneurs used Diia to register their companies.

      1300 Tons of paper estimated to be saved by reducing paper applications for new IDs and replacements.

      Source:

      • Ukraine Govt. Website for Invest and trade
      • Diia Case study prepared for the office of Canadian senator colin deacon.

      Uniqueness

      “One of the reasons for the Diia App's popularity is its focus on user experience. In September 2022, the Diia App simplified 25 public services and digitized 16 documents. The Ministry of Digital Transformation aims to make 100% of all public services available online by 2024.”

      - Vladyslava Aleksenko

      Project Lead—digital Identity, Ukraine

      The image contains a screenshot of the timeline for Diia.

      Canada’s PCTF (Pan Canadian Trust Framework) driving the federated digital identity ecosystem

      • Regulatory Accountability: Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS); Canadian Digital Service (CDS); Office of CIO
      • Standard Setting: Digital Identification and Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC)
      • Frameworks:
        • Treasury Board Directive on Identity Management
        • Pan Canadian Trust Framework (PCTF)
        • Voilà Verified Trustmark Program: ISO aligned compliance certification program on PCTF
        • Governing / Certificate Authority: Trustmark Oversight Board (TOB) and DIACC accredited assessor
        • Operational Governance: Federated between identity providers and identity consumers
        • Identity Providers: Public and Private Sector
        • Other entities involved: Digital ID Lab (Voila Verified Auditor); Kuma (Accredited Assessor)
      		The image contains a screenshot of PCTF Components.

      82% People supportive of Digital ID.

      2/3 Canadians prefer public-private partnership for Pan-Canadian digital ID framework.

      >40% Canadians prefer completing various tasks and transactions digitally.

      75% Canadians are willing to share personal information for better experience.

      >80% Trust government, healthcare providers, and financial institutions with their personal information.

      Source: DIACC Survey 2021

      Uniqueness

      Although a few provinces in Canada started their Digital ID journey already, federally, Canada lacked an approach.

      Now Canada is developing a federated Digital ID ecosystem driven through the Pan-Canadian Trust Framework (PCTF) led by a non-profit (DIACC) formed with public and private partnership.

      The image contains a screenshot of Canada's PCTF timeline from 2002-2025.

      Australia’s digital id is pivotal to its vision to become one of the Top-3 digital governments globally by 2025*

      * Australia Digital Government Strategy 2021
      • Regulatory responsibility and standard: Digital Transformation Agency (DTA)’s Digital Identity
      • Operational support and oversight: Service Australia, Interim Oversight Authority (IOA).
      • Accredited identity providers (by 2022): Australian Taxation Office (ATO)’s myGovID, Australia Post’s Digital ID, MasterCard’s ID, OCR Labs App
      • Framework: Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF)
        • Digital Identity Exchange
        • Identity Service Providers and Attribute Verification Service
        • Attribute Service Providers
        • Credential Service Providers
        • Relying Parties
      • Others: States such as NSW, Victoria, and Queensland have their own digital identity programs

      8.6M People using myGovID by Jun-2022

      117 Services accessible through Digital Id System

      The image contains a screenshot diagram of Digital Identity.

      Uniqueness

      Australia started its journey of Digital ID with a centralized Digital ID ecosystem.

      However, now it preparing to transition to a centrally governed Trust framework-based ecosystem expanding to private sector.

      The image contains a screenshot of Australia's Digital id timeline from 2014-2022.

      UK switches gear to the Trust Framework approach to build a public-private digital ID ecosystem

      • Government: Ministry of Digital Infrastructure / Department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport
      • Governing Body / Certificate Authority / Operational Governance: TBD
      • Approach: Trust Framework-based UK Digital Identity and attributes trust framework (UKDIATF)
      • Identity providers: Transitioning from “GOV.UK Verify” to a federated digital identity system aligned with “Trust Framework” – enabling both government (“One Login for Government”) and private sector identity providers.
      		The image contains a screenshot of the Trust Framework.

      Uniqueness

      UK embarked its Digital ID journey through Gov.UK Verify but decided to scrap it recently.

      It is now preparing to build a trust framework-based federated digital ID ecosystem with roles like schema-owners and orchestration service providers for private sector and drive the collaboration between industry players.

      The image contains a screenshot of UK timeline from 2011-2023.

      Digital ID will transform all industries, though financial services and e-governance will gain most

      Cross Industry

      Financial Services

      Insurance

      E-governance

      Healthcare & Lifesciences

      Travel and Tourism

      E-Commerce

      • Onboarding (customer, employee, patient, etc.)
      • Fraud-prevention (identity theft)
      • Availing restricted services (buying liquor)
      • Secure-sharing of credentials and qualifications (education, experience, gig worker)
      • For businesses, customer 360
      • For businesses, reliable data-driven decision making with lower frequency of ‘astroturfing’ (false identities) and ‘ballot-stuffing’ (duplicate identities)
      • Account opening
      • Asset transfer
      • Payments
      • For businesses, risk management - know your customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML), customer due diligence (CDD)
      • Insurance history
      • Insurance claim
      • Public distribution schemes (PDS)
      • Subsidy payments (direct to consumer)
      • Obtain government benefits (maternity, pension, employment guarantee / insurance payments)
      • Tax filing
      • Issuing credentials (birth certificate, passport)
      • Voting
      • For businesses, availing governments supports
      • For SMB businesses, easier regulatory compliance
      • Digital health
      • Out of state public healthcare
      • Secure access to health and diagnostic records
      • For businesses, data sharing between providers and with payers
      • Travel booking
      • Cross-border travel
      • Car rental
      • Secure peer-to-peer sales
      • Secure peer-to-peer sales

      USE CASE

      Car rental

      INDUSTRY: Travel & Tourism

      Source: Info-Tech Research Group

      Challenge

      Solution

      Results

      Verifying the driver’s license (DL) is the first step a car rental company takes before handing over the keys.

      While the rental company only need to know the validity of the DL and if it belongs to the presenter, is bears the liability of much more data presented to them through the DL.

      For customers, it is impossible to rent a car if they forget their DL. If the customer has their driver’s license, they compromise their privacy and security as they hand over their license to the representative.

      The process is not only time consuming, it also creates unnecessary risks to both the business and the renter.

      A digital id-based rental process allows the renter to present the digital id online or in person.

      As the customer approaches the car rental they present their digital id on the mobile app, which has already authenticated the presenter though the biometrics or other credentials.

      The customer selects the purpose of the business as “Car Rental”, and only the customer’s name, photo, and validity of the DL appear on the screen for the representative to see (selective disclosures).

      If the car pick-up is online, only this information is shared with the car rental company, which in turn shares the car and key location with the renter.

      A digital identity-based identity verification can ensure a rental company has access to the minimum data it needs to comply with local laws, which in turn reduces its data leak risk.

      It also reduces customer risks linked to forgetting the DL, and data privacy.

      Digital identity also reduces the risk originated from identity fraud leading to stolen cars.

      USE CASE

      e-Governance public distribution service

      INDUSTRY: Government

      Source: Info-Tech Research Group

      Challenge

      Solution

      Results

      In both emerging and developed economies, public distribution of resources – food, subsidies, or cash – is a critical process through which many people (especially from marginalized sections) survive on.

      They often either don’t have required valid proof of identity or fall prey to low-level corruption when someone defrauds them by claiming the benefit.

      As a result, they either completely miss out on claiming government-provided social benefits OR only receive a part of what they are eligible for.

      A Digital ID based public distribution can help created a Direct Benefit Transfer ecosystem.

      Here beneficiaries register (manually OR automatically from other government records) for the benefits they are eligible for.

      On the specific schedule, they receive their benefit – monetary benefit in their bank accounts, and non-cash benefits, in person from authorized points-of-sales (POS), without any middleman with discretionary decision powers on the distribution.

      India launched its Financial Inclusion Program (Prime Minister's Public Finance Scheme) in 2014.

      The program was linked with India’s Digital Id Aadhaar to smoothen the otherwise bureaucratic and discretionary process for opening a bank account.

      In last eight years, ~481M (Source: PMJDY) beneficiaries have opened a bank account and deposited ~ ₹1.9Trillion (USD$24B), a part of which came as social benefits directly deposited to these accounts from the government of India.

      USE CASE

      Real-estate investment and sale

      INDUSTRY: Asset Management

      Source: Info-Tech Research Group

      Challenge

      Solution

      Results

      “Impersonators posing as homeowners linked to 32 property fraud cases in Ontario and B.C.” – Global News Canada1

      “The level of fraud in the UK is such that it is now a national security threat” – UK Finance Lobby Group2

      Real estate is the most expensive investment people make in their lives. However, lately it has become a soft target for title fraud. Fraudsters steal the title to one’s home and sell it or apply for a new mortgage against it.

      At the root cause of these fraud are usually identity theft when a fraudster steals someone’s identity and impersonates them as the title owner.

      Digital identity tagged to the home ownership / title record can reduce the identity fraud in title transfer.

      When a person wants to sell their house OR apply for a new mortgage on house, multiple notifications will be triggered to their contact attributes on digital ID – phone, email, postal address, and digital ID Wallet, if applicable.

      The homeowner will be mandated to authorize the transaction on at least two channels they had set as preferred, to ensure that the transaction has the consent of the registered homeowner.

      This process will stop any fraud transactions until at least two modes are compromised.

      Even if two modes are compromised, the real homeowner will receive the notification on offline communication modes, and they can then alert the institution or lawyer to block the transaction.

      It will especially help elderly people, who are more prone to fall prey to identity frauds when somebody uses their IDs to impersonate them.

      1 Global News (https://globalnews.ca/news/9437913/homeowner-impersonators-lined-32-fraud-cases-ontario-bc/)

      2 UK Finance Lobby Group (https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/Half-year-fraud-update-2021-FINAL.pdf)

      Adopting digital ID benefits everybody – governments, id providers, id consumers, and end users

      Governments & identity providers

      (public & private)

      Customers and end users

      (subjects)

      Identity consumer

      (relying parties)

      • Growth in GDP
      • Save costs of providing identity
      • Unlock new revenue source by economic expansion
      • Choice and convenience
      • Control of what data is shared
      • Experience driven by simplicity and data minimalization
      • Reduced cost of availing services
      • Operational efficiency
      • Overall cost efficiency of delivering service and products
      • Reduce risk of potential litigation
      • Reduce risk of fraud
      • Enhanced customer experience leading to increased lifetime value
      • Streamlined storage and access
      • Encourage innovation

      Digital ID will transform all industries, though financial services and e-governance will gain most

      Governments and identity providers (public and private)

      • Growth in GDP by reducing bureaucracy and discretion from the governance processes.
        • As per a McKinsey report, digital ID could unlock the economic value equivalent of 3%-13% of GDP across seven focus countries (Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, China, UK, USA) in 2030.
        • “Estonia saves two percent of GDP by signing things digitally; imagine if it could go global.” - aavi Rõivas, Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia (International Peace Institute)
      • Unlock new revenue source by economic expansion.
        • Estonia earned €32 million in tax revenue from e-resident companies (e-Estonia).
      • Save costs of providing identity in collaboration with 3rd parties and reduce fraud.
        • Canada estimates savings of $482 million for provincial and federal governments, and $4.5 billion for private sector organizations through digital id adoption (2022 Budget Statement).

      Digital ID brings end users choice, convenience, control, and cost-saving, driving overall experience

      Customers and end users (subjects)

      • Choice: Citizens have the choice and convenience to interact safely and conveniently online and offline.
      • Convenience: No compulsion to make physical trips to access service, as end users can identify themselves safely and reliably online, as they do offline.
      • Control: A decentralized, privacy enhancing solution – neither government nor private companies control your digital ID. How and when you use digital ID is entirely up to you.
      • Cost Saving: Save costs of availing service by reducing the offline documentation.
      • Experience: Improved experience while availing service without a need to present multiple documents every time.

      Digital id benefits identity consumers by enhancing multiple dimensions of their value streams

      Identity consumer (relying parties)

      • Operational efficiency: Eliminating unnecessary steps and irrelevant data from the value stream increases overall operational efficiency.
      • Cost efficiency: Helps businesses to reduce overall cost of operations like regulatory requirements.
        • World Bank estimated that the Aadhaar could reduce onboarding costs for Indian firms from ₹1,500/- ($23) to as low as an estimated ₹10/- ($0.15) (*World Bank ID4D)
      • Reduce risk of potential litigation issues: Encourage data minimization.
      • Privacy and security: Businesses can reduce the risk of fraud to organizations and users and can significantly boost the privacy and security of their IT assets.
      • Enhanced customer experience: The decrease in the number of touchpoints and faster turnaround.
      • Streamlined storage and access: Store all available data in a single place, and when required.
      • Encourage innovation: Reduce efforts required in authentication and authorization of users.

      Before embarking on the digital identity adoption journey, assess your readiness

      Legislative coverage

      Does your target jurisdiction have adequate legislative framework to enable uses of digital identities in your industry?

      Trust framework

      If the Digital ID ecosystem in your target jurisdiction is trust framework-based, do you have adequate understanding of it?

      Customer touch-points

      Do you have exact understanding of value stream and customer touch-points where you interact with user identity?

      Relevant identity attributes

      Do you have exact understanding of the identity attributes that your business processes need to deliver customer value?

      Regulatory compliance

      Do you have required systems to ensure your compliance with industry regulations around customer PII and identity?

      Interoperability with IMS

      Is your existing identity management system interoperable with Open-source Digital Identity ecosystem?

      Enterprise governance

      Have you established an integrated enterprise governance framework covering business processes, technical systems, and risk management?

      Communication strategy

      Do have a clear strategy (mode, method, means) to communicate with your target customer and persuade them to adopt digital identity?

      Security operations center

      Do you have security operations center coordinating detection, response, resolution, and communication of potential data breaches?

      Ten steps to adopt to enhance the customer experience

      Considering the complexity of digital identity adoption, and its impact on customer experience, it is vital to assess the ecosystem and adopt an MVP approach before a big-bang launch.

      Diagram to help assess the ecosystem.

      1. Define the use case and identify the customer touchpoint in the value stream which can be improved with a verified digital identity.
      2. Ensure your organization is ready to adopt digital identity (Refer to Digital identity adoption readiness),
      3. Identify an Identity Service Provider (Government, private sector), if there are options.
      4. Understand its technical requirements and assess, to the finer detail, your technical landscape for interoperability.
      5. Set-up a business contract for terms of usages and liabilities.
      6. Create and execute a Minimum Viable Program (MVP) of integration which can be tested with real customers.
      7. Extend MVP to the complete solution and define key success metrics.
      8. Canary-launch with a segment of target customers before a full launch.
      9. Educate customers on the usages and benefits, and adapt your communication plan taking feedback
      10. Monitor and continuously improve the solution based on the feedback from ecosystem partners and end-customers, and regulatory changes.

      Understand and manage the risks and challenges of digital identity adoption

      Digital ID adoption is a major change for everyone in the ecosystem.

      Manage associated risks to avoid the derailing of integration with your business processes and a negative impact on customer experience.

      Manage Risks.

      1. Privacy and security risks – Customer’s sensitive data may get centralized with the identity provider.
      2. Single point of failure while relying a specific IDs; it also increases the impact of identity theft and fraud risk.
      3. Centralization and control risks – Identity provider or identity service broker / orchestrator may control who can participate.
      4. Not universal, interoperability risks – if purpose-specific.
      5. Impact omni-channel experience - Not always available (legal / printable) for offline use.
      6. Exclusion and discrimination risks – Specific data requirements may exclude a group of people.
      7. Scope for misuse and misinterpretation if compromised and not reclaimed in timely manner.
      8. Adoption and usability risks – Subjects / relying parties may not see benefit due to lack of awareness or suspicion.
      9. Liability Agreement gaps between identity provider and identity consumer (relying party).

      Recommendations to help you realize the potential of digital identity into your value streams

      1

      Customer-centricity

      Digital identity initiative should prioritize customer experience when evaluating its fit in the value stream. Adopting it should not sacrifice end-user experience to gain a few brownie points.

      See Info-Tech’s Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization blueprint, to ensure customer remains at the center of your Digital Adoption initiative.

      2

      Privacy and security

      Adopting digital identity reduces data risk by minimizing data transfer between providers and consumers. However, securing identity attributes in value streams still requires strengthening enterprise security systems and processes.

      See Info-Tech’s Assess and Govern Identity Security blueprint for the actions you may take to secure and govern digital identity.

      3

      Inclusion and awareness

      Adopting digital identity may alter customer interaction with an organization. To avoid excluding target customer segments, design digital identity accordingly. Educating and informing customers about the changes can facilitate faster adoption.

      See Info-Tech’s Social Media blueprint and IT Diversity & Inclusion Tactics to make inclusion and awareness part of digital adoption

      4

      Quantitative success metrics

      To measure the success of a digital ID adoption program, it's essential to use quantitative metrics that align with business KPIs. Some measurable KPIs may include:

      • Reduction in number of IDs business used to serve 90% of customers
      • Reduction in overall cost of operation
        • Reduction in cost of user authentication
      • Reduction in process cycle time (less time required to complete a task – e.g. KYC)

      Taxonomy – Digital ID ecosystem

      (Alphabetical order)

      Continues..

      Attributes: An identity attribute is a statement or information about a specific aspect of entity’s identity ,substantiating they are who they claim to be, own, or have.

      Attribute (or Credential) provider: An attribute or credential provider could be an organization which issues the primary attribute or credential to a subject or entity. They are also responsible for identity-attribute binding, credential maintenance, suspension, recovery, and authentication.

      Attribute (or Credential) service provider: An attribute service provider could be an organization which originally vetted user’s credentials and certified a specific attribute of their identity. It could also be a software, such as digital wallet, which can store and share a user’s attribute with a third party once consented by the user. (Source: UK Govt. Trust Framework)

      Attribute binding: This is a process an attribute service providers uses to link the attributes they created to a person or an organization through an identifier. This process makes attributes useful and valuable for other entities using these attributes. For example, when a new employee joins a company, they are given a unique employee number (an identifier), which links the person with their job title and other aspects (attributes) of his job. (Source: UK Govt. Trust Framework)

      Authentication service provider: An organization which is responsible for creating and managing authenticators and their lifecycle (issuance, suspension, recovery, maintenance, revocation, and destruction of authenticators). (Source: DIACC)

      Authenticator: Information or biometric characteristics under the control of an individual that is a specific instance of something the subject has, knows, or does. E.g. private signing keys, user passwords, or biometrics like face, fingerprints. (Source: Canada PCTF)

      Authentication (identity verification): The process of confirming or denying that the identity presented relates to the subject who is making the claim by comparing the credentials presented with the ones presented during identity proofing.

      Authorization: The process of validating if the authenticated entity has permission to access a resource (service or product).

      Biometrics attributes: Human attributes like retina (iris), fingerprint, heartbeat, facial, handprint, thumbprint, voice print.

      Centralized identity: Digital identities which are fully governed by a centralized government entity. It may have enrollment or registration agencies, private or public sector, to issue the identities, and the technical system may still be decentralized to keep data federated.

      Certificate Authority (CA or accredited assessors): An organization or an entity that conducts assessments to validate the framework compliance of identity or attribute providers (such as websites, email addresses, companies, or individual persons) serving other users, and binding them to cryptographic keys through the issuance of electronic documents known as digital certificates.

      Taxonomy – Digital ID ecosystem

      (Alphabetical order)

      Continues..

      Collective (non-resolvable) attributes: Nationality, domicile, citizenship, immigration status, age group, disability, income group, membership, (outstanding) credit limit, credit score range.

      Contextual identity: A type of identity which establishes an entity’s existence in a specific context – real or virtual. These can be issued by public or private identity providers and are governed by the organizational policies. E.g. employee ID, membership ID, social media ID, machine ID.

      Credentials: A physical or a digital representation of something that establishes an entity’s eligibility to do something for which it is seeking permission, or an association/affiliation with another, generally well-known entity. E.g. Passport, DL, password. In the context of Digital Identity, every identity needs to be attached with a credential to ensure that the subject of the identity can control how and by whom that identity can be used.

      Cryptographic hash function: A hash function is a one-directional mathematical operation performed on a message of any length to get a unique, deterministic, and fixed size numerical string (the hash) which can’t be reverse engineered to get the input data without deploying disproportionate resources. It is the foundation of modern security solutions in DLT / blockchain as they help in verifying the integrity and authenticity of the message.

      Decentralized identity (DID) or self-sovereign identity: This is a way to give back the control of identity to the subject whose identity it is, using an identity wallet in which they collect verified information about themselves from certified issuers (such as the government). By controlling what information is shared from the wallet to requesting third parties (e.g. when registering for a new online service), the user can better manage their privacy, such as only presenting proof that they’re over 18 without needing to reveal their date of birth. Source: (https://www.gsma.com/identity/decentralised-identity)

      Digital identity wallet: A type of digital wallet refers to a secure, trusted software applications (native mobile app, mobile web apps, or Rivas-hosted web applications) based on common standards, allowing a user to store and use their identity attributes, identifiers, and other credentials without loosing or sharing control of them. This is different than Digital Payment Wallets used for financial transactions. (Source: https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/photos/1440x300/2022/feb/eID_WB_presentation_BS.pdf)

      Digital identity: A digital identity is primarily an electronic form of identity representing an entity uniquely , while abstracting all other identity attributes of the entity. In addition to an electronic form, it may also exist in a physical form (identity certificate), linked through an identifier representing the same entity. E.g. Estonia eID , India Aadhar, digital citizenship ID.

      Digital object architecture: DOA is an open architecture for interoperability among various information systems, including ID wallets, identity providers, and consumers. It focuses on digital objects and comprises three core components: the identifier/resolution system, the repository system, and the registry system. There are also two protocols that connect these components. (Source: dona.net)

      Digital signature: A digital signature is an electronic, encrypted stamp of authentication on digital information such as email messages, macros, or electronic documents. A signature confirms that the information originated from the signer and has not been altered. (Source: Microsoft)

      Taxonomy – Digital ID ecosystem

      (Alphabetical order)

      Continues..

      Entity (or Subject): In the context of identity, an entity is a person, group, object, or a machine whose claims need to be ascertained and identity needs to be established before his request for a service or products can be fulfilled. An entity can also be referred to as a subject whose identity needs to be ascertained before delivering a service.

      Expiry: This is another dimension of an identity and determines the validity of an ID. Most of the identities are longer term, but there can be a few like digital tokens and URLs which can be issued for a few hours or even minutes. There are some which can be revoked after a pre-condition is met.

      Federated identity: Federated identity is an agreement between two organizations about the definition and use of identity attributes and identifiers of a consumer entity requesting a service. If successful, it allows a consumer entity to get authenticated by one organization (identity provider) and then authorized by another organization. E.g. accessing a third-party website using Google credentials.

      Foundational identity: A type of identity which establishes an entity’s existence in the real world. These are generally issued by public sector / government agencies, governed by a legal farmwork within a jurisdiction, and are widely accepted at least in that jurisdiction. E.g. birth certificate, citizenship certificate.

      Governance: This is a dimension of identity that covers the governance model for a digital ID ecosystem. While traditionally it has been under the sovereign government or a federated structure, in recent times, it has been decentralized through DLT technologies or trust-framework based. It can also be self-sovereign, where individuals fully control their data and ID attributes.

      Identifier: A digital identifier is a string of characters that uniquely represents an entity’s identity in a specific context and scope even if one or more identity attributes of the subject change over time. E.g. driver’s license, SSN, SIN, email ID, digital token, user ID, device ID, cookie ID.

      Identity: An identity is an instrument used by an entity to provide the required information about itself to another entity in order to avail a service, access a resource, or exercise a privilege. An identity formed by 1-n identity attributes and a unique identifier.

      Identity and access management (IAM): IAM is a set of frameworks, technologies, and processes to enable the creation, maintenance, and use of digital identity, ensuring that the right people gain access to the right materials and records at the right time. (Source: https://iam.harvard.edu/)

      Identity consumer (Relying party): An organization, or an entity relying on identity provider to mitigate IT risks around knowing its customers before delivering the end-user value (product/service) without deteriorating end-user experience. E.g. Canada Revenue Agency using SecureKey service and relying on Banking institutions to authenticate users; Telecom service providers in India relying on Aadhaar identity system to authenticate the customer's identity.

      Identity form: A dimension of identity that defines its forms depending on the scope it wants to serve. It can be a physical card for offline uses, a virtual identifier like a number, or an app/account with multiple identity attributes. Cryptographic keys and tokens can also be forms of identity.

      Taxonomy – Digital ID ecosystem

      (Alphabetical order)

      Continues...

      Identity infrastructure provider: Organizations involved in creating and maintaining technological infrastructure required to manage the lifecycle of digital identities, attributes, and credentials. They implement functions like security, privacy, resiliency, and user experience as specified in the digital identity policy and trust framework.

      Identity proofing: A process of asserting the identification of a subject at a useful identity assurance level when the subject provides evidence to a credential service provider (CSP), reliably identifying themselves. (Source: NIST Special Publication 800-63A)

      Identity provider (Attestation authority): An organization or an entity validating the foundation or contextual claims of a subject and establishing identifier(s) for a subject. E.g. DMV (US) and MTA (Canada) issuing drivers’ licenses; Google / Facebook issuing authentication tokens for their users logging in on other websites.

      Identity validation: The process of confirming or denying the accuracy of identity information of a subject as established by an authorized party. It doesn’t ensure that the presenter is using their own identity.

      Identity verification (Authentication): The process of confirming or denying that the identity presented relates to the subject who is making the claim by comparing the credentials presented with the ones presented during identity proofing.

      Internationalized resource identifier (IRI): IRIs are equivalent to URIs except that IRIs also allow non-ascii characters in the address space, while URIs only allow us-ascii encoding. (Source: w3.org)

      Jurisdiction: A dimension of identity that covers the physical area or virtual space where an identity is legally acceptable for the purpose defined under law. It can be global, like it is for passport, or it can be local within a municipality for specific services. For unverified digital IDs, it can be the social network.

      Multi-factor Authentication (MFA): Multi-factor authentication is a layered approach to securing digital assets (data and applications), where a system requires a user to present a combination of two or more credentials to verify a user’s identity for login. These factors can be a combination of (i) something you know like a password/PIN; (ii) something you have like a token on mobile device; and (iii) something you are like a biometric. (Adapted from https://www.cisa.gov/publication/multi-factor-authentication-mfa)

      Oauth (Open authorization): OAuth is a standard authorization protocol and used for access delegation. It allows internet users to access websites by using credentials managed by a third-party authorization server / Identity Provider. It is designed for HTTP and allows access tokens to be issued by an authorization server to third-party websites. E.g. Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn use Oauth to delegate access.

      OpenID: OpenID is a Web Authentication Protocol and implements reliance authentication mechanism. It facilitates the functioning of federated identity by allowing a user to use an existing account (e.g. Google, Facebook, Yahoo) to sign into third-party websites without needing to create new credentials. (Source: https://openid.net/).

      Taxonomy – Digital ID ecosystem

      (Alphabetical order)

      Continues...

      Personally identifiable information (PII): PII is a set of attributes which can be used, through direct or indirect means, to infer the real-world identity of the individual whose information is input. E.g. National ID (SSN/SIN/Aadhar) DL, name, date of birth, age, address, age, identifier, university credentials, health condition, email, domain name, website URI (web resolvable) , phone number, credit card number, username/password, public key / private key. (Source: https://www.dol.gov)

      Predicates: The mathematical or logical operations such as equality or greater than on attributes (e.g. prove your salary is greater than x or your age is greater than y) to prove a claim without sharing the actual values.

      Purpose: This dimension of a digital id defines for what purpose digital id can be used. It can be one or many of these – authentication, authorization, activity linking, historical record keeping, social interactions, and machine connectivity for IoT use cases.

      Reliance authentication: Relying on a third-party authentication before providing a service. It is a method followed in a federated entity system.

      Risk-based authentication: A mechanism to protect against account compromise or identity theft. It correlates an authentication request with transitional facts like requester’s location, past frequency of login, etc. to reduce the risk of potential fraud.

      Scheme in trust framework: A specific set of rules (standard and custom) around the use of digital identities and attributes as agreed by one or more organizations. It is useful when those organizations have similar products, services, business processes. (Source: UK Govt. Trust Framework). E.g. Many credit unions agree on how they will use the identity in loan origination and servicing.

      Selective disclosure (Assertion): A way to present one’s identity by sharing only a limited amount information that is critical to make an authentication / authorization decision. E.g. when presenting your credentials, you could share something proving you are 18 years or above, but not share your name, exact age, address, etc.

      Trust: A dimension of an identity, which essentially is a belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of that identity. While in the physical world all acceptable form of identities come with a verified trust, in online domain, it can be unverified. Also, where an identity is only acceptable as per the contract between two entities, but not widely.

      Trust framework: The trust framework is a set of rules that different organizations agree to follow to deliver one or more of their services. This includes legislation, standards, guidance, and the rules in this document. By following these rules, all services and organizations using the trust framework can describe digital identities and attributes they’ve created in a consistent way. This should make it easier for organizations and users to complete interactions and transactions or share information with other trust framework participants. (Source: UK Govt. Trust Framework)

      Taxonomy – Digital ID ecosystem

      (Alphabetical order)

      Continues...

      Uniform resource identifier (URI): A universal name in registered name spaces and addresses referring to registered protocols or name spaces.

      Uniform resource locator (URL): A type of URI which expresses an address which maps onto an access algorithm using network protocols. (Source: https://www.w3.org/)

      Uniform resource name (URN): A type of URI that includes a name within a given namespace but may not be accessible on the internet.

      Usability: A dimension of identity that defines how many times it can be used. While most of the identities are multi-use, a few digital identities are in token form and can be used only once to authenticate oneself.

      Usage mode: A dimension of identity that defines the service mode in which a digital ID can be used. While all digital IDs are made for online usage, many can also be used in offline interactions.

      Verifiable credentials: This W3C standard specification provides a standard way to express credentials on the Web in a way that is cryptographically secure, privacy-respecting, and machine-verifiable. (Source: https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/)

      X.509 Certificates: X.509 certificates are standard digital documents that represent an entity providing a service to another entity. They're issued by a certification authority (CA), subordinate CA, or registration authority. These certificates play an important role in ascertaining the validity of an identity provider and in turn the identities issued by it. (Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-hub/reference-x509-certificates)

      Zero-knowledge proofs: A method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that something is true, without revealing any information apart from the fact that this specific statement is true. (Source: 1989 SIAM Paper)

      Zero-trust security: A cybersecurity paradigm focused on resource protection and the premise that trust is never granted implicitly but must be continually evaluated. It evaluates each access request as if it is a fraud attempt, and grants access only if it passes the authentication and authorization test. (Source: Adapted from NIST, SP 800-207: Zero Trust Architecture, 2020)

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Build a Zero Trust Roadmap
      Leverage an iterative and repeatable process to apply zero trust to your organization.

      Assess and Govern Identity Security
      Strong identity security and governance are the keys to the zero-trust future.

      Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization
      Innovation needs design thinking to ensure customer remains at the center of everything the organization does.

      Social Media
      Leveraging Social Media to connect with your customers and educate them to drive the value proposition of your efforts.

      IT Diversity & Inclusion Tactics
      Equip your teams to create an inclusive environment and mobilize inclusion efforts across the organization.


      Research Contributors and Experts

      David Wallace

      David Wallace
      Executive Counselor

      Erik Avakian

      Erik Avakian
      Technical Counselor, Data Architecture and Governance

      Matthew Bourne

      Matthew Bourne
      Managing Partner, Public Sector Global Services

      Mike Tweedie

      Mike Tweedie
      Practice Lead, CIO Research Development

      Aaron Shum

      Aaron Shum
      Vice President, Security & Privacy

      Works Cited

      India Aadhaar PMJDY (https://pmjdy.gov.in/account)
      Theis, S., Rusconi, G., Panggabean, E., Kelly, S. (2020). Delivering on the Potential of Digitized G2P: Driving Women’s Financial Inclusion and Empowerment through Indonesia’s Program Keluarga Harapan. Women’s World Banking.
      DIACC Canada (https://diacc.ca/the-diacc/)
      UK digital identity & attributes trust framework alpha v2 (0.2) - GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-identity-attributes-trust-framework-updated-version/uk-digital-identity-and-attributes-trust-framework-alpha-version-2)
      Australia Trusted Digital Identity Framework (https://www.digitalidentity.gov.au/tdif#changes)
      eIDAS (https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eidas-regulation)
      Europe Digital Wallet – POTENTIAL (https://www.digital-identity-wallet.eu/)
      Canada PCTF (https://diacc.ca/trust-framework/)
      Identification Revolution: Can Digital ID be harnessed for Development? (Gelb & Metz), 2018
      e-Estonia website (https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/id-card/)
      Aadhaar Dashboard (https://uidai.gov.in/)
      DIACC Website (https://diacc.ca/the-diacc/)
      Australia Digital ID website (https://www.digitalidentity.gov.au/tdif#changes)
      UK Policy paper - digital identity & attributes trust framework (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-identity-attributes-trust-framework-updated-version/uk-digital-identity-and-attributes-trust-framework-alpha-version-2)
      Ukraine Govt. website (https://ukraine.ua/invest-trade/digitalization/)
      Singapore SingPass Website (https://www.tech.gov.sg/products-and-services/singpass/)
      Norway BankID Website (https://www.bankid.no/en/private/about-us/)
      Brazil National ID Card website (https://www.gov.br/casacivil/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2022/julho/nova-carteira-de-identidade-nacional-modelo-unico-a-partir-de-agosto)
      Indonesia Coverage in Professional Security Magazine (https://www.professionalsecurity.co.uk/products/id-cards/indonesian-cards/)
      Philippine ID System (PhilSys) website (https://www.philsys.gov.ph/)
      China coverage on eGovReview (https://www.egovreview.com/article/news/559/china-announces-plans-national-digital-ids)
      Thales Group Website - DHS’s Automated Biometric Identification System IDENT (https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/digital-identity-and-security/government/customer-cases/ident-automated-biometric-identification-system)
      FranceConnect (https://franceconnect.gouv.fr/)
      Germany: Office for authorization cert. (https://www.personalausweisportal.de/Webs/PA/DE/startseite/startseite-node.html)
      Italian Digital Services Authority (https://www.spid.gov.it/en/)
      Monacco Mconnect (https://mconnect.gouv.mc/en)
      Estonia eID (https://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/e-estonia-211022_eng.pdf)
      E-Residency Dashboard (https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/dashboard)
      Unique ID authority of India (https://uidai.gov.in/aadhaar_dashboard/india.php)
      State of Aadhaar (https://www.stateofaadhaar.in/)
      World Bank (https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/219201522848336907/pdf/Private-Sector-Economic-Impacts-from-Identification-Systems.pdf)
      WorldBank - ID4D 2022 Annual Report (https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099437402012317995/idu00fd54093061a70475b0a3b50dd7e6cdfe147)
      Ukraine Govt. Website for Invest and trade (https://ukraine.ua/invest-trade/digitalization/)
      Diia Case study prepared for the office of Canadian senator colin deacon (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63851cbda1515c69b8a9a2b9/t/6398f63a9d78ae73d2fd5725/1670968891441/2022-case-study-report-diia-mobile-application.pdf)
      Canadian Digital Identity Research (https://diacc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/DIACC-2021-Research-Report-ENG.pdf)
      Voilà Verified Trustmark (https://diacc.ca/voila-verified/)
      Digital Identity, 06A Federation Onboarding Guidance paper, March 2022 (https://www.digitalidentity.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-04/TDIF%2006A%20Federation%20Onboarding%20Guidance%20-%20Release%204.6%20%28Doc%20Version%201.2%29.pdf)
      UK digital identity & attributes trust framework alpha v2 (0.2) - GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-identity-attributes-trust-framework-updated-version/uk-digital-identity-and-attributes-trust-framework-alpha-version-2)
      A United Nations Estimate of KYC/AML (https://www.imf.org/Publications/fandd/issues/2018/12/imf-anti-money-laundering-and-economic-stability-straight)
      India Aadhaar PMJDY (https://pmjdy.gov.in/account)
      Global News (https://globalnews.ca/news/9437913/homeowner-impersonators-lined-32-fraud-cases-ontario-bc/)
      UK Finance Lobby Group (https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/Half-year-fraud-update-2021-FINAL.pdf) McKinsey Digital ID report ( https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/digital-identification-a-key-to-inclusive-growth) International Peace Institute ( https://www.ipinst.org/2016/05/information-technology-and-governance-estonia#7)
      E-Estonia Report (https://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/e-estonia-211022_eng.pdf)
      2022 Budget Statement (https://diacc.ca/2022/04/07/2022-budget-statement/)
      World Bank ID4D - Private Sector Economic Impacts from Identification Systems 2018 (https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/219201522848336907/Private-Sector-Economic-Impacts-from-Identification-Systems.pdf)
      DIACC Canada (https://diacc.ca/the-diacc/)
      UK digital identity & attributes trust framework alpha v2 (0.2) - GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-identity-attributes-trust-framework-updated-version/uk-digital-identity-and-attributes-trust-framework-alpha-version-2)
      https://www.gsma.com/identity/decentralised-identity
      https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/photos/1440x300/2022/feb/eID_WB_presentation_BS.pdf
      Microsoft Digital signatures and certificates (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/digital-signatures-and-certificates-8186cd15-e7ac-4a16-8597-22bd163e8e96)
      https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/photos/1440x300/2022/feb/eID_WB_presentation_BS.pdf
      https://www.dona.net/digitalobjectarchitecture
      IAM (https://iam.harvard.edu/)
      NIST Special Publication 800-63A (https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63a.html)
      https://www.cisa.gov/publication/multi-factor-authentication-mfa
      https://openid.net/
      U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR (https://www.dol.gov/)
      UK govt. trust framework (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-digital-identity-attributes-trust-framework-updated-version/uk-digital-identity-and-attributes-trust-framework-alpha-version-2)
      https://www.w3.org/
      Verifiable Credentials Data Model v1.1 (https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/)
      https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-hub/reference-x509-certificates

      Build Better Workflows

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}496|cart{/j2store}
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      • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
      • Parent Category Link: /service-desk

      Do you experience any of the following challenges:

      • You lack process documentation.
      • Your documentation lacks flowchart examples.
      • Your workflows have points of friction and need improvement.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Don’t just document – target your future state as you document your workflows.
      • Find opportunities for automation, pinpoint key handoff points, and turn cold handoffs into warm handoffs

      Impact and Result

      • Understand the basics of documenting a workflow in flowchart format.
      • Run activities to revise and stress-test your workflows to improve their accuracy and effectiveness.
      • Ensure your workflows are part of a continuous improvement cycle – keep them up to date as a living document.

      Build Better Workflows Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Build Better Workflows – A step by step document that walks you through the process of convening a working group to design and update a process flowchart.

      Ask the right questions and pressure test the workflow so the documentation is as helpful as possible to all who consult it.

      • Build Better Workflows Storyboard

      2. Workflow Activity: An onboarding example for a completed flowchart review.

      Use this workflow as an example of the output of an onboarding workflow-improvement activity.

      • Workflow Activity: Onboarding Example (Visio)
      • Workflow Activity: Onboarding Example (PDF)
      [infographic]

      Further reading

      Build Better Workflows

      Go beyond draft one to refine and pressure test your process.

      Analyst Perspective

      Remove friction as you document workflows

      Emily Sugerman

      Emily Sugerman
      Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations

      Info-Tech Research Group

      You can’t mature processes without also documenting them. Process documentation is most effective when workflows are both written out and also visualized in the form of flow charts.

      Your workflows may appear in standard operating procedures, in business continuity and disaster recovery plans, or anywhere else a process’ steps need to be made explicit. Often, just getting something down on paper is a win. However, the best workflows usually do not emerge fully-formed out of a first draft. Your workflow documentation must achieve two things:

      • Be an accurate representation of how you currently operate or how you will operate in the near future as a target state.
      • Be the output of a series of refinements and improvements as the workflow is reviewed and iterated.

      This research will use the example of improving an onboarding workflow. Ask the right questions and pressure test the workflow so the documentation is as helpful as possible to all who consult it.

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      Common Obstacles

      Info-Tech’s Approach
      • Your documentation lacks workflows entirely, or ...
      • Your workflows are documented in flowchart form but are not accurate, and/or ...
      • Your workflows are documented in flowchart form but contain points of friction and need process improvement.
      • Getting the relevant stakeholders together to contribute to workflow design and validate them.
      • Selecting the right detail level to include in the workflow – not too much and not too little.
      • Knowing the right questions to ask to review and improve your workflow flowcharts.

      Use this material to help

      • Understand the basics of documenting a workflow in flowchart format.
      • Run activities to revise and stress-test your workflows to improve their accuracy and effectiveness.
      • Ensure your workflows are part of a continuous improvement cycle – keep them up-to-date as a living document.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Don’t just document – target your future state as you document your workflows. Find opportunities for automation, pinpoint key handoff points, and turn cold handoffs into warm handoffs.

      Follow these steps to build, analyze, and improve the workflow

      The image contains a screenshot of a diagram that demonstrates the steps needed to build better workflows.

      Insight Summary

      Keep future state in mind.
      Don’t just document – target your future state as you document your workflows. Find opportunities for automation, pinpoint key handoff points, and turn cold handoffs into warm handoffs.

      Promote the benefits of documenting workflows as flowcharts.
      Foreground to the IT team how this will improve customer experience. End-users will benefit from more efficient workflows.

      Remember the principle of constructive criticism.
      Don’t be afraid to critique the workflow but remember this can be a team-building experience. Focus on how these changes will be mutually beneficial, not assigning blame for workflow friction.

      Don’t waste time building shelfware.
      Establish a review cadence to ensure the flowchart is a living document that people actually use.

      Benefits of building better workflows

      Risks of inadequate workflows

      Benefits of documented workflows

      • Lack of clear communication: If you don’t have workflows, you are losing out on an effective way to document and communicate processes.
      • Outdated documentation: If you do have workflows documented in standard operating procedures, they probably need to be updated unless you already consistently update documentation.
      • Facilitate knowledge transfer.
      • Standardize processes for service delivery consistency.
      • Optimize processes by discovering and improving points of friction within the workflow.
      • Improve transparency of processes to set expectations for other stakeholders.
      • Reduce risk.

      Why are visualized workflows useful?

      Use these talking points to build commitment toward documenting/updating processes.

      Risk reduction
      “Our outdated documentation is a risk, as people will assume the documented process is accurate.”

      Transparency
      “The activity of mapping our processes will bring transparency to everyone involved.”

      Accountability
      “Flow charts will help us clarify task ownership at a glance.”

      Accessibility
      “Some team members prefer diagrams over written steps, so we should provide both.”

      Knowledge centralization
      “Our flow charts will include links to other supporting documentation (checklists, vendor documentation, other flowcharts).”

      Role clarification
      “Separating steps into swim lanes can clarify different tiers, process stages, and ownership, while breaking down silos.”

      Communication
      To leadership/upper management: “This process flow chart quickly depicts the big picture.”

      Knowledge transfer
      “Flow charts will help bring new staff up to speed more quickly.”

      Consistency
      “Documenting a process standardizes it and enables everyone to do it in the same way.”

      Review what process mapping is

      A pictorial representation of a process that is used to achieve transparency.

      This research will use one specific example of an onboarding process workflow. Before drilling down into onboarding workflows specifically, review Info-Tech’s Process Mapping Guide for general guidance on what to do before you begin:

      • Know the purpose of process mapping.
      • Articulate the benefits of process mapping.
      • Recognize the risks of not process mapping.
      • Understand the different levels of processes.
      • Adopt BPMN 2.0 as a standard.
      • Consider tools for process mapping.
      • Select a process to map.
      • Learn methods to gather information.

      The image contains screenshots of the Process Mapping Guide.

      Download the Process Mapping Guide

      Select the workflow your team will focus upon

      Good candidates include:

      • Processes you don’t have documented and need to build from scratch.
      • An existing process that results in an output your users are currently dissatisfied with (if you run an annual IT satisfaction survey, use this data to find this information).
      • An existing process that is overly manual, lacks automation, and causes work slowdown for your staff.

      Info-Tech workflow examples

      Active Directory Processes

      Application Development Process

      Application Maintenance Process

      Backup Process

      Benefits Legitimacy Workflow

      Business Continuity Plan Business Process

      Business Continuity Plan Recovery Process

      Commitment Purchasing Workflow

      Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Process

      Crisis Management Process

      Data Protection Recovery Workflow

      Disaster Recovery Process

      Disaster Recovery Plan/Business Continuity Plan Review Workflow

      End-User Device Management Workflow Library

      Expense Process

      Event Management Process

      Incident Management and Service Desk Workflows

      MACD Workflow Mapping

      Problem Management Process

      Project Management Process

      Ransomware Response Process

      Sales Process for New Clients

      Security Policy Exception Process

      Self-Service Resolution Process

      Service Definition Process

      Service Desk Ticket Intake by Channel

      Software Asset Management Processes

      Target State Maintenance Workflow

      Example: Onboarding workflow

      Onboarding is a perennial challenge due to the large number of separate teams and departments who are implicated in the process.

      There can be resistance to alignment. As a result, everyone needs to be pulled in to see the big picture and the impact of an overly manual and disconnected process.

      Additionally, the quality of the overall onboarding process (of which IT is but one part) has a significant impact on the employee experience of new hires, and the long-term experience of those employees. This workflow is therefore often a good one to target for improvement.

      “Organizations with a standardized onboarding process experience 62% greater new hire productivity, along with 50% greater new hire retention.”1

      “Companies that focus on onboarding retain 50% more new employees than companies that don’t.”2

      1. Carucci, “To Retain New Hires, Spend More Time Onboarding Them,” 2018
      2. Uzialko, “What Does Poor Onboarding, 2023

      Tabletop exercise: Generate first draft

      In the tabletop exercise, your team will walk through your onboarding process step by step and document what happens at each stage. Prep for this meeting with the following steps:

      1. Identify roles: facilitator, notetaker, and participants. Determine who should be involved in the working group in addition to IT (HR, Hiring Team, Facilities, etc.).
      2. Decide what method of documentation you will use in the meeting. If meeting in person, cue cards are useful because they can be easily rearranged or inserted. If meeting remotely, the notetaker or facilitator will need to share their screen and capture each step with software (such as Visio, PowerPoint, or a whiteboarding software).
      3. Before you even begin mapping out the process, conduct a quick brainstorming session. What are your current challenges with it? What is working? Document on a whiteboard (electronic or hard copy).
      4. Document each step of the process as it currently happens. You will improve it later. Include task ownership.

      Roles

      Facilitator
      Tasks:

      • Guide discussion – restate contributors’ ideas, ask probing questions.
      • Keep group on track – cut off or redirect conversation when off track.

      Notetaker
      Tasks:

      • Ensure the steps are documented via the agreed-upon tools (e.g. cue cards). If the process is being documented in software, the notetaker may be solely responsible for documentation.
      • The notetaker may be the same person as the facilitator.

      Document your workflow challenges: Onboarding

      Brainstorm and document. Group similar challenges together to pull out themes.

      Lack of communication/expectation setting with users:

      Messy process, poor coordination among task owners:

      User experience affected:
      • Users submit onboarding requests with too little lead time.
      • HR/hiring manager does not include all necessary information when submitting new hire request.
      • Approvals are slowing down our ability to fulfill in a timely manner.
      • Lots of manual, repeated tasks.
      • Too much back and forth between technicians.
      • Procurement delays (supply chain challenges) leading to new user starting with no device/workaround.
      • Inconsistent resolution times for these types of requests.
      • Complaints about onboarding were one of the most frequently recurring issues in our most recent annual IT satisfaction survey.
      • Some of these complaints fall more to the responsibility of HR and direct managers, but some of the complaints relate to onboarding tasks not being completed by start date, which is our responsibility.

      Establish flowcharting standards

      If you don’t have existing flowchart standards, use the basic notation conventions used in the examples here.

      Basic notation convention shapes: Circle, oval, square, rectangle, diamond, thought bubble.

      Start, End, and Connector. Traditional flowcharting standards reserve this shape for connectors to other flowcharts or other points in the existing flowchart. Unified modeling language (UML) also uses the circle for start and end points.

      Start, End. Traditional flowcharting standards use this for start and end. However, Info-Tech recommends using the circle shape to reduce the number of shapes and avoid confusion with other similar shapes.

      Process Step. Individual process steps or activities (e.g. create ticket or escalate ticket). If it’s a series of steps, then use the sub-process symbol and flowchart the sub-process separately.

      Sub-Process. A series of steps. For example, a critical incident standard operating procedure (SOP) might reference a recovery process as one of the possible actions. Marking it as a sub-process, rather than listing each step within the critical incident SOP, streamlines the flowchart and avoids overlap with other flowcharts (e.g. the recovery process).

      Decision. Represents decision points, typically with yes/no branches, but you could have other branches depending on the question (e.g. a “Priority” question could branch into separate streams for Priority 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 issues).

      Document/Report Output. For example, the output from a backup process might include an error log.

      Map the current process

      Prompt the working group with the following questions.

      • What happens when the ticket comes in? Who submits it? Where is it coming from? What are the trigger events? Are there any input channels we should eliminate?
      • What is the terminal event? Where does the workflow end?
      • Do we have a triage step?
      • Is the ticket prioritized? Does this need to be a step?
      • Do we create child tickets? Separate tasks for different teams? Do we create a primary/main ticket and sub-tickets? How should we represent this in the flowchart?
      • How should we represent escalations? How should we represent task ownership by different teams?
      • What are our decision points: points when the path can potentially branch (e.g. into yes/no branches)?

      Map the process: First pass

      The image contains a screenshot example of the first pass.

      Tabletop exercise: Revise workflow

      Time to review and revise the workflow. What gaps exist? How can you improve the process? What documentation gaps have been overlooked?

      Consider the following refinements for the onboarding workflow:

      • Identify missing steps
      • Clearly identify task ownership
      • Establish SLAs and timepoints
      • Capture/implement user feedback
      • Identify approval roadblocks
      • Identify communication points
      • Identify opportunities for automation
      • Create personas
      • Create onboarding checklist

      Roles

      Facilitator
      Tasks:

      • Guide discussion – restate contributors’ ideas, ask probing questions.
      • Keep group on track – cut off or redirect conversation when off track.

      Notetaker
      Tasks:

      • Ensure the steps are documented via the agreed-upon tools (e.g. cue cards). If the process is being documented in software, the notetaker may be solely responsible for documentation.
      • The notetaker may be the same person as the facilitator, but this takes some practice.

      Map the process: Critique draft

      The image contains a screenshot example of critique draft.

      Solicit feedback from the group.

      "

      • Our workflow is slowed down by hidden approvals that we haven’t mapped.
      • We have no efficient way to prevent submission of incomplete requests.
      • Our workflow doesn’t clearly show how different tasks are assigned to different teams.
      • We still don’t know how long this all takes.
      • We’re missing some tasks – what about including facilities?
      • We’re missing next steps for some of the decision points.
      "

      Review: Identify missing steps

      Consider the following refinements.

      Be complete.

      The workflow should surface tacit knowledge, so make it explicit (Haddadpoor et al.):

      • Where are the inputs coming from? Do you need to account for various input channels? Have you forgotten any?
      • Are there any input channels that you want to eliminate?
      • Have you overlooked any hardware, software, or services entitlements that should be called out?
      • Have all decision paths been worked through? Do you need to add any missing decision points?
      • Add information flows and annotations as needed.

      Review: Task ownership

      Identify task ownership.

      The flow chart will be more useful if it clearly identifies who does what in the process.

      • Consider organizing the sub-processes within the overall onboarding process into swim lanes, one for each team or group involved in the process.
      • Swim lanes help clarify who does what in the overall process (e.g. all the tasks completed by HR appear in the HR swim lane, all the tasks completed by service desk appear in the service desk swim lane).
      • They can also help draw attention to escalation points or handoff points between different teams. Assess the steps around the boundary of each swim lane. Does the working group experience/know of friction at these handoff points? What might solve it?
      • In what order should the tasks occur? What dependencies do they have?

      The image contains a screenshot of a model that demonstrates task ownership swim lanes.

      “Each task has an owner, and the task list is visible to the employee and other stakeholders, so there's visibility about whether each person has done their actions.”

      Matthew Stibbe, qtd. in Zapier, 2022

      Review: The time the workflow takes

      For onboarding, this means setting SLOs/SLAs and internal timepoints.

      Add internal timepoints for the major steps/tasks in the workflow. Begin to track these service level objectives and adjust as necessary.

      • Review old onboarding tickets and track how long each main step/task takes (or should take). Every additional approval risks adding days.
      • Consider where there are opportunities to increase automation or use templates to save time.
      • Zero in on which task within the onboarding workflow is slowing down the process.
      • Create an overall service level objective that communicates how many days the onboarding workflow is expected to take. Decide where escalations go when the SLA is breached.

      When you have validated the service level objectives are accurate and you can meet them an acceptable amount of time, communicate the overall SLA to your users. This will ensure they submit future onboarding requests to your team with enough lead time to fulfill the request. Try to place the SLA directly in the service catalog.

      “Tracking the time within the workflow can be a powerful way to show the working group why there is user dissatisfaction.”

      Sandi Conrad, Principal Advisory Director, Info-Tech Research Group

      Review: Capture user feedback

      For onboarding, this means implementing a transactional survey.

      The onboarding workflow will be subject to periodic reviews and continual improvement. Suggestions for improvement should come not only from the internal IT team, but also the users themselves.

      • Transactional surveys, launched at the close of a ticket, allow the ticket submitter to provide feedback on their customer service experience.
      • Onboarding tickets are somewhat more complex than the average incident or service request, since the ticket is often opened by one user (e.g. in HR) on behalf of another (the new employee).
      • Decide whose experience you want feedback on – the submitter of the request or the new user. Investigate your ITSM tool’s capabilities: is it possible to direct the survey to someone who is not the ticket submitter?
      Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback

      Use Info-Tech’s Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback for more guidance on creating these surveys.

      Review: Identify approval roadblocks

      For onboarding, approvals can be the main roadblock to fulfilling requests

      • How are the requests coming in? Do we have a predefined service catalog?
      • What kinds of approvals do we receive (manager, financial, legal, security, regulatory)? Ask the team to think about where there are instances of back and forth and clean that up.
      • Identify where approvals interrupt the technical flow.
        • Confirm that these approvals are indeed necessary (e.g. are certain approval requests ever declined? If not, follow up on whether they are necessary or whether some can be made into preapprovals).
        • Avoid putting agents in charge of waiting on or following up about approvals.
        • Investigate whether interruptive approvals can be moved.

      Review: Identify communication points

      A positive onboarding experience is an important part of a new employee’s success.

      Though IT is only one part of an employee’s onboarding experience, it’s an important part. Delays for hardware procurement and a lack of communication can lead to employee disengagement. Ask the team:

      • Are we communicating with our users when delays occur? When do delays occur most often?
      • How can we mitigate delays? Though we can’t resolve larger supply chain problems, can we increase stock in the meantime?
      • Can we start tracking delays to incorporate into the SLA
      • Do we offer loaner devices in the meantime?

      Place communication bullet points in the flow chart to indicate where the team will reach out to users to update or notify them of delays.

      Review: Identify opportunities for automation

      Where can we automate for onboarding?

      Identify when the process is dragged out due to waiting times (e.g. times when the technician can’t address the ticket right away).

      • Analyze the workflow to identify which tasks tend to stagnate because technician is busy elsewhere. Are these candidates for automation?
      • Is our ITSM tool capable of setting up automatically routed child tickets triggered by the main onboarding ticket? Does it generate a series of tasks? Is it a manual process? Which teams do these tasks/tickets go to?
      • Can we automate notifications if devices are delayed?
      • Can we use mobile device management for automated software installation?
      • If we have a robust service catalog, can we provide it to the users to download what they need? Or is this too many extra steps for our users?
      • Can we create personas to speed up onboarding?

      Avoid reinforcing manual processes, which make it even harder for departmental silos to work together.

      Review: Automation example – create personas

      Create role-based templates.

      Does HR know which applications our users need? Are they deferring to the manager, who then asks IT to simply duplicate an existing user?

      Personas are asset profiles that apply to multiple users (e.g. in a department) and that can be easily duplicated for new hires. You might create three persona groups in a department, with variations within each subgroup or title. To do this, you need accurate information upfront.

      Then, if you’re doing zero touch deployment, you can automate software to automatically load.

      Many HRIS systems have the ability to create a persona, and also to add users to the AD, email, and distribution groups without IT getting involved. This can alleviate work from the sysadmin. Does our HRIS do this?

      • Review old onboarding tickets. Do they include manual steps like setting up mailboxes, creating user accounts, adding to groups?
      • Investigate your ITSM tool’s onboarding template. Does it allow you to create a form through which to create dynamic required fields?
      • Identify the key information service desk needs from the department supervisor, or equivalent role, to begin the onboarding request – employee type, access level, hardware and software entitlements, etc.

      Revised workflow

      How does the group feel about the revised workflow?

      • Are any outputs still missing?
      • Can we add any more annotations to provide more context to someone reading this for the first time?
      • Do the task names follow a “verb-noun” format?
      • Are the handoffs clear?
      • Are some of the steps overly detailed compared to others?
      • Does it help resolve the challenges we listed?
      • Does it achieve the benefits we want to achieve?

      Download the Workflow Activity: Onboarding Example

      Remember the principle of constructive criticism.

      Don’t be afraid to critique the workflow but remember this can also be a team-building experience. Focus on how these changes will be mutually beneficial, not assigning blame for workflow friction.

      Post-review: Revised workflow

      The image contains a screenshot example of a revised workflow.

      Final check

      • Do we need to run this by Legal?
      • Have we included too many sub-processes? Not enough?
      • Is the flowchart easy to read and follow?

      Decide how often this workflow will be revised.

      • Is this workflow part of a larger piece of documentation that has a set review cadence? Where is it stored?
      • If not, what is a realistic time frame for regular review?
      • Who will own this process in an ongoing way and be in charge of convening a future review working group?

      Validation with stakeholders

      • What documentation does the flowchart belong to? When will you review it again?
      • Who do you need to validate the flowchart with?

      Share the flowchart and set up a review meeting.

      • Walk through the workflow with stakeholders who did not participate in building it.
      • Do they find it easy to follow?
      • Can they identify missing steps?

      Don’t waste time building shelfware.

      Establish a review cadence to ensure the flowchart is a living document that people actually use.

      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

      Bibliography

      Bushkill, Claire. “The top 5 ways to automate your onboarding checklist.” Rippling Blog. 18 Mar 2022. Accessed 29 Nov 2022. Ha https://www.rippling.com/blog/the-top-5-ways-to-automate-your-onboarding-checklist
      Carucci, Ron. “To Retain New Hires, Spend More Time Onboarding Them.” Harvard Business Review, 3 Dec 2018
      Haddadpoor, Asefeh, et al. “Process Documentation: A Model for Knowledge Management in Organizations.” Materia Socio-Medica, vol. 27, no. 5, Oct. 2015, pp. 347–50. PubMed Central, https://doi.org/10.5455/msm.2015.27.347-350.
      King, Melissa. “New hire checklist: An employee onboarding checklist template for 2022.” Zapier. 14 Jul 2022. Accessed 29 Nov 2022. https://zapier.com/blog/onboarding-checklist/
      Uzialko, Adam. “What Does Poor Onboarding Really Do to Your Team?” Business News Daily. 23 Jan 2023.
      https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk...

      Contributors

      Sandi Conrad, Principal Advisory Director, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

      Christine Coz, Executive Counselor, Info-Tech Research Group

      Allison Kinnaird, Practice Lead, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

      Natalie Sansone, Research Director, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

      Stabilize Release and Deployment Management

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      • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
      • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management

      Lack of control over the release process, poor collaboration between teams, and manual deployments lead to poor quality releases at a cost to the business.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Manage risk. Release management should stabilize the IT environment. A poorly designed release can take down the whole business. Rushing releases out the door leads to increased risk for the business.
      • Quality processes are key. Standardized process will enable your release and deployment management teams to have a framework to deploy new releases with minimal chance of costly downtime further down the production chain.
      • Business must own the process. Release managers need oversight of the business to remain good stewards of the release management process.

      Impact and Result

      • Be prepared with a release management policy. With vulnerabilities discovered and published at an alarming pace, organizations have to build a plan to address and fix them quickly. A detailed release and patch policy should map out all the logistics of the deployment in advance, so that when necessary, teams can handle rollouts like a well-oiled machine.
      • Automate your software deployment and patch management strategy. Replace tedious and time-consuming manual processes with the use of automated release and patch management tools. Some organizations have a variety of release tools for various tasks and processes to ensure all or most of the required processes are covered across a diverse development environment.
      • Test deployments and monitor your releases. Larger organizations may have the luxury of a test environment prior to deployment, but that may be cost prohibitive for smaller organizations. If resources are a constraint, roll out the patch gradually and closely monitor performance to be able to quickly revert in the event of an issue.

      Stabilize Release and Deployment Management Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should control and stabilize your release and deployment management practice while improving the quality of releases and deployments, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Analyze current state

      Begin improving release management by assessing the current state and gaining a solid understanding of how core operational processes are actually functioning within the organization.

      • Stabilize Release and Deployment Management – Phase 1: Analyze Current State
      • Release Management Maturity Assessment
      • Release Management Project Roadmap Tool
      • Release Management Workflow Library (Visio)
      • Release Management Workflow Library (PDF)
      • Release Management Standard Operating Procedure
      • Patch Management Policy
      • Release Management Policy
      • Release Management Deployment Tracker
      • Release Management Build Procedure Template

      2. Plan releases and deployments

      Plan releases to gather all the pieces in one place and define what, why, when, and how a release will happen.

      • Stabilize Release and Deployment Management – Phase 2: Release and Deployment Planning

      3. Build, test, deploy

      Take a holistic and comprehensive approach to effectively designing and building releases. Get everything right the first time.

      • Stabilize Release and Deployment Management – Phase 3: Build, Test, Deploy

      4. Measure, manage, improve

      Determine desired goals for release management to ensure both IT and the business see the benefits of implementation.

      • Stabilize Release and Deployment Management – Phase 4: Measure, Manage, Improve
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Stabilize Release and Deployment Management

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Analyze Current State

      The Purpose

      Release management improvement begins with assessment of the current state.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A solid understanding of how core operational processes are actually functioning within the organization.

      Activities

      1.1 Evaluate process maturity.

      1.2 Assess release management challenges.

      1.3 Define roles and responsibilities.

      1.4 Review and rightsize existing policy suite.

      Outputs

      Maturity Assessment

      Release Management Policy

      Release Management Standard Operating Procedure

      Patch Management Policy

      2 Release Management Planning

      The Purpose

      In simple terms, release planning puts all the pertinent pieces in one place.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      It defines the what, why, when, and how a release will happen.

      Activities

      2.1 Design target state release planning process.

      2.2 Define, bundle, and categorize releases.

      2.3 Standardize deployment plans and models.

      Outputs

      Release Planning Workflow

      Categorization and prioritization schemes

      Deployment models aligned to release types

      3 Build, Test, and Deploy

      The Purpose

      Take a holistic and comprehensive approach to effectively designing and building releases.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Standardize build and test procedures to begin to drive consistency.

      Activities

      3.1 Standardize build procedures for deployments.

      3.2 Standardize test plans aligned to release types.

      Outputs

      Build procedure for hardware and software releases

      Test models aligned to deployment models

      4 Measure, Manage, and Improve

      The Purpose

      Determine and define the desired goals for release management as a whole.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Agree to key metrics and success criteria to start tracking progress and establish a post-deployment review process to promote continual improvement.

      Activities

      4.1 Determine key metrics to track progress.

      4.2 Establish a post-deployment review process.

      4.3 Understand and define continual improvement drivers.

      Outputs

      List of metrics and goals

      Post-deployment validation checklist

      Project roadmap

      Craft a Customer-Driven Market Strategy With Unbiased Data

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      • Parent Category Name: Selection & Implementation
      • Parent Category Link: /selection-and-implementation
      • Market strategies are informed by gut feel and endless brainstorming instead of market data to take their product from concept to customer.
      • Hiring independent market research firms results in a lack of unbiased third-party data. Research firms tell vendors what they want to hear instead of offering an agnostic view of software trends.
      • Dissatisfied customers don’t tell you directly why they are leaving, so there is no feedback loop back into product improvements.
      • Often a market strategy is built after a product is developed to force the product’s fit in the market. The product marketing team has no say in the product vision or future improvements.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Adopt the 5 P’s to building a winning market strategy: Proposition, Product, Pricing, Placement, and Promotion.
      • You can’t be everything to everyone. Testing your proposition in the market to see what sticks is a risky move. Promise future value using past successes by gaining a deeper understanding of which customers and submarkets truly align to your product.
      • Customers have learned to avoid shiny new objects but still expect rapid feature releases. Differentiating features require a closer look at the underpinning vendor capabilities. Having intentional feature releases requires a feedback loop into the product roadmap and increases influence by the product marketing team.
      • Price transparency and sensitivity should drive what you offer to customers. Negotiating solely on price is a race to the bottom.

      Impact and Result

      • Leverage this report to gain insights on the software selection process and what top vendors do best.
      • Gain a bird’s-eye view on customer purchasing behavior using over 40,000 data points on satisfaction and importance collected directly from the source.
      • Build a winning market strategy influenced by real customer data that drives vendor success.

      Craft a Customer-Driven Market Strategy With Unbiased Data Research & Tools

      Read the storyboard

      Read our storyboard to find out why you should leverage SoftwareReviews data to craft your market strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand unbiased customer data on software purchasing triggers.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      • Craft a Customer-Driven Market Strategy With Unbiased Data Storyboard
      [infographic]

      Gain Real Insights with a Social Analytics Program

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      • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
      • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
      • Social media is wildly popular with consumers and as a result, many businesses are starting to develop a presence on social media services like Facebook and Twitter. However, many businesses still struggle with understanding how to leverage consumer insights from these services to drive business decisions. They’re intimidated by the sheer volume of social data, and aren’t sure what to do about it.
      • Companies that do have an analytics program are often operating it on an ad-hoc basis rather than making an effort to integrate social insights with existing sourcing of consumer data. In doing this, they’re failing to make holistic decisions and missing out on valuable consumer and competitive insights.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Social analytics are indispensable in gaining real-time insights across marketing, sales, and customer service. SMBs can use social analytics to gain valuable consumer insights at a significantly lower expense than traditional forms of market research.
      • The greatest value from social analytics comes when organizations marry social data sources with other forms of customer information, such as point-of-sale data, customer surveys, focus groups, and psychographic profiles.
      • Social analytics must be integrated with your broader BI program for maximum effect. Consider creating a Customer Insights Center of Excellence (CICOE) to serve as a one-stop shop for both traditional and social customer analytics.
      • IT has an invaluable role to play in helping to govern and manage the analytics program. A best-of-breed Social Media Management Platform is the key enabling technology for conducting analytics, and IT must assist with selection, implementation and operation of this solution.
      • Internal social analytics is an emerging field that allows you to gauge the sentiment of your employees, while turbocharging ideation and feedback processes. Social networking analysis is particularly valuable for internal analysis.

      Impact and Result

      • Understand the value of a social analytics program and the various departmental use cases – how social analytics improves decision making and boosts critical KPIs like revenue attainment and customer satisfaction.
      • Determine the different social metrics (such as sentiment and frequency analysis) your business should be tracking and how to turn metrics into deep consumer insights.
      • Follow a step-by-step guide for successfully executing a social analytics program across your organization.
      • Roll out an internal analytics program to gauge the sentiment of your employees, improve engagement, and understand informal influencer networks.

      Gain Real Insights with a Social Analytics Program Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Determine the organization’s use cases

      Decide which functional areas in the organization will benefit the most from using social data, and create use cases accordingly.

      • Storyboard: Gain Real Insights with a Social Analytics Program

      2. Define and interpret metrics

      Identify and evaluate key social analytics metrics and understand the importance of combining multiple metrics to get the most out of the analytics program.

      • Social Analytics Maturity Assessment

      3. Execute the social analytics program

      Leverage a cross-departmental Social Media Steering Committee and evaluate SMMPs and other social analytics tools.

      • Social Analytics Specialist
      • Social Analytics Business Plan

      4. Leverage internal social analytics

      Identify specific uses of internal social analytics: crowd-sourcing ideation, harvesting employee feedback, and rewarding internal brand advocates.

      [infographic]

      Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan

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      • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
      • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
      • Many organizations do not have developed plans for how to turn on-premises employees into remote workers in an emergency.
      • In an emergency situation, such as a pandemic, sending employees home to work remotely without time to prepare presents daunting challenges, such as trying to comprehend and prioritize the myriad of tasks that need accomplishing for human resources, the business, and IT in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world.
      • Security issues may arise from employees not used to working remotely. Indeed, employees sent home to work remotely in an emergency may not have been eligible otherwise. This creates security risks, including the proliferation of shadow IT.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • The emergency will restructure the business: make sure it’s done right. While your organization may need quick fixes for day one of an emergency remote work plan, these are not viable long-term solutions. The emergency will vividly reinforce to the business side that more resources need to be directed to IT to enable strong business continuity and employee safety. Make sure the right plan is put in place during the crucial first weeks. The next emergency is just around the corner.
      • Prioritize key business processes. Before getting into the details of a work from home policy, identify which crucial business processes need to continue for the company to survive. Build the remote work policy around supporting those workflows.
      • Where the “carrot” is not possible, emergencies may require the “stick.” To ensure secure endpoints and prevent proliferation of shadow IT, you may need to enforce certain rules through policy. However, disenfranchising employees is not a long-term solution: once the emergency subsides, use this basis to explore end-user requirements properly and ensure employee-driven adoption plans. Where possible, for this latter scenario, always use the carrot.

      Impact and Result

      • A prioritized plan for IT processes through Info-Tech’s cascading responsibility checklists for emergency remote work.
      • A codified emergency remote work policy document to better prepare for future emergencies.

      Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan Research & Tools

      Start here

      Read our concise Executive Brief for why you need prioritized emergency remote work checklists and an accompanying policy document and review Info-Tech’s methodology.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      • Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan Storyboard

      1. Day one preparations

      Prioritize key action items on day one of sending your employees home to remotely work during an emergency.

      • Emergency Remote Work Plan Checklists
      • Home Office Survey
      • Checklist for Securing Remote Workers
      • None
      • Remote Access Policy
      • Equipment Loan Policy
      • None
      • Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users – Phases 1-2
      • Remote Work Assignment Log
      • Wiki Collection for Collaboration Tools
      • Pandemic Preparation: The People Playbook

      2. One-to-two weeks preparations

      Address key action items in the one-to-two weeks following an emergency that forced your employees to work remotely.

      • None

      3. Codify an emergency remote work policy

      Turn your emergency remote work checklists into policy.

      • Emergency Remote Work Policy
      • Execute an Emergency Remote Work Plan Executive Presentation
      [infographic]

      IT Operations Consulting

      Operations... make sure that the services and products you offer your clients are delivered in the most efficient way possible. IT Operations makes sure that the applications and infrastructure that your delivery depends on is solid.

      Gert Taeymans has over 20 years experience in directing the implementation and management of mission-critical services for businesses in high-volume international markets. Strong track record in risk management, crisis management including disaster recovery, service delivery and change & config management.

      Register to read more …

      Enterprise Application Selection and Implementation

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      • Parent Category Name: Applications
      • Parent Category Link: /applications
      • byline: Govern and manage an enterprise software implementation.

      The challenge

      • Large scale implementations are prone to failure. This is probably also true in your company. Typically large endeavors like this overrun the budget, are late to deliver, or are abandoned altogether. It would be best if you manage your risks when starting such a new project.

      Our advice

      Insight

      • Large-scale software implementations continue to fail at very high rates. A recent report by McKinsey & Company estimates that 66% go over budget, 33% over time, and 17% delivered less value than expected. Most companies will survive a botched implementation, but 17% threatened the existence of the company involved.
      • With all the knowledge sharing that we have today with oodles of data at our disposal, we should expect IT-providers to have clear, standardized frameworks to handle these implementations. But projects that overrun by more than 200% still occur more often than you may think.
      • When you solicit a systems integrator (SI), you want to equip yourself to manage the SI and not be utterly dependent on their methodology.

      Impact and results 

      • You can assume proper accountability for the implementation and avoid over-reliance on the systems integrator.
      • Leverage the collective knowledge and advice of additional IT professionals
      • Review the pitfalls and lessons learned from failed integrations.
      • Manage risk at every stage.
      • Perform a self-assessment at various stages of the integration path.

      The roadmap

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      Executive Summary

      Determine the rations for your implementation

      See if a custom-of-the-shelf process optimization makes sense.

      • Storyboard: Govern and Manage an Enterprise Software Implementation (ppt)

      Prepare

      Determine the right (level of) governance for your implementation.

      • Large Software Implementation Maturity Assessment Tool (xls)
      • Project Success Measurement Tool (xls)
      • Risk Mitigation Plan Template (xls)

      Plan and analyze

      Prepare for the overall implementation journey and gather your requirements. Then conduct a stage-gate assessment of this phase.

      • Project Phases Entry and Exit Criteria Checklist Tool (xls)
      • Project Lessons Learned Document (doc)

      Design, build and deploy

      Conduct a stage-gate assessment after every step below.

      • Make exact designs of the software implementation and ensure that all stakeholders and the integrator completely understand.
      • Build the solution according to the requirements and designs.
      • Thoroughly test and evaluate that the implementation meets your business expectations. 
      • Then deploy

      Initiate your roadmap

      Review your dispositions to ensure they align with your goals. 

      • Build an Application Rationalization Framework – Phase 4: Initiate Your Roadmap (ppt)
      • Disposition Prioritization Tool (xls)

      Renovate the Data Center

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}497|cart{/j2store}
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      • Parent Category Name: Data Center & Facilities Optimization
      • Parent Category Link: /data-center-and-facilities-optimization
      • 33% of enterprises will be undertaking facility upgrades or refreshes in 2010 aimed at extending the life of their existing data centers.
      • Every upgrade or refresh targeting specific components in the facility to address short-term pain will have significant impact on the data center environment as a whole. Planning upfront and establishing a clear project scope will minimize expensive changes in later years.
      • This solution set will provide you with step-by-step design, planning, and selection tools to define a Data Center renovation plan to reduce cost and risk while supporting cost-effective long-term growth for power, cooling, standby power, and fire protection renovations.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • 88% of organizations cited they would spend more time and effort on documenting and identifying facility requirements for initial project scoping. Organizations can prevent scope creep by conducting the necessary project planning up front and identify requirements and the effect that the renovation project will have in all areas of the data center facility.
      • Data Center facilities renovations must include the specific requirements related to power provisioning, stand-by power, cooling, and fire protection - not just the immediate short-term pain.
      • 39% of organizations cited they would put more emphasis on monitoring contractor management and performance to improve the outcome of the data center renovation project.

      Impact and Result

      • Early internal efforts to create a budget and facility requirements yields better cost and project outcomes when construction begins. Each data center renovation project is unique and should have its own detailed budget.
      • Upfront planning and detailed project scoping can prevent a cascading impact on data center renovation projects to other areas of the data center that can increase project size, scope and spend.
      • Contractor selection is one of the most important first steps in a complex data center renovation. Organizations must ensure the contractor selected has experience specifically in data center renovation.

      Renovate the Data Center Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Identify and understand the renovation project.

      • Storyboard: Renovate the Data Center
      • None
      • Data Center Annual Review Checklist

      2. Renovate power in the data center.

      • Data Center Power Requirements Calculator

      3. Renovate cooling in the data center.

      • Data Center Cooling Requirements Calculator

      4. Renovate standby power in the data center.

      • Data Center Standby Power Requirements Calculator

      5. Define current and future fire protection requirements.

      • Fire Protection & Suppression Engineer Selection Criteria Checklist
      • None

      6. Assess the opportunities and establish a clear project scope.

      • Data Center Renovation Project Charter
      • Data Center Renovation Project Planning & Monitoring Tool

      7. Establish a budget for the data center renovation project.

      • Data Center Renovation Budget Tool

      8. Select a general contractor to execute the project.

      • None
      • Data Center Renovation Contractor Scripted Interview
      • Data Center Renovation Contractor Scripted Interview Scorecard
      • Data Center Renovation Contractor Reference Checklist
      [infographic]

      TY Advisory Services

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      • Byline body: TY Advisory combines the best of traditional IT consulting with advisory bureau services at an advantageous pricepoint.

      What is our TY advisory service?

      The TY advisory service is tailored to your needs. It combines the best of traditional IT consulting expertise with the analysis and remedial solutions of an expert bureau.

      When you observe specific symptoms, TY analyses the exact areas that contribute to these symptoms.

      TY specializes in IT Operations and goes really deep in that area.  We define IT Operations as the core service you deliver to your clients:

      When you see your operation running smoothly, it looks obvious and simple, but it is not. IT Operations is a concerto, under the leadership of a competent IT Ops Conductor-Manager. IT Ops keeps the lights on and ensures your reputation with your clients and the market as a whole as a predictable and dependable business partner. And we help you achieve this, based on more than 30 years of IT Ops experience.

      As most companies' business services are linked at the hip with IT, your IT Operations, in other words, are your key to a successful business.

      Value Consulting

      That is why we work via a simple value-based proposition. We discuss your wants and together discover your needs. Once we all agree, only then do we make our proposal. Anything you learned on the way, is yours to keep and use. 

      This means a fixed agreement to deliver the value we promise. No time and material, no extensions, no unforeseen charges.

      How can we deliver this?

      Gert has advised clients on what to do before issues happen. We have also worked to bring companies back from the brink after serious events. TY has brought services back after big incidents.

      You need to get it done, not in theory, but via actionable advice and if required, via our actions and implementation prowess. It's really elementary. Anyone can create a spreadsheet with to-do lists and talk about how resilience laws like DORA and NIS2 need to be implemented.

      It's not the talk that counts, it's the walk. Service delivery is in our DNA. Resilience is our life.

      Efficient policies, procedures and guidelines

      Good governance directly ensures happy clients because staff knows what to do when and allows them leeway in improving the service. And this governance will satisfy auditors.

      • Incident management

        Incidents erode client confidence in your service and company. You must get them fixed in accordance with their importance,  

      • Problem management

        You don't want repeat incidents! Tackle the root causes and fix issues permanently. Save money by doing this right. 

      • Change management

        You must update your services to stay the best in your field. Do it in a controlled yet efficient way. Lose overhead where you can, add the right controls where you must.

      • Configuration management

        The base for most of your processes. You gotta know what you have and how it works together to provide the services to your clients.

      • Monitoring

        IT monitoring delivers business value by catching issues before they become problems. With real-time insights into system performance and security, you can minimize downtime, improve efficiency, and make better decisions that keep your operations strong and your customers happy.

      • Service management

        Bring all the IT Operations services together and measure how they perform versus set business relevant KPI's 

      • Disaster Recovery

        Disaster recovery is your company's safety net for getting critical systems and data back up and running after a major disruption, focusing on fast IT recovery and minimizing financial and operational losses, whereas business continuity ensures the entire business keeps functioning during and after the crisis.

      • Business Continuity

        Business continuity is keeping your company running smoothly during disruptions by having the right plans, processes, and backups in place to minimize downtime and protect your operations, customers, and reputation. We go beyond disaster recovery and make sure your critical processes can continue to function. 

      • Exit Plans

        Hope for the best, but plan for the worst. When you embark on a new venture, know how to get out of it. Planning to exit is best done in the very beginning, but better late than when it is too late.

        Get up to speed

      Your biggest asset, the people who execute your business services

      We base our analysis on over 30 years experience in corporate and large volume dynamic services.  Unique to our service is that we take your company culture into account, while we adjust the mindset of the experts working in these areas.

      Your people are what will make these processes work efficiently. We take their ideas, hard capabilities and leadership capabilities into account and improve upon where needed. That helps your company and the people themselves. 

      We look at the existing governance and analyse where they are best in class or how we can make them more efficient. We identify the gaps and propose remedial updates. Our updates are verified through earlier work, vetted by first and second line and sometimes even regulators 

      Next we decide with you on how to implement the updates to the areas that need them. 

      How does the TY advisory service work?

      • 1. Contact TY

        Please schedule your complimentary 30-minute discovery call below.

      • 2. Discovery call

        There is no financial commitment required from you. During this meeting we discus further in detail the issue at hand and the direction of the ideal solution and the way of working.

      • 3. TY consolidates and prepares roadmap

        We take in the information of our talks and prepare the the roadmap to the individualized solution for you.

      • 4. Second meeting to finalize roadmap

        By now, TY has a good idea of how we can help you, and we have prepared a roadmap to solving the issue. In this meeting we present the way forward our way of working and what it will require from you.

        If you decide this is not what you expected, you are free to take the information provided so far and work with it yourself. 

      • 5. We get to work

        After the previous meeting and agreement in principle, you will have by now received our offer.

        When you decide to work together, we start our partnership and solve the issue. We work to ensure you are fully satisfied with the result.

      Request a Briefing

      Continue reading

      Scale Business Process Automation

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      • Parent Category Name: Optimization
      • Parent Category Link: /optimization
      • Business process automation (BPA) adoption gained significant momentum as your business leaders saw the positive outcomes in your pilots, such as improvements in customer experience, operational efficiencies, and cost optimizations.
      • Your stakeholders are ready to increase their investments in more process automation solutions. They want to scale initial successes to other business and IT functions.
      • However, it is unclear how BPA can be successfully scaled and what benefits can be achieved from it.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      The shift from isolated, task-based automations in your pilot to value-oriented, scaled automations brings new challenges and barriers to your organization such as:

      • Little motivation or tolerance to change existing business operations to see the full value of BPA.
      • Overinvesting in current BPA technologies to maximize the return despite available alternatives that can do the same tasks better.
      • BPA teams are ill-equipped to meet the demands and complexities of scaled BPA implementations.

      Impact and Result

      • Ground your scaling expectations. Set realistic and achievable goals centered on driving business value to the entire organization by optimizing and automating end-to-end business processes.
      • Define your scaling journey. Tailor your scaling approach according to your ability to ease BPA implementation, to broaden BPA adoption, and to loosen BPA constraints.
      • Prepare to scale BPA. Cement your BPA management and governance foundations to support BPA scaling using the lessons learned from your pilot implementation.

      Scale Business Process Automation Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Scale Business Process Automation Deck – A guide to learn the opportunities and values of scaling business process automation.

      This research walks you through the level setting of your scaled business process automation (BPA) expectations, factors to consider in defining your scaled BPA journey, and assessing your readiness to scale BPA.

      • Scale Business Process Automation Storyboard

      2. Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment – A tool to help you evaluate your readiness to scale business process automation.

      Use this tool to identify key gaps in the people, processes, and technologies you need to support the scaling of business process automation (BPA). It also contains a canvas to facilitate your discussions around business process automation with your stakeholders and BPA teams.

      • Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment
      [infographic]

      Further reading

      Scale Business Process Automation

      Take a value-first approach to automate the processes that matter

      Analyst Perspective

      Scaling business process automation (BPA) is an organization-wide commitment

      Business and IT must work together to ensure the right automations are implemented and BPA is grown and matured in a sustainable way. However, many organizations are not ready to make this commitment. Managing the automation demand backlog, coordinating cross-functional effort and organizational change, and measuring BPA value are some of the leading factors challenging scaling BPA.

      Pilot BPA with the intent to scale it. Pilots are safe starting points to establish your foundational governance and management practices and build the necessary relationships and collaborations for you to be successful. These factors will then allow you to explore more sophisticated, complicated, and innovative opportunities to drive new value to your team, department, and organization.

      A picture of Andrew Kum-Seun

      Andrew Kum-Seun
      Research Director,
      Application Delivery and Management
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      • Business process automation (BPA) adoption gained significant momentum as your business leaders see the positive outcomes in your pilots, such as improvements in customer experience, operational efficiencies, and cost optimizations.
      • Your stakeholders are ready to increase their investments in more process automation solutions. They want to scale initial successes to other business and IT functions.
      • However, it is unclear how BPA can be successfully scaled and what benefits can be achieved from it.

      Common Obstacles

      The shift from isolated, task-based automations in your pilot to value-oriented and scaled automations brings new challenges and barriers to your organization:

      • Little motivation or tolerance to change existing business operations to see the full value of BPA.
      • Overinvesting in current BPA technologies to maximize return despite available alternatives that can do the same tasks better.
      • BPA teams are ill-equipped to meet the demands and complexities of scaled BPA implementations.

      Info-Tech's Approach

      • Ground your scaling expectations. Set realistic and achievable goals centered on driving business value to the entire organization by optimizing and automating end-to-end business processes.
      • Define your scaling journey. Tailor your scaling approach according to your ability to ease BPA implementation, to broaden BPA adoption, and to loosen BPA constraints.
      • Prepare to scale BPA. Cement your BPA management and governance foundations to support BPA scaling using the lessons learned from your pilot implementation.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Take a value-first approach in your scaling business process automation (BPA) journey. Low-risk, task-oriented automations are good starting points to introduce BPA but constrain the broader returns your organization wants. Business value can only scale when everything and everyone in your processes are working together to streamline the entire value stream rather than the small gains from optimizing small, isolated automations.

      Scale Business Process Automation

      Take a value-first approach to automate the processes that matter

      Pilot Your BPA Capabilities

      • Learn the foundation practices to design, deliver, and support BPA.
      • Understand the fit and value of BPA.
      • Gauge the tolerance for business operational change and system risk.

      See Info-Tech's Build a Winning Business Process Automation Playbook blueprint for more information.

      Build Your Scaling BPA Vision

      Apply Lessons Learned to Scale

      1. Ground Your Scaling Expectations
        Set realistic and achievable goals centered on driving business value to the entire organization by optimizing and automating end-to-end business processes.
      2. Define Your Scaling Journey
        Tailor your scaling approach according to your ability to ease BPA implementation, to broaden BPA adoption, and to loosen BPA constraints.
      3. Prepare to Scale BPA
        Cement your BPA management and governance foundations to support BPA scaling using the lessons learned from your pilot implementation.

      Research deliverable

      Design and communicate your approach to scale business process automation with Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment:

      • Level set your scaled BPA goals and objectives.
      • Discuss and design your scaled BPA journey.
      • Identify the gaps and improvements needed to scale your BPA practices and implementation.

      A screenshot from Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment

      Step 1.1

      Ground Your Scaling Expectations

      Activities

      1.1.1 Define Your Scaling Objectives

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Business Process Owners
      • Product Owners
      • Application Directors
      • Business Architects
      • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

      Outcomes of this step

      Scaling BPA objectives

      Organizations want to scale their initial BPA success

      Notable Initial Benefits

      1. Time Saved: "In the first day of live operations, the robots were saving 51 hours each day or the equivalent of six people working an eight-hour shift." – Brendan MacDonald, Director of Customer Compliance Operations, Ladbrokes (UiPath)
      2. Documentation & Knowledge Sharing: "If certain people left, knowledge of some processes would be lost and we realized that we needed a reliable process management system in place." – Peta Kinnane, Acting Audit and Risk Coordinator, Liverpool City Council (Nintex)
      3. Improved Service Delivery: "Thanks to this automation, our percentage of triaged and assigned tickets is now 100%. Nothing falls through the cracks. It has also improved the time to assignment. We assign tickets 2x faster than before." – Sebastian Goodwin, Head of Cybersecurity, Nutanix (Workato)

      Can We Gain More From Automation?

      The Solution

      As industries evolve and adopt more tools and technology, their products, services, and business operating models become more complex. Task- and desktop-based automations are often not enough. More sophisticated and scaled automations are needed to simplify and streamline the process from end-to-end of complex operations and align them with organizational goals.

      Stakeholders see automation as an opportunity to scale the business

      The value of scaling BPA is dependent on the organization's ability to scale with it. In other words, stakeholders should see an increase in business value without a substantial increase in resources and operational costs (e.g., there should be little difference if sending out 10 emails versus 1000).

      Examples of how business can be scaled with automation

      • Processes triggered by incoming documents or email: in these processes, an incoming document or email (that has semi-structured or unstructured data) is collected by a script or an RPA bot. This document is then processed with a machine learning model that validates it either by rules or ML models. The validated and enriched machine-readable data is then passed on to the next system of record.
      • The accounts payable process: this process includes receiving, processing, and paying out invoices from suppliers that provided goods or services to the company. While manual processing can be expensive, take too much time, and lead to errors, businesses can automate this process with machine learning and document extraction technologies like optical characters recognition (OCR), which converts texts containing images into characters that can be readable by computers to edit, compute, and analyze.
      • Order management: these processes include retrieving email and relevant attachments, extracting information that tells the business what its customers want, updating internal systems with newly placed orders or modifications, or taking necessary actions related to customer queries.
      • Enhance customer experience: [BPA tools] can help teams develop and distribute customer loyalty offers faster while also optimizing these offers with customer insights. Now, enterprises can more easily guarantee they are delivering the relevant solutions their clients are demanding.

      Source: Stefanini Group

      Scaling BPA has its challenges

      Perceived Lack of Opportunities

      Pilot BPA implementations often involve the processes that are straightforward to automate or are already shortlisted to optimize. However, these low-hanging fruits will run out. Discovering new BPA opportunities can be challenged for a variety of reasons, such as:

      • Lack of documentation and knowledge
      • Low user participation or drive to change
      • BPA technology limitations and constraints

      Perceived Lack of Opportunities

      BPA is not a cheap investment. A single RPA bot, for example, can cost between $5,000 to $15,000. This cost does not include the added cost for training, renewal fees, infrastructure set up and other variable and reoccurring costs that often come with RPA delivery and support (Blueprint). This reality can motivate BPA owners to favor existing technologies over other cheaper and more effective alternatives in an attempt boost their return on investment.

      Ill-Equipped Support Teams

      Good technical skills and tools, and the right mindset are critical to ensure BPA capabilities are deployed effectively. Low-code no-code (LCNC) can help but success isn't guaranteed. Lack of experience with low-code platforms is the biggest obstacle in low-code adoption according to 60% of respondents (Creatio). The learning curve has led some organizations to hire contractors to onboard BPA teams, hire new employees, or dedicate significant funding and resources to upskill internal resources.

      Shift your objectives from task-based efficiencies to value-driven capabilities

      How can I improve myself?

      How can we improve my team?

      How can we improve my organization?

      Objectives

      • Improve worker productivity
      • Improve the repeatability and predictability of the process
      • Deliver outputs of consistent quality and cadence
      • Increase process, tool, and technology confidence
      • Increase the team's throughput, commitment, and load
      • Apply more focus on cognitive and complex tasks
      • Reduce the time to complete error-prone, manual, and routine collaborations
      • Deliver insightful, personalized, and valuable outputs
      • Drive more value in existing pipelines and introduce new value streams
      • Deliver consistent digital experiences involving different technologies
      • Automatically tailor a customer's experience to individual preferences
      • Forecast and rapidly respond to customer issues and market trends

      Goals

      • Learn the fit of BPA & set the foundations
      • Improve the practices & tools and optimize the performance
      • Scale BPA capabilities throughout the organization

      Gauge the success of your scaled BPA

      BPA Practice Effectiveness

      Key Question: Are stakeholders satisfied with how the BPA practice is meeting their automation needs?

      Examples of Metrics:

      • User satisfaction
      • Automation request turnaround time
      • Throughput of BPA team

      Automation Solution Quality

      Key Question: How do your automation solutions perform and meet your quality standards?

      Examples of Metrics:

      • Licensing and operational costs
      • Service level agreement and uptime/downtime
      • Number of defects

      Business Value Delivery

      Key Question: How has automation improved the value your employees, teams, and the organization delivers?

      Examples of Metrics:
      Increase in revenue generation
      Reduction in operational costs
      Expansion of business capabilities with minimal increases in costs and risks

      1.1.1 Define your scaling objectives

      5 minutes

      1. Complete the following fields to build your scaled business process automation canvas:
        1. Problem that scaling BPA is intending to solve
        2. Your vision for scaling BPA
        3. Stakeholders
        4. Scaled BPA business and IT objectives and metrics
        5. Business capabilities, processes, and application systems involved
        6. Notable constraints, roadblocks, and challenges to your scaled BPA success
      2. Document your findings and discussions in Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

      Output

      Scaled BPA value canvas

      Participants

      • Business Process Owners
      • Product Owners
      • Application Directors
      • Business Architects
      • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

      Record the results in the 2. Value Canvas Tab in the Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

      1.1.1 cont'd

      Scaled BPA Value Canvas Template:

      A screenshot of Scaled BPA Value Canvas Template

      Align your objectives to your application portfolio strategy

      Why is an application portfolio strategy important for BPA?

      • All business process optimizations are designed, delivered, and managed to support a consistent interpretation of the business and IT vision and goals.
      • Clear understanding of the sprawl, criticality, and risks of automation solutions and applications to business capabilities.
      • BPA initiatives are planned, prioritized, and coordinated alongside modernization, upgrades, and other changes to the application portfolio.
      • Resources, skills, and capacities are strategically allocated to meet BPA demand considering other commitments in the backlog and roadmap.
      • BPA expectations and practices uphold the persona, values, and principles of the application team.

      What is an application portfolio strategy?

      An application portfolio strategy details the direction, activities, and tactics to deliver on the promise of your application portfolio. It often includes:

      • Portfolio vision and goals
      • Application, automation, and process portfolio
      • Values and principles
      • Portfolio health
      • Risks and constraints
      • Strategic roadmap

      See our Application Portfolio Management Foundations blueprint for more information.

      Leverage your BPA champions to drive change and support scaling initiatives

      An arrow showing the steps to Leverage your BPA champions to drive change and support scaling initiatives

      Expected Outcome From Your Pilot: Your pilot would have recognized the roles that know how to effectively apply good BPA practices (e.g., process analysis and optimization) and are familiar with the BPA toolset. These individuals are prime candidates who can standardize your Build a Winning Business Process Automation Playbook, upskill interested teams, and build relationships among those involved in the delivery and use of BPA.

      Step 1.2

      Define Your Scaling Journey

      Activities

      1.2.1 Discuss Your BPA Opportunities
      1.2.2 Lay Out Your Scaling BPA Journey

      Scale Business Process Automation

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Business Process Owners
      • Product Owners
      • Application Directors
      • Business Architects
      • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

      Outcomes of this step

      • List of scaling BPA opportunities
      • Tailored scaling journey

      Maintain a healthy demand pipeline

      A successful scaled BPA practice requires a continuous demand for BPA capabilities and the delivery of minimum viable automations (MVA) held together by a broader strategic roadmap.

      An image of a healthy demand pipeline. it flows from opportunities to trends, with inputs from internal and external sources.

      An MVA focuses on a single and small process use case, involves minimal possible effort to improve, and is designed to satisfy a specific user group. Its purpose is to maximize learning and value and inform the further scaling of the BPA technology, approach, or practice.

      See our Build a Winning Business Process Automation Playbook blueprint for more information.

      Investigate how BPA trends can drive more value for the organization

      • Event-Driven Automation
        Process is triggered by a schedule, system output, scenario, or user (e.g., voice-activated, time-sensitive, system condition)
      • Low- & No-Code Automation build and management are completed through an easy-to-learn scripting language and/or a GUI.
      • Intelligent Document Processing
        Transform documents for better analysis, processing and handling (e.g., optical character recognition) by a tool or system.
      • End-to-End Process Automation & Transparency
        Linking cross-functional processes to enable automation of the entire value stream with seamless handoffs or triggers.
      • Orchestration of Different BPA Technologies
        Integrating and sequencing the execution of multiple automation solutions through a single console.
      • Cognitive Automation
        AI and other intelligent technologies automate information-intensive processes, including semi and unstructured data and human thinking simulation.
      • Intelligent Internet-of-Things
        Connecting process automation technologies to physical environments with sensors and other interaction devices (e.g., computer vision).
      • Ethical Design
        Optimizing processes that align to the moral value, principles, and beliefs of the organization (e.g., respects data privacy, resists manipulative patterns).
      • User Profiling & Tailored Experiences
        Customizing process outputs and user experience with user-defined configurations or system and user activity monitoring.
      • Process Mining & Discovery
        Gleaning optimization opportunities by analyzing system activities (mining) or monitoring user interactions with applications (discovery).

      1.2.1 Discuss your BPA opportunities

      5 minutes

      1. Review the goals and objectives of your initiative and the expectations you want to gain from scaling BPA.
      2. Discuss how BPA trends can be leveraged in your organization.
      3. List high priority scaling BPA opportunities.

      Output

      • Scaled BPA opportunities

      Participants

      • Business Process Owners
      • Product Owners
      • Application Directors
      • Business Architects
      • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

      Create your recipe for success

      Your scaling BPA recipe (approach) can involve multiple different flavors of various quantities to fit the needs and constraints of your organization and workers.

      What and how many ingredients you need is dependent on three key questions:

      1. How can we ease BPA implementation?
      2. How can we broaden the BPA scope?
      3. How can we loosen constraints?

      Personalize Scaling BPA To Your Taste

      • Extend BPA Across Business Units (Horizontal)
      • Integrate BPA Across Your Application Architecture (Vertical)
      • Embed AI/ML Into Your Automation Technologies
      • Empower Users With Business-Managed Automations
      • Combine Multiple Technologies for End-to-End Automation
      • Increase the Volume and Velocity of Automation
      • Automate Cognitive Processes and Making Variable Decisions

      Answer these questions in the definition of your scaling BPA journey

      Seeing the full value of your scaling approach is dependent on your ability to support BPA adoption across the organization

      How can we ease BPA implementation?

      • Good governance practices (e.g., role definitions, delivery and management processes, technology standards).
      • Support for innovation and experimentation.
      • Interoperable and plug-and-play architecture.
      • Dedicated technology management and support, including resources, documents, templates and shells.
      • Accessible and easy-to-understand knowledge and document repository.

      How can we broaden BPA scope?

      • Provide a unified experience across processes, fragmented technologies, and siloed business functions.
      • Improve intellectually intensive activities, challenging decision making and complex processes with more valuable insights and information using BPA.
      • Proactively react to business and technology environments and operational changes and interact with customers with unattended automation.
      • Infuse BPA technologies into your product and service to expand their functions, output quality, and reliability.

      How can we loosen constraints?

      • Processes are automated without the need for structured data and optimized processes, and there is no need to work around or avoid legacy applications.
      • Workers are empowered to develop and maintain their own automations.
      • Coaching, mentoring, training, and onboarding capabilities.
      • Accessibility and adoption of underutilized applications are improved with BPA.
      • BPA is used to overcome the limitations or the inefficiencies of other BPA technologies.

      1.2.2 Lay out your scaling BPA journey

      5 minutes

      1. Review the goals and objectives of your initiative, the expectations you want to gain from scaling BPA, and the various scaling BPA opportunities.
      2. Discuss the different scaling BPA flavors (patterns) and how each flavor is applicable to your situation. Ask yourself these key questions:
        1. How can we ease BPA implementation?
        2. How can we broaden the BPA scope?
        3. How can we loosen constraints?
      3. Design the broad steps of your scaling BPA journey. See the following slide for an example.
      4. Document your findings and discussions in Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

      Record the results in the 3. Scaled BPA Journey Tab in the Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

      Output

      • Scaled BPA journey

      Participants

      • Business Process Owners
      • Product Owners
      • Application Directors
      • Business Architects
      • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

      1.2.2 cont'd

      An image of the marker used to identify Continuous business process optimization and automation Continuous business process optimization and automation
      An image of the marker used to identify Scope of Info-Tech's Build Your Business Process Automation Playbook blueprintScope of Info-Tech's Build Your Business Process Automation Playbook blueprint

      Example:

      An example of the BPA journey. Below are the links included in the journey.

      Continuously review and realign expectations

      Optimizing your scaled BPA practices and applying continuous improvements starts with monitoring the process after implementation.

      Purpose of Monitoring

      1. Diligent monitoring confirms your scaled BPA implementation is performing as desired and meeting initial expectations.
      2. Holding reviews of your BPA practice and implementations helps assess the impact of marketplace and business operations changes and allows the organization to stay on top of trends and risks.

      Metrics

      Metrics are an important aspect of monitoring and sustaining the scaled practice. The metrics will help determine success and find areas where adjustments may be needed.

      Hold retrospectives to identify any practice issues to be resolved or opportunities to undertake

      The retrospective gives your organization the opportunity to review themselves and brainstorm solutions and a plan for improvements to be actioned. This session is reoccurring, typically, after key milestones. While it is important to allow all participants the opportunity to voice their opinions, feelings, and experiences, retrospectives must be positive, productive, and time boxed.

      Step 1.3

      Prepare to Scale BPA

      Activities

      1.3.1 Assess Your Readiness to Scale BPA

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Business Process Owners
      • Product Owners
      • Application Directors
      • Business Architects
      • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

      Outcomes of this step

      • Scale BPA readiness assessment

      Prepare to scale by learning from your pilot implementations

      "While most organizations are advised to start with automating the 'low hanging fruit' first, the truth is that it can create traps that will impede your ability to achieve RPA at scale. In fact, scaling RPA into the organizational structure is fundamentally different from implementing a conventional software product or other process automation."
      – Blueprint

      What should be the takeaways from your pilot?

      Degree of Required BPA Support

      • Practices needed to address the organization's tolerance to business process changes and automation adoption.
      • Resources, budget and skills needed to configure and orchestrate automation technologies to existing business applications and systems.

      Technology Integration & Compatibility

      • The BPA technology and application system's flexibility to be enhanced, modified, and removed.
      • Adherence to data and system quality standards (e.g., security, availability) across all tools and technologies.

      Good Practices Toolkit

      • A list of tactics, techniques, templates, and examples to assist teams assessing and optimizing business processes and applying BPA solutions in your organization's context.
      • Strategies to navigate common blockers, challenges, and risks.

      Controls & Measures

      • Defined guardrails aligned to your organization's policies and risk tolerance
      • Key metrics are gathered to gauge the value and performance of your processes and automations for enhancements and further scaling.

      Decide how to architect and govern your BPA solutions

      Centralized

      A single body and platform to coordinate, execute, and manage all automation solutions.

      An image of the Centralized approach to governing BPA solutions.

      Distributed

      Automation solutions are locally delivered and managed whether that is per business unit, type of technology, or vendor. Some collaboration and integration can occur among solutions but might be done without a holistic strategy or approach.

      An image of the Distributed approach to governing BPA solutions.

      Hybrid

      Automation solutions are locally delivered and managed and executed for isolated use cases. Broader and complex automations are centrally orchestrated and administered.

      An image of the Hybrid approach to governing BPA solutions.

      Be prepared to address the risks with scaling BPA

      "Companies tend to underestimate the complexity of their business processes – and bots will frequently malfunction without an RPA design team that knows how to anticipate and prepare for most process exceptions. Unresolved process exceptions rank among the biggest RPA challenges, prompting frustrated users to revert to manual work."
      – Eduardo Diquez, Auxis, 2020

      Scenarios

      • Handling Failures of Dependent Systems
      • Handling Data Corruption & Quality Issues
      • Alignment to Regulatory & Industry Standards
      • Addressing Changes & Regressions to Business Processes
      • "Run Away" & Hijacked Automations
      • Unauthorized Access to Sensitive Information

      Recognize the costs to support your scaled BPA environment

      Cost Factors

      Automation Operations
      How will chaining multiple BPA technologies together impact your operating budget? Is there a limit on the number of active automations you can have at a single time?

      User Licenses
      How many users require access to the designer, orchestrator, and other functions of the BPA solution? Do they also require access to dependent applications, services, and databases?

      System Enhancements
      Are application and system upgrades and modernizations needed to support BPA? Is your infrastructure, data, and security controls capable of handling BPA demand?

      Supporting Resources
      Are dedicated resources needed to support, govern, and manage BPA across business and IT functions? Are internal resources or third-party providers preferred?

      Training & Onboarding
      Are end users and supporting resources trained to deliver, support, and/or use BPA? How will training and onboarding be facilitated: internally or via third party providers?

      Create a cross-functional and supportive body to lead the scaling of BPA

      Your supportive body is a cross-functional group of individuals promoting collaboration and good BPA practices. It enables an organization to extract the full benefits from critical systems, guides the growth and evolution of strategic BPA implementations, and provides critical expertise to those that need it. A supportive body distinctly caters to optimizing and strengthening BPA governance, management, and operational practices for a single technology or business function or broadly across the entire organization encompassing all BPA capabilities.

      What a support body is not:

      • A Temporary Measure
      • Exclusive to Large Organizations
      • A Project Management Office
      • A Physical Office
      • A Quick Fix

      See our Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications With a Center of Excellence blueprint for more information.

      What are my options?

      Center of Excellence (CoE)
      AND
      Community of Practice (CoP)

      CoEs and CoPs provide critical functions

      An image of the critical functions provided by CoE and CoP.

      Shift your principles as you scale BPA

      As BPA scales, users and teams must not only think of how a BPA solution operates at a personal and technical level or what goals it is trying to achieve, but why it is worth doing and how the outcomes of the automated process will impact the organization's reputation, morality, and public perception.

      An image of the journey from Siloed BPA to Scaled BPA.

      "I think you're going to see a lot of corporations thinking about the corporate responsibility of [organizational change from automation], because studies show that consumers want and will only do business with socially responsible companies."

      – Todd Lohr

      Source: Appian, 2018.

      Assess your readiness to scale BPA

      Vision & Objectives
      Clear direction and goals of the business process automation practice.

      Governance
      Defined BPA roles and responsibilities, processes, and technology controls.

      Skills & Competencies
      The capabilities users and support roles must have to be successful with BPA.

      Business Process Management & Optimization
      The tactics to document, analyze, optimize, and monitor business processes.

      Business Process Automation Delivery
      The tactics to review the fit of automation solutions and deliver and support according to end user needs and preferences.

      Business Process Automation Platform
      The capabilities to manage BPA platforms and ensure it supports the growing needs of the business.

      1.3.1 Assess your readiness to scale BPA

      5 minutes

      1. Review your scaling BPA journey and selected patterns.
      2. Conduct a readiness assessment using the 4. Readiness Assessment tab in Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.
      3. Brainstorm solutions to improve the capability or address the gaps found in this assessment.

      Output

      • Scaled BPA readiness assessment

      Participants

      • Business Process Owners
      • Product Owners
      • Application Directors
      • Business Architects
      • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

      Record the results in the 4. Readiness Assessment tab in Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

      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

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Bibliography

      Alston, Roland. "With the Rise of Intelligent Automation, Ethics Matter Now More than Ever." Appian, 4 Sept. 2018. Web.
      "Challenges of Achieving RPA at Scale." Blueprint, N.d. Web.
      Dilmegani, Cem. "RPA Benefits: 20 Ways Bots Improve Businesses in 2023," AI Multiple, 9 Jan 2023. Web.
      Diquez, Eduardo. "Struggling To Scale RPA? Discover The Secret to Success." Auxis, 30 Sept. 2020. Web.
      "How much does Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Really Cost?" Blueprint, 14 Sept. 2021. Web.
      "Liverpool City Council improves document process with Nintex." Nintex, n.d. Web.
      "The State of Low-Code/No-Code." Creatio, 2021. Web.
      "Using automation to enhance security and increase IT NPS to 90+ at Nutanix." Workato, n.d. Web.
      "What Is Hyperautomation? A Complete Guide To One Of Gartner's Top Tech Trends." Stefanini Group, 26 Mar. 2021. Web.

      Supporting Boards in Achieving Digital Operational Resilience

      • byline: Context and Deliverables

      Regulatory Context and Board Responsibilities.

      During the transition period starting now, credit unions are expected to strengthen ICT governance arrangements, review and update ICT and outsourcing contracts, and ensure that incident management and operational resilience frameworks can respond effectively to ICT disruptions and cyber threats.

      By 17 January 2028, boards will be required to demonstrate to the Central Bank of Ireland that their credit union has in place:

      • Robust ICT governance structures, with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and escalation pathways
      • Effective ICT risk management and cybersecurity controls aligned with recognised good practice
      • Appropriate oversight of ICT third-party service providers, including documented exit and substitution planning
      • Operational resilience arrangements supported by testing, documentation, and Board-level assurance

      While the exemption delays the point of formal enforcement, it does not remove supervisory expectations. The Central Bank of Ireland has consistently emphasised that firms should align with the spirit and direction of DORA, as well as with existing guidance on ICT risk management, outsourcing, and operational resilience.

      Boards should apply DORA’s requirements in a proportionate manner, reflecting the size, complexity, and risk profile of their credit union, while ensuring that all core resilience principles are met.

      The Central Bank of Ireland’s Cross-Industry Guidance on Operational Resilience aligns supervisory expectations with DORA and encourages firms not yet directly subject to DORA to adopt equivalent measures as part of their operational resilience frameworks. In practice, supervisory focus is increasingly placed on demonstrable capability, including governance records, testing outcomes, third-party oversight artifacts, and board-level assurance, rather than policy intent alone.

      During the transition period, credit unions are expected to strengthen ICT governance arrangements, review and update ICT and outsourcing contracts, and ensure that incident management and operational resilience frameworks can respond effectively to ICT disruptions and cyber threats.

      By January 2028, boards will be required to demonstrate to the Central Bank of Ireland that their credit union has in place:

      • Robust ICT governance structures, with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and escalation pathways
      • Effective ICT risk management and cybersecurity controls aligned with recognised good practice
      • Appropriate oversight of ICT third-party service providers, including documented exit and substitution planning
      • Operational resilience arrangements supported by testing, documentation, and Board-level assurance

      While the exemption delays the point of formal enforcement, it does not remove supervisory expectations. The Central Bank of Ireland has consistently emphasised that firms should align with the spirit and direction of DORA, as well as with existing guidance on ICT risk management, outsourcing, and operational resilience.

      Boards should apply DORA’s requirements in a proportionate manner, reflecting the size, complexity, and risk profile of their credit union, while ensuring that all core resilience principles are met.

      The Central Bank of Ireland’s Cross-Industry Guidance on Operational Resilience aligns supervisory expectations with DORA and encourages firms not yet directly subject to DORA to adopt equivalent measures as part of their operational resilience frameworks. In practice, supervisory focus is increasingly placed on demonstrable capability, including governance records, testing outcomes, third-party oversight artifacts, and board-level assurance, rather than policy intent alone.

      DORA as a Governance and Resilience Framework.

      DORA is structured around five core pillars:

      1. ICT risk management
      2. ICT-related incident management and reporting
      3. Digital operational resilience testing
      4. ICT third-party risk management
      5. Information-sharing arrangements

      Taken together, these pillars establish a comprehensive regulatory framework designed to ensure that financial entities can withstand, respond to, and recover from ICT disruptions and cyber incidents.

      For Irish credit unions, this requires a careful review of internal governance structures, enhanced oversight of external ICT and outsourcing providers, and preparation for expanded documentation, reporting, testing, and contractual requirements. Importantly, Boards must be able to evidence oversight, challenge, and assurance through clear decision-making records, structured reporting, and regulator-ready artefacts.

      Credit unions are encouraged to participate in sectoral information-sharing initiatives and collaborative testing exercises to strengthen collective resilience and align with DORA’s emphasis on cross-sector cooperation.

      Strategic Importance of Early Engagement and Independent Validation (CBI requirement).

      In this context, early and proportionate engagement with DORA during the transition period enables boards to enhance institutional resilience, reduce future regulatory and remediation risk, and ensure that compliance obligations are met in a controlled and defensible manner.

      Approaching DORA as a governance and resilience framework, rather than as a late-stage compliance exercise, supports:

      • Stronger Board oversight and accountability
      • Increased member confidence and institutional trust
      • Improved preparedness for supervisory engagement
      • A sustainable approach to digital and operational resilience

      Our Flagship Programme.

      To support credit unions in moving from regulatory interpretation to practical implementation, Tymans Group delivers a dedicated flagship readiness programme, the DORA Evidence Pack.

      It is a 12-week program led by the board that helps boards and senior management get ready for DORA compliance by January 2028, while also creating clear evidence that meets the Central Bank of Ireland's expectations for digital operational resilience.

      This program ensures you meet the Central Bank's current 'Cross-Industry Guidance on Operational Resilience' and addresses the immediate CBI 2025/2026 concerns while simultaneously building the foundation for the 2028 DORA deadline via independent validation.

      Programme Outcomes

      By the conclusion of the engagement, the credit union will have:

      • Board-approved DORA governance and oversight arrangements, including documented accountability structures, reporting lines, and escalation mechanisms aligned with DORA and Central Bank of Ireland expectations
      • Cost-Efficiency through Proportionality. Avoid overspending on unnecessary tech implementations and process bottlenecks.
      • A regulator-ready evidence base demonstrating ICT governance, incident management governance, and third-party oversight governance supported by appropriate documentation.
      • Proactive gap remediation aims to preempt supervisory findings and ensure remediation ahead of 2028, supported by a structured and proportionate roadmap to full compliance.

      Core Deliverables

      The engagement produces a defined suite of inspectable artifacts, including:

      • A DORA gap analysis and readiness assessment mapped to DORA requirements and relevant Central Bank supervisory guidance
      • An ICT governance and Board oversight framework
      • ICT-related incident classification, response, and reporting procedures
      • Third-party ICT risk and exit strategy framework
      • A consolidated Board briefing and assurance pack suitable for sign-off and regulatory engagement
      • A phased DORA implementation roadmap through to 2028, including operational resilience testing and scenario-based evidence packs. 
        The implementation of the roadmap is a separate engagement.
       

      credit union

      Implement Crisis Management Best Practices

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}415|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: 9.7/10 Overall Impact
      • member rating average dollars saved: $50,532 Average $ Saved
      • member rating average days saved: 42 Average Days Saved
      • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
      • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
      • There’s a belief that you can’t know what crisis will hit you next, so you can’t prepare for it. As a result, resilience planning stops at more-specific planning such as business continuity planning or IT disaster recovery planning.
      • Business contingency and IT disaster recovery plans focus on how to resume normal operations following an incident. The missing piece is the crisis management plan – the overarching plan that guides the organization’s initial response, assessment, and action.
      • Organizations without a crisis management plan are far less able to minimize the impact of other crises such as a security breach, health & safety incident, or attacks on their reputation.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Effective crisis management has a long-term demonstrable impact on your organization, long after the crisis is resolved. While all organizations can expect a short-term negative impact when a crisis hits, if the crisis is managed well, the research shows that your market capitalization can actually increase long term.
      • Crisis communication is more science than art and should follow a structured approach. Crisis communication is about more than being a good writer or having a social media presence. There are specific messages that must be included, and specific audiences to target, to get the results you need.
      • IT has a critical role in non-IT crises (as well as IT crises). Many crises are IT events (e.g. security breach). For non-IT events, IT is critical in supporting crisis communication and the operational response (e.g. COVID-19 and quickly ramping up working-from-home).

      Impact and Result

      • You can anticipate the types of crisis your organization may face in the future and build flexible plans that can be adapted in a crisis to meet the needs of the moment.
      • Identify potential crises that present a high risk to your organization.
      • Document emergency response and crisis response plans that provide a framework for addressing a range of crises.
      • Establish crisis communication guidelines to avoid embarrassing and damaging communications missteps.

      Implement Crisis Management Best Practices Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement crisis management best practices, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Identify potential crises and your crisis management team

      Identify, analyze, and prioritized potential crises based on risk to the organization. Set crisis management team roles and responsibilities. Adopt a crisis management framework.

      • Example Crisis Management Process Flowcharts (Visio)
      • Example Crisis Management Process Flowcharts (PDF)
      • Business Continuity Teams and Roles Tool

      2. Document your emergency and crisis response plans

      Document workflows for notification, situational assessment, emergency response, and crisis response.

      • Emergency Response Plan Checklist
      • Emergency Response Plan Summary
      • Emergency Response Plan Staff Instructions
      • Pandemic Response Plan Example
      • Pandemic Policy

      3. Document crisis communication guidelines

      Develop and document guidelines that support the creation and distribution of crisis communications.

      • Crisis Communication Guidelines and Templates

      4. Complete and maintain your crisis management plan

      Summarize your crisis management and response plans, create a roadmap to implement potential improvement projects, develop training and awareness initiatives, and schedule maintenance to keep the plan evergreen.

      • Crisis Management Plan Summary Example
      • BCP Project Roadmap Tool
      • Organizational Learning Guide
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Implement Crisis Management Best Practices

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Identify Potential Crises and Your Crisis Management Team

      The Purpose

      Identify and prioritize relevant potential crises.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Enable crisis management pre-planning and identify gaps in current crisis management plans.

      Activities

      1.1 Identify high-risk crises.

      1.2 Assign roles and responsibilities on the crisis management team.

      1.3 Review Info-Tech’s crisis management framework.

      Outputs

      List of high-risk crises.

      CMT membership and responsibilities.

      Adopt the crisis management framework and identify current strengths and gaps.

      2 Document Emergency Response and Crisis Management Plans

      The Purpose

      Outline emergency response and crisis response plans.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Develop and document procedures that enable rapid, effective, and reliable crisis and emergency response.

      Activities

      2.1 Develop crisis notification and assessment procedures.

      2.2 Document your emergency response plans.

      2.3 Document crisis response plans for potential high-risk crises.

      Outputs

      Documented notification and assessment workflows.

      Emergency response plans and checklists.

      Documented crisis response workflows.

      3 Document Crisis Communication Guidelines

      The Purpose

      Define crisis communication guidelines aligned with an actionable crisis communications framework.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Document workflows and guidelines support crisis communications.

      Activities

      3.1 Establish the elements of baseline crisis communications.

      3.2 Identify audiences for the crisis message.

      3.3 Modify baseline communication guidelines based on audience and organizational responsibility.

      3.4 Create a vetting process.

      3.5 Identify communications channels.

      Outputs

      Baseline communications guidelines.

      Situational modifications to crisis communications guidelines.

      Documented vetting process.

      Documented communications channels

      4 Complete and Maintain Your Crisis Management Plan

      The Purpose

      Summarize the crisis management plan, establish an organizational learning process, and identify potential training and awareness activities.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Plan ahead to keep your crisis management practice evergreen.

      Activities

      4.1 Review the CMP Summary Template.

      4.2 Create a project roadmap to close gaps in the crisis management plan.

      4.3 Outline an organizational learning process.

      4.4 Schedule plan reviews, testing, and updates.

      Outputs

      Long-term roadmap to improve crisis management capabilities.

      Crisis management plan maintenance process and awareness program.

      Develop a Business Continuity Plan

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}411|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: 9.1/10 Overall Impact
      • member rating average dollars saved: $37,093 Average $ Saved
      • member rating average days saved: 30 Average Days Saved
      • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
      • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
      • Recent crises have increased executive awareness and internal pressure to create a business continuity plan (BCP).
      • Industry and government-driven regulations require evidence of sound business continuity practices.
      • Customers demand their vendors provide evidence of a workable BCP prior to signing a contract.
      • IT leaders, because of their cross-functional view and experience with incident management and DR, are often asked to lead BCP efforts.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • BCP requires input from multiple departments with different and sometimes conflicting objectives. There are typically few, if any, dedicated resources for BCP, so it can't be a full-time, resource-intensive project.
      • As an IT leader you have the skill set and organizational knowledge to lead a BCP project, but ultimately business leaders need to own the BCP – they know their processes, and therefore, their requirements to resume business operations better than anyone else.
      • The traditional approach to BCP is a massive project that most organizations can’t execute without hiring a consultant. To execute BCP in-house, carve up the task into manageable pieces as outlined in this blueprint.

      Impact and Result

      • Implement a structured and repeatable process that you apply to one business unit at a time to keep BCP planning efforts manageable.
      • Use the results of the pilot to identify gaps in your recovery plans and reduce overall continuity risk while continuing to assess specific risks as you repeat the process with additional business units.
      • Enable business leaders to own the BCP going forward. Develop a template that the rest of the organization can use.
      • Leverage BCP outcomes to refine IT DRP recovery objectives and achieve DRP-BCP alignment.

      Develop a Business Continuity Plan Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a business continuity plan, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Identify BCP maturity and document process dependencies

      Assess current maturity, establish a team, and choose a pilot business unit. Identify business processes, dependencies, and alternatives.

      • BCP Maturity Scorecard
      • BCP Pilot Project Charter Template
      • BCP Business Process Workflows Example (Visio)
      • BCP Business Process Workflows Example (PDF)

      2. Conduct a BIA to determine acceptable RTOs and RPOs

      Define an objective impact scoring scale, estimate the impact of downtime, and set recovery targets.

      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool

      3. Document the recovery workflow and projects to close gaps

      Build a workflow of the current steps for business recovery. Identify gaps and risks to recovery. Brainstorm and prioritize solutions to address gaps and mitigate risks.

      • BCP Tabletop Planning Template (Visio)
      • BCP Tabletop Planning Template (PDF)
      • BCP Project Roadmap Tool
      • BCP Relocation Checklists

      4. Extend the results of the pilot BCP and implement governance

      Present pilot project results and next steps. Create BCMS teams. Update and maintain BCMS documentation.

      • BCP Pilot Results Presentation
      • BCP Summary
      • Business Continuity Teams and Roles Tool

      5. Appendix: Additional BCP tools and templates

      Use these tools and templates to assist in the creation of your BCP.

      • BCP Recovery Workflow Example (Visio)
      • BCP Recovery Workflow Example (PDF)
      • BCP Notification, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan
      • BCP Business Process Workarounds and Recovery Checklists
      • Business Continuity Management Policy
      • Business Unit BCP Prioritization Tool
      • Industry-Specific BIA Guidelines
      • BCP-DRP Maintenance Checklist
      • Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan Storyboard
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Develop a Business Continuity Plan

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Define BCP Scope, Objectives, and Stakeholders

      The Purpose

      Define BCP scope, objectives, and stakeholders.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Prioritize BCP efforts and level-set scope with key stakeholders.

      Activities

      1.1 Assess current BCP maturity.

      1.2 Identify key business processes to include in scope.

      1.3 Flowchart key business processes to identify business processes, dependencies, and alternatives.

      Outputs

      BCP Maturity Scorecard: measure progress and identify gaps.

      Business process flowcharts: review, optimize, and allow for knowledge transfer of processes.

      Identify workarounds for common disruptions to day-to-day continuity.

      2 Define RTOs and RPOs Based on Your BIA

      The Purpose

      Define RTOs and RPOs based on your BIA.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Set recovery targets based business impact, and illustrate the importance of BCP efforts via the impact of downtime.

      Activities

      2.1 Define an objective scoring scale to indicate different levels of impact.

      2.2 Estimate the impact of downtime.

      2.3 Determine acceptable RTO/RPO targets for business processes based on business impact.

      Outputs

      BCP Business Impact Analysis: objective scoring scale to assess cost, goodwill, compliance, and safety impacts.

      Apply the scoring scale to estimate the impact of downtime on business processes.

      Acceptable RTOs/RPOs to dictate recovery strategy.

      3 Create a Recovery Workflow

      The Purpose

      Create a recovery workflow.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Build an actionable, high-level, recovery workflow that can be adapted to a variety of different scenarios.

      Activities

      3.1 Conduct a tabletop exercise to determine current recovery procedures.

      3.2 Identify and prioritize projects to close gaps and mitigate recovery risks.

      3.3 Evaluate options for command centers and alternate business locations (i.e. BC site).

      Outputs

      Recovery flow diagram – current and future state

      Identify gaps and recovery risks.

      Create a project roadmap to close gaps.

      Evaluate requirements for alternate business sites.

      4 Extend the Results of the Pilot BCP and Implement Governance

      The Purpose

      Extend the results of the pilot BCP and implement governance.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Outline the actions required for the rest of your BCMS, and the required effort to complete those actions, based on the results of the pilot.

      Activities

      4.1 Summarize the accomplishments and required next steps to create an overall BCP.

      4.2 Identify required BCM roles.

      4.3 Create a plan to update and maintain your overall BCP.

      Outputs

      Pilot BCP Executive Presentation

      Business Continuity Team Roles & Responsibilities

      3. Maintenance plan and BCP templates to complete the relevant documentation (BC Policy, BCP Action Items, Recovery Workflow, etc.)

      Further reading

      Develop a Business Continuity Plan

      Streamline the traditional approach to make BCP development manageable and repeatable.

      Analyst Perspective

      A BCP touches every aspect of your organization, making it potentially the most complex project you’ll take on. Streamline this effort or you won’t get far.

      None of us needs to look very far to find a reason to have an effective business continuity plan.

      From pandemics to natural disasters to supply chain disruptions to IT outages, there’s no shortage of events that can disrupt your complex and interconnected business processes. How in the world can anyone build a plan to address all these threats?

      Don’t try to boil the ocean. Use these tactics to streamline your BCP project and stay on track:

      • Focus on one business unit at a time. Keep the effort manageable, establish a repeatable process, and produce deliverables that provide a starting point for the rest of the organization.
      • Don’t start with an extensive risk analysis. It takes too long and at the end you’ll still need a plan to resume business operations following a disruption. Rather than trying to predict what could cause a disruption, focus on how to recover.
      • Keep your BCP documentation concise. Use flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams instead of traditional manuals.

      No one can predict every possible disruption, but by following the guidance in this blueprint, you can build a flexible continuity plan that allows you to withstand the threats your organization may face.

      Frank Trovato

      Research Director,
      IT Infrastructure & Operations Practice
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Andrew Sharp

      Senior Research Analyst,
      IT Infrastructure & Operations Practice
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      • Recent crises have increased executive awareness and internal pressure to create a BCP.
      • Industry- and government-driven regulations require evidence of sound business continuity practices.
      • Customers demand their vendors provide evidence of a workable BCP prior to signing a contract.

      IT leaders, because of their cross-functional view and experience with incident management and DR, are often asked to lead BCP efforts.

      Common Obstacles

      • IT managers asked to lead BCP efforts are dealing with processes and requirements beyond IT and outside of their control.
      • BCP requires input from multiple departments with different and sometimes conflicting objectives.
      • Typically there are few, if any, dedicated resources for BCP, so it can't be a full-time, resource-intensive project.

      Info-Tech’s Approach

      • Focus on implementing a structured and repeatable process that can be applied to one business unit at a time to avoid BCP from becoming an overwhelming project.
      • Enable business leaders to own the BCP going forward by establishing a template that the rest of the organization can follow.
      • Leverage BCP outcomes to refine IT DRP recovery objectives and achieve DRP-BCP alignment.

      Info-Tech Insight

      As an IT leader you have the skill set and organizational knowledge to lead a BCP project, but you must enable business leaders to own their department’s BCP practices and outputs. They know their processes and, therefore, their requirements to resume business operations better than anyone else.

      Use this research to create business unit BCPs and structure your overall BCP

      A business continuity plan (BCP) consists of separate but related sub-plans, as illustrated below. This blueprint enables you to:

      • Develop a BCP for a selected business unit (as a pilot project), and thereby establish a methodology that can be repeated for remaining business units.
      • Through the BCP process, clarify requirements for an IT disaster recovery plan (DRP). Refer to Info-Tech’s Disaster Recovery Planning workshop for instructions on how to create an IT DRP.
      • Implement ongoing business continuity management to govern BCP, DRP, and crisis management.

      Overall Business Continuity Plan

      IT Disaster Recovery Plan

      A plan to restore IT application and infrastructure services following a disruption.

      Info-Tech’s disaster recovery planning blueprint provides a methodology for creating the IT DRP. Leverage this blueprint to validate and provide inputs for your IT DRP.

      BCP for Each Business Unit

      A set of plans to resume business processes for each business unit. This includes:

      • Identifying business processes and dependencies.
      • Defining an acceptable recovery timeline based on a business impact analysis.
      • Creating a step-by-step recovery workflow.

      Crisis Management Plan

      A plan to manage a wide range of crises, from health and safety incidents to business disruptions to reputational damage.

      Info-Tech’s Implement Crisis Management Best Practices blueprint provides a framework for planning a response to any crisis, from health and safety incidents to reputational damage.

      IT leaders asked to develop a BCP should start with an IT Disaster Recovery Plan

      It’s a business continuity plan. Why should you start continuity planning with IT?

      1. IT services are a critical dependency for most business processes. Creating an IT DRP helps you mitigate a key risk to continuity quicker than it takes to complete your overall BCP, and you can then focus on other dependencies such as people, facilities, and suppliers.
      2. A BCP requires workarounds for IT failures. But it’s difficult to plan workarounds without a clear understanding of the potential IT downtime and data loss. Your DRP will answer those questions, and without a DRP, BCP discussions can get bogged down in IT discussions. Think of payroll as an example: if downtime might be 24 hours, the business might simply wait for recovery; if downtime might be a week, waiting it out is not an option.
      3. As an IT manager, you can develop an IT DRP primarily with resources within your control. That makes it an easier starting point and puts IT in a better position to shift responsibility for BCP to business leaders (where it should reside) since essentially the IT portion is done.

      Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan today.

      Modernize the BCP

      If your BCP relies heavily on paper-based processes as workarounds, it’s time to update your plan.

      Back when transactions were recorded on paper and then keyed into the mainframe system later, it was easier to revert to deskside processes. There is very little in the way of paper-based processes anymore, and as a result, it is increasingly difficult to resume business processes without IT.

      Think about your own organization. What IT system(s) are absolutely critical to business operations? While you might be able to continue doing business without IT, this requires regular preparation and training. It’s likely a completely offline process and won’t be a viable workaround for long even if staff know how to do the work. If your data center and core systems are down, technology-enabled workarounds (such as collaboration via mobile technologies or cloud-based solutions) could help you weather the outage, and may be more flexible and adaptable for day-to-day work.

      The bottom line:

      Technology is a critical dependency for business processes. Consider the role IT systems play as process dependencies and as workarounds as part of continuity planning.

      Info-Tech’s approach

      The traditional approach to BCP takes too long and produces a plan that is difficult to use and maintain.

      The Problem: You need to create a BCP, but don’t know where to start.

      • BCP is being demanded more and more to comply with regulations, mitigate business risk, meet customer demands, and obtain insurance.
      • IT leaders are often asked to lead BCP.

      The Complication: A traditional BCP process takes longer to show value.

      • Traditional consultants don’t usually have an incentive to accelerate the process.
      • At the same time, self-directed projects with no defined process go months without producing useful deliverables.
      • The result is a dense manual that checks boxes but isn’t maintainable or usable in a crisis.

      A pie chart is separated into three segments, Internal Mandates 43%, Customer Demands 23%, and Regulatory Requirements 34%. The bottom of the image reads Source: Info-Tech Research Group.

      The Info-Tech difference:

      Use Info-Tech’s methodology to right-size and streamline the process.

      • Reduce required effort. Keep the work manageable and maintain momentum by focusing on one business unit at a time; allow that unit to own their BCP.
      • Prioritize your effort. Evaluate the current state of your BCP to identify the steps that are most in need of attention.
      • Get valuable results faster. Functional deliverables and insights from the first business unit’s BCP can be leveraged by the entire organization (e.g. communication, assessment, and BC site strategies).

      Expedite BCP development

      Info-Tech’s Approach to BCP:

      • Start with one critical business unit to manage scope, establish a repeatable process, and generate deliverables that become a template for remaining business units.
      • Resolve critical gaps as you identify them, generating early value and risk mitigation.
      • Create concise, practical documentation to support recovery.

      Embed training and awareness throughout the planning process.

      BCP for Business Unit A:

      Scope → Pilot BIA → Response Plan → Gap Analysis

      → Lessons Learned:

      • Leverage early results to establish a BCM framework.
      • Take action to resolve critical gaps as they are identified.
      • BCP for Business Units B through N.
      • Scope→BIA→Response Plan→Gap Analysis

      = Ongoing governance, testing, maintenance, improvement, awareness, and training.

      By comparison, a traditional BCP approach takes much longer to mitigate risk:

      • An extensive, upfront commitment of time and resources before defining incident response plans and mitigating risk.
      • A “big bang” approach that makes it difficult to predict the required resourcing and timelines for the project.

      Organizational Risk Assessment and Business Impact Analysis → Solution Design to Achieve Recovery Objectives → Create and Validate Response Plans

      Case Study

      Continuity Planning Supports COVID-19 Response

      Industry: Non-Profit
      Source: Info-Tech Advisory Services

      A charitable foundation for a major state university engaged Info-Tech to support the creation of their business continuity plan.

      With support from Info-Tech analysts and the tools in this blueprint, they worked with their business unit stakeholders to identify recovery objectives, confirm recovery capabilities and business process workarounds, and address gaps in their continuity plans.

      Results

      The outcome wasn’t a pandemic plan – it was a continuity plan that was applicable to pandemics. And it worked. Business processes were prioritized, gaps in work-from-home and business process workarounds had been identified and addressed, business leaders owned their plan and understood their role in it, and IT had clear requirements that they were able and ready to support.

      “The work you did here with us was beyond valuable! I wish I could actually explain how ready we really were for this…while not necessarily for a pandemic, we were ready to spring into action, set things up, the priorities were established, and most importantly some of the changes we’ve made over the past few years helped beyond words! The fact that the groups had talked about this previously almost made what we had to do easy.“ -- VP IT Infrastructure

      Download the BCP Case Study

      Project Overview: BCP

      Phases Phase 1: Identify BCP Maturity and Document Process Dependencies Phase 2: Conduct a BIA to Determine Acceptable RTOs and RPOs Phase 3: Document the Recovery Workflow and Projects to Close Gaps Phase 4: Extend the Results of the Pilot BCP and Implement Governance
      Steps 1.1 Assess current BCP maturity 2.1 Define an objective impact scoring scale 3.1 Determine current recovery procedures 4.1 Consolidate BCP pilot insights to support an overall BCP project plan
      1.2 Establish the pilot BCP team 2.2 Estimate the impact of downtime 3.2 Identify and prioritize projects to close gaps 4.2 Outline a business continuity management (BCM) program
      1.3 Identify business processes, dependencies, and alternatives 2.3 Determine acceptable RTO/RPO targets 3.3 Evaluate BC site and command center options 4.3 Test and maintain your BCP
      Tools and Templates

      BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool

      Results Presentation

      BCP Maturity Scorecard

      Tabletop Planning Template

      BCP Summary

      Pilot Project Charter

      Recovery Workflow Examples

      Business Continuity Teams and Roles

      Business Process Workflows Examples

      BCP Project Roadmap

      Blueprint deliverables

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

      BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool: Conduct and document a business impact analysis using this document.

      BCP Recovery Workflows Example: Model your own recovery workflows on this example.

      BCP Project Roadmap: Use this tool to prioritize projects that can improve BCP capabilities and mitigate gaps and risks.

      BCP Relocation Checklists: Plan for and manage a site relocation – whether to an alternate site or work from home.

      Key deliverable:

      BCP Summary Document

      Summarize your organization's continuity capabilities and objectives in a 15-page, easy-to-consume template.

      This document consolidates data from the supporting documentation and tools to the right.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Summary Document

      Insight summary

      Focus less on risk, and more on recovery

      Avoid focusing on risk and probability analysis to drive your continuity strategy. You never know what might disrupt your business, so develop a flexible plan to enable business resumption regardless of the event.

      Small teams = good pilots

      Choose a small team for your BCP pilot. Small teams are better at trialing new techniques and finding new ways to think about problems.

      Calculate downtime impact

      Develop and apply a scoring scale to develop a more-objective assessment of downtime impact for the organization. This will help you prioritize recovery.

      It’s not no, but rather not now…

      You can’t address all the organization’s continuity challenges at once. Prioritize high value, low effort initiatives and create a long-term roadmap for the rest.

      Show Value Now

      Get to value quickly. Start with one business unit with continuity challenges, and a small, focused project team who can rapidly learn the methodology, identify continuity gaps, and define solutions that can also be leveraged by other departments right away.

      Lightweight Testing Exercises

      Outline recovery capabilities using lightweight, low risk tabletop planning exercises. Our research shows tabletop exercises increase confidence in recovery capabilities almost as much as live exercises, which carry much higher costs and risks.

      Blueprint benefits

      Demonstrate compliance with demands from regulators and customers

      • Develop a plan that satisfies auditors, customers, and insurance providers who demand proof of a continuity plan.
      • Demonstrate commitment to resilience by identifying gaps in current capabilities and projects to overcome those gaps.
      • Empower business users to develop their plans and perform regular maintenance to ensure plans don’t go stale.
      • Establish a culture of business readiness and resilience.

      Leverage your BCP to drive value (Business Benefits)

      • Enable flexible, mobile, and adaptable business operations that can overcome disruptions large and small. This includes making it easier to work remotely in response to pandemics or facility disruptions.
      • Clarify the risk of the status quo to business leaders so they can make informed decisions on where to invest in business continuity.
      • Demonstrate to customers your ability to overcome disruptions and continue to deliver your services.

      Info-Tech Advisory Services lead to Measurable Value

      Info-Tech members told us they save an average of $44,522 and 23 days by working with an Info-Tech analyst on BCP (source: client response data from Info-Tech's Measured Value Survey).

      Why do members report value from analyst engagement?

      1. Expert advice on your specific situation to overcome obstacles and speed bumps.
      2. Structure the project and stay on track.
      3. Review project deliverables and ensure the process is applied properly.

      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.”

      Diagnostic and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

      Guided Implementation

      Your Trusted Advisor is a call away.

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

      A typical GI is between eight to twelve calls over the course of four to six months.

      Scoping

      Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and stakeholders. Identify a pilot BCP project.

      Business Processes and Dependencies

      Calls 2 - 4: Assess current BCP maturity. Create business process workflows, dependencies, alternates, and workarounds.

      Conduct a BIA

      Calls 5 – 7: Create an impact scoring scale and conduct a BIA. Identify acceptable RTO and RPO.

      Recovery Workflow

      Calls 8 – 9: Create a recovery workflow based on tabletop planning.

      Documentation & BCP Framework

      Call 10: Summarize the pilot results and plan next steps. Define roles and responsibilities. Make the case for a wider BCP program.

      Workshop Overview

      Contact your account representative for more information.

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

      Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
      Identify BCP Maturity, Key Processes, and Dependencies Conduct a BIA to Determine Acceptable RTOs and RPOs Document the Current Recovery Workflow and Projects to Close Gaps Identify Remaining BCP Documentation and Next Steps Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)
      Activities

      1.1 Assess current BCP maturity.

      1.2 Identify key business processes to include in scope.

      1.3 Create a flowchart for key business processes to identify business processes, dependencies, and alternatives.

      2.1 Define an objective scoring scale to indicate different levels of impact.

      2.2 Estimate the impact of a business disruption on cost, goodwill, compliance, and health & safety.

      2.3 Determine acceptable RTOs/RPOs for selected business processes based on business impact.

      3.1 Review tabletop planning – what is it, how is it done?

      3.2 Walk through a business disruption scenario to determine your current recovery timeline, RTO/RPO gaps, and risks to your ability to resume business operations.

      3.3 Identify and prioritize projects to close RTO/RPO gaps and mitigate recovery risks.

      4.1 Assign business continuity management (BCM) roles to govern BCP development and maintenance, as well as roles required to execute recovery.

      4.2 Identify remaining documentation required for the pilot business unit and how to leverage the results to repeat the methodology for remaining business units.

      4.3 Workshop review and wrap-up.

      5.1 Finalize deliverables for the workshop.

      5.2 Set up review time for workshop outputs and to discuss next steps.

      Deliverables
      1. Baseline BCP maturity status
      2. Business process flowcharts
      3. Business process dependencies and alternatives recorded in the BIA tool
      1. Potential impact of a business disruption quantified for selected business processes.
      2. Business processes criticality and recovery priority defined
      3. Acceptable RTOs/RPOs defined based on business impact
      1. Current-state recovery workflow and timeline.
      2. RTO/RPO gaps identified.
      3. BCP project roadmap to close gaps
      1. BCM roles and responsibilities defined
      2. Workshop results deck; use this to communicate pilot results and next steps
      1. Finalized deliverables

      Phase 1

      Identify BCP Maturity and Document Process Dependencies

      Phase 1

      1.1 Assess Current BCP Maturity

      1.2 Establish the pilot BCP team

      1.3 Identify business processes, dependencies, and alternatives

      Insights & Outcomes

      Define the scope for the BCP project: assess the current state of the plan, create a pilot project team and pilot project charter, and map the business processes that will be the focus of the pilot.

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator
      • BCP Executive Sponsor
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager & Process SMEs

      Step 1.1

      Assess current BCP Maturity

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Complete Info-Tech’s BCP Maturity Scorecard

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Executive Sponsor
      • BCP Coordinator

      You'll use the following tools & templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Establish current BCP maturity using Info-Tech’s ISO 22301-aligned BCP Maturity Scorecard.

      Evaluate the current state of your continuity plan

      Use Info-Tech’s Maturity Scorecard to structure and accelerate a BCP maturity assessment.

      Conduct a maturity assessment to:

      • Create a baseline metric so you can measure progress over time. This metric can also drive buy-in from senior management to invest time and effort into your BCP.
      • Understand the scope of work to create a complete business continuity plan.
      • Measure your progress and remaining gaps by updating your assessment once you’ve completed the activities in this blueprint.

      This blueprint primarily addresses the first four sections in the scorecard, which align with the creation of the core components of your business continuity plan.

      Info-Tech’s BCP Maturity Scorecard

      Info-Tech’s maturity scorecard is aligned with ISO 22301, the international standard that describes the key elements of a functioning business continuity management system or program – the overarching set of documents, practices, and controls that support the ongoing creation and maintenance of your BCP. A fully functional BCMS goes beyond business continuity planning to include crisis management, BCP testing, and documentation management.

      Audit tools tend to treat every bullet point in ISO 22301 as a separate requirement – which means there’s almost 400 lines to assess. Info-Tech’s BCP Maturity Scorecard has synthesized key requirements, minimizing repetition to create a high-level self-assessment aligned with the standard.

      A high score is a good indicator of likely success with an audit.

      Download Info-Tech's BCP Maturity Scorecard

      Tool: BCP Maturity Scorecard

      Assess your organization’s BCP capabilities.

      Use Info-Tech’s BCP Maturity Scorecard to:

      • Assess the overall completeness of your existing BCP.
      • Track and demonstrate progress towards completion as you work through successive planning iterations with additional business units.
      1. Download a copy of the BCP Maturity Scorecard. On tab 1, indicate the percent completeness for each item using a 0-10 scale (0 = 0% complete, 10 = 100% complete).
      2. If you anticipate improvements in a certain area, make note of it in the “Comments” column.
      3. Review a visual representation of your overall scores on tab 2.

      Download Info-Tech's BCP Maturity Scorecard

      "The fact that this aligns with ISO is huge." - Dr. Bernard Jones MBCI, CBCP

      Step 1.2

      Establish the pilot BCP team

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Assign accountability, responsibility, and roles.
      • Develop a project charter.
      • Identify dependencies and alternates for those dependencies.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Executive Sponsor
      • BCP Coordinator

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Assign roles and responsibilities for the BCP pilot project. Set milestones and timelines for the pilot.

      Take a pilot approach for BCP

      Limit the scope of an initial BCP project to get to value faster.

      Pilot Project Goals

      • Establish a repeatable methodology that fits your organization and will accelerate BCP development, with tangible deliverables that provide a template for the rest of the business.
      • Identify high-priority business continuity gaps for the pilot business unit, many of which will also apply to the overall organization.
      • Identify initiatives to start addressing gaps now.
      • Enable business users to learn the BCP methodology and toolset so they can own and maintain their business unit BCPs.

      Accomplishments expected:

      • Define key business processes and process dependencies, and alternatives if dependencies are not available.
      • Classify key business processes by criticality for one business unit, using an objective impact scoring scale.
      • Set recovery objectives for these key processes.
      • Document workarounds and recovery plans.
      • Identify gaps in recovery plans and list action items to mitigate risks.
      • Develop a project plan to structure a larger continuity project.

      What not to expect from a pilot project:

      • A complete organizational BCP (the pilot is a strong starting point).
      • Implemented solutions to all BCP gaps (proposed solutions will need to be evaluated first).

      Structure IT’s role in continuity planning

      Clearly define IT’s role in the pilot BCP project to deliver a successful result that enables business units to own BCP in the future.

      Though IT is a critical dependency for most processes, IT shouldn’t own the business continuity plan. IT should be an internal BCP process consultant, and each business unit must own their plan.

      IT should be an internal BCP consultant.

      • IT departments interact with all business units, which gives IT leaders at least a high-level understanding of business operations across the organization.
      • IT leaders typically also have at least some knowledge of disaster recovery, which provides a foundation for tackling BCP.
      • By contrast, business leaders often have little or no experience with disaster recovery, and don’t have the same level of experience as IT when it comes to working with other business units.

      Why shouldn’t IT own the plan?

      • Business unit managers have the authority to direct resources in their department to participate in the BCP process.
      • Business users are the experts in their processes, and are in the best position to identify dependencies, downtime impacts, recovery objectives, and viable solutions (e.g., acceptable alternate sites or process workarounds).
      • Ultimately, business unit managers and executives must decide whether to mitigate, accept, or transfer risks.

      Info-Tech Insight

      A goal of the pilot is to seed success for further planning exercises. This is as much about demonstrating the value of continuity planning to the business unit, and enabling them to own it, as it is about implementing the methodology successfully.

      Create a RACI matrix for the pilot

      Assemble a small, focused team for the pilot project empowered to discover, report, and present possible solutions to continuity planning challenges in your organization.

      Outline roles and responsibilities on the pilot team using a “RACI” exercise. Remember, only one party can be ultimately accountable for the work being completed.

      Example Pilot BCP Project RACI

      Board Executive Team BCP Executive Sponsor BCP Team Leader BCP Coordinator Pilot Bus. Unit Manager Expert Bus. Unit Staff IT Manager
      Communicate BCP project status I I I A R C C I
      Assign resources to pilot BCP project A R C R C R
      Conduct continuity planning activities I A/R R R R R
      Create pilot BCP deliverables I A R R C C C
      Manage BCP documentation I A C R I C C
      Integrate results into BCMS I I A R R I C C
      Create overall BCP project plan I I A R C C

      R: Responsible for doing the work.

      A: Accountable to ensure the activity/work happens.

      C: Consulted prior to decision or action.

      I: Informed of the decision/action once it’s made.

      "Large teams excel at solving problems, but it is small teams that are more likely to come up with new problems for their more sizable counterparts to solve." – Wang & Evans, 2019

      Info-Tech Insight

      Small teams tend to be better at trialing new techniques and finding new ways to think about problems, both of which are needed for a BCP pilot project.

      Choose one business unit for the pilot

      Many organizations begin their BCP project with a target business unit in mind. It’s still worth establishing whether this business unit meets the criteria below.

      Good candidates for a pilot project:

      • Business processes are standardized and documented.
      • Management and staff are motivated to improve business continuity.
      • The business unit is sufficiently well resourced to spare time (e.g. a few hours a week) to dedicate to the BCP process.
      • If the business unit doesn’t meet these criteria, consider addressing shortfalls before the pilot (e.g. via stakeholder management or business process analysis) or selecting another unit.
      • Many of the decisions will ultimately require input and support from the business unit’s manager(s). It is critical that they are bought into and engaged with the project.
      • The leader of the first business unit will be a champion for BCP within the executive team.
      • Sometimes, there’s no clear place to start. If this is the case for you, consider using Info-Tech’s Business Unit BCP Prioritization Tool to determine the order in which business units should undergo BCP development.

      Create role descriptions for the pilot project

      Use these role descriptions and your RACI chart to define roles for the pilot.

      These short descriptions establish the functions, expectations, and responsibilities of each role at a more granular level.

      The Board and executives have an outsized influence on the speed at which the project can be completed. Ensure that communication with these stakeholders is clear and concise. Avoid involving them directly in activities and deliverable creation, unless it’s required by their role (e.g. as a business unit manager).

      Project Role Description
      Board & Executive Team
      • Will receive project status updates but are not directly involved in deliverable creation.
      Executive Sponsor
      • Liaison with the executive team.
      • Accountable to ensure the pilot BCP is completed.
      • Set project goals and approve resource allocation and funding.
      Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Drive the project and assign required resources.
      • Delegate day-to-day project management tasks to the BCP Coordinator.
      BCP Coordinator
      • Function as the project manager. This includes scheduling activities, coordinating resources, reporting progress, and managing deliverables.
      • Learn and apply the BCP methodology to achieve project goals.
      Expert Business Unit Staff
      • Pilot business unit process experts to assist with BCP development for that business unit.
      IT Manager
      • Provide guidance on IT capabilities and recovery options.
      Other Business Unit Managers
      • Consulted to validate or provide input to the business impact analysis and RTOs/RPOs.

      Identify a suitable BCP Coordinator

      A skilled and committed coordinator is critical to building an effective and durable BCP.

      • Coordinating the BC planning effort requires a perspective that’s informed by IT, but goes beyond IT.
      • For example, many IT professionals only see business processes where they intersect with IT. The BCP Coordinator needs to be able to ask the right questions to help the business units think through dependencies for critical processes.
      • Business analysts can thrive in this role, which requires someone effective at dissecting business processes, working with business users, identifying requirements, and managing large projects.

      Structure the role of the BCP Coordinator

      The BCP Coordinator works with the pilot business unit as well as remaining business units to provide continuity and resolve discrepancies as they come up between business units.

      Specifically, this role includes:

      • Project management tasks (e.g. scheduling, assigning tasks, coordinating resources, and reporting progress).
      • Learning the BCP methodology (through the pilot) so that this person can lead remaining business units through their BCP process. This enables the IT leader who had been assigned to guide BCP development to step back into a more appropriate consulting role.
      • Managing the BCP workflow.

      "We found it necessary to have the same person work with each business unit to pass along lessons learned and resolve contingency planning conflicts for common dependencies." – Michelle Swessel, PM and IT Bus. Analyst, Wisconsin Compensation Rating Bureau (WCRB)

      Template: Pilot Project Charter

      Formalize participants, roles, milestones, risks for the pilot project.

      Your charter should:

      1. Define project parameters, including drivers, objectives, deliverables, and scope.
      2. Identify the pilot business unit.
      3. Assign a BCP pilot team, including a BCP Coordinator, to execute the methodology.
      4. Define before-and-after metrics to enable the team to measure pilot success.
      5. Set achievable, realistic target dates for specific project milestones.
      6. Document risks, assumptions, and constraints.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Pilot Project Charter Template

      Step 1.3

      Identify business processes, dependencies, and alternatives

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Identify key business processes.
      • Document the process workflow.
      • Identify dependencies and alternates for those dependencies.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Expert Business Unit Staff

      You'll use the following tools & templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Documented workflows, process dependencies, and workarounds when dependencies are unavailable.

      Flowchart business processes

      Workflows help you visually identify process dependencies and optimization opportunities.

      • Business continuity planning is business process focused. You need to document business processes, dependencies, and downtime workarounds.
      • Process documentation is a basic BCP audit requirement, but it will also:
        • Keep discussions about business processes well-scoped and focused – by documenting the process, you also clarify for everyone what you’re actually talking about.
        • Remind participants of process dependencies and workarounds.
        • Make it easier to spot possible process breakdowns or improvements.
        • Capture your work, which can be used to create or update SOP documentation.
      • Use flowcharts to capture process workflows. Flowcharts are often quicker to create, take less time to update, and are ultimately more usable than a dense manual.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Process review often results in discovering informal processes, previously unknown workarounds or breakdowns, shadow IT, or process improvement opportunities.

      1.3.1 Prioritize pilot business unit processes

      Input

      • List of key business unit processes.

      Output

      • List of key business unit processes, now prioritized (at a high-level)

      Materials

      • Whiteboard/flip charts
      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (leads the discussion)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager

      30 minutes

      1. Create a list of all formal and informal business processes executed by the pilot business unit.
      2. Discuss the impact of process downtime, and do a quick assessment whether impact of downtime for each process would be high, medium, or low across each of these criteria:
        • Revenue or costs (e.g. supports sales, billing, or productivity)
        • Goodwill (e.g. affects internal or external reputation)
        • Compliance (e.g. affects legal or industry requirements)
        • Health or safety (e.g. affects employee/public health & safety)

      Note: A more in-depth analysis will be conducted later to refine priorities. The goal here is a high-level order of priority for the next steps in the planning methodology (identify business processes and dependencies).

      1. In the BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool, Processes and Dependencies tab, record the following:
        • The business processes in rough order of criticality.
        • For each process, provide a brief description that focuses on purpose and impact.
        • For each process, name a process owner (i.e. accountable for process completion – could be a manager or senior staff, not necessarily those executing the process).

      1.3.2 Review process flows & identify dependencies

      Input

      • List of key business unit processes (prioritized at a high level in Activity 1.3.1).
      • Business process flowcharts.

      Output

      • Business process flowcharts

      Materials

      • Whiteboard/flip charts
      • Microsoft Visio, or other flowcharting software
      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool

      Download Info-Tech’s Business Process Workflows Example

      1.5 hours

      1. Use a whiteboard to flowchart process steps. Collaborate to clarify process steps and dependencies. If processes are not documented, use this as an opportunity to create standard operating procedures (SOPs) to drive consistency and process optimization, as described in the Info-Tech blueprint, Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind.
      2. Record the dependencies in tab 1 of the BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool in the appropriate columns:
        • People – Anyone involved in the process, from providing guidance to executing the steps.
        • IT Applications – Core IT services (e.g. ERP, CRM) required for this process.
        • End-user devices & equipment – End-user devices, locally-installed apps, IoT, etc.
        • Facility – Any special requirements beyond general office space.
        • Suppliers & Service Providers – Third-parties who support this process.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Policies and procedures manuals, if they exist, are often out of date or incomplete. Use these as a starting point, but don’t stop there. Identify the go-to staff members who are well versed in how a process works.

      1.3.3 Document workarounds

      Input

      • Business process flowcharts.
      • List of process dependencies.

      Output

      • Workarounds and alternatives in the event dependencies aren’t available.

      Materials

      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the activity)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

      1.5 hours

      Identify alternatives to critical dependencies to help you create contingency plans.

      1. For each business process, identify known alternatives for each primary dependency. Ignore for the moment how long the workaround or alternate would be feasible.
      2. Record alternatives in the Business Continuity Business Impact Analysis Tool, Processes and Dependencies tab, Alternatives columns (a separate column for each category of dependency):
        • People – Can other staff execute the process steps? (Example: managers can step in if needed.)
        • IT Applications – Is there a manual workaround or other alternative while enterprise technology services are unavailable? (Example: database is down, but data is stored on physical forms.)
        • End-User Devices and Equipment – What alternatives exist to the usual end-user technologies, such as workstations and desk phones? (Example: some staff have cell phones.)
        • Facility Location and Requirements – Is there an alternate location where this work can be conducted? (Example: work from home, or from another building on the campus.)
        • Suppliers and External Services – Is there an alternative source for key suppliers or other external inputs? (Example: find alternate suppliers for key inputs.)
        • Additional Inputs or Requirements – What workarounds exist for additional artifacts that enable process steps (e.g. physical inventory records, control lists)? (Example: if hourly pay information is missing, run the same payroll as the previous run and reconcile once that information is available.)

      Phase 2

      Conduct a BIA to Determine Acceptable RTOs and RPOs

      Phase 2

      2.1 Define an objective impact scoring scale

      2.2 Estimate the impact of downtime

      2.3 Determine acceptable RTO/RPO targets

      Insights & Outcomes

      Assess the impact of business process downtime using objective, customized impact scoring scales. Sort business processes by criticality and by assigning criticality tiers, recovery time, and recovery point objectives.

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Business Process SMEs

      Step 2.1

      Define an objective scoring scale

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Identify impact criteria that are relevant to your business.
      • Create a scale that defines a range of impact for relevant criteria.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Expert Business Unit Staff

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Define an impact scoring scale relevant to your business, which allows you to more-objectively assess the impact of business process downtime.

      Set appropriate recovery objectives

      Recovery time and recovery point objectives should align with business impact.

      The activities in Phase 2 will help you set appropriate, acceptable recovery objectives based on the business impact of process downtime.

      • The recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) are the recovery goals set for individual processes and dependencies to ensure your business unit meets its overall acceptable recovery timeline.

      For example:

      • An RTO of four hours means staff and other required resources must be available to support the business processes within four hours of an incident (e.g. relocate to an alternate worksite if necessary, access needed equipment, log-in to needed systems, get support for completing the process from alternate staff, etc.)
      • An RPO of four hours for a customer database means the most recent secondary copy of the data must never be more than four hours old – e.g. running a backup every four hours or less.

      Conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA)

      Create Impact Scoring Scales→Assess the impact of process downtime→Review overall impact of process downtime→Set Criticality Tiers→Set Recovery Time and Recovery Point Objectives

      Create financial impact scales

      Identify maximum cost and revenue impacts to build financial impact scales to measure the financial impact of process downtime.

      Work with the Business Unit Manager and Executive Sponsor to identify the maximum impact in each category to the entire business. Use a worst-case scenario to estimate the maximum for each scale. In the future, you can use this scoring scale to estimate the impact of downtime for other business units.

      • Loss of Revenue: Estimate the upper bound for this figure from the previous year, and divide that by the number of business days in the year. Note: Some organizations may choose to exclude revenue as a category where it won’t be lost (e.g. public-sector organizations).
      • Loss of Productivity: Proxy for lost workforce productivity using payroll numbers. Use the fully loaded payroll for the company, divided by the number of working days in the year as the maximum.
      • Increased Operating Costs: Isolate this to known additional costs resulting from a disruption. Does the interruption itself increase operating costs (e.g. if using timesheets for hourly/contract employees and that information is lost or unavailable, do you assume a full work week)?
      • Financial Penalties: If there are known financial penalties (e.g. due to failure to meet SLAs or other contractual obligations), include those values in your cost estimates.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Cost estimates are like hand grenades and horseshoes: you don’t need to be exact. It’s much easier to get input and validation from other stakeholders when you have estimates. Even weak estimates are far better than a blank sheet.

      Create goodwill, compliance, and safety impact scales

      Create a quantitative, more-objective scoring scale for goodwill, compliance and safety by following the guidance below.

      • Impact on Customers: By default, the customer impact scale is based on the percent of your total customer base impacted. You can also modify this scale to include severity of impact or alter it to identify the maximum number of customers that would be impacted.
      • Impact on Staff: Consider staff that are directly employed by the organization or its subsidiaries.
      • Impact on Business Partners: Which business partners would be affected by a business disruption?
      • Impact on Health & Safety: Consider the extent to which process downtime could increase the risk of the health & safety of staff, customers, and the general public. In addition, degradation of health & safety services should be noted.
      • Impact on Compliance: Set up the scale so that you can capture the impact of any critical regulatory requirements that might not be met if a particular process was down for 24 hours. Consider whether you expect to receive leeway or a grace period from the governance body that requires evidence of compliance.

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      Use just the impact scales that are relevant to your organization.

      Tool: Impact Scoring Scales

      • Define 4-point scoring scales in the BCP business impact analysis tool for a more objective assessment than gut-feel rankings.
      • You don’t need to include every category, if they aren’t relevant to your organization.
      • Refine the scoring scale as needed through the pilot project.
      • Use the same scoring scale for impact analyses with additional business units in the future.

      An image depicting the Business Impact Analysis Tool. A note pointing to the Level of Impact and Direct Cost Impact Scales columns states: Add the maximum cost impacts across each of the four impact scales to the tool. The rest of the scale will auto-populate based on the criteria outlined in the “Level of Impact” column. A note pointing to the column headers states: Change the names of the column headers in this tab. The changes to column headers will populate across the rest of the tool. Indicate exclusions from the scale here. A note pointing to the Goodwill Impact Scales columns reads: Update the Goodwill impact scales. For example, perhaps a critical impact on customers could be defined as “a significant impact on all customers using the organization’s services in a 24-hour period.” A note pointing to the Compliance, Heath and Safety Impact Scales columns reads: Review the compliance and safety impact scales, and update as required.

      Step 2.2

      Estimate the impact of downtime

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Apply the scoring scale developed in step 2.1 to assess the impact of downtime for specific business processes.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Expert Business Unit Staff

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Develop an objective view of the impact of downtime for key business processes.

      2.2.1 Estimate the impact of downtime

      1.5 hours

      Input

      • List of business processes, dependencies, and workarounds, all documented in the BIA tool.

      Output

      • Impact of downtime scores for key business unit processes.

      Materials

      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the discussion)
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      1. Print a copy of the Scoring Criteria tab to use as a reference, or have it open on another screen. In tab 3 of the BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool use the drop-down menu to assign a score of 0 to 4 based on levels of impact defined in the Scoring Criteria tab.
      2. Work horizontally across all categories for a single process. This will set a benchmark, familiarize you with the scoring system, and allow you to modify any scoring scales if needed. In general, begin with the process that you know to be most critical.
        • For example, if call center sales operations are down:
          • Loss of Revenue would be the portion of sales revenue generated through the call center. This might score a 2 or 3 depending on the proportion of sales generated through the call center.
          • The Impact on Customers might be a 1 or 2 depending on the extent that existing customers might be using the call center to purchase new products or services.
          • The Legal/Regulatory Compliance and Health or Safety Risk might be a 0.
      3. Next, work vertically across all processes within a single category. This will allow you to compare scores within the category as you create them.

      Tool: Impact Analysis

      • The goal of the exercise is to arrive at a defensible ranking of process criticality, based on the impact of downtime.
      • Make sure participants can see the scores you’re assigning during the exercise (e.g. by writing out the scores on a whiteboard, or displaying the tool on a projector or screen) and can reference the scoring scales tab to understand what the scores mean.
      • Take notes to record the rationale behind the impact scores. Consider assigning note-taking duties to one of the participants.

      An image of the Impact Analysis Tool. A note pointing to the column headings states: Any customized column headings from tab 2, Scoring Criteria are automatically ported to this tab. A note pointing to the Impact on Goodwill columns reads: Score each application across each scoring scale from 0 to 4. Be sure to refer back to the scoring scale defined in tab 2. Have the scoring scale printed out, written on a whiteboard, or displayed on a separate screen. A note pointing to the tool's dropdown boxes states: Score categories using the drop-down boxes. A note pointing to the centre columns reads: Ignore scoring for categories you choose to exclude. You can hide these columns to clean up the tool if needed.

      2.2.2 Sort processes into Criticality Tiers

      30 minutes

      Input

      • Processes, with assigned impact scores (financial impact, goodwill impact, compliance and safety impact).

      Output

      • Business processes sorted into criticality tiers, based on the impact of downtime.

      Materials

      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the discussion)
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      1. In general, consider the Total Impact on Goodwill, Compliance, and Safety first.
        • An effective tactic to start the process is to assign a tier 1 rating to all processes with a Goodwill, Compliance, and Safety score that’s 50% or more of the highest total score, tier 2 where scores are between 25% and 50%, and tier 3 where scores are below 25% (see table below for an example).
        • In step 2.3, you’ll align recovery time objectives with the criticality tiers. So, Tier 1 processes will target recovery before Tier 2 processes, and Tier 2 processes will target recovery before Tier 3 processes.
      2. Next, consider the Total Cost of Downtime.
      • The Total Cost is calculated by the tool based on the Scoring Criteria in tab 2 and the estimates in the BIA.
      • Consider whether the total cost impact justifies changing the criticality rating. “Smoke test” categorization with participants. Are there any surprises (processes more or less critical than expected)?
    • If the categorization doesn’t seem right, check that the scoring scale was applied consistently.

      • Example: Highest total Goodwill, Compliance, and Safety impact score is 18.

      Tier Score Range % of high score
      Tier 1 - Gold 9-18 50-100%
      Tier 2 - Silver 5 to 9 25-50%
      Tier 3 - Bronze 0 to 5 0-25%

      Step 2.3

      Determine acceptable RTO and RPO targets

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Identify acceptable Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) for business processes.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Expert Business Unit Staff

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes and Insights

      Right-size recovery objectives based on business impact.

      Right-size recovery objectives

      Acceptable RTOs and RPOs must be right-sized to the impact of downtime.

      Rapid recovery typically requires more investment.

      The impact of downtime for most business processes tends to look something like the increasing impact curve in the image to the right.

      In the moments after a disruption, impact tends to be minimal. Imagine, for example, that your organization was suddenly unable to pay its suppliers (don’t worry about the reason for the disruption, for the moment). Chances are, this disruption wouldn’t affect many payees if it lasted just a few minutes, or even a few hours. But if the disruption were to continue for days, or weeks, the impact of downtime would start to spiral out of control.

      In general, we want to target recovery somewhere between the point where impact begins, and the point where impact is intolerable. We want to balance the impact of downtime with the investment required to make processes more resilient.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Account for hard copy files as well as electronic data. If that information is lost, is there a backup? BCP can be the driver to remove the last resistance to paperless processes, allowing IT to apply appropriate data protection.

      Set recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives in the “Debate Space”

      A graph with the X axis labelled as: Increasing downtime/data loss and the Y-axis labelled Increasing Impact. The graph shows a line rising as impact and downtime/data loss increase, with the lowest end of the line (on the left) labelled as minimal impact, and the highest point of the line (on the right) labelled maximum tolerance. The middle section of the line is labelled as the Debate Space, and a note reads: Acceptable RTO/RPO must be between Low Impact and Maximum Tolerance

      2.3.1 Define process-level recovery objectives

      1 hour

      Input

      • Processes, ranked by criticality.

      Output

      • Initial business-defined recovery objectives for each process.

      Materials

      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the discussion)
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      1. Review the “Debate Space” diagram (shown in previous section) with all participants.
      2. Ask business participants for each process: how much downtime is tolerable, acceptable, or appropriate? How much data loss is tolerable?
        • If participants aren’t yet comfortable setting recovery objectives, identify the point at which downtime and data loss first becomes noticeable and the point at which downtime and data loss becomes intolerable.
        • Choose an RTO and RPO for each process that falls within the range set by these two extremes.

      RTOs and RPOs are business-defined, impact-aligned objectives that you may not be able to achieve today. It may require significant investments of time and capital to enable the organization to meet RTO and RPO.

      2.3.2 Align RTOs within and across criticality tiers

      1 hour

      Input

      • Results from pilot BCP impact analysis.

      Output

      • Initial business-defined recovery objectives for each process.

      Materials

      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool
      • Whiteboard/ flipchart

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator
      • BCP Project Sponsor
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager (optional)

      Set a range for RTO for each Tier.

      1. Start with your least critical/Tier 3 processes. Use the filter in the “Criticality Rating” column in the Impact Analysis tab of the BIA tool to show only Tier 3 processes.
        • What range of RTOs did the group assign for processes in this Tier? Does the group agree that these targets are appropriate for these processes?
        • Record the range of RTOs on the whiteboard or flipchart.
      2. Next, look at Tier 2 processes. Use the same filter to show just Tier 2 processes.
        • Record the range of RTOs, confirm the range with the group, and ensure there’s no overlap with the Tier 3 range.
        • If the RTOs in one Tier overlap with RTOs in another, you’ll need to adjust RTOs or move processes between Tiers (if the impact analysis justifies it).
      Tier RTO
      Tier 1 4 hrs- 24 hrs
      Tier 2 24 hrs - 72 hrs
      Tier 3 72 hrs - 120 hrs

      Phase 3

      Document the Recovery Workflow and Projects to Close Gaps

      3.1 Determine current recovery procedures

      3.2 Identify and prioritize projects to close gaps

      3.3 Evaluate business continuity site and command center options

      Insights & Outcomes

      Outline business recovery processes. Highlight gaps and risks that could hinder business recovery. Brainstorm ideas to address gaps and risks. Review alternate site and business relocation options.

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Business Process SMEs

      Step 3.1

      Determine current recovery procedures

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Create a step-by-step, high-level recovery workflow.
      • Highlight gaps and risks in the recovery workflow.
      • Test the workflow against multiple scenarios.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Crisis Management Team
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Expert Business Unit Staff

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Establish steps required for business recovery and current recovery timelines.

      Identify risks & gaps that could delay or obstruct an effective recovery.

      Conduct a tabletop planning exercise to draft business recovery plans

      Tabletop exercises are the most effective way to test and increase business confidence in business recovery capabilities.

      Why is tabletop planning so effective?

      • It enables you play out a wider range of scenarios than technology-based testing (e.g. full-scale, parallel) due to cost and complexity factors.
      • It is non-intrusive, so it can be executed more frequently than other testing methodologies.
      • It provides a thorough test of your recovery workflow since the exercise is, essentially, paper-based.
      • After you have a BCP in place, this exercise can continue to be a valuable testing exercise for BCP to capture changes in your recovery process.

      A graph titled: Tabletop planning had the greatest impact on respondent confidence in meeting recovery objectives. The graph shows that the relative importance of Tabletop Planning is 57%, compared to 33% for Unit Testing, 3% for Simulation Testing, 6% for Parallel Testing, and 2% for Full-Scale Testing. The source for the graph is Info-Tech Research Group.

      Step 2 - 2 hours
      Establish command center.

      Step 2: Risks

      • Command center is just 15 miles away from primary site.

      Step 2: Gaps

      • Confirm what’s required to set up the command center.
      • Who has access to the EOC?
      • Does the center have sufficient bandwidth, workstations, phones, telephone lines?

      3.1.1 Choose a scenario for your first tabletop exercise

      30 minutes

      Input

      • List of past incidents.
      • Risks to business continuity that are of high concern.

      Output

      • Scenario for the tabletop exercise.

      Materials

      • N/A

      Participant

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the exercise)
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot business unit manager

      At the business unit level, the goal is to define a plan to resume business processes after an incident.

      A good scenario is one that helps the group focus on the goal of tabletop planning – to discuss and document the steps required to recover business processes. We suggest choosing a scenario for your first exercise that:

      • Disrupts many process dependencies (i.e. facilities, staff, IT services, suppliers).
      • Does not result in major property damage, harm, or loss of life. Business resumption is the focus of this exercise, not emergency response.
      • Has happened in the past, or is of concern to the business.

      An example: a gas leak at company HQ that requires the area to be cordoned off and power to be shut down. The business must resume processes from another location without access to materials, equipment, or IT services at the primary location.

      A plan that satisfies the gas leak scenario should meet the needs of other scenarios that affect your normal workspace. Then use BCP testing to validate that the plan meets a wider range of incidents.

      3.1.2 Define the BCP activation process

      1 hour

      Input

      • Any existing crisis management, incident response or emergency response plans.
      • BC Scenario.

      Output

      • High level incident notification, assessment, and declaration workflow.

      Materials

      • Cue cards, sticky notes, whiteboard and markers, or Visio template.

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Crisis Management Team (if one exists)
      • Business Process SMEs
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager

      Answer the questions below to structure your notification, assessment, and BCP activation procedures.

      Notification

      How will you be notified of a disaster event? How will this be escalated to leadership? How will the team responsible for making decisions coordinate (if they can’t meet on-site)? What emergency response plans are in place to protect health and safety? What additional steps are involved if there’s a risk to health and safety?

      Assessment

      Who’s in charge of the initial assessment? Who may need to be involved in the assessment? Who will coordinate if multiple teams are required to investigate and assess the situation? Who needs to review the results of the assessment, and how will the results of the assessment be communicated (e.g. phone bridge, written memo)? What happens if your primary mode of communication is unavailable (e.g. phone service is down)?

      Declaration

      Who is responsible today for declaring a disaster and activating business continuity plans? What are the organization’s criteria for activating continuity plans, and how will BCP activation be communicated? Establish a crisis management team to guide the organization through a wide range of crises by Implementing Crisis Management Best Practices.

      3.1.3 Document the business recovery workflow

      1 hour

      Input

      • Pilot BIA.
      • Any existing crisis management, incident response, or emergency response plans.
      • BC Scenario

      Output

      • Outline of your BCP declaration and business recovery plan.

      Materials

      • Cue cards, sticky notes, whiteboard and markers, or Visio template.

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the exercise)
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager

      Do the following:

      1. Create separate flows for facility, IT, and staff disruptions. Include additional workflows as needed.
        • We suggest you outline the recovery process at least to the point where business processes are restored to a minimum viable functional level.
      2. On white cue cards:
        1. Record the step.
        2. Indicate the task owner.
        3. Estimate how long the step will take.
      3. On yellow cue cards, document gaps in people, process, and technology requirements to complete the step.
      4. On red cue cards, indicate risks (e.g. no backup person for a key staff member).

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      Tabletop planning is most effective when you keep it simple.

      • Be focused; stay on task and on time.
      • Revisit each step and record risks and mitigation strategies.
      • Discuss each step from start to finish.
      • Revise the plan with key task owners.
      • Don’t get weighed down by tools.
      • Simple tools, like cue cards or whiteboards, can be very effective.

      Tool: BCP Recovery Workflow

      Document the steps you identified in the tabletop to create your draft recovery workflow.

      Why use a flowchart?

      • Flowcharts provide an at-a-glance view, are ideal for crisis scenarios where pressure is high and effective, and where timely communication is necessary.
      • For experienced managers and staff, a high-level reminder of process flows or key steps is sufficient.
      • Where more detail is required, include links to supporting documentation (which could include checklists, vendor documentation/contracts, other flowcharts, etc.)

      Create one recovery workflow for all scenarios.

      Traditional planning calls for separate plans for different “what-if” scenarios. This is challenging not just because it’s a lot more documentation – and maintenance – but because it’s impossible to predict every possible incident. Use the template, aligned to recovery of process dependencies, to create one recovery workflow for each business unit that can be used in and tested against different scenarios.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Recovery Workflow Example

      "We use flowcharts for our declaration procedures. Flowcharts are more effective when you have to explain status and next steps to upper management." – Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry

      "Very few business interruptions are actually major disasters. It’s usually a power outage or hardware failure, so I ensure my plans address ‘minor’ incidents as well as major disasters."- BCP Consultant

      3.1.4 Document achievable recovery metrics (RTA/RPA)

      30 minutes

      Input

      • Pilot BCP BIA.
      • Draft recovery workflow.

      Output

      • RTA and RPA for each business process.

      Materials

      • Pilot BCP BIA.

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the exercise)
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager

      Add the following data to your copy of the BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool.

      1. Estimate the recovery time achievable (RTA) for each process based on the required time for the process to be restored to a minimum acceptable functional level. Review your recovery workflow to identify this timeline. For example, if the full process from notification, assessment, and declaration to recovery and relocation would take a full day, set the RTA to 24 hours.
      2. Estimate the recovery point achievable (RPA) for each process based on the maximum amount of data that could be lost. For example, if data on a particular system is backed up offsite once per day, and the onsite system was destroyed just before that backup began, the entire day’s data could be lost and the achievable RPO is 24 hours. Note: Enter a value of 9999 to indicate that data is unrecoverable.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Operating at a minimum acceptable functional level may not be feasible for more than a few days or weeks. Develop plans for immediate continuity first, then develop further plans for long-term continuity processes as required. Recognize that for longer term outages, you will evolve your plans in the crisis to meet the needs of the situation.

      3.1.5 Test the workflow of other scenarios

      1 hour

      Input

      • Draft recovery workflow.

      Output

      • Updated draft recovery workflow.

      Materials

      • Draft recovery workflow.
      • Projector or screen.

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the exercise)
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager

      Work from and update the soft copy of your recovery workflow.

      1. Would any steps change if the scenario changes? If yes, capture the different flow with a decision diamond. See the example Recovery Workflow for a workflow that uses decision diamonds. Identify any new gaps or risks you encounter with red and yellow cards.
      2. Make sure the decision diamonds are as generalized as possible. For example, instead of creating a separate response plan for each scenario that would require you to relocate from your existing building, create one response plan for relocation and one response plan for remaining in place.
      3. See the next section for some examples of different types of scenarios that you may include in your recovery workflow.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Remember that health and safety risks must be dealt with first in a crisis. The business unit recovery workflow will focus on restoring business operations after employees are no longer at risk (e.g. the risk has been resolved or employees have been safely relocated). See Implement Crisis Management Best Practices for ideas on how to respond to and assess a wide range of crises.

      Not all scenarios will have full continuity plans

      Risk management is a business decision. Business continuity planning can help decision makers understand and decide on whether to accept or mitigate high impact, low probability risks.

      For some organizations, it’s not practical or possible to invest in the redundancy that would be necessary to recover in a timely manner from certain major events.

      Leverage existing risk management practices to identify key high impact events that could present major business continuity challenges that could cause catastrophic disruptions to facility, IT, staffing, suppliers, or equipment. If you don’t have a risk register, review the scenarios on the next slide and brainstorm risks with the working group.

      Work through tabletop planning to identify how you might work through an event like this, at a high level. In step 3.2, you can estimate the effort, cost, and benefit for different ideas that can help mitigate the damage to the business to help decision makers choose between investment in mitigation or accepting the risk.

      Document any scenarios that you identify as outside the scope of your continuity plans in the “Scope” section of your BCP Summary document.

      For example:

      A single location manufacturing company is creating a BCP.

      The factory is large and contains expensive equipment; it’s not possible to build a second factory for redundancy. If the factory is destroyed, operations can’t be resumed until the factory is rebuilt. In this case, the BCP outlines how to conduct an orderly business shutdown while the factory is rebuilt.

      Contingency planning to resume factory operations after less destructive events, as well as a BCP for corporate services, is still practical and necessary.

      Considerations for other BCP scenarios

      Scenario Type Considerations
      Local hazard (gas leak, chemical leak, criminal incident, etc.)
      • Systems might be accessible remotely, but hands-on maintenance will be required eventually. “Work from home” won’t be a long-term solution.
      • An alternate site is required for service continuity. Can be within normal commuting distance.
      Equipment/building damage (fire, roof collapse, etc.)
      • Equipment will need repair or replacement (vendor involvement).
      • An alternate site is required for service continuity. Can be nearby.
      Regional natural disasters
      • Utilities may be affected (power, running water, etc.).
      • Expect staff to take care of their families first before work.
      • A geographically distant alternate site is required for service continuity.
      Supplier failure (IT provider outage, disaster at supplier, etc.)
      • Service-level agreements are important to establish recovery timelines. Review contracts and master services agreements.
      Staff (lottery win, work stoppage, pandemic/quarantine)
      • Staff are suddenly unavailable. Expect that no warm handoff to alternates is possible and that time to ramp up on the process is accounted for.
      • In a pandemic scenario, work from home, remote toolsets, and digital/contactless workflows become critical.

      Step 3.2

      Identify and prioritize projects to close gaps

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Brainstorm solutions to identified gaps and risks.
      • Prioritize projects and action items to close gaps and risks.
      • Assess the impact of proposed projects on the recovery workflow.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Expert Business Unit Staff

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Identify and prioritize projects and action items that can improve business continuity capabilities.

      3.2.1 Brainstorm solutions to address risks and gaps

      1 hour

      Input

      • Draft recovery workflow.
      • Known continuity risks and gaps.

      Output

      • Ideas for action items and projects to improve business continuity.

      Materials

      • Flipchart

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator (facilitates the exercise)
      • Business Process Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      1. Review each of the risk and gap cards from the tabletop exercise.
      2. As a group, brainstorm ideas to address gaps, mitigate risks, and improve resiliency. Write the list of ideas on a whiteboard or flip chart paper. The solutions can range from quick-wins and action items to major capital investments. The following slides can help you seed ideas to support brainstorming and idea generation.

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      Try to avoid debates about feasibility at this point. The goal is to get ideas on the board.

      When you’re brainstorming solutions to problems, don’t stop with the first idea, even if the solution seems obvious. The first idea isn’t always the best or only solution – other ideas can expand on it and improve it.

      Step 4: No formal process to declare a disaster and invoke business continuity.

      Step 7: Alternate site could be affected by the same regional event as the main office.

      Step 12: Need to confirm supplier service-level agreements (SLAs).

      1. Continue to create BCP documentation.
      2. Identify a third location for regional disasters.
      3. Contact suppliers to confirm SLAs and validate alignment with RTOs/RPOs.
      4. Add BCP requirements collection to service procurement process?

      Discuss your remote work capabilities

      With COVID-19, most organizations have experience with mass work-from-home.

      Review the following case studies. Do they reflect your experience during the COVID-19 pandemic?

      Unacceptable risk

      • A small insurance company provided laptops to staff so they could work remotely.
      • Complication: Cheque and print stock is a dependency and no plan was made to store check stock offsite in a secure fashion.

      Key dependencies missing

      • A local government provided laptops to key staff so they could work remotely.
      • Complication: The organization didn’t currently own enough Citrix licenses for every user to be online concurrently.

      Unable to serve customers

      • The attestation and land services department of a local government agency provided staff with remote access to key apps.
      • Complication: Their most critical business processes were designed to be in-person – they had no plan to execute these processes from home.

      Consider where your own work-from-home plans fell short.

      • Were your collaboration and communication solutions too difficult for users to use effectively?
      • Did legacy infrastructure affect performance or limit capabilities? Were security concerns appropriately addressed?
      • What challenges did IT face supporting business users on break-fix and new requests?
      • Were there logistical needs (shipping/receiving, etc.) that weren’t met?
      • Develop an updated plan to support work-from-home using Info-Tech’s BCP Relocation Checklists and Home Office Survey template, and integrate these into your overall BCP documentation. Stakeholders can easily appreciate the value of this plan since it’s relevant to recent experience.

      Identify opportunities to improve continuity plans

      What gaps in your continuity response could be addressed with better planning?

      People

      • Alternates are not identified
      • Roles in a disaster are not formalized
      • No internal/external crisis comm. strategy

      →

      Site & Facilities

      • No alternate place of business or command center identified
      • No formal planning or exercises to test alternate site viability

      →

      • Identify a viable secondary site and/or work-from-home plan, and develop a schedule for testing activities. Review in Step 3.3 of the Develop a Business Continuity Plan blueprint.

      External Services & Suppliers

      • Contingency plans for a disruption not planned or formalized
      • No formal review of service-level agreements (SLAs)

      →

      • Contact key suppliers and vendors to establish SLAs, and ensure they meet requirements.
      • Review supplier continuity plans.

      Technology & Physical Assets

      • No secondary site or redundancy for critical IT systems
      • No documented end-to-end IT DR plan

      →

      Tool: BCP Project Roadmap

      Prioritize and visualize BCP projects to present options to decision makers.

      Not all BCP projects can be tackled at once. Enable decision makers to defer, rather than outright reject, projects that aren’t feasible at this time.

      1. Configure the tool in Tab 1. Setup. Adjust criteria and definitions for criteria. Note that shaded columns are required for reporting purposes and can’t be modified.
      2. Add projects and action items in Tab 2. Data Entry. Fields highlighted in red are all required for the dashboard to populate. All other fields are optional but will provide opportunities to track more detailed data on project ideas.
      3. To generate the dashboard in Tab 3. Roadmap, open the Data ribbon and under Queries and Connections click Refresh All. You can now use the slicers on the right of the sheet.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Project Roadmap Tool

      Demonstrate BCP project impacts

      Illustrate the benefits of proposed projects.

      1. Review your recovery workflow.
      2. Make updates to a second copy of the high-level outline to illustrate how the business response to a disaster scenario will change once proposed projects are complete.
      • Remove steps that have been made unnecessary.
      • Remove any risks or gaps that have been mitigated or addressed.
      • Verify that proposed projects close gaps between acceptable and achievable recovery capabilities in the BIA tool.
    • The visual impact of a shorter, less-risky recovery workflow can help communicate the benefits of proposed projects to decision makers.

      • Step 3.3

      Evaluate business continuity site and command center options

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Take a deep dive on the requirements for working from an alternate location.
      • Assess different options for an alternate location.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • Expert Business Unit Staff

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Identify requirements for an alternate business site.

      Tool: Relocation Checklists

      An alternate site could be another company building, a dedicated emergency operations center, or work-from-home. Use this tool to guide and prepare for any relocation exercise.

      • Coordinate your response with the pre-populated checklists in Tabs 1 & 2, identify who’s responsible for items on the checklists, and update your recovery workflows to reflect new steps. When reviewing the checklist, consider what can be done to prepare ahead of a crisis.
        • For example, you may wish to create crisis communication templates to streamline crisis communications during a disaster.
      • Calculate the effort required to provision equipment for relocated users in Tabs 3 & 4.
      • Evaluate your options for alternate sites with the requirements matrix in Tab 5. Use your evaluation to identify how the organization could address shortcomings of viable options either ahead of time or at the time of an incident.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Relocation Checklists

      Create a checklist of requirements for an alternate site

      Leverage the roll-up view, in tab 3, of dependencies required to create a list of requirements for an alternate site in tab 4.

      1. The table on Tab 5 of the relocation checklists is pre-populated with some common requirements. Modify or replace requirements to suit your needs for an alternate business/office site. Be sure to consider distance, transportation, needed services, accessibility, IT infrastructure, security, and seating capacity at a minimum.
      2. Don’t assume. Verify. Confirm anything that requires permissions from the site owner. What network providers have a presence in the building? Can you access the site 24/7 and conduct training exercises? What facilities and services are available? Are you guaranteed the space if needed?

      "There are horror stories about organizations that assumed things about their alternate site that they later found out they weren’t true in practice." – Dr. Bernard Jones, MBCI CBCP

      Info-Tech Insight

      If you choose a shared location as a BCP site, a regional disaster may put you in competition with other tenants for space.

      Identify a command center

      For command center and alternate worksite selection, remember that most incidents are local and short term. Identify an onsite and an offsite command center.

      1. For events where the building is not compromised, identify an onsite location, ideally with remote conferencing capabilities and planning and collaboration tools (projectors, whiteboards, flipcharts). The onsite location can also be used for BCM and crisis management meetings. Remember, most business continuity events are not regional or massively destructive.
      2. For the offsite command center, select a location that is sufficiently far away from your normal business location to maintain separation from local incidents while minimizing commute time. However, consider a geographically distant option (e.g. more than 50 miles away) identified for those scenarios where it is a regional disaster, or plan to leverage online tools to create a virtual command center (see the Insight box below).
      3. The first members of the Emergency Response Team to be notified of the incident will determine which location to use or whether a third alternative is required.

      Info-Tech Insight

      For many organizations, a dedicated command center (TVs on the wall, maps and charts in filing cabinets) isn’t necessary. A conference bridge and collaboration tools allowing everyone to work remotely can be an acceptable offsite command center as long as digital options can meet your command center requirements.

      Create a plan for a return to normal

      Operating in continuity mode for an extended period of time tends to result in higher costs and reduced business capabilities. It’s important to restore normal operations as soon as possible.

      Advance planning can minimize risks and delays in returning to normal operations.

      Leverage the methodology and tools in this blueprint to define your return to normal (repatriation) procedures:

      1. Repeat the tabletop planning exercise to determine the repatriation steps and potential gaps. How will you return to the primary site from your alternate site? Does data need to be re-entered into core systems if IT services are down? Do you need to transfer job duties back to primary staff?
      2. What needs to be done to address the gaps in the return to normal workflow? Are there projects or action items that could make return to normal easier?

      For more on supporting a business move back to the office from the IT perspective, see Responsibly Resume IT Operations in the Office

      Potential business impacts of ongoing operations at a failover site

      • The cost of leasing alternate business worksites.
      • Inability to deliver on strategic initiatives while in emergency/interim operations mode, resulting in lost business opportunities.
      • A growing backlog of work that falls outside of emergency operations mode.
      • Travel and accommodation costs if the alternate site is geographically remote.
      • Additional vendor licensing and contract costs.

      Phase 4

      Extend the Results of the Pilot BCP and Implement Governance

      Phase 4

      4.1 Consolidate BCP pilot insights to support an overall BCP project plan

      4.2 Outline a business continuity management (BCM) program

      4.3 Test and maintain your BCP

      Insights & Outcomes

      Summarize and consolidate your initial insights and documentation. Create a project plan for overall BCP. Identify teams, responsibilities, and accountabilities, and assign documentation ownership. Integrate BCP findings in DR and crisis management practices. Set guidelines for testing, plan maintenance, training, and awareness.

      Participants

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • BCP Executive Sponsor

      Step 4.1

      Consolidate BCP pilot insights to support an overall BCP project plan

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Summarize and consolidate outputs and key insights from the BCP pilot.
      • Identify outputs from the pilot that can be re-used for the overall BCP.
      • Create a project charter for an overall BCP.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Pilot Business Unit Manager
      • BCP Executive Sponsor

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Present results from the pilot BCP, and outline how you’ll use the pilot process with other business units to create an overall continuity program.

      Structure the overall BCP program.

      Template: BCP Pilot Results Presentation

      Highlight key findings from the BCP pilot to make the case for next steps.

      • Highlight critical gaps or risks identified, any potential process improvements, and progress made toward improving overall BCP maturity through the pilot project. Summarize the benefits of the pilot project for an executive audience.
      • Review process recovery objectives (RTO/RPO). Provide an overview of recovery capabilities (RTA/RPA). Highlight any significant gaps between objectives and capabilities.
      • Propose next steps, including an overall BCP project and program, and projects and action items to remediate gaps and risks.
      • Develop a project plan to estimate resource requirements for an overall BCP project prior to delivering this presentation. Quantifying required time and resources is a key outcome as it enables the remaining business units to properly scope and resource their BCP development activities and can help managers overcome the fear of the unknown.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Pilot Results Presentation

      Tool: BCP Summary

      Sum up information from completed BCP documents to create a high-level BCP overview for auditors and executives.

      The BCP Summary document is the capstone to business unit continuity planning exercises. It consolidates your findings in a short overview of your business continuity requirements, capabilities, and maintenance procedures.

      Info-Tech recommends embedding hyperlinks within the Summary to the rest of your BCP documentation to allow the reader to drill down further as needed. Leverage the following documents:

      • Business Impact Analysis
      • BCP Recovery Workflows
      • Business Process Workflows
      • BCP Project Roadmap
      • BCP Relocation Checklists
      • Business Continuity Policy

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Summary Document

      Reuse templates for additional exercises

      The same methodology described in this blueprint can be repeated for each business unit. Also, many of the artifacts from the BCP pilot can be reused or built upon to give the remaining business units a head start. For example:

      • BCP Pilot Project Charter Template. Make a copy to use as a base for the next business unit’s BCP project charter, and update the stakeholders/roles and milestone dates. The rest of the content can remain the same in most cases.
      • BCP Reference Workbook. This tool contains information common to all business units and can be updated as needed.
      • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool. You may need to start a separate copy for each business unit to allow enough space to capture all business processes. However, use the same scoring scale to drive consistent assessments. In addition, the scoring completed by the pilot business unit provides an example and benchmark for assessing other business processes.
      • BCP Recovery Workflow. The notification, assessment, and declaration steps can be standardized so remaining business units can focus primarily on recovery after a disaster is declared. Similarly, many of the steps related to alternate sites and IT workarounds will also apply to other business units.
      • BCP Project Roadmap Tool. Many of the projects identified by the pilot business unit will also apply to other business units – update the list as needed.
      • The Business Unit BCP Prioritization Tool, BCP Executive Presentation, and Business Continuity Policy Template do not need to be updated for each business unit.

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      You may need to create some artifacts that are site specific. For example, relocation plans or emergency plans may not be reusable from one site to another. Use your judgement to reuse as much of the templates as you can – similar templates simplify audit, oversight, and plan management.

      Create an Overall BCP Project Charter

      Modify the pilot project charter to encompass the larger BCP project.

      Adjust the pilot charter to answer the following questions:

      • How much time and effort should the rest of the project take, based on findings from the pilot? When do you expect to meet certain milestones? What outputs and outcomes are expected?
      • In what order should additional business units complete their BCP? Who needs to be involved?
      • What projects to address continuity gaps were identified during the pilot? What investments will likely be required?
      • What additional documentation is required? This section and the appendix include templates to document your BCM Policy, Teams & Contacts, your notification procedures, and more.
      • How does this integrate with the other areas of business resilience and continuity (IT disaster recovery planning and crisis management planning)?
      • What additional activities, such as testing, are required?

      Prioritize business units for further BCP activities.

      As with the pilot, choose a business unit, or business units, where BCP will have the greatest impact and where further BCP activities will have the greatest likelihood of success. Prioritize business units that are critical to many areas of the business to get key results sooner.

      Work with one business unit at a time if:

      • Required resources from the business unit are available to focus on BCP full-time over a short period (one to two weeks).
      • More hands-on guidance (less delegation) is needed.
      • The business unit is large or has complex processes.

      Work with several business units at the same time if:

      • Required resources are only available sporadically over a longer period of time.
      • Less guidance (more delegation) is possible.
      • All business units are small and have well-documented processes.

      Download Info-Tech’s Business Unit BCP Prioritization Tool

      Step 4.2

      Outline a Business Continuity Management (BCM) Program

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Identify teams and roles for BCP and business continuity management.
      • Identify individuals to fill key roles.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator
      • Executive Sponsor

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Document BCP teams, roles, and responsibilities.

      Document contact information, alternates, and succession rules.

      Outline a Business Continuity Management Program

      A BCM program, also known as a BCM system, helps structure business continuity activities and practices to deliver long-term benefits to your business.

      A BCM program should:

      • Establish who is responsible and accountable for BCP practices, activities, and documentation, and set documentation management practices.
      • Define a process to improve plans. Review and update continuity requirements, suggest enhancements to recovery capabilities, and measure progress and improvements to the plan over time.
      • Coordinate disaster recovery, business continuity, and crisis management planning outputs and practices.
      • Communicate the value of the continuity program to the organization.

      Develop a Business Continuity Management Program

      Phase 4 of this blueprint will focus on the following elements of a business continuity management program:

      • BCM Roles, Responsibilities, and Accountabilities
      • BCM Document Management Practices
      • Integrate BC, IT DR, Crisis Management, and Emergency Management
      • Business Continuity Plan maintenance and testing
      • Training and awareness

      Schedule a call with an Info-Tech Analyst for help building out these core elements, and for advice on developing the rest of your BCM program.

      Create BCM teams

      Include a mix of strong leaders and strong planners on your BC management teams.

      BC management teams (including the secondary teams such as the emergency response team) have two primary roles:

      1. Preparation, Planning, and Governance: Conduct and consolidate business impact analyses. Review, and support the development of recovery workflows, including emergency response plans and business unit recovery workflows. Organize testing and training. Report on the state of the continuity plan.
      2. Leadership During a Crisis: Coordinate and support the execution of business recovery processes. To meet these goals, each team needs a mix of skill sets.

      Crisis leaders require strong crisis management skills:

      • Ability to make quick decisions under pressure with incomplete information.
      • Excellent verbal communication skills.
      • Strong leadership skills. Calm in stressful situations.
      • Team leaders are ideally, but not necessarily, those with the most senior title on each team. It’s more important that the team leader has the appropriate skill set.

      Collectively, the team must include a broad range of expertise as well as strong planning skills:

      • Diverse expertise to be able to plan for and respond to a wide range of potential incidents, from health and safety to reputational damage.
      • Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
      • Excellent written communication skills.

      Note: For specific BC team roles and responsibilities, including key resources such as Legal, HR, and IT SMEs required to prepare for and execute crisis management plans, see Implement Crisis Management Best Practices.

      Structure the BCM Team

      Create a hierarchy of teams to govern and coordinate business continuity planning and crisis management.

      BCM Team: Govern business continuity, DR, and crisis management planning. Support the organization’s response to a crisis, including the decision to declare a disaster or emergency.

      Emergency Response Teams: Assist staff and BC teams during a crisis, with a focus first on health and safety. There’s usually one team per location. Develop and maintain emergency response plans.

      Emergency Response Teams: Assist staff and BC teams during a crisis, with a focus first on health and safety. There’s usually one team per location. Develop and maintain emergency response plans.

      IT Disaster Recovery Team: Manage the recovery of IT services and data following an incident. Develop and maintain the IT DRP.

      Business Unit BCP Teams: Coordinate business process recovery at the business unit level. Develop and maintain business unit BCPs.

      “Planning Mode”

      Executive Team → BC Management Team ↓

      • Emergency Response Teams (ERT)
      • Crisis Management Team
      • IT DR Management Team
      • Business Unit BCP Teams

      “Crisis Mode”

      Executive Team ↔Crisis Management Team↓ ↔ Emergency Response Teams (ERT)

      • BC Management Team
      • IT DR Management Team
      • Business Unit BCP Teams

      For more details on specific roles to include on these teams, as well as more information on crisis management, review Info-Tech’s blueprint, Implement Crisis Management Best Practices.

      Tool: BCM Teams, Roles, Contacts, and Vendors

      Track teams, roles, and contacts in this template. It is pre-populated with roles and responsibilities for business continuity, crisis management, IT disaster recovery, emergency response, and vendors and suppliers critical to business operations.

      • Expect overlap across teams. For example, the BC Management Team will include representation from each secondary team to ensure plans are in sync. Similarly, both the Crisis Communication Team and BC Management Team should include a representative from your legal team to ensure legal issues are considered in communications as well as overall crisis management.
      • Clarify spending and decision authority for key members of each team during a crisis.

      Track contact information in this template only if you don’t have a more streamlined way of tracking it elsewhere.

      Download Info-Tech’s Business Continuity Teams and Roles Tool

      Manage key vendors

      Review supplier capabilities and contracts to ensure they meet your requirements.

      Suppliers and vendors might include:

      • Material shipments
      • IT/telecoms service providers
      • Integrators and business process outsourcing providers
      • Independent contractors
      • Utilities (power, water, etc.)

      Supplier RTOs and RPOs should align with the acceptable RTOs and RPOs defined in the BIA. Where they do not, explore options for improvement.

      Confirm the following:

      1. The supplier’s own BC/DR capabilities – how they would recover their own operations in a disaster scenario.
      2. Any continuity services the supplier provides – how they can help you recover your operations in a disaster scenario.
      3. Their existing contractual obligations for service availability (e.g. SLAs).

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Supplier Evaluation Questionnaire

      Organize your BCMS documentation

      Your BCP isn’t any one document. It’s multiple documents that work together.

      Continue to work through any additional required documentation. Build a repository where master copies of each document will reside and can be updated as required. Assign ownership of document management to someone with an understanding of the process (e.g. the BCP Coordinator).

      Governance Recovery
      BCMS Policy BCP Summary Core BCP Recovery Workflows
      Business Process Workflows Action Items & Project Roadmap BCP Recovery Checklists
      BIA Teams, Roles, Contact Information BCP Business Process Workarounds and Recovery Checklists
      BCP Maturity Scorecard BCP Project Charter Additional Recovery Workflows
      Business Unit Prioritization Tool BCP Presentation

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      Recovery documentation has a different audience, purpose, and lifecycle than governance documentation, and keeping the documents separate can help with content management. Disciplined document management keeps the plan current and accessible.

      Align your IT DRP with your BCP

      Use the following BCP outputs to inform your DRP:

      • Business process technology dependencies. This includes technology not controlled by IT (e.g. cloud-based services).
      • RTOs and RPOs for business processes.
      • Technology projects identified by the business to improve resilience (e.g. improved mobility support).
      PCP Outputs DRP Activities
      Business processes defined Identify critical applications

      Dependencies identified:

      • People
      • Enterprise tech
      • Personal devices
      • Workspace and facilities
      • Services and other inputs

      ↗

      →

      Identify IT dependencies:

      • Infrastructure
      • Secondary applications

      Recovery objectives defined:

      • BIA and RTOs/RPOs
      • Recovery workflows
      		→

      Identify recovery objectives:

      • BIA and RTOs/RPOs
      • IT Recovery workflows

      Projects identified to close gaps:

      • Resourcing changes (e.g. training secondary staff)
      • Process changes (e.g. optimize processes and define interim processes)
      • Technology changes (e.g. improving mobility)
      		→

      Identify projects to close gaps:

      • Projects to improve DR capability (e.g. data replication, standby systems).
      • Projects to improve resiliency (e.g. redundant components)

      Info-Tech Insight

      Don’t think of inconsistencies between your DRP and BCP as a problem. Discrepancies between the plans are part of the discovery process, and they’re an opportunity to have a conversation that can improve alignment between IT service capabilities and business needs. You should expect that there will be discrepancies – managing discrepancies is part of the ongoing process to refine and improve both plans.

      Schedule activities to keep BC and DR in sync

      BC/DR Planning Workflow

      1. Collect BCP outputs that impact IT DRP (e.g. technology RTOs/RPOs).

      2. As BCPs are done, BCP Coordinator reviews outputs with IT DRP Management Team.

      3. Use the RTOs/RPOs from the BCPs as a starting point to determine IT recovery plans.

      4. Identify investments required to meet business-defined RTOs/RPOs, and validate with the business.

      5. Create a DR technology roadmap to meet validated RTOs/RPOs.

      6. Review and update business unit BCPs to reflect updated RTOs/RPOs.

      Find and address shadow IT

      Reviewing business processes and dependencies can identify workarounds or shadow IT solutions that weren’t visible to IT and haven’t been included in IT’s DR plan.

      • If you identify technology process dependencies that IT didn’t know about, it can be an opportunity to start a conversation about service support. This can be a “teachable moment” to highlight the risks of adopting and implementing technology solutions without consulting IT.
      • Highlight the possible impact of using technology services that aren’t supported by IT. For example:
        • RTOs and RPOs may not be in line with business requirements.
        • Costs could be higher than supported solutions.
        • Security controls may not be in line with compliance requirements.
        • IT may not be able to offer support when the service breaks or build new features or functionality that might be required in the future.
      • Make sure that if IT is expected to support shadow IT solutions, these systems are included in the IT DRP and that the risks and costs of supporting the non-core solution are clear to all parties and are compared to an alternative, IT-recommended solutions.

      Shadow IT can be a symptom of larger service support issues. There should be a process for requesting and tracking non-standard services from IT with appropriate technical, security, and management oversight.

      Review and reprioritize BC projects to create an overall BC project roadmap

      Assign the BCP Coordinator the task of creating a master list of BC projects, and then work with the BC management team to review and reprioritize this list, as described below:

      1. Build a list of BC projects as you work with each business unit.
        1. Add proposed projects to a master copy of the BCP Project Roadmap Tool
        2. For each subsequent business unit, copy project names, scoring, and timelines into the master roadmap tool.
      2. Work with the Executive Sponsor, the IT BCM representative, and the BCM team to review and reprioritize projects.
        1. In the master BCP Project Roadmap Tool, review and update project scoring, taking into account the relative importance of each project within the overall list. Rationalize the list (e.g. eliminate duplicate projects).
      3. The project roadmap is a suggested list of projects at this stage. Assign a project sponsor and project manager (from the BC management team or appropriate delegates) to each project to take it through your organization’s normal project scoping and approval process.

      Improving business continuity capabilities is a marathon, not a sprint. Change for the better is still change and introduces risk – massive changes introduce massive risk. Incremental changes help minimize disruption. Use Info-Tech research to deliver organizational change.

      "Developing a BCP can be like solving a Rubik’s Cube. It’s a complex, interdepartmental concern with multiple and sometimes conflicting objectives. When you have one side in place, another gets pushed out of alignment." – Ray Mach, BCP Expert

      Step 4.3

      Test and maintain your BCP

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Create additional documentation to support your business continuity plan.
      • Create a repository for documentation, and assign ownership for BCP documentation.

      This step involves the following participants:

      • BCP Coordinator

      In this step, you’ll use these tools and templates:

      Outcomes & Insights

      Create a plan to maintain the BCP.

      Iterate on your plan

      Tend your garden, and pull the weeds.

      Mastery comes through practice and iteration. Iterating on and testing your plan will help you keep up to date with business changes, identify plan improvements, and help your organization’s employees develop a mindset of continuity readiness. Maintenance drives continued success; don’t let your plan become stagnant, messy, and unusable.

      Your BCM program should structure BCP reviews and updates by answering the following:

      1. When do we review the plan?
      2. What are the goals of a review?
      3. Who must lead reviews and update BCP documents?
      4. How do we track reviews, tests, and updates?

      Structure plan reviews

      There are more opportunities for improvements than just planned reviews.

      At a minimum, review goals should include:

      1. Identify and document changes to BCP requirements.
      2. Identify and document changes to BCP capabilities.
      3. Identify gaps and risks and ways to remediate risks and close gaps.

      Who leads reviews and updates documents?

      The BCP Coordinator is likely heavily involved in facilitating reviews and updating documentation, at least at first. Look for opportunities to hand off document ownership to the business units over time.

      How do we track reviews, tests, and updates?

      Keep track of your good work by keeping a log of document changes. If you don’t have one, you can use the last tab on the BCP-DRP Maintenance Checklist.

      When do we review the plan?

      1. Scheduled reviews: At a minimum, plan reviews once a year. Plan owners should review the documents, identify needed updates, and notify the coordinator of any changes to their plan.
      2. As-needed reviews: Project launches, major IT upgrades, office openings or moves, organizational restructuring – all of these should trigger a BCP review.
      3. Testing exercises: Schedule controlled exercises to test and improve different aspects of your continuity plan, and ensure that lessons learned become part of plan documentation.
      4. Retrospectives: Take the opportunity to learn from actual continuity events and crises by conducting retrospectives to evaluate your response and brainstorm improvements.

      Conduct a retrospective after major incidents

      Use a retrospective on your COVID-19 response as a starting point. Build on the questions below to guide the conversation.

      • If needed, how did we set up remote work for our users? What worked, and what didn’t?
      • Did we discover any long-term opportunities to improve business processes?
      • Did we use any continuity plans we have documented?
      • Did we effectively prioritize business processes for recovery?
      • Were expectations from our business users in line with our plans?
      • What parts of our plan worked, and where can we improve the plan?
      1. Gather stakeholders and team members
      2. Ask:
        1. What happened?
        2. What did we learn?
        3. What did we do well?
        4. What should we have done differently?
        5. What gaps should we take action to address?
      3. Prepare a plan to take action

      Outcomes and benefits

      • Confirm business priorities.
      • Validate that business recovery solutions and procedures are effective in meeting business requirements (i.e. RTOs and RPOs).
      • Identify gaps in continuity resources, procedures, or documentation, and options to close gaps.
      • Build confidence in the response team and recovery capabilities.

      Tool: Testing and Maintenance Schedule

      Build a light-weight maintenance schedule for your BCP and DRP plans.

      This tool helps you set a schedule for plan update activities, identify document and exercise owners, and log updates for audit and governance purposes.

      • Add the names of your documents and brainstorm update activities.
      • Activities (document updates, testing, etc.) might be scheduled regularly, as-needed, or both. If they happen “as needed,” identify the trigger for the activity.
      • Start tracking past activities and resulting changes in Tab 3. You can also track crises that tested your continuity capabilities on this tab.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Everyone gets busy. If there’s a meeting you can schedule months in advance, schedule it months in advance! Then send reminders closer to the date. As soon as you’re done the pilot BCP, set aside time in everyone’s calendar for your first review session, whether that’s three months, six months, or a year from now.

      Appendix

      Additional BCP Tools and Templates

      Template Library: Business Continuity Policy

      Create a high-level policy to govern BCP and clarify BCP requirements.

      Use this template to:

      • Outline the organizational commitment to BCM.
      • Clarify the mandate to prepare, validate, and maintain continuity plans that align with business requirements.
      • Define specific policy statements that signatories to the policy are expected to uphold.
      • Require key stakeholders to review and sign off on the template.

      Download Info-Tech’s Business Continuity Policy template

      Template Library: Workarounds & Recovery Checklists

      Capture the step-by-step details to execute workarounds and steps in the business recovery process.

      If you require more detail to support your recovery procedures, you can use this template to:

      • Record specific steps or checklists to support specific workarounds or recovery procedures.
      • Identify prerequisites for workarounds or recovery procedures.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Process Workarounds & Recovery Checklists Template

      Template Library: Notification, Assessment, Declaration

      Create a procedure that outlines the conditions for assessing a disaster situation and invoking the business continuity plan.

      Use this template to:

      • Guide the process whereby the business is notified of an incident, assesses the situation, and declares a disaster.
      • Set criteria for activating business continuity plans.
      • Review examples of possible events, and suggest options on how the business might proceed or react.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Notification, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan template

      Template Library: BCP Recovery Workflow Example

      Review an example of BCP recovery workflows.

      Use this template to:

      • Generate ideas for your own recovery processes.
      • See real examples of recovery processes for warehousing, supply, and distribution operations.
      • Review an example of working BCP documentation.

      Download Info-Tech’s BCP Recovery Workflows Example

      Create a Pandemic Response Plan

      If you’ve been asked to build a pandemic-specific response plan, use your core BCP findings to complete these pandemic planning documents.

      • At the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, IT departments were asked to rapidly ramp up work-from-home capabilities and support other process workarounds.
      • IT managers already knew that obstacles to working from home would go beyond internet speed and needing a laptop. Business input is critical to uncover unexpected obstacles.
      • IT needed to address a range of issues from security risk to increased service desk demand from users who don’t normally work from home.
      • Workarounds to speed the process up had to be balanced with good IT practices and governance (Asset Management, Security, etc.)
      • If you’ve been asked to update your Pandemic Response Plan, use this template and your core BCP deliverables to deliver a set of streamlined documentation that draws on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

      Structure HR’s role in the pandemic plan

      Leverage the following materials from Info-Tech’s HR-focused sister company, McLean & Company.

      These HR research resources live on the website of Info-Tech’s sister company, McLean & Company. Contact your Account Manager to gain access to these resources.

      Summary of Accomplishment

      Knowledge Gained

      This blueprint outlined:

      • The streamlined approach to BCP development.
      • A BIA process to identify acceptable, appropriate recovery objectives.
      • Tabletop planning exercises to document and validate business recovery procedures.

      Processes Optimized

      • Business continuity development processes were optimized, from business impact analysis to incident response planning.
      • In addition, pilot business unit processes were identified and clarified to support BCP development, which also provided the opportunity to review and optimize those processes.

      Key Deliverables Completed

      • Core BCP deliverables for the pilot business unit, including a business impact analysis, recovery workflows, and a project roadmap.
      • BCP Executive Presentation to communicate pilot results as well as a summary of the methodology to the executive team.
      • BCP Summary to provide a high-level view of BCP scope, objectives, capabilities, and requirements.

      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

      Research Contributors and Experts

      Dr. Bernard A. Jones, MBCI, CBCP

      Professor and Continuity Consultant Berkeley College

      Dr. Jones is a professor at Berkeley College within the School of Professional Studies teaching courses in Homeland Security and Emergency Management. He is a member of the National Board of Directors for the Association of Continuity Professionals (ACP) as well as the Information & Publications Committee Chair for the Garden State Chapter of the ACP. Dr. Jones earned a doctorate degree in Civil Security Leadership, Management & Policy from New Jersey City University where his research focus was on organizational resilience.

      Kris L. Roberson

      Disaster Recovery Analyst Veterans United Home Loans

      Kris Roberson is the Disaster Recovery Analyst for Veterans United Home Loans, the #1 VA mortgage lender in the US. Kris oversees the development and maintenance of the Veterans United Home Loans DR program and leads the business continuity program. She is responsible for determining the broader strategies for DR testing and continuity planning, as well as the implementation of disaster recovery and business continuity technologies, vendors, and services. Kris holds a Masters of Strategic Leadership with a focus on organizational change management and a Bachelors in Music. She is a member of Infragard, the National Association of Professional Women, and Sigma Alpha Iota, and holds a Project+ certification.

      Trevor Butler

      General Manager of Information Technology City of Lethbridge

      As the General Manager of Information Technology with the City of Lethbridge, Trevor is accountable for providing strategic management and advancement of the city’s information technology and communications systems consistent with the goals and priorities of the corporation while ensuring that corporate risks are appropriately managed. He has 15+ years of progressive IT leadership experience, including 10+ years with public sector organizations. He holds a B.Mgt. and PMP certification along with masters certificates in both Project Management and Business Analysis.

      Robert Miller

      Information Services Director Witt/Kieffer

      Bob Miller is the Information Services Director at Witt/Kieffer. His department provides end-user support for all company-owned devices and software for Oak Brook, the regional offices, home offices, and traveling employees. The department purchases, implements, manages, and monitors the infrastructure, which includes web hosting, networks, wireless solutions, cell phones, servers, and file storage. Bob is also responsible for the firm’s security planning, capacity planning, and business continuity and disaster preparedness planning to ensure that the firm has functional technology to conduct business and continue business growth.

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan

      Close the gap between your DR capabilities and service continuity requirements.

      Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

      Go beyond satisfying auditors to drive process improvement, consistent IT operations, and effective knowledge transfer.

      Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model

      Determine which deployment models, including hybrid solutions, best meet your DR requirements.

      Bibliography

      “Business Continuity Planning.” IT Examination HandBook. The Federal Financial Institution Examination Council (FFIEC), February 2015. Web.

      “Business Continuity Plans and Emergency Contact Information.” FINRA, 12 February 2015. Web.

      “COBIT 5: A Business Framework for the Governance and Management of Enterprise IT.” ISACA, n.d. Web.

      Disaster Resource GUIDE. Emergency Lifeline Corporation, n.d. Web.

      “DR Rules & Regulations.” Disaster Recovery Journal, March 2017. Web.

      “Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).” Homeland Security, 2014. Web.

      FEMA. “Planning & Templates.” FEMA, n.d. Web.

      “FINRA-SEC-CFTC Joint Advisory (Regulatory Notice 13-25).” FINRA, August 2013. Web.

      Gosling, Mel and Andrew Hiles. “Business Continuity Statistics: Where Myth Meets Fact.” Continuity Central, 24 April 2009. Web.

      Hanwacker, Linda. “COOP Templates for Success Workbook.” The LSH Group, 2016. Web.

      Potter, Patrick. “BCM Regulatory Alphabet Soup – Part Two.” RSA Link, 28 August 2012. Web.

      The Good Practice Guidelines. Business Continuity Institute, 2013. Web.

      Wang, Dashun and James A. Evans. “When Small Teams are Better than Big Ones.” Harvard Business Review, 21 February 2019. Web.

      Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software

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      • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
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      • PPM suite deployments are complicated and challenging. Vendors and consultants can provide much needed expertise and assistance to organizations deploying new PPM suites.
      • While functional requirements are often defined during the procurement stage (for example, in an RFP), the level of detail during this stage is likely insufficient for actually configuring the solution to your specific PPM needs. Too many organizations fail to further develop these functional requirements between signing their contracts and the official start of their professional implementation engagement.
      • Many organizations fail to organize and record the PPM data they will need to populate the new PPM suite. In almost all cases, customers have the expertise and are in the best position to collect and organize their own data. Leaving this until the vendor or consultant arrives to help with the deployment can result in using your professional services in a suboptimal way.
      • Vendors and consultants want you to prepare for their implementation engagements so that you can make the best use of their expertise and assistance. They want you to deploy a PPM suite that can be sustainably adopted in the long term. All too often, however, they arrive onsite to find customers that are disorganized and underprepared.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Preparing for a professional implementation engagement allows you to make the best use of your professional services, as well as helping to ensure that the PPM suite is deployed according to your specific PPM needs.
      • Involving your internal resources in the preparation of data and in fully defining functional requirements for the PPM suite helps to establish stakeholder buy-in early on, helping to build internal ownership of the solution from the beginning. This avoids the solution being perceived as something the vendor/consultant “forced upon us.”
      • Vendors and consultants are happy when organizations are organized and prepared for their professional implementation engagements. Preparation ensures these engagements are positive experiences for everyone involved.

      Impact and Result

      • Ensure that the data necessary to deploy the new PPM suite is recorded and organized.
      • Make your functional requirements detailed enough to ensure that the new PPM suite can be configured/customized during the deployment engagement in a way that best fits the organization’s actual PPM needs.
      • Through carefully preparing data and fully defining functional requirements, you help the solution become sustainably adopted in the long term.

      Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read this Executive Brief to understand why preparing for PPM deployment will ensure that organizations get the most value out of the implementation professional services they purchased and will help drive long-term sustainable adoption of the new PPM suite.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Create a preparation team and plan

      Engage in purposeful and effective PPM deployment planning by clearly defining what to prepare and when exactly it is time to move from planning to execution.

      • Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software – Phase 1: Create a Preparation Team and Plan
      • Prepare to Deploy PPM Suite Project Charter Template
      • PPM Suite Functional Requirements Document Template
      • PPM Suite Deployment Timeline Template (Excel)
      • PPM Suite Deployment Timeline Template (Project)
      • PPM Suite Deployment Communication Plan Template

      2. Prepare project-related requirements and deliverables

      Provide clearer definition to specific project-related functional requirements and collect the appropriate PPM data needed for an effective PPM suite deployment facilitated by vendors/consultants.

      • Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software – Phase 2: Prepare Project-Related Requirements and Deliverables
      • PPM Deployment Data Workbook
      • PPM Deployment Dashboard and Report Requirements Workbook

      3. Prepare PPM resource requirements and deliverables

      Provide clearer definition to specific resource management functional requirements and data and create a communication and training plan.

      • Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software – Phase 3: Prepare PPM Resource Requirements and Deliverables
      • PPM Suite Transition Plan Template
      • PPM Suite Training Plan Template
      • PPM Suite Training Management Tool

      4. Provide preparation materials to the vendor and implementation professionals

      Plan how to engage vendors/consultants by communicating functional requirements to them and evaluating changes to those requirements proposed by them.

      • Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software – Phase 4: Provide Preparation Materials to the Vendor and Implementation Professionals
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Prepare to Successfully Deploy PPM Software

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Plan the Preparation Project

      The Purpose

      Select a preparation team and establish clear assignments and accountabilities.

      Establish clear deliverables, milestones, and metrics to ensure it is clear when the preparation phase is complete.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Preparation activities will be organized and purposeful, ensuring that you do not threaten deployment success by being underprepared or waste resources by overpreparing.

      Activities

      1.1 Overview: Determine appropriate functional requirements to define and data to record in preparation for the deployment.

      1.2 Create a timeline.

      1.3 Create a charter for the PPM deployment preparation project: record lessons learned, establish metrics, etc.

      Outputs

      PPM Suite Deployment Timeline

      Charter for the PPM Suite Preparation Project Team

      2 Prepare Project-Related Requirements and Deliverables

      The Purpose

      Collect and organize relevant project-related data so that you are ready to populate the new PPM suite when the vendor/consultant begins their professional implementation engagement with you.

      Clearly define project-related functional requirements to aid in the configuration/customization of the tool.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      An up-to-date and complete record of all relevant PPM data.

      Avoidance of scrambling to find data at the last minute, risking importing out-of-date or irrelevant information into the new software.

      Clearly defined functional requirements that will ensure the suite is configured in a way that can be adoption in the long term.

      Activities

      2.1 Define project phases and categories.

      2.2 Create a list of all projects in progress.

      2.3 Record functional requirements for project requests, project charters, and business cases.

      2.4 Create a list of all existing project requests.

      2.5 Record the current project intake processes.

      2.6 Define PPM dashboard and reporting requirements.

      Outputs

      Project List (basic)

      Project Request Form Requirements (basic)

      Scoring/Requirements (basic)

      Business Case Requirements (advanced)

      Project Request List (basic)

      Project Intake Workflows (advanced)

      PPM Reporting Requirements (basic)

      3 Prepare PPM Resource Requirements and Deliverables

      The Purpose

      Collect and organize relevant resource-related data.

      Clearly define resource-related functional requirements.

      Create a purposeful transition, communication, and training plan for the deployment period.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      An up-to-date and complete record of all relevant PPM data that allows your vendor/consultant to get right to work at the start of the implementation engagement.

      Improved buy-in and adoption through transition, training, and communication activities that are tailored to the actual needs of your specific organization and users.

      Activities

      3.1 Create a portfolio-wide roster of project resources (and record their competencies and skills, if appropriate).

      3.2 Record resource management processes and workflows.

      3.3 Create a transition plan from existing PPM tools and processes to the new PPM suite.

      3.4 Identify training needs and resources to be leveraged during the deployment.

      3.5 Define training requirements.

      3.6 Create a PPM deployment training plan.

      Outputs

      Resource Roster and Competency Profile (basic)

      User Roles and Permissions (basic)

      Resource Management Workflows (advanced)

      Transition Approach and Plan (basic)

      Data Archiving Requirements (advanced)

      List of Training Modules and Attendees (basic)

      Internal Training Capabilities (advanced)

      Training Milestones and Deadlines (basic)

      4 Provide Preparation Materials to the Vendor and Implementation Professionals

      The Purpose

      Compile the data collected and the functional requirements defined so that they can be provided to the vendor and/or consultant before the implementation engagement.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Deliverables that record the outputs of your preparation and can be provided to vendors/consultants before the implementation engagement.

      Ensures that the customer is an active and equal partner during the deployment by having the customer prepare their material and initiate communication.

      Vendors and/or consultants have a clear understanding of the customer’s needs and expectations from the beginning.

      Activities

      4.1 Collect, review, and finalize the functional requirements.

      4.2 Compile a functional requirements and data package to provide to the vendor and/or consultants.

      4.3 Discuss how proposed changes to the functional requirements will be reviewed and decided.

      Outputs

      PPM Suite Functional Requirements Documents

      PPM Deployment Data Workbook

      Select an Enterprise Application

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}588|cart{/j2store}
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      • Parent Category Name: Enterprise Applications
      • Parent Category Link: /enterprise-applications
      • Organizations rarely have both the sufficient knowledge and resources to properly evaluate, select, and implement an enterprise application software (EAS), forcing them to turn to external partnerships.
      • Inadequate and incomplete requirements skew the EAS selection in one direction or another. Many EAS projects fail due to a lack of clear description and specification of functional requirements.
      • The EAS technology market is so vast that it becomes nearly impossible to know where to start or how to differentiate between vendors and products.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Accountability for EAS success is shared between IT and the business. There is no single owner of an EAS. A unified approach to building your strategy promotes an integrated roadmap so all stakeholders have clear direction on the future state.
      • While technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences, there are many other drivers of dissatisfaction. IT must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for enterprise applications.
      • EAS projects are more successful when the management team understands the strategic importance and the criticality of alignment. Time needs to be spent upfront aligning business strategies with EAS capabilities. Effective alignment between IT and the business should happen daily. Alignment doesn’t just occur at the executive level but at each level of the organization.

      Impact and Result

      • Conduct an EAS project preparedness assessment as a means to ensure you maximize the value of your time, effort, and spending.
      • Gather the necessary resources to form the team to conduct the EAS selection.
      • Gett the proper EAS requirement landscape by mapping out business capabilities and processes, translating into prioritized EAS requirements.
      • Review SoftwareReviews’ vendor reports to shortlist vendors for your RFP process.
      • Use Info-Tech’s templates and tools to gather your EAS requirements, build your RFP and evaluation scorecard, and build a foundational EAS selection framework.

      Select an Enterprise Application Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Select an Enterprise Application Software Storyboard - A blueprint which prepares you for a proper and better enterprise application selection outcome.

      Properly selecting and implementing an enterprise application requires a proper structure. This blueprint guides you with a framework to help in such project, including steps such as assessing readiness, plan for the right resources, requirements gathering, shortlisting, obtaining and evaluating vendor responses, and preparing for implementation.

      • Select an Enterprise Application Software Storyboard

      2. Select an Enterprise Application Readiness Assessment Checklist – a checklist to assess your readiness towards moving ahead with the selection process.

      The EAS Readiness Checklist includes a list of essential tasks to be completed prior to the enterprise application selection and implementation project.

      • EAS Readiness Assessment Checklist

      3. ERP/HRIS/CRM Requirements Templates – a set of templates to help build a list of requirements and features for the selection process.

      These templates are specific to either ERP, HRIS, or CRM. Each template lists out a set of modules and features allowing you to easily build your requirements.

      • ERP Requirements Template
      • HRIS Requirements Template
      • CRM Requirements Template

      4. Vendor Solicitation (RFP) to Evaluation Suite of Tools – Use Info-Tech’s RFP, vendor response and evaluation tools and templates to increase your efficiency in your RFP and evaluation process.

      Configure this time-saving suite of tools to your organizational culture, needs, and most importantly the desired outcome of your RFP initiative.

      • EAS Request for Proposal Template
      • EAS Vendor Response Template
      • ERP Vendor Demonstration Script Template
      • HRIS Vendor Demonstration Script Template
      • CRM Vendor Demonstration Script Template
      • EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Select an Enterprise Application

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Workshop debrief – Prepare for implementation

      The Purpose

      Review evaluation framework.

      Prepare for implementation.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Activities

      1.1 Support the project team in establishing the evaluation framework.

      1.2 Discuss demo scripts scenarios.

      1.3 Discuss next steps and key items in preparation for the implementation.

      Outputs

      Evaluation framework considerations.

      Demo script considerations.

      RFP considerations.

      2 Workshop Preparation

      The Purpose

      The facilitator works with the team to verify organizational readiness for EAS project and form the EAS project team.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Level-set on organizational readiness for EAS

      Organizational project alignment

      Activities

      2.1 Introduce the workshop and complete an overview of activities.

      2.2 Complete organizational context assessment to level-set understanding.

      2.3 Complete EAS readiness assessment.

      2.4 Form EAS selection team.

      Outputs

      EAS readiness assessment

      Structured EAS selection team

      3 Mapping Capabilities to Prioritizing Requirements

      The Purpose

      Determine the business capabilities and process impacted by the EAS.

      Determine what the business needs to get out of the EAS solution.

      Build the selection roadmap and project plan.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Business and ERP solution alignment

      Activities

      3.1 Map business capabilities/processes.

      3.2 Inventory application and data flow.

      3.3 List EAS requirements.

      3.4 Prioritize EAS requirements.

      Outputs

      Business capability/process map

      List or map of application + data flow

      Prioritized EAS requirements

      4 Vendor Landscape and your RFP

      The Purpose

      Understand EAS market product offerings.

      Readying key RFP aspects and expected vendor responses.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Shortlist of vendors to elicit RFP response.

      Translated EAS requirements into RFP.

      Activities

      4.1 Build RFP.

      4.2 Build vendor response template.

      Outputs

      Draft of RFP template.

      Draft of vendor response template.

      5 How to Evaluate Vendors

      The Purpose

      Prepare for demonstration and evaluation.

      Establish evaluation criteria.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Narrow your options for ERP selection to best-fit vendors.

      Activities

      5.1 Run an RFP evaluation simulation.

      5.2 Establish evaluation criteria.

      5.3 Customize the RFP and Demonstration and Scoring Tool.

      Outputs

      Draft of demo script template.

      Draft of evaluation criteria.

      Draft of RFP and Demonstration and Scoring Tool.

      Further reading

      Select an Enterprise Application

      Selecting a best-fit solution requires balancing needs, cost, and vendor capability.

      Analyst Perspective

      A foundational EAS strategy is critical to decision-making.

      Enterprise application software (EAS) is a core tool that a business leverages to accomplish its goals. An EAS that is doing its job well is invisible to the business. The challenges come when the tool is no longer invisible. It has become a source of friction in the functioning of the business.

      EAS systems are expensive, their benefits are difficult to quantify, and they often suffer from poor user satisfaction. Post-implementation, technology evolves, organizational goals change, and the health of the system is not monitored. This is complicated in today’s digital landscape with multiple integration points, siloed data, and competing priorities.

      Too often organizations jump into selecting replacement systems without understanding the needs of the organization. Alignment between business and IT is just one part of the overall strategy. Identifying key pain points and opportunities, assessed in the light of organizational strategy, will provide a strong foundation to the transformation of the EAS system. Learning about different vendor product offerings with a rigorous approach and evaluation framework will pave way for a better selection outcome.

      Hong Kwok, Research Director

      Hong Kwok
      Research Director
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge Common Obstacles Info-Tech’s Approach
      Selecting and implementing an EAS is one of the most expensive and time-consuming technology transformations an organization can undertake. EAS projects are notorious for time and budget overruns, with only a margin of the anticipated benefits being realized. Making the wrong technology selection or failing to plan for an EAS implementation has significant – and possibly career-ending – implications.

      The EAS technology market is so vast that it is nearly impossible to know where to start or how to differentiate between vendors and products.

      Inadequate and incomplete requirements skew the EAS selection in one direction to another. Many EAS projects fail due to a lack of clear description and specification of functional requirements.

      Organizations rarely have both the sufficient knowledge and resources to properly evaluate, select, and implement an EAS, forcing them to turn to external partnerships.

      EAS selection must be driven by your organization’s overall strategy. Ensure you are ready to embark on this journey with the right resources.

      Determine what EAS solution fits your organization through a structured requirement gathering process to a vendor evaluation framework.

      Ensure strong points of integration between EAS and other software such as ERP to HRIS. No EAS should live in isolation.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Accountability for EAS success is shared between IT and the business. There is no single owner of an EAS. A unified approach to building your strategy promotes an integrated roadmap so all stakeholders have clear direction on the future state.

      You are not just picking a piece of software, you are choosing a long-term technology partner

      Reasons for Selectin Chosen Software

      Decision making in selection often stands on functional fit; don’t forget to consider vendor fit.

      As the ERP technology market becomes increasingly saturated and difficult to decode, vendors are trying to get ahead by focusing on building a partnership, not just making a sale.

      68 % of organizations are satisfied with the overall ERP vendor experience, up from 54% in 2017.

      Panorama Consulting Solutions, “Report,” 2018

      What is an Enterprise Application?

      Our Definition: Enterprise Application Software (EAS) is a large software system that provides a broad and integrated set of features which supports a range of business operations and processes across an organization. The system is broadly deployed, provides a unified interface and data structure, allowing for higher business productivity and reporting efficiencies. Best known EAS solutions include Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Human Resource Information System (HRIS), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

      More focused EAS solutions may also bring benefits to your organization, depending on the scale of operations, complexity of operations, and functions. Here are some examples:

      PSA: Professional Services Automation
      SCMS: Supply Chain Management System
      WMS: Warehouse Management System
      EAM: Enterprise Asset Management
      PIMS: Product Information Management System
      MES: Manufacturing Execution System
      MA: Marketing Automation

      Our other Selection Framework

      When selecting personal or commodity applications, or mid-tier applications with spend below $100,000, use our Rapid Application Selection Framework.

      Download this tool

      Enterprise Applications Lifecycle Advisory Services

      Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

      Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

      What is EPR

      Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems facilitate the flow of information across business units. They allow for the seamless integration of systems and create a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making.

      In many organizations, the ERP system is considered the lifeblood of the enterprise. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the enterprise to survive and grow.

      An ERP system:

      • Automates processes, reducing the amount of manual, routine work.
      • Integrates with core modules, eliminating the fragmentation of systems.
      • Centralizes information for reporting from multiple parts of the value chain to a single point.
      ERP use cases: Product-centric
      Suitable for organizations that manufacture, assemble, distribute, or manage material goods.      		 Service-centric
      Suitable for organizations that provide and manage field services and/or professional services.

      Human Resource Information System (HRIS)

      What is HRIS?

      An HRIS is used to acquire, store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute information regarding an organization’s human resources. HRIS covers the entire employee lifecycle from recruit to retire.

      An HRIS:

      • Retains employee data in a single repository.
      • Enhances employee engagement through self-service and visibility into their records.
      • Enhances data security through role-based access control.
      • Eliminates manual processes and enables workflow automation.
      • Reduces transaction processing time and HR administrative tasks.
      • Presents an end-to-end, comprehensive view of all HR processes.
      • Reduces exposure to risk with compliance to rules and regulations.
      • Enhances the business’s reporting capability on various aspects of human capital.

      Human Resource Information System

      Customer relationship management (CRM)

      What is CRM?

      A CRM platform (or suite) is a core enterprise application that provides a broad feature set for supporting customer interaction processes, typically across marketing, sales and customer service. These suites supplant more basic applications for customer interaction management (such as the contact management module of an ERP or office productivity suite).

      A CRM suite provides many key capabilities, including but not limited to:

      • Account management
      • Order history tracking
      • Pipeline management
      • Case management
      • Campaign management
      • Reports and analytics
      • Customer journey execution

      A CRM provides a host of native capabilities, but many organizations elect to tightly integrate their CRM solution with other parts of their customer experience ecosystem to provide a 360-degree view of their customers.

      Customer relationship management

      The good EAS numbers

      There are many good reasons to support EAS implementation and use.

      92% of organizations report that CRM use is important for accomplishing revenue objectives.
      Source: Validity, 2020

      Almost 26% of companies implement HRIS is to obtain greater functionalities, while other main reasons are to increase efficiencies, support growth, and consolidate systems.
      Source: SoftwarePath, 2022

      Functionality of an ERP is believed to be the most important aspect by almost 40% of companies.
      Source: SelectHub, 2022

      The ugly EAS numbers

      Risks are high in EAS projects.

      Statistical analysis of ERP projects indicates rates of failure vary from 50 to 70 percent. Taking the low end of those analyst reports, one in two ERP projects is considered a failure.
      Source: Electric Journal of Information Systems Evaluation.

      46% of HR technology projects exceed their planned timelines.
      Source: Unleash, 2020

      Almost 70% of all CRM implementation projects do not meet expected objectives.
      Source: Future Computing and Informatics Journal

      Enterprise Application dissatisfaction

      Finance, IT, Sales, HR, and other users of the Enterprise Application system can only optimize with the full support of each other. Cooperation between departments is crucial when trying to improve the technology capabilities and customer interaction.

      Drivers of Dissatisfaction
      Business Data People and teams Technology
      • Misaligned objectives
      • Product fit
      • Changing priorities
      • Lack of metrics
      • Access to data
      • Data hygiene
      • Data literacy
      • One view of the customer
      • User adoption
      • Lack of IT support
      • Training (use of data and system)
      • Vendor relations
      • Systems integration
      • Multi-channel complexity
      • Capability shortfall
      • Lack of product support

      Info-Tech Insight
      While technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences, there are many other drivers of dissatisfaction. IT must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for Enterprise Applications.

      Case Study

      Align strategy and technology to meet consumer demand.

      NETFLIX

      INDUSTRY
      Entertainment

      SOURCE
      Forbes, 2017

      Challenge
      Beginning as a mail-out service, Netflix offered subscribers a catalog of videos to select from and have mailed to them directly. Customers no longer had to go to a retail store to rent a video. However, the lack of immediacy of direct mail as the distribution channel resulted in slow adoption.

      Blockbuster was the industry leader in video retail but was lagging in its response to industry, consumer, and technology trends around customer experience.

      Solution
      In response to the increasing presence of tech-savvy consumers on the internet, Netflix invested in developing an online platform as its primary distribution channel. The benefit of doing so was two-fold: passive brand advertising (by being present on the internet) and meeting customer demands for immediacy and convenience. Netflix also recognized the rising demand for personalized service and created an unprecedented, tailored customer experience.

      Results
      Netflix’s disruptive innovation is built on the foundation of great customer experience management. Netflix is now a $28 billion company, which is ten times what Blockbuster was worth.

      Netflix used disruptive technologies to innovatively build a customer experience that put it ahead of the long-time video rental industry leader, Blockbuster.

      Info-Tech’s methodology for selecting an Enterprise Application

      1. Build alignment and assemble the team 2. Define your EAS 3. Engage, evaluate, and select 4. Next steps
      Phase steps
      1. Aligning business and IT
      2. Readiness and resourcing
      1. Map capabilities
      2. List Requirements
      3. Prioritize requirements
      1. Know the products
      2. Engage the vendors
      3. Select properly
      1. Plan for implementation
      Phase outcomes Discuss organizational goals and how to advance those using the EA system. Identify gaps and remediation steps in preparation of the selection. Assemble the EA selection team. List and review business capabilities and translate into EAS requirements. Prioritize requirements for selection. Gain an understanding of the product offerings on the market. Engage the vendors through RFPs and conduct a proper evaluation with an objective evaluation criteria and framework. Review and discuss the different elements required in preparation for the implementation project.

      Blueprint deliverables

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

      ERP/HRIS/CRM Requirements Template

      ERP Requirements Template

      Accelerate your requirement gathering with a pre-compiled list of common requirements.

      RFx Demo Scoring Tool

      RFx Demo Scoring Tool

      Quickly compare the vendors who respond to the RFx to identify the best fit for your needs.

      Key deliverable:

      RFx templates

      Use one of our templates to build a ready-for-distribution implementation partner RFx tailored to the unique success factors of your implementation.

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

      DIY Toolkit Guided Implementation Workshop Consulting
      "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to his the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

      Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options

      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 six to ten calls over the course of four to six months.

      What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

      Call #1: Scoping call to understand the current situation.

      Call #2: Discuss readiness and resourcing needs.

      Call #3: Discuss the capabilities and application inventory.

      Call #4: Discuss requirement gathering and prioritization.

      Call #5: Go over SoftwareReviews and review draft RFx.

      Call #6: Discuss evaluation tool and evaluation process.

      Call #7: Discuss preparation for implementation.

      Workshop Overview

      Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
      Activities

      Organizational Strategic Needs

      1.1 Review the business context.

      1.2 Overview of the EAS Landscape

      1.2 Assess EAS project readiness

      1.3 Determine the members of the EAS selection team

      From Capabilities to Requirements

      2.1 Map business capabilities

      2.2 Inventory application and interactions

      2.3 Gather requirements

      2.4 Prioritize requirements

      Vendor Landscape and Your RFP

      3.1 Understanding product offerings

      3.2 Build a list of targeted vendors

      3.3 Build RFP

      3.4 Build vendor response template

      How to Evaluate Vendors

      4.1 Run a RFP evaluation simulation

      4.2 Build demo script

      4.3 Establish evaluation criteria

      Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

      5.1 Clean up in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

      5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.
      Deliverables
      1. EAS Readiness Checklist and remediation plan
      2. List of members in EAS selection team
      1. List of key business processes
      2. Inventory application and data flow map
      3. Prioritized EAS requirements
      1. Draft RFP template
      2. Draft vendor response template
      1. Draft demo script template
      2. Draft vendor evaluation tool
      1. Completed RFP template
      2. Completed vendor response template
      3. Completed demo script template
      4. Vendor evaluation plan

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

      Phase 1

      Build alignment and assemble the Team

      Phase 1
      1.1 Enterprise Application Landscape
      1.2 Validate Readiness
      1.3 Determine Resourcing

      Phase 2
      1.1 Capability Mapping
      1.2 Requirements Gathering Data Mapping
      1.3 Requirements Prioritizing

      Phase 3
      3.1 Understanding Product Offerings
      3.2 RFP & Demo Scripts
      3.3 Evaluation
      Select and Negotiate

      Phase 4
      4.1 Prepare for Implementation

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      Gain an understanding of recent EAS technology.

      Validate readiness before starting EAS selection.

      Assemble EAS selection team through identification of key players.

      This phase involves the following participants:

      Key stakeholders from the various areas of the business that will support the project, including:

      • CxO (e.g. CIO, CFO)
      • Departmental leaders
      • Project management team
      • Subject matter experts

      Select an Enterprise Application

      Create a compelling case that addresses strategic business objectives

      When someone at the organization asks you WHY, you need to deliver a compelling case. The ERP project will receive pushback, doubt, and resistance; if you can’t answer the question WHY, you will be left back-peddling.

      When faced with a challenge, prepare for the WHY.

      • Why do we need this?
      • Why are we spending all this money?
      • Why are we bothering?
      • Why is this important?
      • Why did we do it this way?
      • Why did we choose this vendor?

      Most organizations can answer “What?”

      Some organizations can answer “How?”

      Very few organizations have an answer for “Why?”

      Each stage of the project will be difficult and present its own unique challenges and failure points. Re-evaluate if you lose sight of WHY at any stage in the project.

      Ensure you have completed the necessary prerequisites for EAS selection

      Prior to embarking on selection, ensure you have set the right building blocks and completed the necessary prerequisites: your strategy and roadmap, and business case.

      STRATEGY & ROADMAP
      Whatever EAS is required, take the time to align your strategy and roadmap to business priorities. Right-size a technology strategy by assessing deployment model alternatives and future-state options with your EAS vision, operating model, and current-state assessment as inputs. Put your strategy to action with a living roadmap by following Info-Tech’s blueprint, Develop an Actionable Strategy and Roadmap.

      EAS BUSINESS CASE
      Use a business case to justify the business need for your EAS project and secure funding for moving forward with the proposal. A business case will further provide executive decision makers with the tools to compare and prioritize initiatives. Drive a consistent approach to promoting successful initiatives and holding the organization accountable to the projected benefits with Info-Tech’s blueprint, Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case.

      Align the EAS strategy with the corporate strategy

      Corporate strategy Unified strategy EAS strategy
      • Conveys the current state of the organization and the path it wants to take.
      • Identifies future goals and business aspirations.
      • Communicates the initiatives that are critical for getting the organization from its current state to the future state.
      • EAS optimization can be and should be linked, with metrics, to the corporate strategy and ultimate business objectives.
      • Communicates the organization’s budget and spending on EAS.
      • Identifies IT initiatives that will support the business and key EAS objectives.
      • Outlines staffing and resourcing for EAS initiatives.

      Info-Tech Insight
      EAS projects are more successful when the management team understands the strategic importance and the criticality of alignment. Time needs to be spent upfront aligning business strategies with EAS capabilities. Effective alignment between IT and the business should happen daily. Alignment doesn’t just to occur at the executive level alone, but at each level of the organization.

      Understand how EAS fits into your wider IT organization

      Identify the IT drivers and opportunities to take advantage of when embarking on your EAS project.

      Greenfield or brownfield: Do you currently have an EAS? Do you have multiple EASs? What is the history of your EAS deployment? How customized is it?

      End of life: What lifecycle stage is it in?

      Utilization: Are there point solutions in your application portfolio that support some EAS capabilities? Is functionality duplicated and/or underutilized?

      Reason for change: What are your organizational drivers for this EAS project (e.g. acquisition/merger)?

      APPLICATION PORTFOLIO STRATEGY

      Business leaders need application managers to do more than support business operations. Applications must drive business growth, and application managers need their portfolios to be current and effective and to evolve continuously to support the business or risk being marginalized. Rationalize your applications with a roadmap that propels the business forward.

      Go to this link

      Before switching vendors, evaluate your existing EAS to see if it’s being underutilized or could use an upgrade

      The cost of switching vendors can be challenging, but it will depend entirely on the quality of data and whether it makes sense to keep it.

      • Achieving success when switching vendors first requires reflection. We need to ask why we are dissatisfied with our incumbent software.
      • If the product is old and inflexible, the answer may be obvious, but don’t be afraid to include your incumbent in your evaluation if your issues might be solved with an upgrade.
      • Look at your use-case requirements to see where you want to take the EAS solution and compare them to your incumbent’s roadmap. If they don’t match, switching vendors may be the only solution. If your roadmaps align, see if you’re fully leveraging the solution or will be able to start working through process improvements

      Fully leveraging your current software now will have two benefits:

      1 It may turn out that poor leveraging of your incumbent software was the problem all along; switching vendors won’t solve the problem by itself. As the data to the right shows, a fifth of SMEs and a quarter of large enterprises do not fully leverage their incumbent software.
      2 If you still decide to switch, you’ll be in a good negotiating position. If vendors can see you are engaged and fully leveraging your software, they will be less complacent during negotiations to win you over.
      20%
      Small/Medium
      Enterprises      		 25%
      Large
      Enterprises
      only occasionally or rarely/never use their software

      Source: SoftwareReviews, 2020; N=45,027

      Info-Tech Insight
      Switching vendors won’t improve poor internal processes. To be fully successful and meet the goals of the business case, new software implementations must be accompanied by process review and improvement.

      Familiarize yourself with the EAS market

      How it got here Where it’s going
      • Acquisition and consolidation: The major vendors in the industry have grown over time through acquisition, particularly focusing on expanding products in industrial verticals.
      • Product stack: What it means is having to navigate complexity related to the product stack when thinking about EAS, which turns the conversation from EAS as a single product to EAS as a package of multiple products.
      • Modularity and interoperability: The benefit of the stack is that it often means modularity and the ability to implement parts of a solution or in an order that aligns to the customer’s needs. On the other hand, the stack is not always understood by or well communicated to the customer, and the interdependence of components often means they must be licensed together.
      • Customizable cloud: Software-as-a-Service in multitenant environments offers a hands-off value proposition, but increasingly customers are looking to customize their instances beyond the capability offered through configurability.
      • Best-of-breed consolidation: EAS vendors are continuing to consolidate functionality to increase interoperability and increase ease of integration. The market is rife with acquisitions and mergers, making the strong players even stronger.
      • Client experience: While most vendors now offer products that will meet the wide gamut of EAS business requirements, vendors are now paying extra attention to the client experience from partnership perspective.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Evaluating the EAS vendor landscape is becoming increasingly difficult as the playing field evens out in terms of functionality offerings. As such, it is becoming increasingly important to more meticulously evaluate vendors themselves as part of the selection process. This is especially important in EAS projects, as they tend to be multi-year in nature and result in long-term vendor partnerships.

      What types of Enterprise solutions are at my disposal?

      IT leaders typically compare EAS on-premises with SaaS options, but there are actually four different deployment scenarios.

      1. On Premises 3. Proprietary Cloud 4. White-Label Cloud 2. SaaS
      • The traditional model for EAS deployment.
      • Upfront licensing term plus annual maintenance/ support fee.
      • Requires local server, database, and authentication.
      • Good support for industry modules.
      • Customizable.
      • EAS vendor hosts an instance of the EAS system in its own data center.
      • Patches may or may not be applied automatically.
      • Monthly per-user or traditional billing.
      • Otherwise, as with on premises.
      • EAS VAR or reseller hosts an instance of the EAS system in its own data center or in a public IaaS provider’s (e.g. Rackspace, Amazon EC2).
      • Otherwise, as with proprietary cloud.
      • Common model for cloud EAS.
      • All users share a single instance.
      • Patches and updates are applied automatically.
      • Monthly per-user fee.
      • Poor industry support.
      • Configurable but not customizable.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Cloud may apply in other ways to the EAS implementation. Most vendors offer particular EAS services delivered via the cloud. For example, some vendors offers CRM, project management, and payroll self-service as cloud-based options to augment on-premises ERP solutions.

      Know when to adopt and when to bypass cloud EAS

      Use the following guidelines to determine if your organization will benefit from the cloud, or if you should stick to a more traditional delivery model.

      Adopt a cloud-based EAS platform if you have: Do not adopt a cloud-based EAS platform if you have:
      Standard processes – Businesses that have standard, repeatable processes can benefit greatly from the cost savings that cloud provides, as the need for expensive customizations is greatly minimized. Highly regulated industry – Although there is no hard evidence that says cloud-based solutions are not able to support security or compliance needs, in certain industries such as banking or insurance, cloud is not the norm and may be a tough sell for IT.
      Lean IT operations – Organizations with lean IT or no formal IT departments supporting them will find SaaS EAS particularly appealing. Those with IT that can support day-to-day operations but are not prepared for disaster recovery should also consider cloud EAS, either hosted or SaaS-based. Unreliable network – If the business regularly faces network outages or remote employees have unreliable internet connections, a cloud-based solution may not be the best option. IT would face many complaints from disgruntled workers unable to access data.
      Mobile workforce – Telecommuting is becoming more common, as is the requirement for data to be readily available for those on the road. Using cloud is a good way to provide this functionality. Unsavvy workforce – Organizations that prefer to be late adopters of technology may face strong resistance to taking their software to the cloud. Some employees may not like the idea of using a browser to connect to the system.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Knowing when to choose a cloud EAS deployment comes down to two main factors: knowing the level of complexity required by the business, and knowing the available IT resources that can be dedicated to support and manage EAS.

      Consider 3 classic scenarios when evaluating cloud EAS

      Cloud EAS should be considered by all organizations, but these scenarios present the strongest opportunity.

      The Startup The Spinoff The Modernizer
      • There is no greenfield in ERP, but if you’re a startup, you’re quite close.
      • Given the virtually nonexistent IT department in startups, having an on-premises ERP can be daunting. A SaaS delivery model is usually the best choice in these scenarios. Even if the resources are available, they are better spent driving business growth.
      • Startups typically have less stringent industry requirements, making SaaS a more attractive option.
      • Though not entirely new companies, spinoffs or subsidiaries often have needs similar to those of startups but with an added integration requirement.
      • When it comes to ERP, the deployment type will depend on how resources are split with the parent company. If there is little to no IT support, then SaaS is ideal.
      • If the parent company is already using cloud ERP, whether SaaS, hosted, or an internal cloud, then it is often easy for the spinoff to gain access as well.
      • Companies with legacy systems that are not salvageable, or out-of-date point solutions that do not scale, have the opportunity to start from scratch.
      • Those looking at reducing capital expenses should consider SaaS and hosted ERP deployments.
      • Those looking at having state-of-the-art technology in-house should consider building an internal private cloud that supports their ERP deployment.

      Make sure you are ready to proceed with selection

      Organizational readiness is essential for maximizing the benefits realized from your ERP. Cover all critical elements of pre-work, resources, buy-in, and strategy and planning before embarking on ERP selection and/or implementation.

      Pre-work
      Current State Understanding
      Business Process Improvement
      Future State Vision

      Resources
      Project Team
      Governance Structures
      Third-Party Partners
      Cost and Budget

      Buy-in
      Goals and Objectives
      Exec Business Sponsorship
      Stakeholder Engagement
      Change Management

      STRATEGY and PLANNING
      ERP Strategy & Roadmap
      Risk Management
      Project Metrics

      Without a preparedness assessment, organizations end up wasting a lot of time on resolving gaps in planning that could have been mitigated upfront, which ultimately makes the implementation project more challenging.
      – Suanne McGrath-Kelly, President & Principal Consultant, Plan in Motion Inc., interviewed by Info-Tech, 2019.

      Assess your EAS readiness before moving forward

      To avoid common project pitfalls, complete the necessary prerequisites before proceeding with EAS. Consider whether the risks of proceeding unprepared fall within your organization’s risk tolerance. If they do not, pivot back to strategy.

      Preceding tasks Risks of proceeding unprepared
      Project Vision
      Project Scope
      EAS Business Case
      Current State Map
      Improvement Opportunity Analysis
      Future State Considerations
      Strategic Requirements
      Project Metrics and Benchmarks
      Risk Assessment
      EAS Strategic Roadmap
      EAS Project Work Initiatives       		Misalignment of project objectives
      Time and cost overruns
      Lack of executive buy-in or support
      Over- or under-investment in systems
      Unknown and unmet system requirements
      Product selection misfit
      Misalignment of requirements to needs
      Inability to measure project success
      Inability to proactively mitigate risk impact
      Lack of decision-making traceability
      Unclear expectations of tasks and roles

      1.2.1 Assess EAS selection readiness

      1 – 2 hours

      1. As a group, review Section 1 of the EAS Readiness Assessment Checklist with the core project team and/or project sponsor, item by item. For completed items, tick the corresponding checkbox. Document all incomplete items in the Readiness Remediation Plan table in the first column (“Incomplete Readiness Item”).
      2. For each incomplete item, use your discretion to determine whether the completion is critical in preparation for EAS selection and implementation. This may vary given the complexity of your EAS project. If the item is critical to the project, indicate this with “Y” in the second column (“Criticality (Y/N)”).
      3. For each critical item, reflect on the barriers that have prevented or are preventing its completion. Possible barriers include incomplete task dependencies, low value to effort determination, lack of organizational knowledge or resources, pressure of deadlines, etc. Document these barriers in the third column (“Barriers to Completion”).
      4. Determine a remediation approach for each barrier identified. Document the approach in the fourth column (“Remediation Approach”).
        1. For each remediation activity, designate a due date and remediation owner. Document this in the fifth column (“Due Date and Owner”).
        2. Carry out the remediation of critical tasks and return to this blueprint to kick-start your selection and implementation project.
      Input Output
      • EAS Foundation
      • EAS Strategy
      • Readiness remediation approach
      • Validation of ERP project readiness
      Materials Participants
      • EAS Readiness Assessment Checklist
      • Project sponsor
      • Core project team

      Download the EAS Readiness Assessment Checklist

      Build a well-balanced core team to see the project through

      Have a cross-departmental team define goals and objectives in order to significantly increase EAS success and improve communication.

      • Hold a meeting with Finance, Operations, and IT stakeholders. The overall objective of the meeting is to confirm that all parties agree on the goals and metrics that gauge success of the EAS project.
      • The kick-off process will significantly improve internal communications. Invite all impacted internal groups to work as a team to address any significant issues before the application process is formally activated.
      • Set up a quarterly review process to understand changing needs. This will change the way the EAS system will be utilized.

      “Each individual should understand at least one business area and have a hand in another.”
      – Mark Earley
      Senior Research Director,
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Info-Tech Insight
      An EAS selection and implementation requires more than just a procurement team. The core EAS project team should be cross-functional. .

      Be ready with a resourcing strategy for your EAS project

      EAS selection and implementation is a giant undertaking that can rarely be supported by internal resources alone.

      It is important to understand where your organization’s resourcing gaps are when embarking on a selection and implementation project. Once gaps are identified, the amount of external support needed from vendor(s), consultants, or system integrators can be determined.

      Select from the three most commonly used resourcing strategies for EAS selection and implementation projects:

      • Implement in-house using your own staff.
      • Implement using a combination of your own staff and professional services from the vendor(s) and/or system integrator (SI).
      • Implement using professional services.

      Build your implementation team

      Prioritize members from your core selection team. They will have strong insight into the tool and its envisioned position in the organization.

      General Roles

      1. Integration Specialists
      2. Solution or Enterprise Architects
      3. QA Engineer
      4. IT Service Management Team

      External Roles

      1. Vendor’s Implementation Team or Professional Services
      2. Systems Integrator (SI)

      Right-size the EAS selection team to ensure you get the right information but are still able to move ahead quickly

      Full-Time Resourcing: At least one member of these five team members must be allocated to the selection initiative as a full-time resource.

      IT Leader Technical Lead Business Analyst/
      Project Manager      		 Business Lead Process Expert(s)
      This team member is an IT director or CIO who will provide sponsorship and oversight from the IT perspective. This team member will focus on application security, integration, and enterprise architecture. This team member elicits business needs and translates them into technology requirements. This team member will provide sponsorship from the business needs perspective. Typically, a CXO or SVP of a business function. These team members are the business process owners who will help steer the requirements and direction.

      Info-Tech Insight
      It is critical for the selection team to determine who has decision rights. Organizational culture will play the largest role in dictating which team member holds the final say for selection decisions. For more information on stakeholder management and involvement, see this guide.

      Complete the project timeline required during your selection phase

      Include as many steps as necessary to understand, validate, and compare vendor solutions so you can make a confident, well-informed decision.

      Use Info-Tech’s 15-Step Selection Process:

      1. Initiate procurement.
      2. Select procurement manager.
      3. Prepare for procurement; check that prerequisites are met.
      4. Select appropriate procurement vehicle (RFI, RFP, RFQ, etc.).
      5. Assemble procurement teams.
      6. Create procurement project plan.
      7. Identify and notify vendors about procurement.
      8. Configure procurement process.
      9. Gather requirements.
      10. Prioritize requirements.
      11. Build the procurement documentation package.
      12. Issue the procurement.
      13. Evaluate proposals.
      14. Evaluate vendor demos and reference checks.
      15. Recommend a vendor.

      Strengthen your procurement. If your organization lacks a clear selection process, refer to Info-Tech's Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process research to help construct a formal process for procuring application technology.

      Download the Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process

      Visualize what success looks like

      Understand how success metrics are relevant at each stage of strategy formation by keeping the end in mind. Apply a similar thought model to your other success metrics for a holistic evaluation of your strategy.

      Implementation
      Pre-Implementation Post-Implementation
      Baseline measure Strategic insight Strategic action Success measure End result
      Use data you already have. Any given pain point can act as your pre-implementation baseline. Previously, this measure may have been evaluated by asking “what?” or “how much?” Move away from looking at your baseline measure as transactional data, and incorporate the ability to generate strategic insight with your EAS. Change the questions you are asking to drive insights: “who?” “why?” and “how does it affect the business?” Support the business by putting your strategic analytics into action. Ensure there are capabilities built into your ERP to strategically address your baseline measure. Leverage these functions to act on your strategic insights. In the interest of IT and business alignment, speak the same language when measuring success. Use a business success measurement to determine the contribution made by your EAS strategy. Visualize your success in the context of the business as a whole. Projecting success in the interest of your stakeholders will gain and maintain buy-in, allowing you to leverage the strategic functionality of your new EAS.
      Example Time to Procure Delay in time to procure caused by bottleneck in requisition processing ERP used to create advanced workflows to streamline requisition approval process Time efficiencies gained free up employee time to focus on more strategic efforts Contributed to strategic operational innovation

      Prove the value of your EAS through metrics

      Establish baseline metrics early and measure throughout the project can iteratively prove the value of your EAS.

      Functional processes IT resource efficiency
      Functional benefits and efficiencies gained through effectively diagnosing and meeting business needs. Benefits enabled through reductions in IT system, network, and resource usage.
      Example metrics Record to report
      • Days to close month-end
      • Time to produce statements
      		 Market to order
      • Customer retention rate
      • Conversion/Cost per lead
      • Number of help desk requests
      • Number of active users
      • Time to resolution
      Quote to cash
      • Sales cycle duration
      • Cash conversion cycle
      		 Issue to resolution
      • # of returns
      • # of customer complaints
      • Time to resolve complaints
      Procure to pay
      • Average time to procure
      • Cycle time of purchase order
      		 Forecast to delivery
      • Variance of demand plan
      • Time to replenish inventory
      Plan to perform
      • Time to complete plan
      • Variance of plan to actual
      		 Hire to retire
      • Training $ per employee
      • Total overtime cost

      Improve baseline metrics through…

      1. Increased help desk efficiency. Through training of personnel and increased efficiency of processes.
      2. Increased level of self-service for end users. Implementation of functionality that matches business needs will increase the efficiency of functional business tasks.
      3. Decreased time to escalation. Knowing when to escalate tasks sooner can decrease wasted effort by tier-one workers.
      4. Automation of simple, repetitive tasks. Automation frees time for more important tasks.

      1.3.1 Assemble EAS selection team

      1 hour

      1. Working as a group, list key players in the organization that should be in EAS selection team.
      2. Determine the role of each member.
      3. Define the level of commitment each member can have on the EAS selection team. Keep in mind their availabilities during the selection process.
      4. Determine who has decision rights.
      Input Output
      • Knowledge of the team, governance structure, and organizational culture
      • List members in EAS selection team
      Materials Participants
      • Sticky notes
      • Markers
      • Executive sponsor
      • Core project team

      Phase 2

      Define your EAS

      Phase 1
      1.1 Enterprise Application Landscape
      1.2 Validate Readiness
      1.3 Determine Resourcing

      Phase 2
      2.1 Capability Mapping
      2.2 Requirements Gathering Data Mapping
      2.3 Requirements Prioritizing

      Phase 3
      3.1 Understanding Product Offerings
      3.2 RFP & Demo Scripts
      3.3 Evaluation
      Select and Negotiate

      Phase 4
      4.1 Prepare for
      Implementation

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      Identifying business processes , inventory applications and data flows, gathering requirements and prioritizing them.

      This phase involves the following participants:

      Key stakeholders from the various areas of the business that will support the project including:

      • CxO (e.g. CIO, CFO)
      • Departmental leaders
      • Project management team
      • Subject matter experts
      • Core project team

      Select an Enterprise Application

      Leverage Info-Tech’s requirements gathering framework to serve as the basis for capturing your CRM requirements

      Requirements Gathering Framework

      Info-Tech’s Requirements Gathering Framework is a comprehensive approach to requirements management that can be scaled to any size of project or organization. This framework ensures that the application created will capture the needs of all stakeholders and deliver business value. Don’t treat elicitation, analysis, and validation in isolation: planning, monitoring, communicating, and managing must permeate all three stages in order to avoid makeshift solutions.

      Capability vs. process vs. feature

      Understanding the difference

      When examining HRMS optimization it is important to approach it from the appropriate layer.

      Capability:

      • The ability of an entity (e.g. organization or department) to achieve its objectives (APQC, 2017).
      • An ability that an organization, person, or system possesses. They are typically expressed in general and high-level terms and typically require a combination of organization, people, processes, and technology to achieve (TOGAF).

      Process:

      • Processes can be manual or technology enabled. A process is a series of interrelated activities that convert inputs into results (outputs).
      • Processes consume resources, require standards for repeatable performance, and respond to control systems that direct the quality, rate, and cost of performance. The same process can be highly effective in one circumstance and poorly effective in another with different systems, tools, knowledge, and people (APQC, 2017).

      Feature:

      • A distinguishing characteristic of a software item (e.g. performance, portability, or functionality) (IEEE, 2005).

      In today’s complex organizations, it can be difficult to understand where inefficiencies stem from and how performance can be enhanced.

      To fix problems and maximize efficiencies, organizations must examine business capabilities and processes to determine gaps and areas of lagging performance.

      Info-Tech’s HRIS framework and industry tools such as the APQC’s Process Classification Framework can help make sense of this.

      Process inventory

      Business capability map (Level 0)

      Business Capability Map

      If you do not have a documented process model, you can use the APQC Framework to help define your inventory of business processes.
      APQC’s Process Classification Framework is a taxonomy of cross-functional business processes intended to allow the objective comparison of organizational performance within and among organizations.

      In business architecture, the primary view of an organization is known as a business capability map.

      A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation rather than how.

      Business capabilities:

      • Represent stable business functions.
      • Are unique and independent of each other.
      • Will typically have a defined business outcome.

      A business capability map provides details that help the business architecture practitioner direct attention to a specific area of the business for further assessment.

      EAS process mapping

      Objectives The organization’s objectives are typically outcomes that the organization is looking to achieve as a result of the business strategy.
      Value Streams Value streams are external/internal processes that help the organization realize its goals.
      Capabilities The what: Business capabilities support value streams in the creation and capture of value.
      Processes The how: Business processes define how they will fulfill a given capability.

      The operating model

      An operating model is a framework that drives operating decisions. It helps to set the parameters for the scope of EAS and the processes that will be supported. The operating model will serve to group core operational processes. These groupings represent a set of interrelated, consecutive processes aimed at generating a common output.

      The value stream

      Value stream defined:

      Value Streams Design Product Produce Product Sell Product Customer Service
      • Manufacturers work proactively to design products and services that will meet consumer demand.
      • Products are driven by consumer demand and governmental regulations.
      • Production processes and labor costs are constantly analyzed for efficiencies and accuracies.
      • Quality of product and services are highly regulated through all levels of the supply chain.
      • Sales networks and sales staff deliver the product from the organization to the end consumer.
      • Marketing plays a key role throughout the value stream, connecting consumers’ wants and needs to the products and services offered.
      • Relationships with consumers continue after the sale of products and services.
      • Continued customer support and data mining is important to revenue streams.

      Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities in the marketplace. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment in which an organization operates.

      There are two types of value streams: core and support.

      • Core value streams are mostly external-facing. They deliver value to either external or internal customers and they tie to the customer perspective of the strategy map.
      • Support value streams are internal-facing and provide the foundational support for an organization to operate.

      An effective method for ensuring all value streams have been considered is to understand that there can be different end-value receivers.

      2.1.1 List your key processes

      1-3 hours

      1. As a group, discuss the business capabilities, value streams, and business processes.
      2. For each capability determine the following:
        1. Is this capability applicable to our organization?
        2. What application, if any, supports this capability?
      3. Are there any missing capabilities to add?
      Input Output
      • Current systems
      • Key processes
      • APQC Framework
      • Organizational process map
      • List of key business processes
      Materials Participants
      • APQC Framework
      • Whiteboard, PowerPoint, or flip charts and markers
      • Primary stakeholders in each value stream supported by the EAS
      • Core project team

      Activity 2.1.1 – Process inventory

      Core finance Core HR Workforce management Talent Management Warehouse management Enterprise asset management
      Process Technology Process Technology Process Technology Process Technology Process Technology Process Technology
      • General ledger
      • Accounts payable
      • Accounts receivable
      • GL consolidation
      • Cash management
      • Billing and invoicing
      • Expenses
      • Payroll accounting
      • Tax management
      • Reporting
      • Payroll administration
      • Benefits administration
      • Position management
      • Organizational structure
      • Core HR records
      • Time and attendance
      • Leave management
      • Scheduling
      • Performance management
      • Talent acquisition
      • Offboarding & onboarding
      • Plan layout
      • Manage inventory
      • Manage loading docks
      • Pick, pack, ship
      • Plan and manage workforce
      • Manage returns
      • Transfer product cross-dock
      • Asset lifecycle management
      • Supply chain management
      • Maintenance planning and scheduling
      Planning and budgeting Strategic HR Procurement Customer relationship management Facilities management Project management
      Process Technology Process Technology Process Technology Process Technology Process Technology Process Technology
      • Budget reporting
      • Variance analysis
      • Multi-year operating plan
      • Monthly forecasting
      • Annual operating plan
      • Compensation planning
      • Workforce planning
      • Succession planning
      • Supplier management
      • Purchase order management
      • Workflow approvals
      • Contract / tender management
      • Contact management
      • Activity management
      • Analytics
      • Plan and acquire
      • Asset maintenance
      • Disposal
      • Project management
      • Project costing
      • Budget control
      • Document management

      Gaining Enterprise Architecture Oversight during application selection yields better user satisfaction results

      Procurement/Legal Oversight and
      Low satisfaction with software selection High satisfaction with software selection
      Process % Used % Used Process
      Used ROI/Cost Benefit Analysis 42% 43% Used ROI/Cost-Benefit Analysis
      Used Formal Decision Criteria 39% 41% Used Formal Decision Criteria
      Approval 33% 37% Enterprise Architecture Oversight and Approval
      Security Oversight and Approval 27% 36% Security Oversight and Approval
      Used Third-Party Data Reports 26% 28% Procurement/Legal Oversight and Approval
      Enterprise Architecture Oversight and Approval 26% 28% Used Third-Party Data Reports
      Used a Consultant 21% 17% Used a Consultant

      High satisfaction was defined as a response of 8, 9, or 10 from the overall recommendation question. Low satisfaction was 7 or less.

      Source: SoftwareReviews, 2018

      Map data flow

      Example ERP data flow

      Example ERP data flow

      When assessing the current application portfolio that supports your EAS, the tendency will be to focus on the applications under the EAS umbrella. These relate mostly to marketing, sales, and customer service. Be sure to include systems that act as input to, or benefit due to outputs from EAS or similar applications.

      Be sure to include enterprise applications that are not included in the EAS application portfolio. Popular systems to consider for POIs include billing, directory services, content management, and collaboration tools.

      Integration is paramount: your EAS application often integrates with other applications within the organization. Create an integration map to reflect a system of record and the exchange of data. To increase customer engagement, channel integration is a must (i.e. with robust links to unified communications solutions, email, and VoIP telephony systems).

      Enterprise application landscape

      Enterprise application landscape

      2.1.2 Inventory applications and interactions

      1-3 hours

      1. Individually list all electronic systems involved in the EAS function of the organization.
      2. Document data flows into and out of each system to the EAS. Refer to the example on the previous slides (ERP data flow) and sample Enterprise Application map.
      3. Review the processes in place (look at each functional area, including data moving into and out of systems.) Document manual processes. Identify integration points. If flow charts exist for these processes, it may be useful to provide these to the participants.
      4. If possible, diagram the system. Include information direction flow.
      Input Output
      • Business process inventory
      • List of applications (if available)
      • Current systems
      • Data flow map
      Materials Participants
      • Whiteboard, markers
      • Internal requirements documentation tools (if available)
      • Business analyst(s)
      • Subject matter experts
      • Core project team (optional)

      Understand how to navigate the complex web of stakeholders in ERP requirements gathering

      Identify which stakeholders to include and what their level of involvement should be during requirements elicitation based on relevant topic expertise.

      Sponsor End user IT Business
      Description An internal stakeholder who has final sign-off on the ERP project. Frontline users of the ERP technology. Back-end support staff who are tasked with project planning, execution, and eventual system maintenance. Additional stakeholders who will be impacted by any ERP technology changes.
      Examples
      • CEO
      • CIO/CTO
      • COO
      • CFO
      • Warehouse personnel
      • Sales teams
      • HR admins
      • Applications manager
      • Vendor relationship manager(s)
      • Director, Procurement
      • VP, Marketing
      • Manager, HR
      Value Executive buy-in and support is essential to the success of the project. Often, the sponsor controls funding and resource allocation. End users determine the success of the system through user adoption. If the end user does not adopt the system, the system is deemed useless and benefits realization is poor. IT is likely to be responsible for more in-depth requirements gathering. IT possesses critical knowledge concerning system compatibility, integration, and data. Involving business stakeholders in the requirements gathering will ensure alignment between HR and organizational objectives.

      Stakeholder influence vs. interest

      Large-scale EAS projects require the involvement of many stakeholders from all corners and levels of the organization, including project sponsors, IT, end users, and business stakeholders. Consider the influence and interest of stakeholders in contributing to the requirements elicitation process and involve them accordingly.

      Chart of Stakeholder Involvement during selection

      Extract functional and non-functional requirements from the customer interaction business process diagrams

      Once the most significant processes have been mapped, the business requirements must be extracted from the maps and transformed into functional and non-functional requirements. The example below illustrates how to extract requirements from an insurance claim process for the Record Claim step.

      Task Input Output Risks Opportunities Condition Sample requirements
      Record customer service claim Customer email Case record
      • Agent accidentally misses the email and case is not submitted
      • Reduce time to populate customer’s claim information into the case
      • Automation of data capture and routing
      • Pre-population of the case with the email contents
      • Suggested routing based on nature of case
      • Multi-language support

      Business:

      • System requires email-to-case functionality

      Non-functional:

      • The cases must be supported in multiple languages

      Functional:

      • The case must support the following information:
        • Title
        • Customer
        • Subject
        • Case origin
        • Case type

      Example claims process

      2.2.1 Capture your EAS requirements

      Time required varies

      1. Focus groups of 10-20 individuals may be the best way to ensure complete coverage of business requirements for EAS. This group should be cross-functional, with manager- or director-level representation from the departments that have a vested interest in the EAS project.
      2. Use your organization’s standard internal tools or download Info-Tech’s ERP Requirements Template, HRIS Requirements Template, or CRM Requirements Template.
      3. Document the requirements from the elicitation sessions.
      • The core team of business analysts should be present throughout, and the sessions should be led by an experienced facilitator (such as a senior business analyst).
      • Requirements for EAS should focus on achieving the future state rather than replicating the current state.
      • The facilitator should steer the team toward requirements that are solution-agnostic (i.e. not coached in terms of a particular vendor or product). Focus on customer and internal personas to help drive requirements.
      Input Output
      • Business unit functional requirements
      • Business process inventory
      • Data flow map
      • Inventory of business requirements
      Materials Participants
      • Whiteboard, markers
      • Internal requirements documentation tools (if available)
      • Info-Tech’s ERP Requirements Template, HRIS Requirements Template, or CRM Requirements Template (optional)
      • Business analyst(s)
      • Project manager
      • Subject matter experts
      • Core project team (optional)

      Prioritize your EAS requirements to assist with the selection

      Requirements prioritization ensures that the ERP selection project team focuses on the right requirements when putting together the RFP.

      Prioritization is the process of ranking each requirement based on its importance to project success. Hold a meeting for the domain SMEs, implementation SMEs, project managers, and project sponsors to prioritize the requirements list. At the conclusion of the meeting, each requirement should be assigned a priority level. The implementation SMEs will use these priority levels to ensure efforts are targeted toward the proper requirements and to plan features available on each release.

      Use the MoSCoW Model of Prioritization to effectively order requirements.

      The MoSCoW Model of Prioritization
      Must have Requirements must be implemented for the solution to be considered successful.
      Should have Requirements that are high priority should be included in the solution if possible.
      Could have Requirements are desirable but not necessary and could be included if resources are available.
      Won't have Requirements won’t be in the next release, but will be considered for the future releases.

      The MoSCoW model was introduced by Dai Clegg of Oracle UK in 1994. MindTools.

      Base your prioritization on the right set of criteria

      Effective prioritization criteria

      Criteria Description
      Regulatory and legal compliance These requirements will be considered mandatory.
      Policy compliance Unless an internal policy can be altered or an exception can be made, these requirements will be considered mandatory.
      Business value significance Give a higher priority to high-value requirements.
      Business risk Any requirement with the potential to jeopardize the entire project should be given a high priority and implemented early.
      Likelihood of success Especially in “proof of concept” projects, it is recommended that requirements have good odds.
      Implementation complexity Give a higher priority to low implementation difficulty requirements.
      Alignment with strategy Give a higher priority to requirements that enable the corporate strategy.
      Urgency Prioritize requirements based on time sensitivity.
      Dependencies A requirement on its own may be low priority, but if it supports a high-priority requirement, then its priority must match it.

      2.3.1 Prioritize your solution requirements

      Time required varies

      1. Consolidate all duplicate requirements to form a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of functional and non-functional requirements.
      2. Identify the significance of each requirement for your solution evaluation according to the MoSCoW model. Control the number of mandatory requirements you document. Too many mandatory requirements could create an unrealistic framework for evaluating solutions.
      3. Categorize your requirements and delineate between functional (i.e. capabilities the system will be able to perform) and non-functional (i.e. environmental conditions of the system, such as technical and security requirements).
      InputOutput
      • Inventory of business requirements
      • Inventory of business requirements with priorities
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard, markers
      • Internal requirements documentation tools (if available)
      • Info-Tech’s ERP Requirements Template, HRIS Requirements Template, or CRM Requirements Template (optional)
      • Business analyst(s)
      • Project manager
      • Subject matter experts
      • Core project team

      Identify which vendors’ product and capabilities meet your must-have requirements

      Highlight must-haves in the RFP

      • Once you have prioritized your business requirements for the EAS initiative, it is time to package them into an RFP.
      • It is critical to highlight must-have requirements in the RFP document. Doing so immediately eliminates vendors who do not feel that their products are suitable for your needs.

      WATCH OUT!

      Many vendors will try to stretch their capabilities to fit your must-have requirements. Leverage vendor demos in the next stage of selection to quickly rule out products that do not cover your critical requirements.

      Identify key process areas where you require vendor knowledge

      Example of Key process areas

      Completing a process inventory and a list of EAS requirements often shows process areas that need updates and improvement. Take this opportunity to highlight areas where you would benefit from knowing about most recent best practices and technologies.

      Inquire about these when engaging the vendor to know their level of knowledge and how their products work best in your industry.

      General product knowledge requests are not enough. Be specific.

      Determine the product knowledge areas that are specific to your implementation.

      Product Knowledge Proof of Concept Development Customer Service Warehousing Core HR Other Overall
      Data Security *
      Process Improvements * *
      Configuration
      Data Architecture *
      Integration
      On premise Infrastructure
      Cloud Infrastructure *
      Other

      Identify the product knowledge that is required in relation to your implementation. This can include core product knowledge and should be related to larger infrastructure and organizational requirements.

      More than just functional requirements

      What to include What to look at What is differentiating
      • Remember to include must-have conditions that do not directly relate to the behavior or functionality of the EAS product, but rather describe environmental conditions under which the solution must remain effective or qualities that the systems must have.
      • These can include requirements related to capacity, speed, security, availability, and the information architecture and presentation of the user interface.
      • Consider the vendor’s overall ability to execute.
        • Are they financially stable?
        • Do they have the resources to execute?
        • Do they have the skills to execute?
        • Are they able to provide post-implementation support?
      • Vendors understand that SaaS isn’t for everyone. Deployment models are one way they will continue to differentiate themselves.
      • Some vendors choose to compete on breadth and others on depth of expertise in public, private, and hosted cloud offerings.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Be wary of sunsetting products! Selecting the EAS based on a good knowledge of the vendor’s roadmap allows for business operations to continue without having to repeat a selection and implementation project in the near future.

      Dominant use-case scenarios for potential ERP solutions

      While an organization may be both product- and service-centric, most organizations fall into one of the two categories.

      Use case: Public sector

      The service-centric ERP use case is suitable for most organizations in the public sector. With that in mind, consider ERP solutions that offer grant disbursements, fleet management, and staffing/resourcing capabilities.

      Product-centric ERP Service-centric ERP
      What it is The product-centric ERP is suitable for organizations that manufacture, assemble, distribute, or manage material goods throughout a product lifecycle. ERP vendors and/or products that align to this use case usually cater to industries such as manufacturing, retail, aerospace and defense, distribution, and food and beverage. The service-centric ERP use case is suitable for organizations that provide and manage field services and/or professional services throughout a project lifecycle. ERP vendors and/or products that align to this use case usually cater to industries such as utilities, maintenance and repair, government, education, and professional services (i.e. consulting, legal).
      How it works Product-centric ERP has strong functionality in supply chain management, manufacturing, procurement management, and material job and project management. Service-centric ERP has strong functionality in resource job and project management, service management, and customer relationship management.

      EAS table stakes vs differentiating features

      Make sure features align with your objectives first.

      What are table stakes / standard features?

      • For every type of EAS, such as ERP, HRIS, and CRM, certain features are standard, but that doesn’t mean they are all equal.
      • The existence of features doesn’t guarantee quality or functionality to the standards you need. Never assume that yes in a features list means you don’t need to ask for a demo.

      What is differentiating/additional feature?

      • Differentiating features take two forms:
        • Some platforms offer differentiating features that are vertical specific.
        • Other platforms offer differentiating features that are considered cutting edge. These cutting-edge features may become table stakes over time.
      • These features may increase productivity but also require process changes.

      Info-Tech Insight
      If table stakes are all you need from your EAS solution, the only true differentiator for the organization is price. Otherwise, dig deeper to find the best price to value for your needs. Remove the product from your shortlist if table stakes are not met!

      Reign-In Ballooning Scope for EAS Selection Projects

      Stretching the EAS beyond its core capabilities is a short-term solution for a long-term problem. Educate stakeholders about the limits of EAS technology.

      Common pitfalls for EAS selection

      • Tangential capabilities may require separate solutions. It is common for stakeholders to list features such as content management as part of the new EAS platform. While content management goes hand in hand with the EAS’s ability to manage customer interactions, document management is best handled by a standalone platform.

      Keeping stakeholders engaged and in line

      • Ballooning scope leads to stakeholder dissatisfaction. Appeasing stakeholders by over customizing the platform will lead to integration and headaches down the road.
      • Make sure stakeholders feel heard. Do not turn down ideas in the midst of an elicitation session. Once the requirements gathering sessions are completed, the project team has the opportunity to mark requirements as “out of scope”, and communicate the reasoning behind the decision.
      • Educate stakeholders on the core functionality of EAS. Many stakeholders do not know the best-fit use cases for EAS platforms. Help end users understand what EAS is good at, and where additional technologies will be needed.

      Phase 3

      Engage, Evaluate, and Finalize Selection

      Phase 1
      1.1 Enterprise Application Landscape
      1.2 Validate Readiness
      1.3 Determine Resourcing

      Phase 2
      2.1 Capability Mapping
      2.2 Requirements Gathering Data Mapping
      2.3 Requirements Prioritizing

      Phase 3
      3.1 Understanding Product Offerings
      3.2 RFP & Demo Scripts
      3.3 Evaluation Select and Negotiate

      Phase 4
      4.1 Prepare for Implementation

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      In this phase of the project, you will review your RFx and build an initial list of vendors/implementors to reach out to. The final step is to build your evaluation checklist for rating the incoming responses.

      This phase involves the following participants:

      Key stakeholders from the various areas of the business that will support the project including:

      • Evaluation team
      • Vendor management team
      • Project management team
      • Core project team

      Select an Enterprise Application

      Products and vendors demystified

      Knowing who can provide the solution will shorten the selection process and provide the most suitable set of features.

      The Product The Vendor The VAR
      A product is the software, hardware, add-ins, and any value-added services or tools that are bundled together, e.g. SAP Rise (see What is RISE with SAP), SAP S4/HANA, etc. A vendor can carry and sell multiple products or lines of products (e.g. Oracle sells Oracle Fusion and NetSuite, etc.). The Value-added reseller (VAR) can sell a pre-packaged / pre-configured product. VARs are usually partners of the vendor and typically provide other packaged services including system hosting, customization, implementation, and integrations.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Selecting an Enterprise Application is much more than just selecting a software or product; it is selecting a long-term platform and partner to help achieve long-term strategic goals. Refer to our blueprint Select an ERP Implementation Partner.

      Consolidating the vendor shortlist up-front reduces downstream effort

      Put the “short” back in shortlist!

      • Radically reduce effort by narrowing the field of potential vendors earlier in the selection process. Too many organizations don’t funnel their vendor shortlist until near the end of the selection process. The result is wasted time and effort evaluating options that are patently not a good fit.
      • Leverage external data (such as SoftwareReviews) and expert opinion to consolidate your shortlist into a smaller number of viable vendors before the investigative interview stage, and eliminate time spent evaluating dozens of RFP responses.
      • Having fewer RFP responses to evaluate means you will have more time to do greater due diligence.

      Review your use cases to start your shortlist

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

      Next steps will include:

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

      Evaluate software category leaders through vendor rankings and awards

      SoftwareReviews

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

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

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

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

      Speak with category experts to dive deeper into the vendor landscape

      Fact-based reviews of business software from IT professionals.

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

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

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

      SoftwareReviews is powered by Info-Tech.

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

      CLICK HERE to access SoftwareReviews

      Comprehensive software reviews to make better IT decisions.

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

      Case Study

      Manufacturer and retailer utilizes Info-Tech for goal of unifying four separate ERP systems

      INDUSTRY
      Manufacturing

      SOURCE
      Info-Tech Consulting

      Challenge Solution Results

      An amalgamation of eight different manufacturing, retail, and supply brands that operated four separate ERP systems and processes across the United States had poor visibility into operations.

      The organization had plans to unify the brands from a systems perspective and accommodate the company’s growth in a scalable and repeatable way.

      Info-Tech was previously engaged to perform an Establish a Concrete ERP Foundation workshop to set the groundwork for the eventual ERP selection.

      The organization engaged Info-Tech’s consulting group to assist in requirements gathering and RFP development.

      Info-Tech consultants traveled to five different states to gather ERP requirements from stakeholders and identify solution requirements.

      Info-Tech developed an ERP requirements matrix from the organization’s processes, including technical requirements and operations/support services.

      Info-Tech matched the organization with a use case and weighted requirements to assist in future scoring.

      An RFP was constructed using the organization’s requirements. and distributed to 10 qualified vendors for completion.

      Strengthen your RFP process with a thorough review

      Drive better sourcing outcomes.

      A quality SOW is the result of a quality RFI/RFP (RFx).

      Use Info-Tech’s RFP Review as a Service to review key items and ensure your RFP will generate quality responses and SOWs.

      • Is it well structured, with a consistent use of fonts and bullets?
      • Is it laid out in sections that are easily identifiable and that progress from high-level to more detailed information?
      • Can a vendor quickly identify the ten (or fewer) things that are most important to you?

      Contact Us

      3.2.1 Prepare the RFP

      1-2 hours

      1. Download Info-Tech’s ERP Request for Proposal Template or prepare internal best-practice RFP tools.
      2. Build your RFP.
        1. Complete the statement of work and general information sections to provide organizational context to your long-listed vendors.
        2. Outline the organization’s procurement instructions for vendors, including due diligence, assessment criteria, and dates.
        3. Input the business requirements document as created in Activity 1.3.1.
        4. Create a scenario overview to provide vendors with an opportunity to give an estimated price.
      3. Obtain approval for your RFP. Each organization has a unique procurement process; follow your own organization’s process as you submit your RFPs to vendors. Ensure compliance with your organization’s standard and gain approval for submitting your RFP.
      Input Output
      • Business requirements document
      • Procurement procedures
      • EAS RFP
      Materials Participants
      • Internal RFP tools/ templates (if available)
      • Info-Tech’s ERP RFP Template (optional)
      • Procurement SMEs
      • Project manager
      • Core project team (optional)

      Download the ERP Request for Proposal Template

      Streamline your evaluation of vendor responses

      Use Info-Tech’s ERP Vendor Response Template to standardize vendor responses.

      • Vendors tend to use their own standard templates when responding, which complicates evaluations.
      • Customize Info-Tech’s ERP Vendor Response Template to adjust for the scope and content of your project; input your organization’s procurement process and ERP requirements.
      • The template is meant to streamline the evaluation of vendor responses by ensuring you achieve comprehensiveness and consistency across all vendor responses. The template requires vendors to prove their organizational viability, understanding of the problem, and tested technology and implementation methodologies.

      Sections of the tool:

      1 Executive Summary

      2 About the Vendor

      3 Understanding of the Challenge

      4 Methodology

      5 Proposed Solution

      6 Project Plan and Timeline

      7 Vendor Qualifications

      8 References

      9 Additional Value-Added Services

      10 Additional Value-Added Goods

      For an explanation of how advanced features are determined, see Information Presentation – Feature Ranks (Stoplights) in the Appendix.

      What to look in vendor responses

      Vendor responses to an RFP can be very revealing about whether their product offering aligns with your EAS roadmap.

      Validate the vendor responses so that there are no misunderstandings with their offer. Here are key items to validate.

      Key items Why is this important?
      About the Vendor This is where the vendor will describe itself and prove its organizational viability.
      Understanding of the Challenge Demonstrating understanding of the problem is the first step in being able to provide a solution.
      Methodology Shows the vendor has a proven methodology to approach and solve the challenge.
      Proposed Solution Describes how the vendor will address the challenge. This is a very important section as it will articulate what you will receive from the vendor as a solution.
      Project Plan and Timeline Provides an overview of the project management methodology, phases of the project, and what will be delivered and when.
      Vendor Qualifications Provides evidence of prior experience with delivering similar projects for similar clients.
      References Provides contact information for individuals or organizations for which the vendor has worked and who can vouch for the experience and success of working with this vendor.
      Value-Added Services and Goods Allows vendors an opportunity to set themselves apart from the competition with additional services and/or goods applicable to your project but not covered elsewhere in the template.

      3.2.2 Build a vendor response template

      1-2 hours

      1. Download Info-Tech’s ERP Vendor Response Template.
      2. Validate that the provided template is comprehensive and will collect the information necessary for your organization to effectively evaluate the product and vendor and will inform a decision to invite the vendor in for a demonstration.
      3. Make the small customizations necessary to tailor the template to your organization (i.e. swap out “[Company X]” for your organization’s name).

      Download the ERP Vendor Response Template

      InputOutput
      • EAS RFP
      • ERP Vendor Response Template
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Info-Tech’s ERP Vendor Response Template
      • Procurement SMEs
      • Project manager
      • Core project team

      3.2.3 Evaluate RFP responses

      Varies

      1. Customize Info-Tech’s EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool to build a vendor and product evaluation framework for your EAS selection team.
      2. Review all RFP responses together with the core project team and stakeholders from procurement (if necessary).
      3. Input vendor solution information into the EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool.
      4. Analyze the vendors against your evaluation framework by paying specific attention to costing, overall score, and evaluation notes and comments.
      5. Identify vendors with whom you wish to arrange vendor demonstration.
      6. Contact vendors and arrange briefings.
      InputOutput
      • EAS RFP
      • ERP Vendor Response Template
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Info-Tech’s ERP Vendor Response Template
      • Procurement SMEs
      • Project manager
      • Core project team

      Download the EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool

      Identify specific use cases and develop demonstration scenarios

      These techniques can be used to gather requirements now and for vendor demos during the evaluation stage.

      Describe use cases to indicate how the various processes will operate. This technique can help end-users describe what the solution must do without needing to know how to describe requirements. Outline scenarios based on these use cases for vendors to demonstrate how their solution can fulfill business requirements.

      Define
      Define objectives for each specific use case.

      Explore
      Explore the various process paths and alternate outcomes for each use case.

      Build
      Build the details of the scenarios to describe the roles of the people involved and the detailed process steps to be accomplished.

      Use
      For each scenario, outline the expected outputs and variations.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Do not exceed three vendors when selecting participants for a product demonstration. Each vendor demonstration should last between one day and one week, depending on the scope of the project. Exceeding the threshold of three vendors can be massively time consuming and yield diminishing returns.

      Conduct vendor demos that extend beyond baseline requirements

      • Demo scripts should focus on differentiating vendor processes and capabilities that contribute to achieving your business’ strategic objectives.
      • You want vendors to show you what differentiates them and what can they do that is specific to your industry.
      • Avoid focusing on baseline EAS capabilities. While this may drive consistency across demonstrations, you will not get a clear picture of how one vendor may align with your unique business needs.
      • Ask the vendor questions pertaining to the differentiating factors listed below. Consider if the differentiating factors are worthwhile over the baseline capabilities shown.
      Adhere to this framework when crafting your scenarios:
      Simple and straightforward Series of steps
      • A straightforward narrative of what you need the product to do.
      • Once written, scenarios should be circulated to key stakeholders in the organization for validation.
      • Demonstrate how a user would interact with the system.
      • Should not be an explanation of specific features/functions.
      Specific Suitable for your business
      • Demonstrate exactly what you need the system to do, but don’t get into implementation details – don’t go too far into the how.
      • Select only critical functions that must be demonstrated.
      • Scenarios should reflect current realities within the organization, while still allowing processes to be improved.

      Add your scenarios to Info-Tech’s sample EAS demo script

      Take a holistic approach to vendor and product evaluation

      Almost – or equally – as important as evaluating vendor feature capabilities is the need to evaluate vendor viability and non-functional aspects of the EAS solution. Include an evaluation of the following criteria in your vendor scoring methodology.

      Vendor capability Description
      Usability and Intuitiveness The degree to which the system interface is easy to use and intuitive to end users.
      Ease of IT Administration The degree to which the IT administrative interface is easy to use and intuitive to IT administrators.
      Ease of Data Integration The relative ease with which the system can be integrated with an organization’s existing application environment including legacy systems, point solutions, and other large enterprise applications.
      Ease of Customization The relative ease with which a system can be customized to accommodate niche or industry-specific business or functional needs.
      Vendor Support Options The availability of vendor support options including selection consulting, application development resources, implementation assistance, and ongoing support resources.
      Availability and Quality of Training The availability of quality training services and materials that will enable users to get the most out of the product selected.
      Product Strategy, Direction, and Rate of Improvement The vendor’s proven ability for constant product improvement, deliberate strategic direction, and overall commitment to research and development efforts in responding to emerging trends.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Evaluating the vendor capabilities, not just product capabilities, is particularly important with EAS solutions. EAS solutions are typically long-term commitments; ensure that your organization is teaming up with a vendor or provider that you feel you can work well with and depend on.

      Case Study

      Structured RFP and demo processes ease the pain of vendor evaluations during the selection phase.

      INDUSTRY
      Automotive

      SOURCE
      Research Interview

      Challenge Solution Results

      This company is one of the largest automotive manufacturers worldwide and has various manufacturing facilities and distribution centers across Canada.

      With over 8,000 employees, the company has a multifaceted health and safety program. While head office enabled and used the health and safety module within the existing HRIS, some divisions within the company found the system complex and were still relying heavily on manual entry spreadsheets for incident investigations. As a result, the company decided to explore other options.

      A project team was created, led by a project manager from head office’s IT department. The team also included health and safety specialists from across the organization, who served as subject matter experts.

      The team put together a project outline, a roadmap for required functionality, and a business case to present to senior leadership, highlighting benefits and potential payback.

      After acquiring executive sponsorship, the team developed a Request for Proposal that was sent to 11 vendors.

      Among the evaluation criteria set in the RFP, injury cost analysis and analytics on safety were identified as the most critical requirements. Based on this criteria, the team narrowed down the options to four RFP responses, which were opened to 16 different sites to ensure consensus across the company.

      The team developed demo scripts to guide the product demonstrations. They also built evaluation scorecards that were used to narrow down the selection to two vendors. Ultimately, the final selection decision came down to how well the vendors’ teams knew the business, and the vendor that demonstrated greater industry expertise was selected.

      3.2.4 Build a demo script for product demonstration evaluation

      1-2 hours

      1. With the EAS selection team, use Info-Tech’s ERP Vendor Demonstration Script, HRIS Vendor Demonstration Script, or CRM Vendor Demonstration Script to write a demo script that reflects your organization’s EAS needs.
      2. Outline the logistics of the demonstration in the Introduction section of the template. Be sure to outline the total length of the demo and the amount of time that should be dedicated to the following:
        1. Product demonstration in response to the demo script.
        2. Showcase of unique product elements, not reflective of the demo script.
        3. Question and answer session.
        4. Breaks and other potential interruptions.
      3. Provide prompts for the vendor to display the capabilities by listing and describing usage scenarios by functional area. For example, when asking a vendor to demonstrate financial and accounting management capabilities, you may break scenarios out by task (e.g. general ledger, accounts payable) or user role (e.g. finance manager, administrator).

      Info-Tech Insight
      Challenge vendor project teams during product demonstrations. Asking the vendor to make adjustments or customizations on the fly will allow you to get an authentic feel for product capability and flexibility and for the degree of adaptability of the vendor project team. Ask the vendor to demonstrate how to do things not listed in your user scenarios, such as change system visualizations or design, change underlying data, add additional data sets, demonstrate collaboration capabilities, or trace an audit trail.

      3.2.4 Build a demo script for product demonstration evaluation

      Before the actual demonstrations, remember to communicate to the team the scenarios to be covered. Distribute the scripts ahead of the demonstrations so that the evaluation team know what is expected from the vendors.

      Input Output
      • Business requirements document
      • Logistical considerations
      • Usage scenarios by functional area
      • EAS demo script
      Materials Participants
      • Info-Tech’s ERP Vendor Demonstration Script, HRIS Vendor Demonstration Script, or CRM Vendor Demonstration Script
      • Business analyst(s)
      • Core project team

      A vendor scoring model provides a clear anchor point for your evaluation of EAS vendors based on a variety of inputs

      A vendor scoring model is a systematic method for effectively assessing competing vendors. A weighted-average scoring model is an approach that strikes a strong balance between rigor and evaluation speed.

      How do I build a scoring model? What are some of the best practices?
      • Start by shortlisting the key criteria you will use to evaluate your vendors. Functional capabilities should always be a critical category, but you’ll also want to look at criteria such as affordability, architectural fit, and vendor viability.
      • Depending on the complexity of the project, you may break down some criteria into sub-categories to assist with evaluation (for example, breaking down functional capabilities into constituent use cases so you can score each one).
      • One you’ve developed the key criteria for your project, the next step is weighting each criteria. Your weightings should reflect the priorities for the project at hand. For example, some projects may put more emphasis on affordability, others on vendor partnership.
      • Using the information collected in the subsequent phases of this blueprint, score each criteria from 1-100, then multiply by the weighting factor. Add up the weighted scores to arrive at the aggregate evaluation score for each vendor on your shortlist.
      • While the criteria for each project may vary, it’s helpful to have an inventory of repeatable criteria that can be used across application selection projects. The next slide contains an example that you can add or subtract from.
      • Don’t go overboard on the number of criteria: five to ten weighted criteria should be the norm for most projects. The more criteria (and sub-criteria) you must score against, the longer it will take to conduct your evaluation. Always remember – link the level of rigor to the size and complexity of your project! It’s possible to create a convoluted scoring model that takes significant time to fill out but yields little additional value.
      • Creation of the scoring model should be a consensus-driven activity between IT, procurement, and the key business stakeholders – it should not be built in isolation. Everyone should agree on the fundamental criteria and weights that are employed.
      • Consider using not just the outputs of investigative interviews and RFP responses to score vendors, but also third-party review services like SoftwareReviews.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Even the best scoring model will still involve some “art” rather than science – scoring categories such as vendor viability always entail a degree of subjective interpretation.

      Establish vendor evaluation criteria

      Vendor demonstrations are an integral part of the selection process. Having clearly defined selection criteria will help with setting up relevant demos and informing the vendor scorecards.

      Vendor evaluation criteria (weight)

      Functionality (30%) Ease of Use (25%)
      • Breadth of capability
      • Tactical capability
      • Operational capability
      • End-user usability
      • Administrative usability
      • UI attractiveness
      • Self-service options
      Cost (15%) Vendor (15%)
      • Maintenance
      • Support
      • Licensing
      • Implementation (internal and external costs)
      • Support model
      • Customer base
      • Sustainability
      • Product roadmap
      • Proof of concept
      • Implementation model
      Technology (15%)
      • Configurability options
      • Customization requirements
      • Deployment options
      • Security and authentication
      • Integration environment
      • Ubiquity of access (mobile)

      Info-Tech Insight
      Do not buy something that does not fit your functional needs just because it is the cheapest. ERP is a massive, long-term investment. If you purchase a system that does not contain the functionality that meets the organization’s business needs, not only will you face issues with user adoption, but you may also face having to revisit your ERP project down the road. In the end, this will cost you more than it will save you.

      Conduct client reference interviews to identify how other organizations have successfully used the vendor’s solution

      Request references from the vendors. Make sure the vendors deliver what they promise.

      Vendors are inevitably going to provide references that will give positive feedback, but don’t be afraid to dig into the interviews to understand some of the limitations related to the solution.

      • Even if a vendor is great for one client doesn’t necessarily mean it will fit for you. Ask the vendor to provide references from organizations in your own or a similar industry or from someone who has automated similar business processes or outlined similar expectations.
      • Use these reference calls as an opportunity to gain a more accurate understanding of the quality of the vendor’s service support and professional services.
      • If you are looking to include a high level of customization in your EAS solution, pay particular attention to this step and the client responses, as these will help you understand how easy a vendor is to work with.
      • Make the most of your client reference interviews by preparing your questions in advance and following a specific script.

      Sample Reference Check Questions

      Use Info-Tech’s Sample Reference Check Questions to provide a framework and starting point for your interviews with a vendor’s previous clients. Review the questions and customize to fit your needs.

      Determine costs of the solution

      Ensure the business case includes both internal and external costs related to the new EAS platform, allocating costs of project managers to improve accuracy of overall costs and level of success.

      EAS solutions include application costs and costs to design processes, install, and configure. These start-up costs can be a significant factor in whether the initial purchase is feasible.

      EAS vendor costs Internal costs
      • Application licensing
      • Implementation and configuration
      • Professional services
      • Maintenance and support
      • Training
      • Third-party add-ons
      • Data transformation
      • Integration
      • Project management
      • Business readiness
      • Change management
      • Resourcing (user groups, design/consulting, testing)
      • Training
      • Auditors (if regulatory requirements need vetting)
      When thinking about vendor costs, also consider the matching internal cost associated with the vendor activity (e.g. data cleansing, internal support). Project management is a top-five critical success factor at all stages of an enterprise application initiative from planning to post-implementation (Information Systems Frontiers). Ensuring that costs for such critical areas are accurately represented will contribute to success.

      Bring in the right resources to guarantee success. Work with the PMO or project manager to get creating the SOW.

      60% of IT projects are not finished “mostly or always” on time (Wellingtone, 2018).

      55% of IT personnel feel that the business objectives of their software projects are clear to them (Geneca, 2017).

      Download the blueprint Improve Your Statements of Work to Hold Your Vendors Accountable to define requirements for installation and configuration.

      3.3.1 Establish your evaluation criteria

      Time required varies

      Customize Info-Tech’s RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool to build an evaluation framework for vendor responses based on set criteria rather than relative comparisons.

      This tool allows you to evaluate whether your organization’s requirements have been met by the vendor RFP response and provides a location for comprehensive documentation of the RFP response and demonstration details, including costing and availability/quality of product features, architecture, and vendor support.

      Finally, the tool gives you the ability to evaluate your shortlisted vendors’ demonstrations.

      InputOutput
      • Business requirements document
      • Logistical considerations
      • Usage scenarios by functional area
      • EAS evaluation criteria
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Info-Tech’s EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool
      • Procurement SMEs
      • Core project team

      3.3.1 Establish your evaluation criteria

      Time required varies

      1. With the EAS selection team, brainstorm a list of criteria against which you are going to evaluate each vendor and product.
      2. Categorize each criteria into four to eight groups.
      3. Assign ranked weightings to each category of evaluation criteria. The weightings should add up to 100%. Be sure to identify which criteria are most important to your team by assigning higher weightings to those criteria. If you are having trouble assigning ranked weightings to criteria, take your team through an exercise of ranking pairs. For example, if deciding on the ranked importance of cost, ease of use, and vendor support, break down the discussion by addressing just two criteria at a time: “Between cost and ease of use, which is more important?” If cost is selected… “Between cost and vendor support, which is more important?” If cost is selected again, decide on your second and third rankings by addressing the remaining two criteria… “Between vendor support and ease of use, which is more important?”
      4. Document the final output from this activity as an input to your EAS selection. Optionally, record it in Info-Tech’s EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool.

      Download the EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool

      Info-Tech Insight
      Do not reveal your evaluation criteria to vendors. Allowing vendors to see what matters most to your organization may sway their response and/or demo. Avoid this by keeping your decided evaluation criteria and weightings among your selection team only.

      3.3.2 Evaluate vendor product demonstrations

      Time required varies

      1. Using the demonstration script and vendor criteria previously established, customize Info-Tech’s EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool to build a scorecard that quickly evaluates vendor product demonstrations.
      2. Distribute the scorecard to every member of the team who is evaluating a particular demonstration.
      3. Evaluate each vendor product demonstration using the tool.
      4. Average all scores from each vendor demonstration to inform your selection decision. Note that the vendor with the highest overall score may not necessarily be the best fit for your organization.
      Input Output
      • Demonstration script
      • Evaluation criteria
      • ERP demonstration vendor scores
      Materials Participants
      • Info-Tech’s EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool
      • Core project team

      Download the EAS RFP and Demonstration Scoring Tool

      Decision Point: Select the Finalist

      After reviewing all vendor responses to your RFP, conducting vendor demos, and running a pilot project (if applicable) – the time has arrived to select your finalist.

      All core selection team members should hold a session to score each shortlisted vendor against the criteria enumerated on the previous slide, based on an in-depth review of proposals, the demo sessions, and any pilots or technical assessments.

      The vendor that scores the highest in aggregate is your finalist.

      Congratulations – you are now ready to proceed to final negotiation and inking a contract. This blueprint provides a detailed approach on the mechanics of a major vendor negotiation.

      Get the best value out from your EAS vendor. Negotiate on your own terms.

      Here are a few tips common to EAS vendors and its offerings.

      Vendors will give time-limited discounts to obtain your buy-in.

      • Depending on your procurement process, it is good practice to have at least two competing vendors in the running to obtain the best value.
      • Make sure that the package offered is coherent – that there are no gaps in the product offering.
      • Ask for access to a higher level of customer care or even developers to obtain quicker, specific support
      • Inquire about specific support and patching service, especially if you have customizations.
      • Ask for additional hours for training and support, pre- and post- implementation.
      • Think long-term – you want to have a good working relationship over the long haul, with a vendor that fits with your overall strategy, and not have to repeat and negotiate often.

      Use Info-Tech’s vendor services

      Info-Tech’s vendor management services has price benchmarks as well knowledgeable advisors who can help evaluate proposals to obtain the best value

      Speak to a vendor management services’ advisor today.

      Contact Us

      Communicate to the vendor whether they were accepted or rejected

      Communicate with each vendor following the demonstration and product evaluation. Ask follow-up questions, highlight areas of concern, and inform them of their status in the selection process.

      The RFP process is a standard business practice. As a customer, you are not under any obligation to educate the vendor as to the details of acceptance or rejection. However, consider every point of contact as an opportunity to build a strong network of potential vendors to help you acquire the best products for your organization.

      Use Info-Tech’s Vendor Communication Set template to communicate with the vendor following the demonstration and product evaluations. This set includes:

      Rejection Notice: Inform the vendor that they are no longer under consideration and highlight opportunities for future debrief.

      Approval Notice: Inform the vendor of its progress to the next stage of selection and identify next steps.

      Go to this link

      Phase 4

      Prepare for Implementation

      Phase 1
      1.1 Enterprise Application Landscape
      1.2 Validate Readiness
      1.3 Determine Resourcing

      Phase 2
      2.1 Capability Mapping
      2.2 Requirements Gathering Data Mapping
      2.3 Requirements Prioritizing

      Phase 3
      3.1 Understanding Product Offerings
      3.2 RFP & Demo Scripts
      3.3 Evaluation Select and Negotiate

      Phase 4
      4.1 Prepare for Implementation

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      Discussion on what it takes to transition to a proper implementation.

      Key stakeholders from the various areas of the business that will support the project including:

      • Project management team
      • Core project team

      Select an Enterprise Application

      Leverage Info-Tech’s research to plan and execute your EAS implementation

      Use Info-Tech Research Group’s three-phase implementation process to guide your own planning.

      Assess

      Prepare

      Govern and course correct

      Establish and execute an end-to-end, agile framework to succeed with the implementation of a major enterprise application.

      Visit this link

      External resources are available for implementations

      Organizations rarely have sufficient internal staffing to resource an EAS project on their own. Consider the options for closing the gap in internal resource availability.

      The most common project resourcing structures for enterprise projects are:

      Your own staff +

      1 Management Consultant

      2 Vendor Consultant

      3 System Integrator

      Consider the following:

      Internal vs. External Roles and Responsibilities

      Clearly delineate between internal and external team responsibilities and accountabilities, and communicate this to your technology partner upfront.

      Internal vs. External Accountabilities

      Accountability is different than responsibility. Your vendor or SI partner may be responsible for completing certain tasks, but be careful not to outsource accountability for the implementation – ultimately, the internal team will be accountable.

      Partner Implementation Methodologies

      Often vendors and/or SIs will have their own preferred implementation methodology. Consider the use of your partner's implementation methodology; however, you know what will work for your organization.

      Info-Tech Insight
      When contemplating a resourcing structure, consider:

      • Availability of in-house implementation competencies and resources.
      • Timeline and constraints.
      • Integration environment complexity.

      Review your options for external resources

      Narrow your search for a management consultant, vendor consultant, or system integrator partner by understanding under which circumstances each would be most appropriate.

      When to choose… Management consultant Vendor consultant System integrators
      • There is an existing and trusted relationship.
      • Scope of work includes consideration of internal IT operations, costing, etc.
      • Organization requires external industry expertise for strategy formulation.
      • They will have a role in overall change management within the enterprise.
      • There are no concerns with overall IT processes or capabilities.
      • The project scope is restricted to a single technology or application.
      • There is minimal integration with other systems.
      • The consultant has no role in business process change.
      • They will be a specialist reporting to other consultants.
      • Project includes products from different vendors or multiple add-ons.
      • Extensive integration is required with legacy or other applications.
      • They will be responsible for outsourced operational support or development following implementation.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Depending on your internal resourcing constraints and IT maturity, you may need to work with multiple partners. If this is the case, just be aware that working with multiple partners can complicate vendor relationship management and makes having a dedicated vendor or partner relationship manager even more important.

      4.1.1 Establish team composition

      1 – 2 hours

      Utilize Info-Tech’s Governance and Management of Enterprise Software Implementation to establish your team composition. Within that blueprint:

      1. Assess the skills necessary for an implementation. Inventory the competencies required for the implementation project team. Map your internal resources to each competency as applicable.
      2. Select your internal implementation team. Determine who needs to be involved closely with the implementation. Key stakeholders should also be considered as members of your implementation team.
      3. Identify the number of external consultants/support required for implementation. Consider your in-house skills, timeline considerations, integration environment complexity, and cost constraints as you make your team composition plan. Be sure to dedicate an internal resource to managing the vendor and partner relationships.
      4. Document the roles and responsibilities, accountabilities, and other expectations of your team as they relate to each step of the implementation.
      Input Output
      • Skills assessment
      • Stakeholder analysis
      • Vendor partner selection
      • Team composition
      Materials Participants
      • Sticky notes
      • Whiteboard
      • Markers
      • Project Team

      Governance and Management of Enterprise Software Implementation

      Follow our iterative methodology with a task list focused on the business must-have functionality to achieve rapid execution and to allow staff to return to their daily work sooner.

      Visit this link

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

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

      Communication Proximity Trust
      Teams must have some type of communication strategy. This can be broken into:
      • Regularity: Having a set time each day to communicate progress and a set day to conduct retrospectives.
      • Ceremonies: Injecting awards and continually emphasizing delivery of value can encourage relationship building and constructive motivation.
      • Escalation: Voicing any concerns and having someone responsible for addressing those concerns.
      		Distributed teams create complexity as communication can break down. This can be mitigated by:
      • Location: Placing teams in proximity can close the barrier of geographical distance and time zone differences.
      • Inclusion: Making a deliberate attempt to pull remote team members into discussions and ceremonies.
      • Communication tools: Having the right technology (e.g. video conference) can help bring teams closer together virtually.
      		 Members should trust that other members are contributing to the project and completing their required tasks on time. Trust can be developed and maintained by:
      • Accountability: Having frequent quality reviews and feedback sessions. As work becomes more transparent, people become more accountable.
      • Role clarity: Having a clear definition of what everyone’s role is.

      Create a formal communication process throughout the EAS implementation

      Establish a comprehensive communication process around the EAS enterprise roll-out to ensure that end users stay informed.

      The EAS kick-off meeting(s) should encompass:

      • Target business-user requirements
      • Target quality of service (QoS) metrics
      • Other IT department needs
      • Special consideration needs
      • Tangible business benefits of application
      • The high-level application overview

      The overall objective for inter-departmental EAS kick-off meetings is to confirm that all parties agree on certain key points and understand platform rationale and functionality.

      The kick-off process will significantly improve internal communications by inviting all affected internal IT groups, including business units, to work together to address significant issues before the application process is formally activated.

      Department groups or designated trainers should take the lead and implement a process for:

      • Scheduling EAS platform roll-out/kick-off meetings.
      • Soliciting preliminary input from the attending groups to develop further training plans.
      • Establishing communication paths and the key communication agents from each department who are responsible for keeping lines open moving forward.

      Plan for your implementation of EAS based on deployment model

      Place your EAS solution into your IT landscape by configuring and adjusting the tool based on your specific deployment method.

      On-Premises SaaS-based
      1. Identify custom features and configuration items
      2. Train developers and IT staff on new software investment
      3. Install software
      4. Configure software
      5. Test installation and configuration
      6. Test functionality
      1. Train developers and IT staff on new software investment
      2. Set up connectivity
      3. Identify VPN or internal solution
      4. Check firewalls
      5. Validate bandwidth regulations

      Integration is a top IT challenge and critical to the success of the EAS solution

      EAS solutions are most effective when they are integrated with ERP, HRIS, and CRM solutions.

      Data interchange between the EAS solution and other data sources is necessary Formulate a comprehensive map of the systems, hardware, and software with which the EAS solution must be able to integrate. Master data needs to constantly be synchronized; without this, you lose out on one of the primary benefits of integration. These connections should be bidirectional for maximum value (i.e. marketing data to the CRM, customer data to MMS).
      Specialized projects that include an intricate prospect or customer list and complex rules may need to be built by IT The more custom fields you have in your EAS and point solutions, the more schema mapping you will have to do. Include this information in the RFP to receive guidance from vendors regarding the ease with which integration can be achieved.
      Pay attention to legacy apps and databases If you have a legacy EAS and databases, more custom code will be required. Many vendors claim that custom integrations can be performed for most systems, but custom comes at a cost. Don’t just ask if they can integrate; ask how long it will take and for references from organizations which have been successful in this.

      Scenario: Failure to address EAS data integration will cost you in the long run

      A company spent $15 million implementing a new CRM system in the cloud and decided NOT to spend an additional $1.5 million to do a proper cloud DI tool procurement. The mounting costs followed.

      Cost element – Custom Data Integration $
      2 FTEs for double entry of sales order data $ 100,000/year
      One-time migration of product data to CRM $ 240,000 otc
      Product data maintenance $ 60,000/year
      Customer data synchronization interface build $ 60,000 otc
      Customer data interface maintenance $ 10,000/year
      Data quality issues $ 100,000/year
      New SaaS integration built in year 3 $ 300,000 otc
      New SaaS integration maintenance $ 150,000/year
      Cost element – Data Integration Tool $
      DI strategy and platform implementation $1,500,000 otc
      DI tool maintenance $ 15,000/year
      New SaaS integration point in year 3 $ 300,000 otc

      Comparison of Solution TCOs Chart

      Custom integration is costing this organization $300,000/year for one SaaS solution.

      The proposed integration solution would have paid for itself in 3-4 years and saved exponential costs in the long run.

      Proactively address data quality in the EAS during implementation

      Data quality is a make-or-break issue in an EAS platform; garbage in is garbage out.

      • EAS solutions are one of the leading offenders for generating poor quality data. As such, it’s important to have a plan in place for structuring your data architecture in such a way that poor data quality is minimized from the get-go.
      • Having a plan for data quality should precede data migration efforts; some types of poor data quality can be mitigated prior to migration.
      • There are five main types of poor-quality data found in EAS platforms.
        • Duplicate data: Duplicate records can be a major issue. Leverage dedicated de-dupe tools to eliminate them.
        • Stale data: Out-of-date customer information can reduce the usefulness of the platform. Use automated social listening tools to help keep data fresh.
        • Incomplete data: Records with missing info limit platform value. Specify data validation parameters to mandate that all fields are filled in.
        • Invalid and conflicting data: Can create cascading errors. Establishing conflict resolution rules in ETL tools for data integration can reduce issues.

      Info-Tech Insight
      If you have a complex EAS environment, appoint data stewards for each major domain and procure a de-dupe tool. As the complexity of EAS system-to-system integrations increase, so will the chance that data quality errors will crop up – for example, bi-directional POI with other sources of customer information dramatically increase the chances of conflicting/duplicate data.

      Profile data, eliminate dead weight, and enforce standards to protect data

      Identify and eliminate dead weight Poor data can originate in the firm’s EAS system. Custom queries, stored procedures, or profiling tools can be used to assess the key problem areas.
      Loose rules in the EAS system lead to records of no significant value in the database. Those rules need to be fixed, but if changes are made before the data is fixed, users could encounter database or application errors, which will reduce user confidence in the system.
      • Conduct a data flow analysis: map the path that data takes through the organization.
      • Use a mass cleanup to identify and destroy dead weight data. Merge duplicates either manually or with the aid of software tools. Delete incomplete data, taking care to reassign related data.
      • COTS packages typically allow power users to merge records without creating orphaned records in related tables, but custom-built applications typically require IT expertise.
      Create and enforce standards and policies Now that the data has been cleaned, it’s important to protect the system from relapsing.
      Work with business users to find out what types of data require validation and which fields should have changes audited. Whenever possible, implement drop-down lists to standardize values and make programming changes to ensure that truncation ceases.
      • Truncated data is usually caused by mismatches in data structures during either one-time data loads or ongoing data integrations.
      • Don’t go overboard on assigning required fields; users will just put key data in note fields.
      • Discourage the use of unstructured note fields: the data is effectively lost except if it gets subpoenaed.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Data quality concerns proliferate with the customization level of your platform. The more extensive the custom integration points and module/database extensions that you have made, the more you will need to have a plan in place for managing data quality from a reactive and proactive standpoint.

      Ensure requirements are met with robust user acceptance testing

      User acceptance testing (UAT) is a test procedure that helps to ensure end-user requirements are met. Test cases can reveal bugs before the suite is implemented.

      Five secrets of UAT success

      1 Create the plan With the information collected from requirements gathering, create the plan. Make sure this information is added to the main project plan documentation.
      2 Set the agenda The time allotted will vary depending on the functionality being tested. Ensure that the test schedule allows for the resolution of issues and discussion.
      3 Determine who will participate Work with relevant stakeholders to identify the people who can best contribute to system testing. Look for experienced power users who have been involved in earlier decision making about the system.
      4 Highlight acceptance criteria With the UAT group, pinpoint the criteria to determine system acceptability. Refer to requirements specified in use cases in the initial requirements-gathering stages of the project.
      5 Collect end user feedback Weaknesses in resolution workflow design, technical architecture, and existing customer service processes can be highlighted and improved with ongoing surveys and targeted interviews.

      Calculate post-deployment metrics to assess measurable value of the project

      Track the post-deployment results from the project and compare the metrics to the current state and target state.

      EAS selection and implementation metrics
      Description Formula Current or estimated Target Post-deployment
      End-user satisfaction # of satisfied users
      # of end users      		 70% 90% 85%
      Percentage over/under estimated budget Amount spent – 100%
      Budget      		 5% 0% 2%
      Percentage over/under estimated timeline Project length – 100%
      Estimated timeline      		 10% -5% -10%
      EAS strategy metrics
      Description Formula Current or estimated Target Post-deployment
      Number of leads generated (per month) # of leads generated 150 200 250
      Average time to resolution (in minutes) Time spent on resolution
      # of resolutions      		 30 minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes
      Cost per interaction by campaign Total campaign spending
      # of customer interactions      		 $17.00 $12.00 $12.00

      Continue to adapt your governance model

      Your EAS and applications environment will continue to evolve. Make sure your governance model is always ready to capture the everchanging needs.

      Business needs will not stop changing whether you have an ongoing EAS or other application project. It is thus important to keep your governance efficient and streamlined to capture these needs to then make the EAS continue deliver value and remain aligned to long-term corporate objectives.

      Visit this link

      Summary of Accomplishment

      Select an Enterprise Application

      EAS technology is critical to facilitating an organization’s flow of information across business units. It allows for seamless integration of systems and creates a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making. Having a structured approach to gathering the necessary resources, defining key requirements, and engaging with the right shortlist of vendors to pick the best finalist is crucial.

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

      • Alignment and prioritization of key business and technology drivers for an EAS selection.
      • Identification and prioritization of the EAS requirements.
      • Construction of a robust EAS RFP.
      • A strong market scan of key players.
      • A survey of crucial implementation considerations.

      This formal EAS selection initiative will drive business-IT alignment, identify data and integration priorities, and allow for the rollout of a platform that’s highly likely to satisfy all stakeholder needs.

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

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

      Research Contributors

      Name Title Organization
      Anonymous Anonymous Telecommunications industry
      Anonymous Anonymous Construction material industry
      Anonymous Anonymous Automotive industry
      Corey Tenenbaum Head of IT Taiga Motors
      Mark Earley Director, Consulting Info-Tech Research Group
      Ricardo di Olivera Research Director, Enterprise Applications Info-Tech Research Group

      Bibliography

      “2016 Report on ERP Systems and Enterprise Software.” Panorama Consulting Solutions, 2016. Web.

      “2018 Report on ERP Systems and Enterprise Software.” Panorama Consulting Solutions, 2018. Web.

      “2022 HRIS Software Report.” SoftwarePath, 2022 . Web

      Cross-Industry Process Classification Framework (PCF) Version 7.2.1. APQC, 26 Sept. 2019. Web.

      “Doomed From the Start? Why a Majority of Business and IT Teams Anticipate Their Software Development Projects Will Fail.” Geneca, 25 Jan. 2017. Web.

      Farhan, Marwa Salah, et al. “A Systematic Review for the Determination and Classification of the CRM Critical Success Factors Supporting with Their Metrics.” Future Computing and Informatics Journal, vol. 3, no. 2, Dec. 2018, pp. 398–416.

      Gheorghiu, Gabriel. “ERP Buyer’s Profile for Growing Companies.” SelectHub, 23 Sept. 2022. Web

      “Process Frameworks.” APQC, 4 Nov. 2020. Web.

      “Process vs. Capability: Understanding the Difference.” APCQ, 2017. Web.

      Savolainen, Juha, et al. “Transitioning from Product Line Requirements to Product Line Architecture.” 29th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC'05), IEEE, vol. 1, 2005, pp. 186-195, doi: 10.1109/COMPSAC.2005.160

      Saxena, Deepak, and Joe McDonagh. "Evaluating ERP Implementations: The Case for a Lifecycle based Interpretive Approach." Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation 22.1 (2019): pp29-37.

      “SOA Reference Architecture – Capabilities and the SOA RA.” The Open Group, TOGAF, n.d. Web.

      Smith, Anthony. “How To Create A Customer-Obsessed Company Like Netflix.” Forbes, 12 Dec. 2017. Web.

      "The Moscow Method", MindTools. Web.

      “The State of CRM Data Management 2020.” Validity, 2020. Web.

      “The State of Project Management Annual Survey 2018.” Wellingtone, 2018. Web.

      “Why HR Projects Fail.” Unleash, 2021. Web

      Establish Effective Security Governance & Management

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}380|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: 9.2/10 Overall Impact
      • member rating average dollars saved: $63,532 Average $ Saved
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      • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
      • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
      • The security team is unsure of governance needs and how to manage them.
      • There is a lack of alignment between key stakeholder groups
      • There are misunderstandings related to the role of policy and process.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      Good governance stems from a deep understanding of how stakeholder groups interact with each other and their respective accountabilities and responsibilities. Without these things, organizational functions tend to interfere with each other, blurring the lines between governance and management and promoting ad–hoc decision making that undermines governance.

      Impact and Result

      • The first phase of this project will help you establish or refine your security governance and management by determining the accountabilities, responsibilities, and key interactions of your stake holder groups.
      • In phase two, the project will guide you through the implementation of essential governance processes: setting up a steering committee, determining risk appetite, and developing a policy exception-handling process.

      Establish Effective Security Governance & Management Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Establish Effective Security Governance and Management Deck – A step-by-step guide to help you establish or refine the governance model for your security program.

      This storyboard will take you through the steps to develop a security governance and management model and implement essential governance processes.

      • Establish Effective Security Governance & Management – Phases 1-2

      2. Design Your Governance Model – A security governance and management model to track accountabilities, responsibilities, stakeholder interactions, and the implementation of key governance processes.

      This tool will help you determine governance and management accountabilities and responsibilities and use them to build a visual governance and management model.

      • Security Governance Model Templates (Visio)
      • Security Governance Model Templates (PDF)
      • Security Governance Model Tool

      3. Organizational Structure Template – A tool to address structural issues that may affect your new governance and management model.

      This template will help you to implement or revise your organizational structure.

      • Security Governance Organizational Structure Template

      4. Information Security Steering Committee Charter & RACI – Templates to formalize the role of your steering committee and the oversight it will provide.

      These templates will help you determine the role a steering committee will play in your governance and management model.

      • Information Security Steering Committee Charter
      • Information Security Steering Committee RACI Chart

      5. Security Policy Lifecycle Template – A template to help you model your policy lifecycle.

      Once this governing document is customized, ensure the appropriate security policies are developed as well.

      • Security Policy Lifecycle Template

      6. Security Policy Exception Approval Process Templates – Templates to establish an approval process for policy exceptions and bolster policy governance and risk management.

      These templates will serve as the foundation of your security policy exception approval processes.

      • Security Policy Exception Approval Workflow (Visio)
      • Security Policy Exception Approval Workflow (PDF)
      • Policy Exception Tracker
      • Information Security Policy Exception Request Form

      Infographic

      Further reading

      Establish Effective Security Governance & Management

      The key is in stakeholder interactions, not policy and process.

      Analyst Perspective

      It's about stakeholder interactions, not policy and process.

      Many security leaders complain about a lack of governance and management in their organizations. They have policies and processes but find neither have had the expected impact and that the organization is teetering on the edge of lawlessness, with stakeholder groups operating in ways that interfere with each other (usually due to poorly defined accountabilities).

      Among the most common examples is security's relationship to the business. When these groups don't align, they tend to see each other as adversaries and make decisions in line with their respective positions: security endorses one standard, the business adopts another.

      The consequences of this are vast. Such an organization is effectively opposed to itself. No wonder policy and process have not resolved the issue.

      At a practical level, good governance stems from understanding how different stakeholder groups interact, providing inputs and outputs to each other and modeling who is accountable for what. But this implied accountability model needs to be formalized (perhaps even modified) before governance can help all stakeholder groups operate as strategic partners with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and decision-making power. Only when policies and processes reflect this will they serve as effective tools to support governance.

      Logan Rohde, Senior Research Analyst, Security & Privacy

      Logan Rohde
      Senior Research Analyst, Security & Privacy
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge Common Obstacles Info-Tech's Approach
      Ineffective governance and management processes, if they are adopted at all, can lead to:
      • An organization unsure of governance needs and how to manage them.
      • A lack of alignment between key stakeholder groups.
      • Misunderstandings related to the role of policy and process.
      		Most governance and management initiatives stumble because they do not address governance as a set of interactions and influences that stakeholders have with and over each other, seeing it instead as policy, process, and risk management. Challenges include:
      • Senior management disinterest
      • Stakeholders operating in silos
      • Separating governance from management
      		You will be able to establish a robust governance model to support the current and future state of your organization by accounting for these three essential parts:
      1. Determine governance accountabilities.
      2. Define management responsibilities.
      3. Model stakeholders' interactions, inputs, and outputs as part of business and security operations.

      Info-Tech Insight
      Good governance stems from a deep understanding of how stakeholder groups interact with each other and their respective accountabilities and responsibilities. Without these things, organizational functions tend to interfere with each other, blurring the lines between governance and management and promoting ad hoc decision making that undermines governance.

      Your challenge

      This research is designed to help organizations who need to:

      • Establish security governance from scratch.
      • Improve security governance despite a lack of cooperation from the business.
      • Determine the accountabilities and responsibilities of each stakeholder group.

      This blueprint will solve the above challenges by helping you model your organization's governance structure and implement processes to support the essential governance areas: policy, risk, and performance metrics.

      Percentage of organizations that have yet to fully advance to a maturity-based approach to security

      70%

      Source: McKinsey, 2021

      Common obstacles

      These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many organizations:

      • The business does not wish to be governed and does not seek to align with security on the basis of risk.
      • Various stakeholder groups essentially govern themselves, causing business functions to interfere with each other.
      • Security teams struggle to differentiate between governance and management and the purpose of each.

      Early adopter infrastructure

      63%
      Security leaders not reporting to the board about risk or incident detection and prevention.
      Source: LogRhythm, 2021

      46%
      Those who report that senior leadership is confident cybersecurity leaders understand business goals.
      Source: LogRhythm, 2021

      Governance isn't just policy and process

      Governance is often mistaken for an organization's formalized policies and processes. While both are important governance supports, they do not provide governance in and of themselves.

      For governance to work well, an organization needs to understand how stakeholder groups interact with each other. What inputs and outputs do they provide? Who is accountable? Who is responsible? These are the questions one needs to ask before designing a governance structure. Failing to account for any of these three elements tends to result in overlap, inefficiency, and a lack of accountability, creating flawed governance.

      Separate governance from management

      Oversight versus operations

      • COBIT emphasizes the importance of separating governance from management. These are complementary functions, but they refer to different parts of organizational operation.
      • Governance provides a decision-making apparatus based on predetermined requirements to ensure smooth operations. It is used to provide oversight and direction and hinges on established accountabilities
      • Simply put, governance refers to what an organization is and is not willing to permit in day-to-day operations, and it tends to make its presence known via the key areas of risk appetite, formal policy and process, and exception handling.
        • Note: These key areas do not provide governance in and of themselves. Rather, governance emerges in accordance with the decisions an organization has made regarding these areas. Sometimes, however, these "decisions" have not been formally or consciously made and the current state of the organization's operations becomes the default - even when it is not working well.
      • Management, by contrast, is concerned with executing business processes in accordance with the governance model, essentially, governance provides guidance for how to make decisions during daily management.

      "Information security governance is the guiding hand that organizes and directs risk mitigation efforts into a business-aligned strategy for the entire organization."

      Steve Durbin,
      Chief Executive,
      Information Security Forum, Forbes, 2023

      Models for governance and management

      Info-Tech's Governance and Management research uses the logic of COBIT's governance and management framework but distills this guidance into a practical, easy-to-implement series of steps, moving beyond the rudimentary logic of COBIT to provide an actionable and personalized governance model.

      Governance Cycle

      Management Cycle

      Clear accountabilities and responsibilities

      Complementary frameworks to simplify governance and management

      The distinction that COBIT draws between governance and management is roughly equivalent to that of accountability and responsibility, as seen in the RACI* model.

      There can be several stakeholders responsible for something, but only one party can be accountable.

      Use this guidance to help determine the accountabilities and responsibilities of your governance and management model.

      *Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

      COBIT RACI chart

      Security governance framework

      A security governance framework is a system that will design structures, processes, accountability definitions, and membership assignments that lead the security department toward optimal results for the business.

      Governance is performed in three ways:

      1 Evaluate 2 Direct 3 Monitor
      For governance to be effective it must account for stakeholder interests and business needs. Determining what these are is the vital first step. Governance is used to determine how things should be done within an organization. It sets standards and provides oversight so decisions can be made during day-to-day management. Governance needs change and inefficiencies need to be revised. Therefore, monitoring key performance indicators is an essential step to course correct as organizational needs evolve.

      "Governance specifies the accountability framework and provides oversight to ensure that risks are adequately mitigated, while management ensures that controls are implemented to mitigate risks. Management recommends security strategies. Governance ensures that security strategies are aligned with business objectives and consistent with regulations."
      - EDUCAUSE

      Establish Effective Security Governance & Management

      SMART metrics

      Suggested targets to measure success

      Specific

      Measurable

      Achievable

      Relevant

      Time-Bound

      Examples
      Security's risk analyses will be included as part of the business decision-making process within three months after completing the governance initiative.
      Increase rate of security risk analysis using risk appetite within three months of project completion.
      Have stakeholder engagement supply input into security risk-management decisions within three months of completing phase one of blueprint.
      Reduce time to approve policy exceptions by 25%.
      Reduce security risk related to policy non-compliance by 50% within one year.
      Develop five KPIs to measure progress of governance and management within three months of completing blueprint.

      Info-Tech's methodology for security governance and management

      1. Design Your Governance Model 2. Implement Essential Governance Processes
      Phase Steps
      1. Evaluate
      2. Direct
      3. Monitor
      1. Implement Oversight
      2. Set Risk Appetite
      3. Implement Policy Lifecycle
      Phase Outcomes
      • Defined governance accountabilities
      • Defined management responsibilities
      • Record of key stakeholder interactions
      • Visual governance model
      • Key performance indicators (KPIs)
      • Established steering committee
      • Qualitative risk-appetite statements
      • Policy lifecycle
      • Policy exceptions-handling process

      Governance starts with mapping stakeholder inputs, outputs, and throughputs

      The key is in stakeholder interactions, not policy and process
      Good governance stems from a deep understanding of how stakeholder groups interact with each other and their respective accountabilities and responsibilities. Without these things, organizational functions tend to interfere with each other, blurring the lines between governance and management and promoting ad hoc decision making that undermines governance.

      Policy, process, and org. charts support governance but do not produce it on their own
      To be effective, these things need to be developed with the accountabilities and influence of the organizational functions that produce them.

      A lack of business alignment does not mean you're doomed to fail
      While the highest levels of governance maturity depend on strong security-business alignment, there are still tactics one can use to improve governance.

      All organizations have governance
      Sometimes it is poorly defined, ineffective, and occurs in the same place as management, but it exists at some level, acting as the decision-making apparatus for an organization (i.e. what can and cannot occur).

      Risk tolerances are variable across lines of business
      This can lead to misalignments between security and the business, as each may have their own tolerance for particular risks. The remedy is to understand the risk appetite of the business and allow this to inform security risk management decisions.

      Blueprint deliverables

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

      Security Governance Model Tool

      Security Governance Organizational Structure Template

      Information Security Steering Committee Charter & RACI

      Policy Exceptions-Handling Workflow

      Policy Exception Tracker and Request Form

      Key deliverable:

      Security Governance Model

      By the end of this blueprint, you will have created a personalized governance model to map your stakeholders' accountabilities, responsibilities, and key interactions.

      Blueprint benefits

      IT Benefits Business Benefits
      • Correct any overlapping and mismanaged security processes by assigning accountabilities and responsibilities to each stakeholder group.
      • Improve efficiency and effectiveness of the security program by separating governance from management.
      • Determine necessary inputs and outputs from stakeholder interactions to ensure the governance model functions as intended.
      • Improved support of business goals through security-business alignment.
      • Better risk management by defining risk appetite with security.
      • Increased stakeholder satisfaction via a governance model designed to meet their needs.

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

      DIY Toolkit Guided Implementation Workshop Consulting
      "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

      Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

      Guided Implementation

      What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      Phase 1 Phase 2
      Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges. Call #2: Determine governance requirements.
      Call #3: Review governance model.      		 Call #4: Determine KPIs.
      Call #5: Stand up steering committee.      		 Call #6: Set risk appetite.
      Call #7: Establish policy lifecycle.      		 Call #8: Revise exception-handing process.

      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 4 to 8 calls over the course of 2 to 3 months.

      Workshop Overview

      Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
      Activities Evaluate Direct Monitor Implement Essential Governance Processes Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)
      1.1 Prioritize governance accountabilities
      1.2 Prioritize management responsibilities
      1.3 Evaluate organizational structure      		 2.1 Align with business
      2.2 Build security governance and management model
      2.3 Visualize security governance and management model      		 3.1 Develop governance and management KPIs 4.1 Draft steering committee charter
      4.2 Complete steering committee RACI
      4.3 Draft qualitative risk statements
      4.4 Define policy management lifecycle
      4.5 Establish policy exception approval process      		 5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days
      5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps
      Deliverables
      1. Prioritized list of accountabilities and responsibilities
      2. Revised organizational structure
      1. Security governance and management model
      1. Security Metrics Determination and Tracking Tool
      2. KPI Development Worksheet
      1. Steering committee charter and RACI
      2. Risk-appetite statements
      3. Policy management lifecycle
      4. Policy exception approval process

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

      Customize your journey

      The security governance and management blueprint pairs well with security design and security strategy.

      • The governance and management model you create in this blueprint will inform efforts to improve security, like revisiting security program design and your security strategy.
      • Work with your member services director, executive advisor, or technical counselor to scope the journey you need. They will work with you to align the subject matter experts to support your roadmap and workshops.

      Workshop Day 1 and Day 2
      Security Governance and Management

      Workshop Day 3 and Day 4
      Security Strategy Gap Analysis or Security Program Design Factors

      Phase 1

      Design Your Governance Model

      Phase 1
      1.1 Evaluate
      1.2 Direct
      1.3 Monitor

      Phase 2
      2.1 Implement Oversight
      2.2 Set Risk Appetite
      2.3 Implement Policy lifecycle

      Establish Security Governance & Management

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      • Prioritize governance accountabilities
      • Prioritize management responsibilities
      • Evaluate current organizational structure
      • Align with the business
      • Build security governance and management model
      • Finalize governance and management model
      • Develop governance and management KPIs

      This phase involves the following participants:

      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Business representative

      Step 1.1

      Evaluate

      Activities
      1.1.1 Prioritize governance accountabilities
      1.1.2 Prioritize management responsibilities
      1.1.3 Evaluate current organizational structure

      This step involves the following participants:

      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Business representative

      Outcomes of this step

      • Defined governance accountabilities
      • Defined management responsibilities

      Design Your Governance Model

      Step 1.1 > Step 1.2 > Step 1.3

      Evaluate: Getting started

      Element Questions
      Compliance What voluntary or mandatory standards must be represented in my governance model?
      Legal What laws are the organization accountable to? Who is the accountable party?
      Business needs What does the business need to operate? What sort of informational or operational flows need to be accounted for?
      Culture How does the business operate? Are departments siloed or cooperative? Where does security fit in?
      Decision-making process How are decisions made? Who is involved? What information needs to be available to do so?
      Willingness to be governed Is the organization adverse to formal governance mechanisms? Are there any opportunities to improve alignment with the business?
      Relevant trends Are there recent developments (e.g. new privacy laws) that are likely to affect the organization in the future? Will this complicate or simplify governance modeling efforts?
      Stakeholder interests Who are the internal and external stakeholders that need to be represented in the governance model?

      The above is a summary of COBIT 2019 EDM01.01 Evaluate the governance system, along with Info-Tech-recommended questions to contextualize each element for your organization.

      1.1.1 Prioritize governance accountabilities

      1-2 hours

      Using the example on the next slide, complete the following steps.

      1. Download Info-Tech's Security Governance Model Tool using the link below and customize the stakeholder groups on tab 1 to reflect the makeup of your organization.
      2. Using the previous slide as a guide, evaluate your organization's internal and external pressures and discuss their possible impacts your governance and management model.
      3. Complete tab 2, Governance Prioritization, indicating your response to each prompt using the drop-down menus. The tool will score your responses and provide you with a prioritized list of governance accountabilities based on greatest need on tab 4, Governance Model Builder.
      4. Review the list and make any desired modifications to the prompts on tab 2 and then move on to Activity 1.1.2. (We will return to tab 4 in Step 2.1.) Remember to evaluate the results against the internal/external pressure analysis to ensure these details are reflected.

      Download the Security Governance Model Tool

      Input Output
      • List of governance pressures
    • Prioritized list of governance accountabilities
      		•
      Materials Participants
      • Security Governance Model Tool
      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Security Operations
      • Business representative (optional)

      Security Governance and Management Model Tool

      Tabs 2 and 3

      Security Governance and Management Model Tool

      1.1.2 Prioritize management responsibilities

      1 hours

      Using the examples on the previous slide, complete the following steps.

      1. Complete tab 3, Management Prioritization, indicating your response to each prompt using the drop-down menus. The tool will score your responses and provide you with a prioritized list of governance accountabilities based on greatest need on tab 4, Governance Model Builder.
      2. Review the list and make any desired modifications to the prompts on tab 3 and then move on to Activity 1.1.3. (We will return to tab 4 in Step 2.1.) Remember to evaluate the results against the internal/external pressure analysis to ensure these details are reflected.

      Download Security Governance Model Tool

      InputOutput
      • Pressure analysis
      • Prioritized list of management responsibilities
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Security Governance Model Tool
      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Business representative (optional)

      Security Governance and Management Model Tool

      Tab 4

      Security Governance and Management Model Tool Tab 4

      1.1.3 Evaluate current organizational structure

      1-3 hours

      1. Download and modify Info-Tech's Security Governance Organizational Structure Template to reflect the reporting structure at your organization. If such a document already exists, simply review it and move on to the next step below.
      2. Determine if the current organizational structure will negatively affect your ability to pursue the items in your prioritized lists from governance accountabilities and management responsibilities (e.g. conflicts of interest related to oversight or reporting), and discuss the feasibility of changing the current governance structure.
      3. Record these recommended changes and any other key points you'd like the business or other stakeholders to be aware of. We'll use this information in the business alignment exercise in Step 2.1

      Download the Security Governance Organizational Structure Template

      Input Output
      • Prioritized lists of governance accountabilities and management responsibilities
      • Updated organizational structure
      Materials Participants
      • Security Governance Organizational Structure Template
      • CISO

      Info-Tech resources

      Locate structural problems in advance

      • If you do not already have a diagram of your organization's reporting structure, use this template to create one. Examples are provided for high, medium, and low maturity.
      • The existing reporting structure will likely affect the governance model you create, as it may not be feasible to assign certain governance accountabilities and management responsibilities to certain stakeholders.
        • For example, it may make sense for the head of security to approve the security budget, but if they report to a CIO with greater authority that accountability will likely have to sit with the CIO instead.

      Download the Security Governance Organizational Structure Template

      Security Governance Organizational Structure

      Step 1.2

      Direct

      Activities
      1.2.1 Align with the business
      1.2.2 Build security governance and management model
      1.2.3 Finalize governance and management model

      This step involves the following participants:

      CISO

      CIO

      Business representative

      Outcomes of this step

      • Record of key stakeholder interactions
      • Visual governance model

      Design Your Governance Model

      Step 1.1 > Step 1.2 > Step 1.3

      Direct: Getting started

      Element Questions
      Business alignment Do we have a full understanding of the business's approach to risk and security's role to support business objectives?
      Organizational security process How well do our current processes work? Are we missing any key processes?
      Steering committee Will we use a dedicated steering committee to oversee security governance, or will another stakeholder assume this role?
      Security awareness Does the organization have a strong security culture? Does an effort need to be made to educate stakeholder groups on the role of security in the organization?
      Roles and responsibilities Does the organization use RACI charts or another system to define roles and document duties?
      Communication flows Do we have a good understanding of how information flows between stakeholder groups? Are there any gaps that need to be addressed (e.g. regular board reporting)?

      The above is a summary of COBIT 2019 EDM01.02 Direct the governance system, along with Info-Tech-recommended questions to contextualize each element for your organization.

      Embed security governance within enterprise governance

      Design structures, processes, authority definitions, and steering committee assignments to drive optimal business results.

      Embed security governance within enterprise governance

      1.2.1 Align with the business

      1-3 hours

      1. Request a meeting with the business to present your findings from the previous activities in Step 1.1. As you prepare for the meeting, remember to following points:
      • The goal here is to align, not to command. You want the business to see the security team as a strategic ally that supports the pursuit of business goals.
      • Make recommendations and explain any security risks associated with the direction the business wants to take, but the goal is not to strongarm the business into adopting your perspective.
      • Above all, listen to the business to learn more about how they relate to governance and what their priorities are. This will help you adapt your governance model to better support business needs.

      Info-Tech Insight
      A lack of business participation does not mean your governance initiative is doomed. From this lack, we can still infer their attitudes toward security governance, and we can account for this in our governance model. This may limit the maturity your program can reach, but it doesn't prevent improvements from being made to your current security governance.

      InputOutput
      • Prioritized lists of governance accountabilities and management responsibilities
      • Current organizational structure
      • List of recommendations or proposed changes
      • Security governance and management target state definition
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Means to capture key points of the conversation (e.g. notebook, recorded meeting)
      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Business representative

      1.2.2 Build security governance and management model

      1-2 hours

      Using the example on the next slide, complete the following steps:

      1. On tab 4, review the prioritized lists for governance accountabilities and management responsibilities and begin assigning them to the appropriate stakeholder groups.
      • Remember: Responsibilities can be assigned to up to four stakeholders, but there can be only one party listed as accountable.
    • Use the drop-down menus to record any interactions that occur between the groups (e.g. repots to, appoints, approves, oversees).
      • Documenting these interactions will help you ensure your governance program accounts for inputs and outputs that are required by, or that otherwise affect, your various stakeholder groups.

      Note: You may wish to review Info-Tech's governance model templates before completing this activity to get an idea of what you'll be working toward in this step. See slides 37-38.

      Download Security Governance Model Tool

      InputOutput
      • Prioritized lists of governance accountabilities and management responsibilities
      • Target state from business alignment exercise
      • Summary of governance model
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Security Governance Model Tool
      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Business representative (optional)

      Security Governance and Management Model Tool

      Tab 5

      Security Governance and Management Model Tool Tab 5

      Security Governance and Management Model Tool continued

      Tab 6

      Security Governance and Management Model Tool Tab 6

      1.2.3 Visualize your security governance and management model

      1-2 hours

      1. Download the Security Governance Model Templates using the link below and determine which of the three example models most closely resembles your own.
      2. Once you have chosen an example to work from, begin customizing it to reflect the governance model completed in Activity 1.2.2. See next slide for example.

      Note: You do not have to use these templates. If you prefer, you can use them as inspiration and design your own model.

      Download Security Governance Model Templates

      InputOutput
      • Results of Activity 2.1.2
      • Security governance and management model diagram
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Security Governance Model Templates
      • CISO

      Customize the template

      Customize the template

      Step 1.3

      Monitor

      Activities
      1.3.1 Develop governance and management KPIs

      This step involves the following participants:

      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Security team
      • Business representative

      Outcomes of this step

      Key performance indicators

      Design Your Governance Model

      Step 1.1 > Step 1.2 > Step 1.3

      Monitor: Getting started

      Element Questions
      Metrics Does the organization have a well-developed metrics program or will this need to be taken up as a separate effort? Have we considered what outcomes we are hoping to see as a result of implementing a new governance and management model?
      Existing and emerging threats What has changed or is likely to change in the future that may destabilize our governance program? What do we need to do to mitigate any security risks to our organizational governance and management?

      The above is a summary of COBIT 2019 EDM01.03 Monitor the governance system, along with Info-Tech-recommended questions to contextualize each element for your organization.

      1.3.1 Develop governance and management KPIs

      1-2 hours

      This activity is meant to provide a starting point for key governance metrics. To develop a comprehensive metrics program, see Info-Tech's Build a Security Metrics Program to Drive Maturity blueprint.

      1. Create a list of four to six outcomes you'd like to see as the result of your new governance model. Be as specific as you can; the better defied the outcome, the easier it will be to determine suitable KPI.
      2. For each desired outcome, determine what would best indicate that progress is being made toward that state.
      • Desired outcome: security team is consulted before critical business decisions are made.
      • Success criteria: the business evaluates Security's recommendations before starting new projects
      • Possible KPI: % of critical business decisions made with security consultation
      • See next slide for additional examples

      Note: Try to phrase each KPI using percents, which helps to add context to the metric and will make it easier to explain when reporting metrics in the future.

      Input Output
      • List of desired outcomes after new governance model implemented
      • Set of key performance indicators
      Materials Participants
      • Whiteboard
      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Security team
      • Business representative (optional)

      Example KPIs

      Desired Outcome Success Criteria Possible KPI
      Security team is consulted before critical business decisions are made The business evaluates Security's recommendations before starting new projects % of critical business decisions with Security consultation
      Greater alignment over risk appetite The business does not take on initiatives with excessive security risks % of incidents stemming from not following Security's risk management recommendations
      Reduced number of policy exceptions Policy exceptions are only granted when a clear need is present and a formal process is followed % of incidents stemming from policy exceptions
      Improved policy adherence Policies are understood and followed throughout the organization % of incidents stemming from policy violations

      Establish Baseline Metrics

      Baseline metrics will be improved through:

      1. Improved business alignment
      2. Developing formal process to manage security risks
      3. Separating governance from management
      Metric Current Goal
      % of critical business decisions with Security consultation 20% 100%
      % of incidents stemming from not following Security's risk management recommendations 65% 0%
      % of incidents stemming from policy exceptions 35% 5%
      % of incidents stemming from policy violations 40% 5%
      % of ad hoc decisions made (i.e. not accounted for by governance model 85% 5%
      % of accepted security risks evaluated against risk appetite 50% 100%
      % of deferred steering committee decisions (i.e. decisions not made ASAP after issue arises) 50% 5%
      % of policies approved within target window (e.g. 1 month) 20% 100%

      Phase 2

      Implement Essential Governance Processes

      Phase 1
      1.1 Evaluate
      1.2 Direct
      1.3 Monitor

      Phase 2
      2.1 Implement Oversight
      2.2 Set Risk Appetite
      2.3 Implement Policy Lifecycle

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      • Draft Steering Committee Charter
      • Complete Steering Committee RACI
      • Draft qualitative risk statements
      • Model policy lifecycle
      • Establish exceptions-handling process

      This phase involves the following participants:

      • CISO
      • CRO
      • CIO
      • HR
      • Internal Audit
      • Business representative
      • Legal

      Establish Security Governance & Management

      Step 2.1

      Implement Oversight

      Activities
      2.1.1 Draft steering committee charter
      2.1.2 Complete steering committee RACI

      This step involves the following participants:

      • CISO
      • CRO
      • CIO
      • HR
      • Internal Audit
      • Business representative
      • Legal

      Outcomes of this step

      Steering Committee Charter and RACI

      Implement Essential Governance Processes

      Step 2.1 > Step 2.2 > Step 2.3

      2.1.1 Draft steering committee charter

      1-3 hours

      This activity is meant to provide a starting point for your steering committee. If a more comprehensive approach is desired, see Info-Tech's Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee blueprint.

      1. Download the template using the link below and review the various sections of the document
      2. Review slides 50-51 to help determine the scope of your steering committee's role. Discuss with other stakeholder groups, as necessary, to determine the steering committee's duties, how often the group will meet, and what the regular meeting agenda will be.
      3. Customize the template to suit your organization's needs.

      Download Information Security Steering Committee Charter

      Input Output
      • N/A
      • Steering Committee
      Materials Participants
      • Information Security Steering Committee Charter Template
      • CISO
      • CRO
      • CIO
      • HR
      • Internal Audit
      • Business representative
      • Legal

      Steering committee membership

      Representation is key, but don't try to please everyone

      • For your steering committee to be effective, it should include representatives from across the organization. However, it is important not to overextend committee membership, which can interfere with decision making.
      • Participants should be selected based on the identified responsibilities of the security steering committee, and the number of people should be appropriate to the size and complexity of the organization.

      Example steering committee

      CISO
      CRO
      Internal Audit
      CIO
      Business Leaders
      HR
      Legal

      Download Information Security Steering Committee Charter

      Typical steering committee duties

      Strategic Oversight Policy Governance
      • Provide oversight and ensure alignment between information security governance and company objectives.
      • Assess the adequacy of resources and funding to sustain and advance successful security programs and practices for identifying, assessing, and mitigating cybersecurity risks across all business functions.
      • Review control audit reports and resulting remediation plans to ensure business alignment
      • Review the company's cyber insurance policies to ensure appropriate coverage.
      • Provide recommendations, based on security best practices, for significant technology investments.
      • Review policy-exception requests to determine if potential security risks can be accepted or if a workaround exists.
      • Assess the ramifications of updates to policies and standards.
      • Establish standards and procedures for escalating significant security incidents to the board, other steering committees, government agencies, and law enforcement, as appropriate.

      Typical steering committee duties

      Risk Governance Monitoring and Reporting
      • Review and approve the company's information risk governance structure.
      • Assess the company's high-risk information assets and coordinate planning to address information privacy and security needs.
      • Provide input to executive management regarding the enterprise's information security risk tolerance.
      • Review the company's cyber-response preparedness, incident response plans, and disaster recovery capabilities as applicable to the organization's information security strategy.
      • Promote an open discussion regarding information risk and integrate information risk management into the enterprise's objectives.
      • Receive periodic reports and coordinate with management on the metrics used to measure, monitor, and manage cyber risks posed to the company and to review periodic reports on selected security risk topics as the committee deems appropriate.
      • Monitor and evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the company's technology security, capabilities for disaster recovery, data protection, cyber threat detection, and cyber incident response, and management of technology-related compliance risks.

      2.1.2 Complete steering committee RACI

      1-3 hours

      1. Download the RACI template and review the membership roles. Customize the template to match the makeup of your steering committee.
      2. Read through each task in the left-hand column and determine who will be involved:
      • R - responsible: the person doing the action (can be multiple)
      • A - accountable: the owner of the task, usually a department head who delegates the execution of the task (only assigned to one stakeholder)
      • C - consulted: stakeholders that offer some kind of guidance, advice, or recommendation (can be multiple)
      • I - Informed: stakeholders that receive status updates about the task (can be multiple)

      Note: All tasks must have accountability and responsibility assigned (sometimes a single stakeholder is accountable and responsible). However, not all tasks will have someone consulted or informed.

      Download Information Security Steering Committee RACI Chart

      InputOutput
      • N/A
      • Defined roles and responsibilities
      MaterialsParticipants
      • RACI Chart
      • CISO
      • CRO
      • CIO
      • HR
      • Internal Audit
      • Business representative
      • Legal

      Step 2.2

      Set Risk Appetite

      Activities
      2.2.1 Draft qualitative risk statements

      This step involves the following participants:

      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Business representative

      Outcomes of this step

      Qualitative risk appetite

      Implement Essential Governance Processes

      Step 2.1 > Step 2.2 > Step 2.3

      Know your appetite for risk

      What is an organizational risk appetite?

      Setting risk appetite is a key governance function, as it structures how your organization will deal with the risks it will inevitably face - when they can be accepted, when they need to be mitigated, and when they must be rejected entirely.

      It is important to note that risk appetite and risk tolerance are not the same. Risk appetite refers to the amount of risk the organization is willing to accept as part of doing business, whereas risk tolerance has more to do with individual risks affecting one or more lines of business that exceed that appetite. Such risks are often tolerated as individual cases that can be mitigated to an acceptable level of risk even though it exceeds the risk-appetite threshold.

      Chart Risk Appetite

      2.1.2 Draft qualitative risk-appetite statements

      1-3 hours

      This activity is meant to provide a starting point for risk governance. To develop a comprehensive risk-management program, see Info-Tech's Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program blueprint.

      1. Draft statements that express your attitudes toward the kinds of risks your organization faces. The point is to set boundaries to better understand when risk mitigation may be necessary.
        2. Examples:
      • We will not accept risks that may cause us to violate SLAs.
      • We will avoid risks that may prevent the organization from operating normally.
      • We will not accept risks that may result in exposure of confidential information.
      • We will not accept risks that may cause significant brand damage.
      • We will not accept risks that pose undue risk to human life or safety.
      InputOutput
      • Definitions for high, medium, low impact and frequency
      • Set of qualitative risk-appetite statements
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard
      • CISO
      • CIO
      • Business representative

      Step 2.3

      Implement Policy Lifecycle

      Activities
      2.3.1 Model your policy lifecycle
      2.3.2 Establish exception-approval process

      This step involves the following participants:

      • CISO
      • CIO

      Outcomes of this step

      Policy lifecycle

      Exceptions-handling process

      Implement Essential Governance Processes

      Step 2.1 > Step 2.2 > Step 2.3

      2.3.1 Model your policy lifecycle

      1-3 hours

      This activity is meant to provide a starting point for policy governance. To develop a comprehensive policy-management program, see Info-Tech's Develop and Deploy Security Policies blueprint.

      1. Review the sections within the Security Policy Lifecycle Template and delete any sections or subsections that do not apply to your organization.
      2. As necessary, modify the lifecycle and receive approved sign-off by your organization's leadership.
      3. Solicit feedback from stakeholders, specifically, IT department management and business stakeholders.

      Download the Security Policy Lifecycle Template

      InputOutput
      • N/A
      • Policy lifecycle
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Security Policy Lifecycle Template
      • CISO
      • CIO

      Develop the security policy lifecycle

      The security policy lifecycle is an integral component of the security policy program and adds value by:

      • Setting out a roadmap to define needs, develop required documentation, and implement, communicate, and measure your policy program.
      • Defining roles and responsibilities for the security policy suite.
      • Aligning the business goals, security program goals, and policy objectives.

      Security Policy Lifecycle

      Diagram inspired by: ComplianceBridge, 2021

      2.3.2 Establish exception-approval process

      1-3 hours

      1. Download the Security Policy Exception Approval Template and customize it to match your exception-handling process. Be sure to account for the recommendations on the next slide.
      2. Use the Policy Exception Tracker to record and monitor granted exceptions.

      Download the Security Policy Exception Approval Workflow

      Download the Security Policy Exception Tracker

      Input Output
      • Answers to questions provided
      • Exception-handling process
      Materials Participants
      • Security Policy Exception Approval Workflow
      • Security Policy Exception Tracker
      • CISO
      • CIO

      Determine criteria to grant policy exception

      A key part of security risk and policy governance

      • Not all policies can be complied with all the time. As technology and business needs change, sometimes exceptions must be granted for operations to continue smoothly.
      • Exceptions can be either short or long term.
        • Short-term exceptions are often granted until a particular security gap can be closed, such as allowing staff to temporarily use new laptops that have yet to receive a required VPN for remote access.
        • Long-term exceptions usually occur when closing the gap entirely is not feasible. For example, a legacy system may be unable to meet evolving security standards, but there is no room in the budget to replace it.
      • Having a formal approval process for exceptions and a record of granted exceptions will help you to stay on top of security risk governance.

      Before granting an exception:

      1. Assess security risks associated with doing so: are they acceptable?
      2. Look for another way to resolve the issue: is a suitable workaround possible?
      3. Evaluate mitigating controls: is it possible to provide an equivalent level of security via other means?
      4. Assign risk ownership: who will be accountable if an incident arises from the exception?
      5. Determine appeals process: when disagreements arise, how will the final decision be made?

      Sources: University of Virginia; CIS

      Summary of Accomplishment

      Problem Solved

      You have now established a formal governance model for your organization - congratulations! Building this model and determining stakeholders' accountabilities and responsibilities is a big step.

      Remember to continue to use the evaluate-direct-monitor framework to make sure your governance model evolves as organizational governance matures and priorities shift.

      If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through an Info-Tech workshop or Guided Implementation.

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

      Additional Support

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

      To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.

      Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.

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

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

      Build Governance Model
      Build a customized security governance model for your organization.

      Develop policy lifecycle
      Develop a policy lifecycle and exceptions-handling process.

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Build an Information Security Strategy

      Design a Business-Focused Security Program

      Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program

      Research contributors and experts

      Michelle Tran, Consulting Industry

      Michelle Tran
      Consulting Industry

      One anonymous contributor

      Bibliography

      Durbin, Steve. "Achieving The Five Levels Of Information Security Governance." Forbes, 4 Apr. 2023. Accessed 4 Apr. 2023.

      Eiden, Kevin, et al. "Organizational Cyber Maturity: A Survey of Industries." McKinsey & Company, 4 Aug. 2021. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

      "Information Security Exception Policy." Center for Internet Security, 2020. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023.

      "Information Security Governance." EDUCAUSE, n.d. Accessed 27 Apr. 2023.

      ISACA. COBIT 2019 Framework: Governance and Management Objectives. GF Books, 2018.

      Policies & Procedures Team. "Your Policy for Policies: Creating a Policy Management Framework." ComplianceBridge, 30 Apr. 2021. Accessed 27 Apr. 2023.

      "Security and the C-Suite: Making Security Priorities Business Priorities." LogRhythm, Feb. 2021. Accessed 25 Apr 2023.

      University of Virginia. "Policy, Standards, and Procedures Exceptions Process." Information Security at UVA, 1 Jun. 2022. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023

      Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}534|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: 9.5/10 Overall Impact
      • member rating average dollars saved: $17,249 Average $ Saved
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      • Parent Category Name: Customer Relationship Management
      • Parent Category Link: /customer-relationship-management
      • Today’s customers expect to be able to transact with you in the channels of their choice. The proliferation of e-commerce, innovations in brick-and-mortar retail, and developments in mobile commerce and social media selling mean that IT organizations are managing added complexity in drafting a strategy for commerce enablement.
      • The right technology stack is critical in order to support world-class e-commerce and brick-and-mortar interactions with customers.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Support the right transactional channels for the right customers: there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to commerce enablement – understand your customers to drive selection of the right transactional channels.
      • Don’t assume that “traditional” commerce channels have stagnated: IoT, customer analytics, and blended retail are reinvigorating brick-and-mortar selling.
      • Don’t buy best-of-breed; buy best-for-you. Base commerce vendor selection on your requirements and use cases, not on the vendor’s overall performance.

      Impact and Result

      • Leverage Info-Tech’s proven, road-tested approach to using personas and scenarios to build strong business drivers for your commerce strategy.
      • Before selecting and deploying technology solutions, create a cohesive channel matrix outlining which channels your organization will support with transactional capabilities.
      • Understand evolving trends in the commerce solution space, such as AI-driven product recommendations and integration with other essential enterprise applications (i.e. CRM and marketing automation platforms).
      • Understand and apply operational best practices such as content optimization and dynamic personalization to improve the conversion rate via your e-commerce channels.

      Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Enable Omnichannel Commerce Deck – A deck outlining the importance of creating a cohesive omnichannel framework to improve your customer experience.

      E-commerce channels have proliferated, and traditional brick-and-mortar commerce is undergoing reinvention. In order to provide your customers with a strong experience, it's imperative to create a strategy – and to deploy the right enabling technologies – that allow for robust multi-channel commerce. This storyboard provides a concise overview of how to do just that.

      • Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers – Phases 1-2

      2. Create Personas to Drive Omnichannel Requirements Template – A template to identify key customer personas for e-commerce and other channels.

      Customer personas are archetypal representations of your key audience segments. This template (and populated examples) will help you construct personas for your omnichannel commerce project.

      • Create Personas to Drive Omnichannel Requirements Template
      [infographic]

      Further reading

      Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers

      Create a cohesive, omnichannel framework that supports the right transactions through the right channels for the right customers.

      Analyst Perspective

      A clearly outlined commerce strategy is a necessary component of a broader customer experience strategy.

      This is a picture of Ben Dickie, Research Lead, Research – Applications at Info-Tech Research Group

      Ben Dickie
      Research Lead, Research – Applications
      Info-Tech Research Group

      “Your commerce strategy is where the rubber hits the road, converting your prospects into paying customers. To maximize revenue (and provide a great customer experience), it’s essential to have a clearly defined commerce strategy in place.

      A strong commerce strategy seeks to understand your target customer personas and commerce journey maps and pair these with the right channels and enabling technologies. There is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach to selecting the right commerce channels: while many organizations are making a heavy push into e-commerce and mobile commerce, others are seeking to differentiate themselves by innovating in traditional brick-and-mortar sales. Hybrid channel design now dominates many commerce strategies – using a blend of e-commerce and other channels to deliver the best-possible customer experience.

      IT leaders must work with the business to create a succinct commerce strategy that defines personas and scenarios, outlines the right channel matrix, and puts in place the right enabling technologies (for example, point-of-sale and e-commerce platforms).”

      Stop! Are you ready for this project?

      This Research Is Designed For:

      • IT leaders and business analysts supporting their commercial and marketing organizations in developing and executing a technology enablement strategy for e-commerce or brick-and-mortar commerce.
      • Any organization looking to develop a persona-based approach to identifying the right channels for their commerce strategy.

      This Research Will Help You:

      • Identify key personas and customer journeys for a brick-and-mortar and/or e-commerce strategy.
      • Select the right channels for your commerce strategy and build a commerce channel matrix to codify the results.
      • Review the “art of the possible” and new developments in brick-and-mortar and e-commerce execution.

      This Research Will Also Assist:

      • Sales managers, brand managers, and any marketing professional looking to build a cohesive commerce strategy.
      • E-commerce or POS project teams or working groups tasked with managing an RFP process for vendor selection.

      This Research Will Help Them:

      • Build a persona-centric commerce strategy.
      • Understand key technology trends in the brick-and-mortar and e-commerce space.

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      Today’s customers expect to be able to transact with you in the channels of their choice.

      The proliferation of e-commerce, innovations in brick-and-mortar retail, and developments in mobile commerce and social media selling mean that IT organizations are managing added complexity in drafting a strategy for commerce enablement.

      The right technology stack is critical to support world-class e-commerce and brick-and-mortar interactions with customers.

      Common Obstacles

      Many organizations do not define strong, customer-centric drivers for dictating which channels they should be investing in for transactional capabilities.

      As many retailers look to move shopping experiences online during the pandemic, the impetus for having a strong e-commerce suite has markedly increased. The proliferation of commerce vendors has made it difficult to identify and shortlist the right solution, while the pandemic has also highlighted the importance of adopting new vendors quickly and efficiently: companies need to understand the top players in different commerce market landscapes.

      IT is receiving a growing number of commerce platform requests and must be prepared to speak intelligently about requirements and the “art of the possible.”

      Info-Tech’s Approach

      • Leverage Info-Tech’s proven, road-tested approach to using personas and scenarios to build strong business drivers for your commerce strategy.
      • Before selecting and deploying technology solutions, create a cohesive channel matrix outlining which channels your organization will support with transactional capabilities.
      • Understand evolving trends in the commerce solution space, such as AI-driven product recommendations and integration with other essential enterprise applications (i.e. customer relationship management [CRM] and marketing automation platforms).
      • Understand and apply operational best practices such as content optimization and dynamic personalization to improve the conversion rate via your e-commerce channels.

      Info-Tech Insight

      • Support the right transactional channels for the right customers: there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to commerce enablement – understand your customers to drive selection of the right transactional channels.
      • Don’t assume that “traditional” commerce channels have stagnated: IoT, customer analytics, and blended retail are reinvigorating brick-and-mortar selling.
      • Don’t buy best-of-breed; buy best-for-you: base commerce vendor selection on your requirements and use cases, not on the vendor’s overall performance.

      A strong commerce strategy is an essential component of a savvy approach to customer experience management

      A commerce strategy outlines an organization’s approach to selling its products and services. A strong commerce strategy identifies target customers’ personas, commerce journeys that the organization wants to support, and the channels that the organization will use to transact with customers.

      Many commerce strategies encompass two distinct but complementary branches: a commerce strategy for transacting through traditional channels and an e-commerce strategy. While the latter often receives more attention from IT, it still falls on IT leaders to provide the appropriate enabling technologies to support traditional brick-and-mortar channels as well. Traditional channels have also undergone a digital renaissance in recent years, with forward-looking companies capitalizing on new technology to enhance customer experiences in their stores.

      Traditional Channels

      • Physical Stores (Brick and Mortar)
      • Kiosks or Pop-Up Stores
      • Telesales
      • Mail Orders
      • EDI Transactions

      E-Commerce Channels

      • E-Commerce Websites
      • Mobile Commerce Apps
      • Embedded Social Shopping
      • Customer Portals
      • Configure Price Quote Tool Sets (CPQ)
      • Hybrid Retail

      Info-Tech Insight

      To better serve their customers, many companies position themselves as “click-and-mortar” shops – allowing customers to transact at a store or online.

      Customers’ expectations are on the rise: meet them!

      Today’s consumers expect speed, convenience, and tailored experiences at every stage of the customer lifecycle. Successful organizations strive to support these expectations.

      58%
      of retail customers admitted that their expectations now are higher than they were a year ago (FinancesOnline).

      70%
      of consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 have increasing customer expectations year after year (FinancesOnline).

      69%
      of consumers now expect store associates to be armed with a mobile device to deliver value-added services, such as looking up product information and checking inventory (V12).

      73%
      of support leaders agree that customer expectations are increasing, but only…

      42%
      of support leaders are confident that they’re actually meeting those expectations.

      How can you be sure that you are meeting your customers’ expectations?

      1. Offer more personalization throughout the entire customer journey
      2. Practice quality customer service – ensure staff have up-to-date knowledge and offer quick resolution time for complaints
      3. Focus on offering low-effort experiences and easy-to-use platforms (i.e. “one-click buying”)
      4. Ensure your products and services perform well and do what they’re meant to do
      5. Ensure omnichannel availability – 9 in 10 consumers want a seamless omnichannel experience

      Info-Tech Insight

      Customers expect to interact with organizations through the channels of their choice. Now more than ever, you must enable your organization to provide tailored commerce and transactional experiences.

      Omnichannel commerce is the way of the future

      Create a strategy that embraces this reality with the right tools!

      Get ahead of the competition by doing omnichannel right! Devise a strategy that allows you to create and maintain a consistent, seamless commerce experience by optimizing operations with an omnichannel framework. Customers want to interact with you on their own terms, and it falls to IT to ensure that applications are in place to support and manage both traditional and e-commerce channels. There must also be consistency of copy, collateral, offers, and pricing between commerce channels.

      71%
      of consumers want a consistent experience across all channels, but only…

      29%
      say that they actually get it.

      (Source: Business 2 Community, 2020)

      Omnichannel is a “multichannel approach that aims to provide customers with a personalized, integrated, and seamless shopping experience across diverse touchpoints and devices.”
      Source: RingCentral, 2021

      IT is responsible for providing technology enablement of the commerce strategy: e-commerce platforms are a cornerstone

      An e-commerce platform is an enterprise application that provides end-to-end capabilities for allowing customers to purchase products or services from your company via an online channel (e.g. a traditional website, a mobile application, or an embedded link in a social media post). Modern e-commerce platforms are essential for delivering a frictionless customer journey when it comes to purchasing online.

      $6.388
      trillion dollars worth of sales will be conducted online by 2024 (eMarketer, 14 Jan. 2021).

      44%
      of all e-commerce transactions are expected to be completed via a mobile device by 2024 (Insider).

      21.8%
      of all sales will be made from online purchases by 2024 (eMarketer, 14 Jan. 2021).

      Strong E-Commerce Platforms Enable a Wide Range of Functional Areas:

      • Product Catalog Management
      • Web Content Delivery
      • Product Search Engine
      • Inventory Management
      • Shopping Cart Management
      • Discount and Coupon Management
      • Return Management and Reverse Logistics
      • Dynamic Personalization
      • Dynamic Promotions
      • Predictive Re-Targeting
      • Predictive Product Recommendations
      • Transaction Processing
      • Compliance Management
      • Commerce Workflow Management
      • Loyalty Program Management
      • Reporting and Analytics

      An e-commerce solution boosts the effectiveness and efficiency of your operations and drives top-line growth

      Take time to learn the capabilities of modern e-commerce applications. Understanding the “art of the possible” will help you to get the most out of your e-commerce platform.

      An e-commerce platform helps marketers and sales staff in three primary ways:

      1. It allows the organization to effectively and efficiently operate e-commerce operations at scale.
      2. It allows commercial staff to have a single system for managing and monitoring all commercial activity through online channels.
      3. It allows the organization to improve the customer-facing e-commerce experience, boosting conversions and top-line sales.

      A dedicated e-commerce platform improves the efficiency of customer-commerce operations

      • Workflow automation reduces the amount of time spent executing dynamic e-commerce campaigns.
      • The use of internal or third-party data increases conversion effectiveness from customer databases across the organization.

      Info-Tech Insight

      A strong e-commerce provides marketers with the data they need to produce actionable insights about their customers.

      Case Study

      INDUSTRY - Retail
      SOURCE - Salesforce (a)

      PetSmart improves customer experience by leveraging a new commerce platform in the Salesforce ecosystem

      PetSmart

      PetSmart is a leading retailer of pet products, with a heavy footprint across North America. Historically, PetSmart was a brick-and-mortar retailer, but it has placed a heavy emphasis on being a true multi-channel “click-and-mortar” retailer to ensure it maintains relevance against competitors like Amazon.

      E-Commerce Overhaul Initiative

      To improve its e-commerce capabilities, PetSmart recognized that it needed to consolidate to a single, unified e-commerce platform to realize a 360-degree view of its customers. A new platform was also required to power dynamic and engaging experiences, with appropriate product recommendations and tailored content. To pursue this initiative, the company settled on Salesforce.com’s Commerce Cloud product after an exhaustive requirements definition effort and rigorous vendor selection approach.

      Results

      After platform implementation, PetSmart was able to effortlessly handle the massive transaction volumes associated with Black Friday and Cyber Monday and deliver 1:1 experiences that boosted conversion rates.

      PetSmart standardized on the Commerce Cloud from Salesforce to great effect.

      This is an image of the journey from Discover & Engage to Retain & Advocate.

      Case Study

      Icebreaker exceeds customer expectations by using AI to power product recommendations

      INDUSTRY - Retail
      SOURCE - Salesforce (b)

      Icebreaker

      Icebreaker is a leading outerwear and lifestyle clothing company, operating six global websites and owning over 5,000 stores across 50 countries. Icebreaker is focused on providing its shoppers with accurate, real-time product suggestions to ensure it remains relevant in an increasingly competitive online market.

      E-Commerce Overhaul Initiative

      To improve its e-commerce capabilities, Icebreaker recognized that it needed to adopt a predictive recommendation engine that would offer its customers a more personalized shopping experience. This new system would need to leverage relevant data to provide both known and anonymous shoppers with product suggestions that are of interest to them. To pursue this initiative, Icebreaker settled on using Salesforce.com’s Commerce Cloud Einstein, a fully integrated AI.

      Results

      After integrating Commerce Cloud Einstein on all its global sites, Icebreaker was able to cross-sell and up-sell its merchandise more effectively by providing its shoppers with accurate product recommendations, ultimately increasing average order value.

      IT must also provide technology enablement for other channels, such as point-of-sale systems for brick-and-mortar

      Point-of-sale systems are the “real world” complement to e-commerce platforms. They provide functional capabilities for selling products in a physical store, including basic inventory management, cash register management, payment processing, and retail analytics. Many firms struggle with legacy POS environments that inhibit a modern customer experience.

      $27.338
      trillion dollars in retail sales are expected to be made globally in 2022 (eMarketer, 2022).

      84%
      of consumers believe that retailers should be doing more to integrate their online and offline channels (Invoca).

      39%
      of consumers are unlikely or very unlikely to visit a retailer’s store if the online store doesn’t provide physical store inventory information (V12).

      Strong Point-of-Sale Platforms Enable a Wide Range of Functional Areas:

      • Product Catalog Management
      • Discount Management
      • Coupon Management and Administration
      • Cash Management
      • Cash Register Reconciliation
      • Product Identification (Barcode Management)
      • Payment Processing
      • Compliance Management
      • Basic Inventory Management
      • Commerce Workflow Management
      • Exception Reporting and Overrides
      • Loyalty Program Management
      • Reporting and Analytics

      E-commerce and POS don’t live in isolation

      They’re key components of a well-oiled customer experience ecosystem!

      Integrate commerce solutions with other customer experience applications – and with ERP or logistics systems – to handoff transactions for order fulfilment.

      Having a customer master database – the central place where all up-to-the-minute data on a customer profile is stored – is essential for traditional and e-commerce success. Typically, the POS or e-commerce platform is not the system of record for the master customer profile: this information lives in a CRM platform or customer data warehouse. Conceptually, this system is at the center of the customer-experience ecosystem.

      Strong POS and e-commerce solutions orchestrate transactions but typically do not do the heavy lifting in terms of order fulfilment, shipping logistics, economic inventory management, and reverse logistics (returns). In an enterprise-grade environment, these activities are executed by an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution – integrating your commerce systems with a back-end ERP solution is a crucial step from an application architecture point of view.

      This is an example of a customer experience ecosystem. Core Apps (CRM, ERP): MMS Suite; E-Commerce; POS; Web CMS; Data Marts/BI Tools; Social Media Platforms

      Case Study

      INDUSTRY - Retail
      SOURCES - Amazon, n.d. CNET, 2020

      Amazon is creating a hybrid omnichannel experience for retail by introducing innovative brick-and-mortar stores

      Amazon

      Amazon began as an online retailer of books in the mid-1990s, and rapidly expanded its product portfolio to nearly every category imaginable. Often hailed as the foremost success story in online commerce, the firm has driven customer loyalty via consistently strong product recommendations and a well-designed site.

      Bringing Physical Retail Into the Digital Age

      Beginning in 2016 (and expanding in 2018), Amazon introduced Amazon Go, a next-generation grocery retailer, to the Seattle market. While most firms that pursue an e-commerce strategy traditionally come from a brick-and-mortar background, Amazon upended the usual narrative: the world’s largest online retailer opening physical stores to become a true omnichannel, “click-and-mortar” vendor. From the get-go, Amazon Go focused on innovating the physical retail experience – using cameras, IoT capabilities, and mobile technologies to offer “checkout-free” virtual shopping carts that automatically know what products customers take off the shelves and bill their Amazon accounts accordingly.

      Results

      Amazon received a variety of industry and press accolades for re-inventing the physical store experience and it now owns and operates seven separate store brands, with more still on the horizon.

      Case Study

      INDUSTRY - Retail
      SOURCES - Glossy, 2020

      Old Navy

      Old Navy is a clothing and accessories retail company that owns and operates over 1,200 stores across North America and China. Typically, Old Navy has relied on using traditional marketing approaches, but recently it has shifted to producing more digitally focused campaigns to drive revenue.

      Bringing Physical Retail Into the Digital Age

      To overcome pandemic-related difficulties, including temporary store closures, Old Navy knew that it had to have strong holiday sales in 2020. With the goal of stimulating retail sales growth and maximizing its pre-existing omnichannel capabilities, Old Navy decided to focus more of its holiday campaign efforts online than in years past. With this campaign centered on connected TV platforms, such as Hulu, and social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, Old Navy was able to take a more unique, fun, and good-humored approach to marketing.

      Results

      Old Navy’s digitally focused campaign was a success. When compared with third quarter sales figures from 2019, third quarter net sales for 2020 increased by 15% and comparable sales increased by 17%.

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

      DIY Toolkit

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

      Guided Implementation

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

      Workshop

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

      Consulting

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

      Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

      Guided Implementation

      What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5

      Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

      Call #2: Assess current maturity.

      Call #4: Identify relationship between current initiatives and capabilities.

      		Call #6: Identify strategy risks.

      Call #8: Identify and prioritize improvements.

      Call #3: Identify target-state capabilities.

      Call #5: Create initiative profiles.

      Call #7: Identify required budget.

      Call #9: Summarize results and plan next steps.

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

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

      Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers – Project Overview

      1. Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy 2. Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies
      Best Practice Toolkit

      1.1 Assess Personas and Scenarios

      1.2 Create Key Drivers and Metrics

      2.1 Build the Commerce Channel Matrix

      2.2 Review Technology and Trends Primer
      Guided Implementations
      • Validate customer personas.
      • Validate commerce scenarios.
      • Review key drivers and metrics.
      • Build the channel matrix.
      • Discuss technology and trends.
      Onsite Workshop

      Module 1:

      Module 2:

      Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

      Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies

      Phase 1 Outcome:

      Phase 2 Outcome:

      An initial shortlist of customer-centric drivers for your channel strategy and supporting metrics.

      A completed commerce channel matrix tailored to your organization, and a snapshot of enabling technologies and trends.

      Phase 1

      Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

      1.1 Assess Personas and Scenarios

      1.2 Create Key Drivers and Metrics

      Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers

      Step 1.1

      Assess Personas and Scenarios

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      1.1.1 Build key customer personas for your commerce strategy.

      1.1.2 Create commerce scenarios (journey maps) that you need to enable.

      Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Business stakeholders (Sales, Marketing)
      • IT project team

      Outcomes of this step:

      • Critical customer personas
      • Key traditional and e-commerce scenarios

      Use customer personas to picture who will be using your commerce channels and guide scenario design and key drivers

      What Are Personas?

      Personas are detailed descriptions of the targeted audience of your e-commerce presence. Effective personas:

      • Express and focus on the major needs and expectations of the most important user groups.
      • Give a clear picture of the typical user’s behavior.
      • Aid in uncovering universal features and functionality.
      • Describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and values.

      Source: Usability.gov, n.d.

      Why Are Personas Important?

      Personas help:

      • Focus the development of commerce platform features on the immediate needs of the intended audience.
      • Detail the level of customization needed to ensure content is valuable to the user.
      • Describe how users may behave when certain audio and visual stimulus are triggered from the website.
      • Outline the special design considerations required to meet user accessibility needs.

      Key Elements of a Persona:

      • Persona Group (e.g. executives)
      • Demographics (e.g. nationality, age, language spoken)
      • Purpose of Using Commerce Channels (e.g. product search versus ready to transact)
      • Typical Behaviors and Tendencies (e.g. goes to different websites when cannot find products in 20 seconds)
      • Technological Environment of User (e.g. devices, browsers, network connection)
      • Professional and Technical Skills and Experiences (e.g. knowledge of websites, area of expertise)

      Use Info-Tech’s guidelines to assist in the creation of personas

      How many personas should I create?

      The number of personas that should be created is based on the organizational coverage of your commerce strategy. Here are some questions you should ask:

      • Do the personas cover a majority of your revenues or product lines?
      • Is the number manageable for your project team to map out?

      How do I prioritize which personas to create?

      The identified personas should generate the most revenue – or provide a significant opportunity – for your business. Here are some questions that you should ask:

      • Are the personas prioritized based on the revenue they generate for the business?
      • Is the persona prioritization process considering both the present and future revenues the persona is generating?

      Sample: persona for e-commerce platform

      Example

      Persona quote: “After I call the company about the widget, I would usually go onto the company’s website and look at further details about the product. How am I supposed to do so when it is so hard to find the company’s website on everyday search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing?”

      Michael is a middle-aged manager working in the financial district. He wants to buy the company’s widgets for use in his home, but since he is distrusting of online shopping, he prefers to call the company’s call center first. Afterwards, if Michael is convinced by the call center representative, he will look at the company’s website for further research before making his purchase.

      Michael does not have a lot of free time on his hands, and tries to make his free time as relaxing as possible. Due to most of his work being client-facing, he is not in front of a computer most of the time during his work. As such, Michael does not consider himself to be skilled with technology. Once he makes the decision to purchase, Michael will conduct online transactions and pay most delivery costs due to his shortage of time.

      Needs:

      • Easy-to-find website and widget information.
      • Online purchasing and delivery services.
      • Answer to his questions about the widget.
      • To maintain contact post-purchase for easy future transactions.

      Info-Tech Tip

      The quote attached to a persona should be from actual quotes that your customers have used when you reviewed your voice of the customer (VoC) surveys or focus groups to drive home the impact of their issues with your company.

      1.1.1 Activity: Build personas for your key customers that you’ll need to support via traditional and e-commerce channels

      1 hour

      1. In two to four groups, list all the major, target customer personas that need to be built. In doing so, consider the people who interact with your e-commerce site (or other channels) most often.
      2. Build a demographic profile for each customer persona. Include information such as age, geographic location, occupation, and annual income.
      3. Augment the persona with a psychographic profile. Consider the goals and objectives of each customer persona and how these might inform buyer behaviors.
      4. Introduce your group’s personas to the entire group, in a round-robin fashion, as if you are introducing your persona at a party.
      5. Summarize the personas in a persona map. Rank your personas according to importance and remove any duplicates.
      6. Use Info-Tech’s Create Personas to Drive Omnichannel Requirements Template to assist.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Persona building is typically used for understanding the external customer; however, if you need to gain a better understanding of the organization’s internal customers (those who will be interacting with the e-commerce platform), personas can also be built for this purpose. Examples of useful internal personas are sales managers, brand managers, and customer service directors.

      1.1.1 Activity: Build personas for your key customers that you’ll need to support via traditional and e-commerce channels (continued)

      Input

      • Customer demographics and psychographics

      Output

      • List of prioritized customer personas

      Materials

      • Whiteboard
      • Markers

      Participants

      • Project team

      Build use-case scenarios to model the transactional customer journey and inform drivers for your commerce strategy

      A use-case scenario is a story or narrative that helps explore the set of interactions that a customer has with an organization. Scenario mapping will help identify key business and technology drivers as well as more granular functional requirements for POS or e-commerce platform selection.

      A GOOD SCENARIO…

      • Describes specific task(s) that need to be accomplished.
      • Describes user goals and motivations.
      • Describes interactions with a compelling but not overwhelming amount of detail.
      • Can be rough, as long as it provokes ideas and discussion.

      SCENARIOS ARE USED TO...

      • Provide a shared understanding about what a user might want to do and how they might want to do it.
      • Help construct the sequence of events that are necessary to address in your user interface(s).

      TO CREATE GOOD SCENARIOS…

      • Keep scenarios high level, not granular, in nature.
      • Identify as many scenarios as possible. If you’re time constrained, try to develop two to three key scenarios per persona.
      • Sketch each scenario out so that stakeholders understand the goal of the scenario.

      1.1.2 Exercise: Build commerce user scenarios to understand what you want your customers to do from a transactional viewpoint

      1 hour

      Example

      Simplified E-Commerce Workflow Purchase Products

      This image contains an example of a Simplified E-Commerce Workflow Purchase Products

      Step 1.2

      Create Key Drivers and Metrics

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Create the business drivers you need to enable with your commerce strategy.
      • Enumerate metrics to track the efficacy of your commerce strategy.

      Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Business stakeholders (Sales, Marketing)
      • IT project team

      Outcomes of this step:

      • Business drivers for the commerce strategy
      • Metrics and key performance indicators for the commerce strategy

      1.2 Finish elaboration of your scenarios and map them to your personas: identify core business drivers for commerce

      1.5 hours

      1. List all commerce scenarios required to satisfy the immediate needs of your personas.
        1. Does the use-case scenario address commonly felt user challenges?
        2. Can the scenario be used by those with changing behaviors and tendencies?
      2. Look for recurring themes in use-case scenarios (for example, increasing average transaction cost through better product recommendations) and identify business drivers: drivers are common thematic elements that can be found across multiple scenarios. These are the key principles for your commerce strategy.
      3. Prioritize your use cases by leveraging the priorities of your business drivers.

      Example

      This is an example of how step 1.2 can help you identify business drivers

      1.2 Finish elaboration of your scenarios and map them to your personas: identify core business drivers for commerce (continuation)

      Input

      • User personas

      Output

      • List of use cases
      • Alignment of use cases to business objectives

      Materials

      • Whiteboard
      • Markers

      Participants

      • Business Analyst
      • Developer
      • Designer

      Show the benefits of commerce solution deployment with metrics aimed at both overall efficacy and platform adoption

      The ROI and perceived value of the organization’s e-commerce and POS solutions will be a critical indication of the success of the suite’s selection and implementation.

      Commerce Strategy and Technology Adoption Metrics

      EXAMPLE METRICS

      Commerce Performance Metrics

      Average revenue per unique transaction

      Quantity and quality of commerce insights

      Aggregate revenue by channel

      Unique customers per channel

      Savings from automated processes

      Repeat customers per channel

      User Adoption and Business Feedback Metrics

      User satisfaction feedback

      User satisfaction survey with technology

      Business adoption rates

      Application overhead cost reduction

      Info-Tech Insight

      Even if e-commerce metrics are difficult to track right now, the implementation of a dedicated e-commerce platform brings access to valuable customer intelligence from data that was once kept in silos.

      Phase 2

      Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies

      2.1 Build the Commerce Channel Matrix

      2.2 Review Technology and Trends Primer

      Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers

      Step 2.1

      Build the Commerce Channel Matrix

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Based on your business drivers, create a blended mix of e-commerce channels that will suit your organization’s and customers’ needs.

      Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Business stakeholders (Sales, Marketing)
      • IT project team

      Outcomes of this step:

      • Commerce channel map

      Pick the transactional channels that align with your customer personas and enable your target scenarios and drivers

      Traditional Channels

      E-Commerce Channels

      Hybrid Channels

      Physical stores (brick and mortar) are the mainstay of retailers selling tangible goods – some now also offer intangible service delivery.

      E-commerce websites as exemplified by services like Amazon are accessible by a browser and deliver both goods and services.

      Online ordering/in-store fulfilment is a model whereby customers can place orders online but pick the product up in store.

      Telesales allows customers to place orders over the phone. This channel has declined in favor of mobile commerce via smartphone apps.

      Mobile commerce allows customers to shop through a dedicated, native mobile application on a smartphone or tablet.

      IoT-enabled smart carts/bags allow customers to shop in store, but check-out payments are handled by a mobile application.

      Mail order allows customers to send (”snail”) mail orders. A related channel is fax orders. Both have diminished in favor of e-commerce.

      Social media embedded shopping allows customers to order products directly through services such as Facebook.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Your channel selections should be driven by customer personas and scenarios. For example, social media may be extensively employed by some persona types (i.e. millennials) but see limited adoption in other demographics or use cases (i.e. B2B).

      2.1 Activity: Build your commerce channel matrix

      30 minutes

      1. Inventory which transactional channels are currently used by your firm (segment by product lines if variation exists).
      2. Interview product leaders, sales leaders, and marketing managers to determine if channels support transactional capabilities or are used for marketing and service delivery.
      3. Review your customer personas, scenarios, and drivers and assess which of the channels you will use in the future to sell products and services. Document below.

      Example: Commerce Channel Map

      Product Line A Product Line B Product Line C
      Currently Used? Future Use? Currently Used? Future Use? Currently Used? Future Use?
      Store Yes Yes No No No No
      Kiosk Yes No No No No No
      E-Commerce Site/Portal No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
      Mobile App No No Yes Yes No Yes
      Embedded Social Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

      Input

      • Personas, scenarios, and driver

      Output

      • Channel map

      Materials

      • Whiteboard
      • Markers

      Participants

      • Project team

      Step 2.2

      Review Technology and Trends Primer

      This step will walk you through the following activities:

      • Review the scope of e-commerce and POS solutions and understand key drivers impacting e-commerce and traditional commerce.

      Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Business stakeholders (Sales, Marketing)
      • IT project team

      Outcomes of this step:

      • Understanding of key technologies
      • Understanding of key trends

      Application spotlight: e-commerce platforms

      How It Enables Your Strategy

      • Modern e-commerce platforms provide capabilities for end-to-end orchestration of online commerce experiences, from product site deployment to payment processing.
      • Some e-commerce platforms are purpose-built for business-to-business (B2B) commerce, emphasizing customer portals and EDI features. Other e-commerce vendors place more emphasis on business-to-consumer (B2C) capabilities, such as product catalog management and executing transactions at scale.
      • There has been an increasing degree of overlap between traditional web experience management solutions and the e-commerce market; for example, in 2018, Adobe acquired Magento to augment its overall web experience offering within Adobe Experience Manager.
      • E-commerce platforms typically fall short when it comes to order fulfilment and logistics; this piece of the puzzle is typically orchestrated via an ERP system or logistics management module.
      • This research provides a starting place for defining e-commerce requirements and selection artefacts.

      Key Trends

      • E-commerce vendors are rapidly supporting a variety of form factors and integration with other channels such as social media. Mobile is sufficiently popular that some vendors and industry commentators refer to it as “m-commerce” to differentiate app-based shopping experiences from those accessed through a traditional browser.
      • Hybrid commerce is driving more interplay between e-commerce solutions and POS.

      E-Commerce KPIs

      Strong e-commerce applications can improve:

      • Bounce Rates
      • Exit Rates
      • Lead Conversion Rates
      • Cart Abandonment Rates
      • Re-Targeting Efficacy
      • Average Cart Size
      • Average Cart Value
      • Customer Lifetime Value
      • Aggregate Reach/Impressions

      Familiarize yourself with the e-commerce market

      How it got here

      Initial Traction as the Dot-Com Era Came to Fruition

      Unlike some enterprise application markets, such as CRM, the e-commerce market appeared almost overnight during the mid-to-late nineties as the dot-com explosion fueled the need to have reliable solutions for executing transactions online.

      Early e-commerce solutions were less full-fledged suites than they were mediums for payment processing and basic product list management. PayPal and other services like Digital River were pioneers in the space, but their functionality was limited vis-à-vis tools such as web content management platforms, and their ability to amalgamate and analyze the data necessary for dynamic personalization and re-targeting was virtually non-existent.

      Rapidly Expanding Scope of Functional Capabilities as the Market Matured

      As marketers became more sophisticated and companies put an increased focus on customer experience and omnichannel interaction, the need arose for platforms that were significantly more feature rich than their early contemporaries. In this context, vendors such as Shopify and Demandware stepped into the limelight, offering far richer functionality and analytics than previous offerings, such as asset management, dynamic personalization, and the ability to re-target customers who abandoned their carts.

      As the market has matured, there has also been a series of acquisitions of some players (for example, Demandware by Salesforce) and IPOs of others (i.e. Shopify). Traditional payment-oriented services like PayPal still fill an important niche, while newer entrants like Square seek to disrupt both the e-commerce market and point-of-sale solutions to boot.

      Familiarize yourself with the e-commerce market

      Where it’s going

      Support for a Proliferation of Form Factors and Channels

      Modern e-commerce solutions are expanding the number of form factors (smartphones, tablets) they support via both responsive design and in-app capabilities. Many platforms now also support embedded purchasing options in non-owned channels (for example, social media). With the pandemic leading to a heightened affinity for online shopping, the importance of fully using these capabilities has been further emphasized.

      AI and Machine Learning

      E-commerce is another customer experience domain ripe for transformation via the potential of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms are being used to enhance the effectiveness of dynamic personalization of product collateral, improve the accuracy of product recommendations, and allow for more effective re-targeting campaigns of customers who did not make a purchase.

      Merger of Online Commerce and Traditional Point-of-Sale

      Many e-commerce vendors – particularly the large players – are now going beyond traditional e-commerce and making plays into brick-and-mortar environments, offering point-of-sale capabilities and the ability to display product assets and customizations via augmented reality – truly blending the physical and virtual shopping experience.

      Emphasis on Integration with the Broader Customer Experience Ecosystem

      The big names in e-commerce recognize they don’t live on an island: out-of-the-box integrations with popular CRM, web experience, and marketing automation platforms have been increasing at a breakneck pace. Support for digital wallets has also become increasingly popular, with many vendors integrating contactless payment technology (i.e. Apple Pay) directly into their applications.

      E-Commerce Vendor Snapshot: Part 1

      Mid-Market E-Commerce Solutions

      This image contains the logos for the following Companies: Magento; Spryker; Bigcommerce; Woo Commerce; Shopify

      E-Commerce Vendor Snapshot: Part 2

      Large Enterprise and Full-Suite E-Commerce Platforms

      This image contains the logos for the following Companies: Salesforce commerce cloud; Oracle Commerce Cloud; Adobe Commerce Cloud; Sitecore; Sap Hybris Commerce

      Speak with category experts to dive deeper into the vendor landscape

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

      Software Reviews is powered by Info-Tech

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

      CLICK HERE to access SoftwareReviews Comprehensive software reviews to make better IT decisions.

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

      Evaluate software category leaders through vendor rankings and awards

      SoftwareReviews

      This is an image of the data quarant report

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

      This is an image of the data quarant report chart

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

      This is a image of the Emotional Footprint Report

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

      This is a image of the Emotional Footprint Report chart

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

      Leading B2B E-Commerce Platforms

      As of February 2022

      Data Quadrant

      This image contains a screenshot of the Data Quadrant chart for B2B E-commerce

      Emotional Footprint

      This image contains a screenshot of the Emotional Footprint chart for B2B E-commerce

      Leading B2C E-Commerce Platforms

      As of February 2022

      Data Quadrant

      This image contains a screenshot of the Data Quadrant chart for B2C E-commerce

      Emotional Footprint

      This image contains a screenshot of the Emotional Footprint chart for B2C E-commerce

      Application spotlight: point-of-sale solutions

      How It Enables Your Strategy

      • Point-of-sale solutions provide capabilities for cash register/terminal management, transaction processing, and lightweight inventory management.
      • Many POS vendors also offer products that have the ability to create orders from EDI, phone, or fax channels.
      • An increasing emphasis has been placed on retail analytics by POS vendors – providing reporting and analysis tools to help with inventory planning, promotion management, and product recommendations.
      • Integration of POS systems with a central customer data warehouse or other system of record for customer information allows for the ability to build richer customer profiles and compare shopping habits in physical stores against other transactional channels that are offered.
      • POS vendors often offer (or integrate with) loyalty management solutions to track, manage, and redeem loyalty points. See this note on loyalty management systems.
      • Legacy and/or homegrown POS systems tend to be an area of frustration for customer experience management modernization.

      Key Trends

      • POS solutions are moving from “cash-register-only” solutions to encompass mobile POS form factors like smartphones and tablets. Vendors such as Square have experienced tremendous growth in opening up the market via “mPOS” platforms that have lower costs to entry than the traditional hardware needed to support full-fledged POS solutions.
      • This development puts robust POS toolsets in the hands of small and medium businesses that otherwise would be priced out of the market.

      POS KPIs

      Strong POS applications can improve:

      • Customer Data Collection
      • Inventory or Cash Shrinkage
      • Cost per Transaction
      • Loyalty Program Administration Costs
      • Cycle Time for Transaction Execution

      Point-of-Sales Vendor Snapshot: Part 1

      Mid-Market POS Solutions

      This image contains the following company Logos: Square; Shopify; Vend; Heartland|Retail

      Point-of-Sales Vendor Snapshot: Part 2

      Large Enterprise POS Platforms

      This image contains the following Logos: Clover; Oracle Netsuite; RQ Retail Management; Salesforce Commerce Cloud; Korona

      Leading Retail POS Systems

      As of February 2022

      Data Quadrant

      This is an image of the Data Quadrant Chart for the Leading Retail Pos Systems

      Emotional Footprint

      This is an image of the Emotional Footprint chart for the Leading Retail POS Systems

      Summary of Accomplishment

      Knowledge Gained

      • Commerce channel framework
      • Customer affinities
      • Commerce channel overview
      • Commerce-enabling technologies

      Processes Optimized

      • Persona definition for commerce strategy
      • Persona channel shortlist

      Deliverables Completed

      • Customer personas
      • Commerce user scenarios
      • Business drivers for traditional commerce and e-commerce
      • Channel matrix for omnichannel commerce

      Bibliography

      “25 Amazing Omnichannel Statistics Every Marketer Should Know (Updated for 2021).” V12, 29 June 2021. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

      “Amazon Go.” Amazon, n.d. Web.

      Andersen, Derek. “33 Statistics Retail Marketers Need to Know in 2021.” Invoca, 19 July 2021. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

      Andre, Louie. “115 Critical Customer Support Software Statistics: 2022 Market Share Analysis & Data.” FinancesOnline, 14 Jan. 2022. Accessed 25 Jan. 2022.

      Chuang, Courtney. “The future of support: 5 key trends that will shape customer care in 2022.” Intercom, 10 Jan. 2022. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

      Cramer-Flood, Ethan. “Global Ecommerce Update 2021.” eMarketer, 13 Jan. 2021. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

      Cramer-Flood, Ethan. “Spotlight on total global retail: Brick-and-mortar returns with a vengeance.” eMarketer, 3 Feb. 2022. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

      Fox Rubin, Ben. “Amazon now operates seven different kinds of physical stores. Here's why.” CNET, 28 Feb. 2020. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

      Krajewski, Laura. “16 Statistics on Why Omnichannel is the Future of Your Contact Center and the Foundation for a Top-Notch Competitive Customer Experience.” Business 2 Community, 10 July 2020. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

      Manoff, Jill. “Fun and convenience: CEO Nany Green on Old Navy’s priorities for holiday.” Glossy, 8 Dec. 2020. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

      Meola, Andrew. “Rise of M-Commerce: Mobile Ecommerce Shopping Stats & Trends in 2021.” Insider, 30 Dec. 2020. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

      “Outdoor apparel retailer Icebreaker uses AI to exceed shopper expectations.” Salesforce, n.d.(a). Accessed 20 Jan. 2022.

      “Personas.” Usability.gov., n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2018.

      “PetSmart – Why Commerce Cloud?” Salesforce, n.d.(b). Web. 30 April 2018.

      Toor, Meena. “Customer expectations: 7 Types all exceptional researchers must understand.” Qualtrics, 3 Dec. 2020. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

      Westfall, Leigh. “Omnichannel vs. multichannel: What's the difference?” RingCentral, 10 Sept. 2021. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

      “Worldwide ecommerce will approach $5 trillion this year.” eMarketer, 14 Jan. 2021. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

      Satisfy Digital End Users With Low- and No-Code

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      • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
      • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy
      • Your organization decided to invest in digital solutions to support their transition to a digital and automated workplace. They are ready to begin the planning and delivery of these solutions.
      • However, IT capacity is constrained due to the high and aggressive demand to meet business priorities and maintain mission critical applications. Technical experience and skills are difficult to find, and stakeholders are increasing their expectations to deliver technologies faster with high quality using less resources.
      • Stakeholders are interested in low and no code solutions as ways to their software delivery challenges and explore new digital capabilities.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Current software delivery inefficiencies and lack of proper governance and standards impedes the ability to successfully scale and mature low and no code investments and see their full value.
      • Many operating models and culture do not enable or encourage the collaboration needed to evaluate business opportunities and underlying operational systems.This can exacerbate existing shadow IT challenges and promote a negative perception of IT.
      • Low and no code tools bring significant organizational, process, and technical changes that IT and the business may not be prepared or willing to accept and adopt, especially when these tools support business and worker managed applications and services.

      Impact and Result

      • Establish the right expectations. Profile your digital end users and their needs and challenges. Discuss current IT and business software delivery and digital product priorities to determine what to expect from low- and no-code.
      • Build your low- and no-code governance and support. Clarify the roles, processes, and tools needed for low- and no-code delivery and management through IT and business collaboration.
      • Evaluate the fit of low- and no-code and shortlist possible tools. Obtain a thorough view of the business and technical complexities of your use cases. Indicate where and how low- and no-code is expected to generate the most return.

      Satisfy Digital End Users With Low- and No-Code Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Satisfy Digital End Users With Low- and No-Code Deck – A step-by-step guide on selecting the appropriate low- and no-code tools and building the right people, processes, and technologies to support them.

      This blueprint helps you develop an approach to understand your low- and no-code challenges and priorities and to shortlist, govern, and manage the right low- and no-code tools.

      • Satisfy Digital End Users With Low- and No-Code – Phases 1-3

      2. Low- and No-Code Communication Template – Clearly communicate the goal and approach of your low- and no-code implementation in a language your audience understands.

      This template narrates a story to describe the need and expectations of your low- and no-code initiative to get buy-in from stakeholders and interested parties.

      • Low- and No-Code Communication Template

      Infographic

      Workshop: Satisfy Digital End Users With Low- and No-Code

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Select Your Tools

      The Purpose

      Understand the personas of your low- and no-code users and their needs.

      List the challenges low- and no-code is designed to solve or the opportunities you hope to exploit.

      Identify the low- and no-code tools to address your needs.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Level set expectations on what low- and no-code can deliver.

      Identify areas where low- and no-code can be the most beneficial.

      Select the tools to best address your problem and opportunities.

      Activities

      1.1 Profile your digital end users

      1.2 Set reasonable expectations

      1.3 List your use cases

      1.4 Shortlist your tools

      Outputs

      Digital end-user skills assessment

      Low- and no-code objectives and metrics

      Low- and no-code use case opportunities

      Low- and no-code tooling shortlist

      2 Deliver Your Solution

      The Purpose

      Optimize your product delivery process to accommodate low- and no-code.

      Review and improve your product delivery and management governance model.

      Discuss how to improve your low- and no-code capacities.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Encourage business-IT collaborative practices and improve IT’s reputation.

      Shift the right accountability and ownership to the business.

      Equip digital end users with the right skills and competencies.

      Activities

      2.1 Adapt your delivery process

      2.2 Transform your governance

      2.3 Identify your low- and no-code capacities

      Outputs

      Low- and no-code delivery process and guiding principles

      Low- and no-code governance, including roles and responsibilities, product ownership and guardrails

      List of low- and no-code capacity improvements

      3 Plan Your Adoption

      The Purpose

      Design a CoE and/or CoP to support low- and no-code capabilities.

      Build a roadmap to illustrate key low- and no-code initiatives.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Ensure coordinated, architected, and planned implementation and adoption of low- and no-code consistently across the organization.

      Reaffirm support for digital end users new to low- and no-code.

      Clearly communicate your approach to low- and no-code.

      Activities

      3.1 Support digital end users and facilitate cross-functional sharing

      3.2 Yield results with a roadmap

      Outputs

      Low- and no-code supportive body design (e.g. center of excellence, community of practice)

      Low- and no-code roadmap

      Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution

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      • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
      • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-organizational-design
      • IT needs a method to pinpoint which contact center solution best aligns with business objectives, adapting to a post-COVID world of remote work, flexibility, and scalability.
      • Scoring RFP and RFQ proposals is a complex process, and it is difficult to map and gap without a clear view of the organization’s needs. SOWs can contain pitfalls that cause expensive headaches for the organization in the long run. Guidance through a SOW is required to best represent the organization’s interests.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • “On-premises versus cloud” is a false dichotomy. Contact center architectures come in all shapes and sizes, and organizations should discern whether a hybrid option best meets their needs.
      • Contact centers should service customers – not capabilities. Capabilities must work for you, your agents, and your customers – not the other way around.
      • Deliverables and responsibilities should be a contract’s focal point. While organizations are right to focus on avoiding unanticipated license charges, it is more important to clearly define how deliverables and responsibilities will be divided among the organization, the vendor, and potential third parties.

      Impact and Result

      • Assess the array of contact center architectures with Info-Tech’s Contact Center Decision Points Tool to select a right-sized solution.
      • Build business requirements in a formalized process to achieve stakeholder buy-in.
      • Use Info-Tech’s Contact Center RFP Scoring Tool to evaluate and choose from a range of vendors.
      • Successfully navigate and avoid major pitfalls in a SOW construction.
      • Justify each stage of the process with this blueprint’s key deliverable: the Contact Center Playbook.

      Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to examine the current contact center marketspace, review Info-Tech’s methodology for choosing a right-sized contact center solution, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Assess Contact Center Architectures

      Establish your project vision and metrics of success before shortlisting potential contact center architectures and deciding which is right-sized for the organization.

      • Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution – Phase 1: Assess Contact Center Architectures
      • Contact Center Playbook
      • Contact Center Decision Points Tool

      2. Gather Requirements and Shortlist Vendors

      Build business requirements to achieve stakeholder buy-in, define key deliverables, and issue an RFP/RFQ to shortlisted vendors.

      • Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution – Phase 2: Gather Requirements and Shortlist Vendors
      • Requirements Gathering Documentation Tool
      • Lean RFP Template
      • Contact Center Business Requirements Document
      • Request for Quotation Template
      • Long-Form RFP Template

      3. Score Vendors and Construct SOW

      Score RFP/RFQ responses and decide upon a vendor before constructing a SOW.

      • Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution – Phase 3: Score Vendors and Construct SOW
      • Contact Center RFP Scoring Tool
      • Contact Center SOW Template and Guide
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Choose a Right-Sized Contact Center Solution

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Assess Architecture

      The Purpose

      Shortlist and decide upon a right-sized contact center architecture.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A high-level decision for a right-sized architecture

      Activities

      1.1 Define vision and mission statements.

      1.2 Identify infrastructure metrics of success.

      1.3 Confirm key performance indicators for contact center operations.

      1.4 Complete architecture assessment.

      1.5 Confirm right-sized architecture.

      Outputs

      Project outline

      Metrics of success

      KPIs confirmed

      Quickly narrow down right-sized architecture

      Decision on right-sized contact center architecture

      2 Gather Requirements

      The Purpose

      Build business requirements and define key deliverables to achieve stakeholder buy-in and shortlist potential vendors.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Key deliverables defined and a shortlist of no more than five vendors

      Sections 7-8 of the Contact Center Playbook completed

      Activities

      2.1 Hold focus groups with key stakeholders.

      2.2 Gather business, nonfunctional, and functional requirements.

      2.3 Define key deliverables.

      2.4 Shortlist five vendors that appear meet those requirements.

      Outputs

      User requirements identified

      Business Requirements Document completed

      Key deliverables defined

      Shortlist of five vendors

      3 Initial Vendor Scoring

      The Purpose

      Compare and evaluate shortlisted vendors against gathered requirements.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Have a strong overview of which vendors are preferred for issuing RFP/RFQ

      Section 9 of the Contact Center Playbook

      Activities

      3.1 Input requirements to the Contact Center RFP Scoring Tool. Define which are mandatory and which are desirable.

      3.2 Determine which vendors best meet requirements.

      3.3 Compare requirements met with anticipated TCO.

      3.4 Compare and rank vendors.

      Outputs

      An assessment of requirements

      Vendor scoring

      A holistic overview of requirements scoring and vendor TCO

      An initial ranking of vendors to shape RFP process after workshop end

      4 SOW Walkthrough

      The Purpose

      Walk through the Contact Center SOW Template and Guide to identify how much time to allocate per section and who will be responsible for completing it.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      An understanding of a SOW that is designed to avoid major pitfalls with vendor management

      Section 10 of the Contact Center Playbook

      Activities

      4.1 Get familiar with the SOW structure.

      4.2 Identify which sections will demand greater time allocation.

      4.3 Strategize how to avoid potential pitfalls.

      4.4 Confirm reviewer responsibilities.

      Outputs

      A broad understanding of a SOW’s key sections

      A determination of how much time should be allocated for reviewing major sections

      A list of ways to avoid major pitfalls with vendor management

      A list of reviewers, the sections they are responsible for reviewing, and their time allocation for their review

      5 Communicate and Implement

      The Purpose

      Finalize deliverables and plan post-workshop communications.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A completed Contact Center Playbook that justifies each decision of this workshop

      Activities

      5.1 Finalize deliverables.

      5.2 Support communication efforts.

      5.3 Identify resources in support of priority initiatives.

      Outputs

      Contact Center Playbook delivered

      Post-workshop engagement to confirm satisfaction

      Follow-up research that complements the workshop or leads workshop group in relevant new directions

      Leverage Big Data by Starting Small

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      • member rating overall impact: 7.0/10 Overall Impact
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      • Parent Category Name: Big Data
      • Parent Category Link: /big-data
      • The desire for rapid decision making is increasing and the complexity of data sources is growing; business users want access to several new data sources, but in a way that is controlled and easily consumable.
      • Organizations may understand the transformative potential of a big data initiative, but struggle to make the transition from the awareness of its importance to identifying a concrete use case for a pilot project.
      • The big data ecosystem is crowded and confusing, and a lack of understanding of that ecosystem may cause a paralysis for organizations.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Big data is simply data. With technological advances, what was once considered big data is now more approachable for all organizations irrespective of size.
      • The variety element is the key to unlocking big data value. Drill down into your specific use cases more effectively by focusing on what kind of data you should use.
      • Big data is about deep analytics. Deep doesn’t mean difficult. Visualization of data, integrating new data, and understanding associations are ways to deepen your analytics.

      Impact and Result

      • Establish a foundational understanding of what big data entails and what the implications of its different elements are for your organization.
      • Confirm your current maturity for taking on a big data initiative, and make considerations for core data management practices in the context of incorporating big data.
      • Avoid boiling the ocean by pinpointing use cases by industry and functional unit, followed by identifying the most essential data sources and elements that will enable the initiative.
      • Leverage a repeatable pilot project framework to build out a successful first initiative and implement future projects en-route to evolving a big data program.

      Leverage Big Data by Starting Small Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should leverage big data, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Undergo big data education

      Build a foundational understanding of the current big data landscape.

      • Leverage Big Data by Starting Small – Phase 1: Undergo Big Data Education

      2. Assess big data readiness

      Appraise current capabilities for handling a big data initiative and revisit the key data management practices that will enable big data success.

      • Leverage Big Data by Starting Small – Phase 2: Assess Big Data Readiness
      • Big Data Maturity Assessment Tool

      3. Pinpoint a killer big data use case

      Armed with Info-Tech’s variety dimension framework, identify the top use cases and the data sources/elements that will power the initiative.

      • Leverage Big Data by Starting Small – Phase 3: Pinpoint a Killer Big Data Use Case
      • Big Data Use-Case Suggestion Tool

      4. Structure a big data proof-of-concept project

      Leverage a repeatable framework to detail the core components of the pilot project.

      • Leverage Big Data by Starting Small – Phase 4: Structure a Big Data Proof-of-Concept Project
      • Big Data Work Breakdown Structure Template
      • Data Scientist
      • Big Data Cost/Benefit Tool
      • Big Data Stakeholder Presentation Template
      • Big Data Communication Tracking Template
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Leverage Big Data by Starting Small

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Undergo Big Data Education

      The Purpose

      Understand the basic elements of big data and its relationship to traditional business intelligence.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Common, foundational knowledge of what big data entails.

      Activities

      1.1 Determine which of the four Vs is most important to your organization.

      1.2 Explore new data through a social lens.

      1.3 Brainstorm new opportunities for enhancing current reporting assets with big data sources.

      Outputs

      Relative importance of the four Vs from IT and business perspectives

      High-level improvement ideas to report artifacts using new data sources

      2 Assess Your Big Data Readiness

      The Purpose

      Establish an understanding of current maturity for taking on big data, as well as revisiting essential data management practices.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Concrete idea of current capabilities.

      Recommended actions for developing big data maturity.

      Activities

      2.1 Determine your organization’s current big data maturity level.

      2.2 Plan for big data management.

      Outputs

      Established current state maturity

      Foundational understanding of data management practices in the context of a big data initiative

      3 Pinpoint Your Killer Big Data Use Case

      The Purpose

      Explore a plethora of potential use cases at the industry and business unit level, followed by using the variety element of big data to identify the highest value initiative(s) within your organization.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      In-depth characterization of a pilot big data initiative that is thoroughly informed by the business context.

      Activities

      3.1 Identify big data use cases at the industry and/or departmental levels.

      3.2 Conduct big data brainstorming sessions in collaboration with business stakeholders to refine use cases.

      3.3 Revisit the variety dimension framework to scope your big data initiative in further detail.

      3.4 Create an organizational 4-column data flow model with your big data sources/elements.

      3.5 Evaluate data sources by considering business value and risk.

      3.6 Perform a value-effort assessment to prioritize your initiatives.

      Outputs

      Potential big data use cases

      Potential initiatives rooted in the business context and identification of valuable data sources

      Identification of specific data sources and data elements

      Characterization of data sources/elements by value and risk

      Prioritization of big data use cases

      4 Structure a Big Data Proof-of-Concept Project

      The Purpose

      Put together the core components of the pilot project and set the stage for enterprise-wide support.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A repeatable framework for implementing subsequent big data initiatives.

      Activities

      4.1 Construct a work breakdown structure for the pilot project.

      4.2 Determine your project’s need for a data scientist.

      4.3 Establish the staffing model for your pilot project.

      4.4 Perform a detailed cost/benefit analysis.

      4.5 Make architectural considerations for supporting the big data initiative.

      Outputs

      Comprehensive list of tasks for implementing the pilot project

      Decision on whether or not a data scientist is needed, and where data science capabilities will be sourced

      RACI chart for the project

      Big data pilot cost/benefit summary

      Customized, high-level architectural model that incorporates technologies that support big data

      Manage Your Technical Debt

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      • member rating overall impact: 8.5/10 Overall Impact
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      • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
      • Parent Category Link: /strategy-and-organizational-design
      • All organizations, of all sizes, have some amount of technical debt, but very few systematically track, manage, and communicate it.
      • Deferred project work is pushed over to operations, sometimes with little visibility or hand-off, where it gets deprioritized and lost.
      • IT doesn’t have the resources or authority to make needed changes to address the impact of tech debt and can’t make the case for improvement without good data on the problem.
      • Efforts to track technical debt get stuck in the weeds, don’t connect technical issues to business impact, and run out of steam.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Technical debt is a type of technical risk, which in turn is business risk. The business, not IT, must make the decision to accept or mitigate risk – but IT must help the business make an informed decision.
      • There are two ways to keep your technical debt at a manageable level – effectively, to mitigate risk: either stop introducing new debt or start paying back what you already have.

      Impact and Result

      • Define and identify your technical debt. Focus on tech debt you think you can actually fix.
      • Conduct a streamlined and targeted business impact analysis to prioritize tech debt based on its ongoing business impact.
      • Identify options to better manage technical debt and present your findings to business decision makers.

      Manage Your Technical Debt Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to understand the business case to manage technical debt, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Identify your technical debt

      Define, identify, and organize your technical debt in preparation for the technical debt impact analysis.

      • Technical Debt Business Impact Analysis Tool

      2. Measure your technical debt

      Conduct a technical debt business impact analysis.

      • Roadmap Tool

      3. Manage your technical debt

      Identify options to resolve technical debt and summarize the challenge and potential solutions for business decision makers.

      • Technical Debt Executive Summary Presentation
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Manage Your Technical Debt

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Define and Identify Technical Debt

      The Purpose

      Create a working definition of technical debt and identify the technical debt in your environment.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      List your technical debt.

      Activities

      1.1 Develop a working definition for technical debt.

      1.2 Discuss your organization’s technical debt risk.

      1.3 Identify 5-10 high-impact technical debts to structure the impact analysis.

      Outputs

      Goals, opportunities, and constraints related to tech debt management

      A list of technical debt

      2 Measure Technical Debt

      The Purpose

      Conduct a more-objective assessment of the business impact of technical debt.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Identify the most-critical technical debt in your environment, in terms of business risk.

      Activities

      2.1 Review and modify business impact scoring scales.

      2.2 Identify reasonable scenarios to structure the impact analysis.

      2.3 Apply the scoring scale to identify the business impact of each technical debt.

      Outputs

      Business impact scoring scales

      Scenarios to support the impact analysis

      Technical debt impact analysis

      3 Build a Roadmap to Manage Technical Debt

      The Purpose

      Leverage the technical debt impact analysis to identify, compare, and quantify projects that fix technical debt and projects that prevent it.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Create your plan to manage technical debt.

      Activities

      3.1 Brainstorm projects and action items to manage and pay back critical technical debt. Prioritize projects and action items to build a roadmap.

      3.2 Identify three possible courses of action to pay back each critical technical debt.

      3.3 Identify immediate next steps to manage remaining tech debt and limit the introduction of new tech debt.

      Outputs

      Technical debt management roadmap

      Technical debt executive summary

      Immediate next steps to manage technical debt

      Tech Trend Update: If Contact Tracing Then Distributed Trust

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}424|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: N/A
      • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
      • member rating average days saved: N/A
      • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
      • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity

      With COVID-19's rapid spread through populations, governments are looking for technology tools that can augment the efforts of manual contact tracing processes. How the system is designed is crucial to a positive outcome.

      • CIOs must understand how distributed trust principles achieve embedded privacy and help encourage user adoption.
      • CEOs must consider how society's waning trust in institutions affects the way they engage their customers.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      Mobile contact tracing apps that use a decentralized design approach will be the most likely to be adopted by a wide swath of the population.

      Impact and Result

      There are some key considerations to realize from the way different governments are approaching contact tracing:

      1. If centralized, then seek to ensure privacy protections.
      2. If decentralized, then seek to enable collaboration.
      3. In either case, put in place data governance to create trust.

      Tech Trend Update: If Contact Tracing Then Distributed Trust Research & Tools

      Learn why distributed trust is becoming critical to technology systems design

      Understand the differences between mobile app architectures available to developers and how to achieve success in implementation based on your goals.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      • Tech Trend Update: If Contact Tracing Then Distributed Trust Storyboard
      [infographic]

      Create a Data Management Roadmap

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}122|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: 9.3/10 Overall Impact
      • member rating average dollars saved: $100,135 Average $ Saved
      • member rating average days saved: 36 Average Days Saved
      • Parent Category Name: Data Management
      • Parent Category Link: /data-management

      Data has quickly become one of the most valuable assets in any organization. But when it comes to strategically and effectively managing those data assets, many businesses find themselves playing catch-up. The stakes are high because ineffective data management practices can have serious consequences, from poor business decisions and missed revenue opportunities to critical cybersecurity risks.

      Successful management and consistent delivery of data assets requires collaboration between the business and IT and the right balance of technology, process, and resourcing solutions.

      Build an effective and collaborative data management practice

      Data management is not one-size-fits-all. Cut through the noise around data management and create a roadmap that is right for your organization:

      • Align data management plans with business requirements and strategic plans.
      • Create a collaborative plan that unites IT and the business in managing data assets.
      • Design a program that can scale and evolve over time.
      • Perform data strategy planning and incorporate data capabilities into your broader plans.
      • Identify gaps in current data services and the supporting environment and determine effective corrective actions.

      This blueprint will help you design a data management practice that builds capabilities to support your organization’s current use of data and its vision for the future.

      Create a Data Management Roadmap Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Create a Data Management Roadmap Storyboard – Use this deck to help you design a data management practice and turn data into a strategic enabler for the organization.

      Effective data delivery and management provides the business with new and improved opportunities to leverage data for business operations and decision making. This blueprint will help you design a data management practice that will help your team build capabilities that align to the business' current usage of data and its vision for the future.

      • Create a Data Management Roadmap – Phases 1-2

      2. Data Management Strategy Planning Tools – Use these tools to align with the business and lay the foundations for the success of your data management practice.

      Begin by using the interview guide to engage stakeholders to gain a thorough understanding of the business’ challenges with data, their strategic goals, and the opportunities for data to support their future plans. From there, these tools will help you identify the current and target capabilities for your data management practice, analyze gaps, and build your roadmap.

      • Data Strategy Planning Interview Guide
      • Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool
      • Data Management Project Charter Template

      3. Stakeholder Communication and Assessment Tools – Use these templates to develop a communication strategy that will convey the value of the data management project to the organization and meet the needs of key stakeholders.

      Strong messaging around the value and purpose of the data management practice is essential to ensure buy-in. Use these templates to build a business case for the project and socialize the idea of data management across the various levels of the organization while anticipating the impact on and reactions from key stakeholders.

      • Data Management Communication/Business Case Template
      • Project Stakeholder and Impact Assessment Tool

      4. Data Management Strategy Work Breakdown Structure Template – Use this template to maintain strong project management throughout your data management project.

      This customizable template will support an organized approach to designing a program that addresses the business’ current and evolving data management needs. Use it to plan and track your deliverables and outcomes related to each stage of the project.

      • Data Management Strategy Work Breakdown Structure Template

      5. Data Management Roadmap Tools – Use these templates to plan initiatives and create a data management roadmap presentation.

      Create a roadmap for your data management practice that aligns to your organization’s current needs for data and its vision for how it wants to use data over the next 3-5 years. The initiative tool guides you to identify and record all initiative components, from benefits to costs, while the roadmap template helps you create a presentation to share your project findings with your executive team and project sponsors.

      • Initiative Definition Tool
      • Data Management Roadmap Template

      6. Track and Measure Benefits Tool – Use this tool to monitor the project’s progress and impact.

      Benefits tracking enables you to measure the effectiveness of your project and make adjustments where necessary to realize expected benefits. This tool will help you track benefit metrics at regular intervals to report progress on goals and identify benefits that are not being realized so that you can take remedial action.

      • Track and Measure Benefits Tool

      Infographic

      Workshop: Create a Data Management Roadmap

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Develop Data Strategies

      The Purpose

      Understand the business’s vision for data and the role of the data management practice.

      Determine business requirements for data.

      Map business goals and strategic plans to create data strategies.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Understanding of business’s vision for data

      Unified vision for data management (business and IT)

      Identification of the business’s data strategies

      Activities

      1.1 Establish business context for data management.

      1.2 Develop data management principles and scope.

      1.3 Develop conceptual data model (subject areas).

      1.4 Discuss strategic information needs for each subject area.

      1.5 Develop data strategies.

      1.6 Identify data management strategies and enablers.

      Outputs

      Practice vision

      Data management guiding principles

      High-level data requirements

      Data strategies for key data assets

      2 Assess Data Management Capabilities

      The Purpose

      Determine the current and target states of your data management practice.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Clear understanding of current environment

      Activities

      2.1 Determine the role and scope of data management within the organization.

      2.2 Assess current data management capabilities.

      2.3 Set target data management capabilities.

      2.4 Identify performance gaps.

      Outputs

      Data management scope

      Data management capability assessment results

      3 Analyze Gaps and Develop Improvement Initiatives

      The Purpose

      Identify how to bridge the gaps between the organization’s current and target environments.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Creation of key strategic plans for data management

      Activities

      3.1 Evaluate performance gaps.

      3.2 Identify improvement initiatives.

      3.3 Create preliminary improvement plans.

      Outputs

      Data management improvement initiatives

      4 Design Roadmap and Plan Implementation

      The Purpose

      Create a realistic and action-oriented plan for implementing and improving the capabilities for data management.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Completion of a Data Management Roadmap

      Plan for how to implement the roadmap’s initiatives

      Activities

      4.1 Align data management initiatives to data strategies and business drivers.

      4.2 Identify dependencies and priorities

      4.3 Build a data management roadmap (short and long term)

      4.4 Create a communication plan

      Outputs

      Data management roadmap

      Action plan

      Communication plan

      Further reading

      Contents

      Executive Brief
      Analyst Perspective
      Executive Summary
      Phase 1: Build Business and User Context
      Phase 2: Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap
      Additional Support
      Related Research
      Bibliography

      Create a Data Management Roadmap

      Ensure the right capabilities to support your data strategy.

      EXECUTIVE BRIEF

      Analyst Perspective

      Establish a data management program to realize the data strategy vision and data-driven organization.

      Data is one of the most valuable organizational assets, and data management is the foundation – made up of plans, programs, and practices – that delivers, secures, and enhances the value of those assets.

      Digital transformation in how we do business and innovations like artificial intelligence and automation that deliver exciting experiences for our customers are all powered by readily available, trusted data. And there’s so much more of it.

      A data management roadmap designed for where you are in your business journey and what’s important to you provides tangible answers to “Where do we start?” and “What do we do?”

      This blueprint helps you build and enhance data management capabilities as well as identify the next steps for evaluating, strengthening, harmonizing, and optimizing these capabilities, aligned precisely with business objectives and data strategy.

      Andrea Malick
      Director, Research & Advisory, Data & Analytics Practice
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Frame the problem

      Who this research is for
      • Data management professionals looking to improve the organization’s ability to leverage data in value-added ways
      • Data governance managers and data analysts looking to improve the effectiveness and value of their organization’s data management practice
      		 This research will help you
      • Align data management plans with business requirements and strategic plans.
      • Create a collaborative plan that unites IT and the business in managing the organization’s data assets.
      • Design a data management program that can scale and evolve over time.
      This research will also assist
      • Business leaders creating plans to leverage data in their strategic planning and business processes
      • IT professionals looking to improve the environment that manages and delivers data
      		This research will also help you
      • Perform data strategy planning and incorporate data capabilities and plans into your broader plans.
      • Identify gaps in current data services and the supporting environment and determine effective corrective actions.

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge
      • The organizational appetite for data is increasing, with growing demands for data to better support business processes and inform decision making.
      • For data to be accessible and trustworthy for the business it must be effectively managed throughout its lifecycle.
      • With so much data circulating throughout our systems and a steady flow via user activity and business activities, it is imperative that we understand our data environment, focus our data services and oversight on what really matters, and work closely with business leads to ensure data is an integral part of the digital solution.
      		 Common Obstacles
      • Despite the growing focus on data, many organizations struggle to develop an effective strategy for managing their data assets.
      • Successful management and consistent delivery of data assets throughout their lifecycle requires the collaboration of the business and IT and the balance of technology, process, and resourcing solutions.
      • Employees are doing their best to just get things done with their own spreadsheets and familiar patterns of behavior. It takes leadership to pause those patterns and take a thoughtful enterprise and strategic approach to a more streamlined – and transformed – business data service.
      		 Info-Tech’s Approach
      • Incremental approach: Building a mature and optimized practice doesn’t occur overnight – it takes time and effort. Use this blueprint’s approach and roadmap results to support your organization in building a practice that prioritizes scope, increases the effectiveness of your data management practice, and improves your alignment with business data needs.
      • Build smart: Don’t do data management for data management’s sake; instead, align it to business requirements and the business’ vision for the organization’s data. Ensure initiatives and program investments best align to business priorities and support the organization in becoming more data driven and data centric.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Use value streams and business capabilities to develop a prioritized and practical data management plan that provides the highest business satisfaction in the shortest time.

      Full page illustration of the 'Create a Data Management Roadmap' using the image of a cargo ship labelled 'Data Management' moving in the direction of 'Business Strategy'. The caption at the top reads 'Data Management capabilities create new business value by augmenting data & optimizing it for analytics. Data is a digital imprint of organizational activities.'

      Data Management Capabilities

      A similar concept to the last one, with a ship moving toward 'Business Strategy', except the ship is cross-sectioned with different capabilities filling the interior of the silhouette. Below are different steps in data management 'Data Creation', 'Data Ingestion', 'Data Accumulation, 'Data Augmentation', 'Data Delivery', and 'Data Consumption'.

      Data is a business asset and needs to be treated like one

      Data management is an enabler of the business and therefore needs to be driven by business goals and objectives. For data to be a strategic asset of the business, the business and IT processes that support its delivery and management must be mature and clearly executed.

      Business Drivers
      1. Client Intimacy/Service Excellence
      2. Product and Service Innovations
      3. Operational Excellence
      4. Risk and Compliance Management
      		 Data Management Enablers
      • Data Governance
      • Data Strategy Planning
      • Data Architecture
      • Data Operations Management
      • Data Risk Management
      • Data Quality Management

      Industry spotlight: Risk management in the financial services sector

      REGULATORY
      COMPLIANCE
      Regulations are the #1 driver for risk management.

      US$11M:

      Fine incurred by a well-known Wall Street firm after using inaccurate data to execute short sales orders.
      “To successfully leverage customer data while maintaining compliance and transparency, the financial sector must adapt its current data management strategies to meet the needs of an ever-evolving digital landscape.” (Phoebe Fasulo, Security Scorecard, 2021)

      Industry spotlight: Operational excellence in the public sector

      GOVERNMENT
      TRANSPARENCY

      With frequent government scandals and corruption dominating the news, transparency to the public is quickly becoming a widely adopted practice at every level of government. Open government is the guiding principle that the public has access to the documents and proceedings of government to allow for effective public oversight. With growing regulations and pressure from the public, governments must adopt a comprehensive data management strategy to ensure they remain accountable to their rate payers, residents, businesses, and other constituents.

      1. Transparency Transparency is not just about access; it’s about sharing and reuse.
      2. Social and commercial value Everything from finding your local post office to building a search engine requires access to data.
      3. Participatory government Open data enables citizens to be more directly informed and involved in decision making.

      Industry spotlight: Operational excellence and client intimacy in major league sports

      SPORTS
      ANALYTICS

      A professional sports team is essentially a business that is looking for wins to maximize revenue. While they hope for a successful post-season, they also need strong quarterly results, just like you. Sports teams are renowned for adopting data-driven decision making across their organizations to do everything from improving player performance to optimizing tickets sales. At the end of the day, to enable analytics you must have top-notch information management.

      		Team Performance Benefits
      1. Talent identification
      2. In-game decision making
      3. Injury reduction
      4. Athlete performance
      5. Bargaining agreement
      Team Performance Benefits
      1. Fan engagement
      2. Licensing
      3. Sports gambling
      (Deloitte Insights, 2020)
      Industry leaders cite data, and the insights they glean from it, as their means of standing apart from their competitors.

      Industry spotlight: Operational excellence and service delivery within manufacturing and supply chain services

      SUPPLY CHAIN
      EFFICIENCY

      Data offers key insights and opportunities when it comes to supply chain management. The supply chain is where the business strategy gets converted to operational service delivery of the business. Proper data management enables business processes to become more efficient, productive, and profitable through the greater availability of quality data and analysis.

      Fifty-seven percent of companies believe that supply chain management gives them a competitive advantage that enables them to further develop their business (FinancesOnline, 2021).

      Involving Data in Your Supply Chain

      25%

      		 Companies can reap a 25% increase in productivity, a 20% gain in space usage, and a 30% improvement in stock use efficiency if they use integrated order processing for their inventory system.

      36%

      		 Thirty-six percent of supply chain professionals say that one of the top drivers of their analytics initiatives is the optimization of inventory management to balance supply and demand.
      (Source: FinancesOnline, 2021)

      Industry spotlight: Intelligent product innovation and strong product portfolios differentiate consumer retailers and CPGs

      INFORMED PRODUCT
      DEVELOPMENT             		Consumer shopping habits and preferences are notoriously variable, making it a challenge to develop a well-received product. Information and insights into consumer trends, shopping preferences, and market analysis support the probability of a successful outcome.

      Maintaining a Product Portfolio
      What is selling? What is not selling?

      Product Development
      • Based on current consumer buying patterns, what will they buy next?
      • How will this product be received by consumers?
      • What characteristics do consumers find important?
      A combination of operational data and analytics data is required to accurately answer these questions.       		Internal Data
      • Organizational sales performance
      External Data
      • Competitor performance
      • Market analysis
      • Consumer trends and preferences
      Around 75% of ideas fail for organizational reasons – viability or feasibility or time to market issues. On the other hand, around 20% of product ideas fail due to user-related issues – not valuable or usable (Medium, 2020).

      Changes in business and technology are changing how organizations use and manage data

      The world moves a lot faster today

      Businesses of today operate in real time. To maintain a competitive edge, businesses must identify and respond quickly to opportunities and events.

      To effectively do this businesses must have accurate and up-to-date data at their fingertips.

      To support the new demands around data consumption, data velocity (pace in which data is captured, organized, and analyzed) must also accelerate.

      Data Management Implications
      • Strong integration capabilities
      • Intelligent and efficient systems
      • Embedded data quality management
      • Strong transparency into the history of data and its transformation

      Studies and projections show a clear case of how data and its usage will grow and evolve.

      Zettabyte Era

      64.2

      		 More Data

      The amount of data created, consumed, and stored globally is forecast to increase rapidly, reaching 64.2 zettabytes in 2020 and projected to grow to over 180 zettabyes in 2025 (Statista, 2021).

      Evolving Technologies

      $480B

      		 Cloud Proliferation

      Global end-user spending on public cloud services is expected to exceed $480 billion next year (Info-Tech, 2021).

      To differentiate and remain competitive in today’s marketplace, organizations are becoming more data-driven

      Pyramid with a blue tip. Sublevels from top down are labelled 'Analytical Companies', 'Analytical Aspirations', 'Localized Analytics', and 'Analytically Impaired'.

      Analytic Competitor

      “Given the unforgiving competitive landscape, organizations have to transform now, and correctly. Winning requires an outcome-focused analytics strategy.” (Ramya Srinivasan, Forbes, 2021)
      Data and the use of data analytics has become a centerpiece to effective modern business. Top-performing organizations across a variety of industries have been cited as using analytics five times more than lower performers (MIT Sloan).

      The strategic value of data

      Power intelligent and transformative organizational performance through leveraging data.

      Respond to industry disruptors

      Optimize the way you serve your stakeholders and customers

      Develop products and services to meet ever-evolving needs

      Manage operations and mitigate risk
      Harness the value of your data

      Despite investments in data initiatives, organizations are carrying high levels of data debt

      Data debt is the accumulated cost that is associated with the suboptimal governance of data assets in an enterprise, like technical debt.

      Data debt is a problem for 78% of organizations.

      40%

      of organizations say individuals within the business do not trust data insights.

      66%

      of organizations say a backlog of data debt is impacting new data management initiatives.

      33%

      of organizations are not able to get value from a new system or technology investment.

      30%

      of organizations are unable to become data-driven.

      (Source: Experian, 2020)

      The journey to being data-driven

      The journey to becoming a data-driven organization requires a pit stop at data enablement.

      The Data Economy

      Diagram of 'The Data Economy' with three points on an arrow. 'Data Disengaged: You have a low appetite for data and rarely use data for decision making.' 'Data Enabled: Technology, data architecture, and people and processes are optimized and supported by data governance.' 'Data Driven: You are differentiating and competing on data and analytics, described as a “data first” organization. You’re collaborating through data. Data is an asset.'

      Measure success to demonstrate tangible business value

      Put data management into the context of the business:
      • Tie the value of data management and its initiatives back to the business capabilities that are enabled.
      • Leverage the KPIs of those business capabilities to demonstrate tangible and measurable value. Use terms and language that will resonate with senior leadership.

      Don’t let measurement be an afterthought:

      Start substantiating early on how you are going to measure success as your data management program evolves.

      Build a right-sized roadmap

      Formulate an actionable roadmap that is right-sized to deliver value in your organization.

      Key considerations:
      • When building your data management roadmap, ensure you do so through an enterprise lens. Be cognizant of other initiatives that might be coming down the pipeline that may require you to align your data governance milestones accordingly.
      • Apart from doing your planning with consideration for other big projects or launches that might be in-flight and require the time and attention of your data management partners, also be mindful of the more routine yet still demanding initiatives.
      • When doing your roadmapping, consider factors like the organization’s fiscal cycle, typical or potential year-end demands, and monthly/quarterly reporting periods and audits. Initiatives such as these are likely to monopolize the time and focus of personnel key to delivering on your data management milestones
      Sample milestones:
      • Data Management Leadership & Org Structure Definition
        Define the home for data management, as approved by senior leadership.
      • Data Management Charter and Policies
        Create a charter for your program and build/refresh associated policies.
      • Data Culture Diagnostic
        Understand the organization’s current data culture, perception of data, value of data, and knowledge gaps.
      • Use Case Build and Prioritization
        Build a use case that is tied to business capabilities. Prioritize accordingly.
      • Business Data Glossary/Catalog
        Build and/or refresh the business’ glossary for addressing data definitions and standardization issues.
      • Tools & Technology
        Explore the tools and technology offering in the data management space that would serve as an enabler to the program (e.g. RFI, RFP).

      Insight summary

      Overarching insight

      Your organization’s value streams and the associated business capabilities require effectively managed data. Whether building customer service excellence or getting ahead of cyberattacks, a data management practice is the dependable mainstay supporting business operations and transformation.

      Insight 1

      Data – it’s your business.
      Data is a digital imprint of business activities. Data architecture and flows are reflective of the organizational business architecture. Take data management capabilities as seriously as other core business capabilities.

      Insight 2

      Take a data-oriented approach.
      Data management must be data-centric – with technology and functional enablement built around the data and its structure and flows. Maintain the data focus during project’s planning, delivery, and evaluation stages.

      Insight 3

      Get the business into the data business.
      Data is not “IT’s thing.” Just as a bank helps you properly allocate your money to achieve your financial goals, IT will help you implement data management to support your business goals, but the accountability for data resides with the business.

      Tactical insight

      Data management is the program and environment we build once we have direction, i.e. a data strategy, and we have formed an ongoing channel with the guiding voice of the business via data governance. Without an ultimate goal in a strategy or the real requirements of the business, what are we building data systems and processes for? We are used to tech buzz words and placing our hope in promising innovations like artificial intelligence. There are no shortcuts, but there are basic proven actions we can take to meet the digital revolution head on and let our data boost our journey.

      Key deliverable:

      Data Management Roadmap Template

      Use this template to guide you in translating your project's findings and outcomes into a presentation that can be shared with your executive team and project sponsors.

      Sample of the 'Data Management Roadmap Template' key deliverable.

      Blueprint deliverables

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

      Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

      Use this tool to support your team in assessing and designing the capabilities and components of your organization's data management practice. Sample of the 'Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool' deliverable.

      Data Culture Diagnostic and Scorecard

      Sample of the 'Data Culture Diagnostic and Scorecard' deliverable.

      Leverage Info-Tech’s Data Culture Diagnostic to understand how your organization scores across 10 areas relating to data culture.

      Business Capability Map

      This template takes you through a business capability and value stream mapping to identify the data capabilities required to enable them. Sample of the 'Business Capability Map' deliverable.

      Measure the value of this blueprint

      Leverage this blueprint’s approach to ensure your data management initiatives align and support your key value streams and their business capabilities.
      • Aligning your data management program and its initiatives to your organization’s business capabilities is vital for tracing and demonstrating measurable business value for the program.
      • This alignment of data management with value streams and business capabilities enables you to use business-defined KPIs and demonstrate tangible value.

      Project outcome

      Metric
      Timely data delivery Time of data delivery to consumption
      Improved data quality Data quality scorecard metrics
      Data provenance transparency Time for data auditing (from report/dashboard to the source)
      New reporting and analytic capabilities Number of level 2 business capabilities implemented as solutions
      		In Phase 1 of this blueprint, we will help you establish the business context, define your business drivers and KPIs, and understand your current data management capabilities and strengths.

      In Phase 2, we will help you develop a plan and a roadmap for addressing any gaps and improving the relevant data management capabilities so that data is well positioned to deliver on those defined business metrics.

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

      DIY Toolkit

      Guided Implementation

      Workshop

      Consulting
      "Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful." "Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track." "We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

      Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

      Create a Data Management Roadmap project overview

      1. Build Business Context and Drivers for the Data Management Program 2. Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap
      Best-Practice Toolkit

      1.1 Review the Data Management Framework

      1.2 Understand and Align to Business Drivers

      1.3 Build High-Value Use Cases

      1.4 Create a Vision

      2.1 Assess Data Management

      2.2 Build Your Data Management Roadmap

      2.3 Organize Business Data Domains

      Guided Implementation
      • Call 1
      • Call 2
      • Call 3
      • Call 4
      • Call 5
      • Call 6
      • Call 7
      • Call 8
      • Call 9
      Phase Outcomes
      • An understanding of the core components of an effective data management program
      • Your organization’s business capabilities and value streams
      • A business capability map for your organization
      • High-value use cases for data management
      • Vision and guiding principles for data management
      • An understanding of your organization’s current data management capabilities
      • Definition of target-state capabilities and gaps
      • Roadmap of priority data management initiatives
      • Business data domains and ownership

      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 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

      What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      Phase 1

      Phase 2
      Call #1: Understand drivers, business context, and scope of data management at your organization. Learn about Info-Tech’s approach and resources.

      Call #2: Get a detailed overview of Info-Tech’s approach, framework, Data Culture Diagnostic, and blueprint.

      		Call #3:Align your business capabilities with your data management capabilities. Begin to develop a use case framework.

      Call #4:Further discuss alignment of business capabilities to data management capabilities and use case framework.

      		Call #5: Assess your current data management capabilities and data environment. Review your Data Culture Diagnostic Scorecard, if applicable.

      Call #6: Plan target state and corresponding initiatives.

      		Call #7: Identify program risks and formulate a roadmap.

      Call #8: Identify and prioritize improvements. Define a RACI chart.

      		Call #9: Summarize results and plan next steps.

      Workshop Overview

      		 Contact your account representative for more information.
      workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889
      Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
      Activities
      Understand and contextualize

      1.1 Review your data strategy.

      1.2 Learn data management capabilities.

      1.3 Discuss DM capabilities cross-dependencies and interactions.

      1.4 Develop high-value use cases.

      Assess current DM capabilities and set improvement targets

      2.1 Assess you current DM capabilities.

      2.2 Set targets for DM capabilities.

      Formulate and prioritize improvement initiatives

      3.1 Formulate core initiatives for DM capabilities improvement.

      3.2 Discuss dependencies across the initiatives and prioritize them.

      Plan for delivery dates and assign RACI

      4.1 Plan dates and assign RACI for the initiatives.

      4.2 Brainstorm initiatives to address gaps and enable business goals.

      Next steps and wrap-up (offsite)

      5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

      5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

      Deliverables
      1. Understanding of the data management capabilities and their interactions and logical dependencies
      2. Use cases
      1. DM capability assessment results
      2. DM vision and guiding principles
      1. Prioritized DM capabilities improvement initiatives
      1. DM capabilities improvement roadmap
      2. Business data domains and ownership
      1. Workshop final report with key findings and recommendations

      Full page diagram of the 'Data & Analytics landscape'. Caption reads 'The key to landscaping your data environment lies in ensuring foundational disciplines are optimized in a way that recognizes the interdependency among the various disciplines.' Many foundational disciplines are color-coded to a legend determining whether its 'accountability sits with IT' or 'with the business; CDO'. An arrow labeled 'You Are Here' points to 'Data Management', which is coded in both colors meaning both IT and the business are accountable.

      What is data management and why is it needed?

      “Data management is the development, execution, and supervision of plans, policies, programs and practices that deliver, control, protect and enhance the value of data and information assets throughout their lifecycles.” (DAMA International, 2017)

      Achieving successful management and consistent delivery of data assets throughout their lifecycle requires the collaboration of the business and IT and the balance of technology, process, and resourcing solutions.

      Who:

      This research is designed for:
      • Data management heads and professionals looking to improve their organization’s ability to leverage data in value-added ways.
      • Data management and IT professionals looking to optimize the data environment, from creation and ingestion right through to consumption.

      Are your data management capabilities optimized to support your organization’s data use and demand?

      What is the current situation?

      Situation
      • The volume and variety of data are growing exponentially and show no sign of slowing down.
      • Business landscapes and models are evolving.
      • Users and stakeholders are becoming more and more data-centric, with maturing and demanding expectations.
      		 Complication
      • Organizations struggle to develop a comprehensive approach to optimizing data management.
      • In their efforts to keep pace with the demands for data, data management groups often adopt a piecemeal approach that includes turning to tools as a means to address the needs.
      • Data architecture, models, and designs fail to deliver real and measurable business impact and value. Technology ROI is not realized.
      		 Info-Tech Insight

      A data strategy should never be formulated disjointed from the business. Ensure the data strategy aligns with the business strategy and supports the business architecture.

      Info-Tech’s Data Management Framework

      What Is Data Management?

      “Data management is the development, execution, and supervision of plans, policies, programs and practices that deliver, control, protect and enhance the value of data and information assets throughout their lifecycles.” (DAMA International, 2017)

      The three-tiered Data Management Framework, tiers are labelled 'Data Management Enablers', 'Information Dimensions', and 'Business Information'.

      Adapted from DAMA-DMBOK and Advanced Knowledge Innovations Global Solutions

      Info-Tech’s Approach

      Info-Tech’s Data Management Framework is designed to show how an organization’s business model sits as the foundation of its data management practice. Drawing from the requirements of the underpinning model, a practice is designed and maintained through the creation and application of the enablers and dimensions of data management.

      Build a data management practice that is centered on supporting the business and its use of key data assets

      Business Resources

      Data subject areas provide high-level views of the data assets that are used in business processes and enable an organization to perform its business functions.

      Classified by specific subjects, these groups reflect data elements that, when used effectively, are able to support analytical and operational use cases of data.

      This layer is representative of the delivery of the data assets and the business’ consumption of the data.

      Data is an integral business asset that exists across all areas of an organization

      Equation stating 'Trustworthy and Usable Data' plus 'Well-Designed and Executed Processes' equals 'Business Capabilities and Functions'.       		Data Management Framework with only the bottom tier highlighted.

      For a data management practice to be effective it ultimately must show how its capabilities and operations better support the business in accessing and leveraging its key data assets.*

      *This project focuses on building capabilities for data management. Leverage our data quality management research to support you in assessing the performance of this model.

      Information dimensions support the different types of data present within an organization’s environment

      Information Dimensions

      Components at the Information Dimensions layer manage the different types of data and information present with an environment.

      At this layer, data is managed based on its type and how the business is looking to use and access the data.

      Custom capabilities are developed at this level to support:

      • Structured data
      • Semi-structured data
      • Unstructured data
      The types, formats, and structure of the data are managed at this level using the data management enablers to support their successful execution and performance.       		Data Management Framework with only the middle tier highlighted.

      Build a data management practice with strong process capabilities

      Use these guiding principles to contextualize the purpose and value for each data management enabler.

      Data Management Framework with only the top tier highlighted.

      Data Management Enablers

      Info-Tech categorizes data management enablers as the processes that guide the management of the organization’s data assets and support the delivery.

      Govern and Direct
      • Ensures data management practices and processes follow the standards and policies outlined for them
      • Manages the executive oversight of the broader practice

      Align and Plan
      • Aligns data management plans to the business’ data requirements
      • Creates the plans to guide the design and execution of data management components

      Build, Acquire, Operate, Deliver, and Support
      • Executes the operations that manage data as it flows through the business environment
      • Manages the business’ risks in relation to its data assets and the level of security and access required

      Monitor and Improve
      • Analyzes the performance of data management components and the quality of business data
      • Creates and execute plans to improve the performance of the practice and the quality and use of data assets

      Use Info-Tech’s assessment framework to support your organization’s data management planning

      Info-Tech employs a consumer-driven approach to requirements gathering in order to support a data management practice. This will create a vision and strategic plan that will help to make data an enabler to the business as it looks to achieve its strategic objectives.

      Data Strategy Planning

      To support the project in building an accurate understanding of the organization’s data requirements and the role of data in its operations (current and future), the framework first guides organizations on a business and subject area assessment.

      By focusing on data usage and strategies for unique data subject areas, the project team will be better able to craft a data management practice with capabilities that will generate the greatest value and proactively handle evolving data requirements.

      Arrow pointing right.

      Data Management Assessment

      To support the design of a fit-for-purpose data management practice that aligns with the business’ data requirements this assessment will guide you in:

      • Determining the target capabilities for the different dimensions of data management.
      • Identifying the interaction dependencies and coordination efforts required to build a successful data management practice.

      Create a Data Management Roadmap

      Phase 1

      Build Business Context and Drivers for the Data Management Program

      Phase 1

      1.1 Review the Data Management Framework

      1.2 Understand and Align to Business Drivers

      1.3 Build High-Value Use Cases

      1.4 Create a Vision

      Phase 2

      2.1 Assess Data Management

      2.2 Build Your Data Management Roadmap

      2.3 Organize Business Data Domains

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      • Identify your business drivers and business capabilities.
      • Align data management capabilities with business goals.
      • Define scope and vision of the data management plan.
      • This phase involves the follow

      This phase involves the following participants:

      • Data Management Lead/Information Management Lead, CDO, Data Lead
      • Senior Business Leaders
      • Business SMEs
      • Data Owners, Records Managers, Regulatory Subject Matter Experts (e.g. Legal Counsel, Security)

      Step 1.1

      Review the Data Management Framework

      Activities

      1.1.1 Walk through the main parts of the best-practice Data Management Framework

      This step will guide you through the following activities:

      • Understand the main disciplines and makeup of a best-practice data management program.
      • Determine which data management capabilities are considered high priority by your organization.

      Outcomes of this step

      • A foundation for data management initiative planning that’s aligned with the organization’s business architecture: value streams, business capability map, and strategy map
      Build Business Context and Drivers
      Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4

      Full page diagram of the 'Data & Analytics landscape'. Caption reads 'The key to landscaping your data environment lies in ensuring foundational disciplines are optimized in a way that recognizes the interdependency among the various disciplines.' Many foundational disciplines are color-coded to a legend determining whether its 'accountability sits with IT' or 'with the business; CDO'. An arrow labeled 'You Are Here' points to 'Data Management', which is coded in both colors meaning both IT and the business are accountable.

      Full page illustration of the 'Create a Data Management Roadmap' using the image of a cargo ship labelled 'Data Management' moving in the direction of 'Business Strategy'. The caption at the top reads 'Data Management capabilities create new business value by augmenting data & optimizing it for analytics. Data is a digital imprint of organizational activities.'

      Data Management Capabilities

      A similar concept to the last one, with a ship moving toward 'Business Strategy', except the ship is cross-sectioned with different capabilities filling the interior of the silhouette. Below are different steps in data management 'Data Creation', 'Data Ingestion', 'Data Accumulation, 'Data Augmentation', 'Data Delivery', and 'Data Consumption'.

      Build a Robust & Comprehensive Data Strategy

      Business Strategy

      Organizational Goals & Objectives

      Business Drivers

      Industry Drivers

      Current Environment

      Data Management Capability Maturity Assessment

      Data Culture Diagnostic

      Regulatory and Compliance Requirements

      		Data Strategy

      Organizational Drivers and Data Value

      Data Strategy Objectives & Guiding Principles

      Data Strategy Vision and Mission

      Data Strategy Roadmap

      People: Roles and Organizational Structure

      Data Culture & Data Literacy

      Data Management and Tools

      Risk and Feasibility

      		Unlock the Value of Data

      Generate Game-Changing Insights

      Fuel Data-Driven Decision Making

      Innovate and Transform With Data

      Thrive and Differentiate With a Data-Driven Culture

      Elevate Organizational Data IQ

      Build a Foundation for Data Valuation

      What is a data strategy and why is it needed?

      • Your data strategy is the vehicle for ensuring data is poised to support your organization’s strategic objectives.
      • For any CDO or equivalent data leader, a robust and comprehensive data strategy is the number one tool in your toolkit for generating measurable business value from data.
      • The data strategy will serve as the mechanism for making high-quality, trusted, and well-governed data readily available and accessible to deliver on your organizational mandate.

      What is driving the need to formulate or refresh your organization’s data strategy?

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Chief Data Officer (CDO) or equivalent
      • Head of Data
      • Chief Analytics Officer (CAO)
      • Head of Digital Transformation
      • CIO

      Info-Tech Insight

      A data strategy should never be formulated disjointed from the business. Ensure the data strategy aligns with the business strategy and supports the business architecture.

      Info-Tech’s Data Governance Framework

      Model of Info-Tech's Data Governance Framework titled 'Key to Data Enablement'. There are inputs, a main Data Governance cycle, and a selection of outputs. The inputs are 'Business Strategy' and 'Data Strategy' injected into the cycle via 'Strategic Goals & Objectives'. The cycle consists of 'Operating Model', 'Policies & Procedures', 'Data Literacy & Culture', 'Enterprise Projects & Services', 'Data Management', 'Data Privacy & Security', 'Data Leadership', and 'Data Ownership & Stewardship'. The latter two are part of 'Enterprise Governance's 'Oversight & Alignment' cycle. Outputs are 'Defined Data Accountability & Responsibility', 'Knowledge & Common Understanding of Data Assets', 'Trust & Confidence in Traceable Data', 'Improved Data ROI & Reduced Data Debt', and 'Support of Ethical Use of Data in a Data-Driven Culture'.

      What is data governance and why is it needed?

      • Data governance is an enabling framework of decision rights, responsibilities, and accountabilities for data assets across the enterprise.
      • It should deliver agreed-upon models that are conducive to your organization’s operating culture, where there is clarity on who can do what with which data and via what means.
      • It is the key enabler for bringing high-quality, trusted, secure, and discoverable data to the right users across your organization.
      • It promotes and drives responsible and ethical use and handling of data while helping to build and foster an organizational culture of data excellence.

      Do you feel there is a clear definition of data accountability and responsibility in your organization?

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Chief Data Officer (CDO) or equivalent
      • Head of Data Governance, Lead Data Governance Officer
      • Head of Data
      • Head of Digital Transformation
      • CIO

      Info-Tech Insight

      Data governance should not sit as an island in your organization. It must continuously align with the organization’s enterprise governance function.

      A diagram titled 'Data Platform Selection - Make complex tasks simple by applying proven methodology to connect businesses to software' with five steps. '1. Formalize a Business Strategy', '2. Identify Platform Specific Considerations', '3. Execute Data Platform Architecture Selection', 'Select Software', 'Achieve Business Goals'.

      Info-Tech’s Data Platform Framework

      Data pipeline for versatile and scalable data delivery

      a diagram showing the path from 'Data Creation' to 'Data Accumulation', to 'Engineering & Augmentation', to 'Data Delivery'. Each step has a 'Fast Lane', 'Operational Lane', and 'Curated Lane'.

      What are the data platform and practice and why are they needed?

      • The data platform and practice are two parts of the data and analytics equation:
        • The practice is about the operating model for data; that is, how stakeholders work together to deliver business value on your data platform. These stakeholders are a combination of business and IT from across the organization.
        • The platform is a combination of the architectural components of the data and analytics landscape that come together to support the role the business plays day to day with respect to data.
      • Don’t jump directly into technology: use Info-Tech tools to solve and plan first.
      • Create a continuous roadmap to implement and evolve your data practice and platform.
      • Promote collaboration between the business and IT by clearly defining responsibilities.

      Does your data platform effectively serve your reporting and analytics capabilities?

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Data and Information Leadership
      • Enterprise Information Architect
      • Data Architect
      • Data Engineer/Modeler

      Info-Tech Insight

      Info-Tech’s approach is driven by business goals and leverages standard data practice and platform patterns. This enables the implementation of critical and foundational data and analytics components first and subsequently facilitates the evolution and development of the practice and platform over time.

      Info-Tech’s Reporting and Analytics Framework

      Formulating an enterprise reporting and analytics strategy requires the business vision and strategies to first be substantiated. Any optimization to the data warehouse, integration, and source layers is in turn driven by the enterprise reporting and analytics strategy.
      A diagram of the 'Reporting and Analytics Framework' with 'Business vision/strategies' fed through four stages beginning with 'Business Intelligence: Reporting & Analytics Strategy', 'Data Warehouse: Data Warehouse/ Data Lake Strategy', 'Integration and Translation: Data Integration Strategy', 'Sources: Source Strategy (Content/Quality)'
      The current states of your integration and warehouse platforms determine what data can be used for BI and analytics.       		Your enterprise reporting and analytics strategy is driven by your organization’s vision and corporate strategy.

      What is reporting and analytics and why is it needed?

      • Reporting and analytics bridges the gap between an organization’s data assets and consumable information that facilitates insight generation and informed or evidence-based decision making.
      • The reporting and analytics strategy drives data warehouse and integration strategies and the data needs to support business decisions.
      • The reporting and analytics strategy ensures that the investment made in optimizing the data environment to support reporting and analytics is directly aligned with the organization’s needs and priorities and hence will deliver measurable business value.

      Do you have a strategy to enable self-serve analytics? What does your operating model look like? Have you an analytics CoE?

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Head of BI and Analytics
      • CIO or Business Unit (BU) Leader looking to improve reporting and analytics
      • Applications Lead

      Info-Tech Insight

      Formulating an enterprise reporting and analytics strategy requires the business vision and strategies to first be substantiated. Any optimization to the data warehouse, integration, and source layer is in turn driven by the enterprise reporting and analytics strategy.

      Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Framework

      Info-Tech’s methodology:
        1. Prioritize your core business objectives and identify your business driver.
        2. Learn how business drivers apply to specific tiers of Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture model.
        3. Determine the appropriate tactical pattern that addresses your most important requirements.
      		 Visual diagram of the first two parts of the methodology on the left. Objectives apply to the data architecture model, which appropriates tactical patterns, which leads to a focus.
        1. Select the areas of the five-tier architecture to focus on.
        2. Measure your current state.
        3. Set the targets of your desired optimized state.
        1. Roadmap your tactics.
        2. Manage and communicate change.
      		 Visual diagram of the third part of the methodology on the left. A roadmap of tactics leads to communicating change.

      What is data architecture and why is it needed?

      • Data architecture is the set of rules, policies, standards, and models that govern and define the type of data collected and how it is used, stored, managed, and integrated within the organization and its database systems.
      • In general, the primary objective of data architecture is the standardization of data for the benefit of the organization.

      Is your architecture optimized to sustainably deliver readily available and accessible data to users?

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Data Architects or their equivalent
      • Enterprise Architects
      • Head of Data
      • CIO
      • Database Administrators

      Info-Tech Insight

      Data architecture is not just about models. Viewing data architecture as just technical data modeling can lead to a data environment that does not aptly serve or support the business. Identify your business’ priorities and adapt your data architecture to those needs.

      A diagram titled 'Build Your Data Quality Program'. '1. Data Quality & Data Culture Diagnostics Business Landscape Exercise', '2. Business Strategy & Use Cases', '3. Prioritize Use Cases With Poor Quality'. 'Info-Tech Insight: As data is ingested, integrated, and maintained in the various streams of the organization's system and application architecture, there are multiple points where the quality of the data can degrade.' A data flow diagram points out how 'Data quality issues can occur at any stage of the data flow', and that it is better to 'Fix data quality root causes here' during the 'Data Creation', 'Data Ingestion', and 'Data Accumulation & Engineering' stages in order 'to prevent expensive cures here' in the 'Data Delivery' and 'Reporting & Analytics' stages.

      What is data quality management and why is it needed?

      • Data is the foundation of decisions made at data-driven organizations.
      • Data quality management ensures that foundation is sustainably solid.
      • If there are problems with the organization’s underlying data, it can have a domino effect on many downstream business functions.
      • The transformational insights that executives are constantly seeking can be uncovered by a data quality practice that makes high-quality, trustworthy information readily available to the business users who need it.

      Do your users have an optimal level of trust and confidence in the quality of the organization’s data?

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Chief Data Officer (CDO) or equivalent Head of Data
      • Chief Analytics Officer (CAO)
      • Head of Digital Transformation
      • CIO

      Info-Tech Insight

      Data quality suffers most at the point of entry. The resulting domino effect of error propagation makes these errors among the most costly forms of data quality errors. Fix data ingestion, whether through improving your application and database design or improving your data ingestion policy, and you will fix a majority of data quality issues.

      Info-Tech’s Enterprise Content Management Framework

      Drivers Governance Information Architecture Process Policy Systems Architecture
      Regulatory, Legal –›
      Efficiency, Cost-Effectiveness –›
      Customer Service –›
      User Experience –›
      • Establish decision-making committee
      • Define and formalize roles (RACI, charter)
      • Develop policies
      • Create business data glossary
      • Decide who approves documents in workflow
      • Operating models
      • Information categories (taxonomy)
      • Classifications, retention periods
      • Metadata (for findability and as tags in automated workflows)
      • Review and approval process, e.g. who approves
      • Process for admins to oversee performance of IM service
      • Process for capturing and classifying incoming documents
      • Audit trails and reporting process
      • Centralized index of data and records to be tracked and managed throughout their lifecycle
      • Data retention policy
      • E-signature policy
      • Email policy
      • Information management policies
      • Access/privacy rules
      • Understand the flow of content through multiple systems (e.g. email, repositories)
      • Define business and technical requirements to select a new content management platform/service
      • Improve integrations
      • Right-size solutions for use case (e.g. DAM)
      • Communication/Change Management
      • Data Literacy

      What is enterprise content management and why is it needed?

      “Enterprise Content Management is the systematic collection and organization of information that is to be used by a designated audience – business executives, customers, etc. Neither a single technology nor a methodology nor a process, it is a dynamic combination of strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver information supporting key organizational processes through its entire lifecycle.” (AIIM, 2021)

      • Changing your ECM capabilities is about changing organizational behavior; take an all-hands-on-deck approach to make the most of information gathering, create a vested interest, and secure buy-in.
      • It promotes and drives responsible and ethical use and handling of content while helping to build and foster an organizational culture of information excellence.

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Information Architect
      • Chief Data Officer (CDO)
      • Head of Data, Information Management
      • Records Management
      • CIO

      Info-Tech Insight

      ECM is critical to becoming a digital and modernized operation, where both structured data (such as sales reports) and unstructured content (such as customer sentiment in social media) are brought together for a 360-degree view of the customer or for a comprehensive legal discovery.

      Metadata management/Data cataloging

      Overview

      Metadata is structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource. Metadata is often called data about data or information about information (NISO).

      Metadata management is the function that manages and maintains the technology and processes that creates, processes, and stores metadata created by business processes and data.

      90%

      		 The majority of data is unstructured information like text, video, audio, web server logs, social media, and more (MIT Sloan, 2021).
      As data becomes more unstructured, complex, and manipulated, the importance and value of metadata will grow exponentially and support improved:
      • Data consumption
      • Quality management
      • Risk management

      Value of Effective Metadata Management

      • Supports the traceability of data through an environment.
      • Creates standards and logging that enable information and data to be searchable and cataloged.
      • Metadata schemas enable easier transferring and distribution of data across different environments.
      Data about data: The true value of metadata and the management practices supporting it is its ability to provide deeper understanding and auditability to the data assets and processes of the business.
      Metadata supports the use of:
      Big Data
      Unstructured data       		Content and Documents
      Unstructured and semi-structured data       		Structured data
      Master, reference, etc.

      Critical Success Factors of Metadata Management

      • Consistent and documented data standards and definitions
      • Architectural planning for metadata
      • Incorporation of metadata into system design and the processing of data
      • Technology to support metadata creation, collection, storage, and reviews (metadata repository, meta marts, etc.)

      Info-Tech’s Data Integration Framework

      On one hand…

      Data has massive potential to bring insight to an organization when combined and analyzed in creative ways.

      On the other hand…

      It is difficult to bring data together from different sources to generate insights and prevent stale data.

      How can these two ideas be reconciled?

      Answer: Info-Tech’s Data Integration Onion Framework summarizes an organization’s data environment at a conceptual level and is used to design a common data-centric integration environment.

      		A diagram of the 'Data Integration Onion Framework' with five layers: 'Enterprise Business Processes', 'Enterprise Analytics', 'Enterprise Integration', 'Enterprise Data Repositories', and 'Enterprise Data' at the center.
      Info-Tech’s Data Integration Onion Framework       		Data-centric integration is the solution you need to bring data together to break down data silos.

      What is data integration and why is it needed?

      • To get more value from their information, organizations are relying on increasingly more complex data sources. These diverse data sources have to be properly integrated to unlock the full potential of that data.
      • Integrating large volumes of data from the many varied sources in an organization has incredible potential to yield insights, but many organizations struggle with creating the right structure for that blending to take place, and that leads to the formation of data silos.
      • Data-centric integration capabilities can break down organizational silos. Once data silos are removed and all the information that is relevant to a given problem is available, problems with operational and transactional efficiencies can be solved, and value from business intelligence (BI) and analytics can be fully realized.

      Is your integration near real time and scalable?

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Data Engineers
      • Business Analysts
      • Data Architects
      • Head of Data Management
      • Enterprise Architects

      Info-Tech Insight

      Every IT project requires data integration. Any change in the application and database ecosystem requires you to solve a data integration problem.

      Info-Tech’s Master Data Management Framework

      Master data management (MDM) “entails control over Master Data values and identifiers that enable consistent use, across systems, of the most accurate and timely data about essential business entities” (DAMA, 2017).

      The Data Management Framework from earlier with tier 2 item 'Reference and Master' highlighted.

      Fundamental objective of MDM: Enable the business to see one view of critical data elements across the organization.

      		Phases of the MDM Framework. 'Phase 1: Build a Vision for MDM' entails a 'Readiness Assessment', then both 'Identify the Master Data Needs of the Business' and 'Create a Strategic Vision'. 'Phase 2: Create a Plan and Roadmap for the Organization’s MDM Program' entails 'Assess Current MDM Capabilities', then 'Initiative Planning', then 'Strategic Roadmap'.

      What is MDM and why is it needed?

      • Master data management (MDM) “entails control over Master Data values and identifiers that enable consistent use, across systems, of the most accurate and timely data about essential business entities” (DAMA, 2017).
      • The fundamental objective of MDM is to enable the business to see one view of critical data elements across the organization.
      • What is included in the scope of MDM?
        • Party data (employees, customers, etc.)
        • Product/service data
        • Financial data
        • Location data

      Is there traceability and visibility into your data’s lineage? Does your data pipeline facilitate that single view across the organization?

      Who:

      This research is designed for:

      • Chief Data Officer (CDO)
      • Head of Data Management, CIO
      • Data Architect
      • Head of Data Governance, Data Officer

      Info-Tech Insight

      Successful MDM requires a comprehensive approach. To be successfully planned, implemented, and maintained it must include effective capabilities in the critical processes and subpractices of data management.

      Data Modeling Framework

      • The framework consists of the business, enterprise, application, and implementation layers.
      • The Business Layer encodes real-world business concepts via the conceptual model.
      • The Enterprise Layer defines all enterprise data asset details and their relationships.
      • The Application Layer defines the data structures as used by a specific application.
      • The Implementation Layer defines the data models and artifacts for use by software tools.
      		 Data Modeling Framework with items from the 'Implementation Layer' contributing to items in the 'Application Layer' and 'Enterprise Layer' before turning into a 'Conceptual Model' in the 'Business Layer'.

      Model hierarchy

      • The Conceptual data model describes the organization from a business perspective.
      • The Message model is used to describe internal- and external-facing messages and is equivalent to the canonical model.
      • The Enterprise model depicts the whole organization and is divided into domains.
      • The Analytical model is built for specific business use cases.
      • Application models are application-specific operational models.
      		Model hierarchy with items from the 'Implementation Layer' contributing to items in the 'Application Layer' and 'Enterprise Layer' before turning into a 'Conceptual Model' in the 'Business Layer'.

      Info-Tech Insight

      The Conceptual model acts as the root of all the models required and used by an organization.

      Data architecture and modeling processes

      A diagram moving from right to left through 5 phases: 'Business concepts defined and organized', 'Business concepts enriched with attribution', 'Physical view of the data, still vendor agnostic', 'The view being used by developers and business', and 'Manage the progression of your data assets'.

      Info-Tech Insight

      The Conceptual data model adds relationships to your business data glossary terms and is the first step of the modeling journey.

      Data operations

      Objectives of Data Operations Management

      • Implement and follow policies and procedures to manage data at each stage of its lifecycle.
      • Maintain the technology supporting the flow and delivery of data (applications, databases, systems, etc.).
      • Control the delivery of data within the system environment.

      Indicators of Successful Data Operations Management

      • Effective delivery of data assets to end users.
      • Successful maintenance and performance of the technical environment that collects, stores, delivers, and purges organizational data.
      		 'Data Lifecycle' with steps 'Create', 'Acquire', 'Store', 'Maintain', 'Use', and 'Archive/Destroy'.
      This data management enabler has a heavy focus on the management and performance of data systems and applications.
      It works closely with the organization’s technical architecture to support successful data delivery and lifecycle management (data warehouses, repositories, databases, networks, etc.).

      Step 1.2

      Understand and Align to Business Drivers

      Activities

      1.2.1 Define your value streams

      1.2.2 Identify your business capabilities

      1.2.3 Categorize your organization’s key business capabilities

      1.2.4 Develop a strategy map tied to data management

      This step will guide you through the following activities:

      • Leverage your organization’s existing business capability map or initiate the formulation of a business capability map.
      • Determine which business capabilities are considered high priority by your organization.
      • Map your organization’s strategic objectives to value streams and capabilities to communicate how objectives are realized with the support of data.

      Outcomes of this step

      • A foundation for data management initiative planning that’s aligned with the organization’s business architecture: value streams, business capability map, and strategy map

      Build Business Context and Drivers

      Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4

      Identifying value streams

      Value streams connect business goals to organization’s value realization activities. They enable an organization to create and capture value in the marketplace by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.
      There are several key questions to ask when endeavouring to identify value streams.

      Key Questions

      • Who are your customers?
      • What are the benefits we deliver to them?
      • How do we deliver those benefits?
      • How does the customer receive the benefits?

      1.2.1 Define value streams

      1-3 hours

      Input: Business strategy/goals, Financial statements, Info-Tech’s industry-specific business architecture

      Output: List of organization-specific value streams, Detailed value stream definition(s)

      Materials: Whiteboard/kanban board, Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template – contact your Account Representative for details, Other industry standard reference architecture models: BIZBOK, APQC, etc., Info-Tech’s Archimate models

      Participants: Enterprise/Business Architect, Business Analysts, Business Unit Leads, CIO, Departmental Executive & Senior managers

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

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

      Contact your Account Representative for access to Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template

      Define or validate the organization’s value streams

      Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities. These value realization activities, in turn, depend on data.

      If the organization does not have a business architecture function to conduct and guide Activity 1.2.1, you can leverage the following approach:

      • Meet with key stakeholders regarding this topic, then discuss and document your findings.
      • When trying to identify the right stakeholders, consider: Who are the decision makers and key influencers? Who will impact this piece of business architecture–related work? Who has the relevant skills, competencies, experience, and knowledge about the organization?
      • Engage with these stakeholders to define and validate how the organization creates value. Consider:
        • Who are your main stakeholders? This will depend on the industry in which you operate. For example, they could be customers, residents, citizens, constituents, students, patients.
        • What are your stakeholders looking to accomplish?
        • How does your organization’s products and/or services help them accomplish that?
        • What are the benefits your organization delivers to them and how does your organization deliver those benefits?
        • How do your stakeholders receive those benefits?

      Align data management to the organization’s value realization activities.

      Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Your organization’s value streams and the associated business capabilities require effectively managed and governed data. Without this, you could face elevated operational costs, missed opportunities, eroded stakeholder satisfaction, negative impact to reputation and brand, and/or increased exposure to business risk.

      Example of value streams – Retail Banking

      Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities.

      Example value stream descriptions for: Retail Banking

      Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Example Value Stream for Retail Banking with five value chains. 'Attract Customers: Retail banks design new products to fill gaps in their product portfolios by analyzing the market for changing customer needs and new competitor offerings or pricing; Pricing a product correctly through analysis and rate setting is a delicate balance and fundamental to a bank’s success.' 'Supply Loans and Mortgages and Credit Cards: Selecting lending criteria helps banks decide on the segment of customer they should take on and the degree of risk they are willing to accept.' 'Provide Core Banking Services: Servicing includes the day-to-day interactions with customers for onboarding, payments, adjustments, and offboarding through multiple banking channels; Customer retention and growing share of wallet are crucial capabilities in servicing that directly impact the growth and profitability of retail banks.' 'Offer Card Services: Card servicing involves quick turnarounds on card delivery and acceptance at a large number of merchants; Accurate billing and customizable spending alerts are crucial in ensuring that the customer understands their spending habits.' 'Grow Investments and Manage Wealth: Customer retention can be increased through effective wealth management and additional services that will increase the number of products owned by a customer.'

      For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Retail Banking.

      Example of value streams – Higher Education

      Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities.

      Example value stream descriptions for: Higher Education

      Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Example Value Stream for Higher Education with five value chains. 'Shape Institutional Research: Institutional research provides direct benefits to both partners and faculty, ensuring efficient use of resources and compliance with ethical and methodological standards; This value stream involves all components of the research lifecycle, from planning and resourcing to delivery and commercialization.' 'Facilitate Curriculum Design: Curriculum design is the process by which learning content is designed and developed to achieve desired student outcomes; Curriculum management capabilities include curriculum planning, design and commercialization, curriculum assessment, and instruction management.' 'Design Student Support Services: Support services design and development provides a range of resources to assist students with academic success, such as accessibility, health and counseling, social services, housing, and academic skills development.' 'Manage Academic Administration: Academic administration involves the broad capabilities required to attract and enroll students in institutional programs; This value stream involves all components related to recruitment, enrollment, admissions, and retention management.' 'Deliver Student Services: Delivery of student services comes after curricular management, support services design, and academic administration. It comprises delivery of programs and services to enable student success; Program and service delivery capabilities include curriculum delivery, convocation management, and student and alumni support services.'

      For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Higher Education.

      Example of value streams – Local Government

      Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities.

      Example value stream descriptions for: Local Government

      Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Example Value Stream for Local Government with five value chains. 'Sustain Land, Property, and the Environment: Local governments act as the stewards of the regional land and environment that are within their boundaries; Regional government bodies are responsible for ensuring that the natural environment is protected and sustained for future citizens in the form of parks and public land.' 'Facilitate Civic Engagement: Local governments engage with constituents to maintain a high quality of life through art, culture, and education.' 'Protect Local Health and Safety: Health concerns are managed by a local government through specialized campaigns and clinics; Emergency services are provided by the local authority to protect and react to health and safety concerns including police and firefighting services.' 'Grow the Economy: Economic growth is a cornerstone of a strong local government. Growth comes from flourishing industries, entrepreneurial success, high levels of employment, and income from tourism.' 'Provide Regional Infrastructure: Local governments ensure that infrastructure is built, maintained, and effective in meeting the needs of constituents. (Includes: electricity, water, sustainable energy sources, waste collection, transit, and local transportation.'

      For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Local Government.

      Example of value streams – Manufacturing

      Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities.

      Example value stream descriptions for: Manufacturing

      Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Example Value Stream for Manufacturing with three value chains. 'Design Product: Manufacturers proactively analyze their respective markets for any new opportunities or threats; They design new products to serve changing customer needs or to rival any new offerings by competitors; A manufacturer’s success depends on its ability to develop a product that the market wants at the right price and quality level.' 'Produce Product: Optimizing production activities is an important capability for manufacturers. Raw materials and working inventories need to be managed effectively to minimize wastage and maximize the utilization of the production lines; Processes need to be refined continuously over time to remain competitive and the quality of the materials and final products needs to be strictly managed.' 'Sell Product: Once produced, manufacturers need to sell the products. This is done through distributors, retailers, and, in some cases, directly to the end consumer; After the sale, manufacturers typically have to deliver the product, provide customer care, and manage complaints; Manufacturers also randomly test their end products to ensure they meet quality requirements.'

      For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Manufacturing.

      Define the organization’s business capabilities in a business capability map

      A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation. Business capabilities represent stable business functions and typically will have a defined business outcome.

      Business capabilities can be thought of as business terms defined using descriptive nouns such as “Marketing” or “Research and Development.”

      If your organization doesn’t already have a business capability map, you can leverage the following approach to build one. This initiative requires a good understanding of the business. By working with the right stakeholders, you can develop a business capability map that speaks a common language and accurately depicts your business.

      Working with the stakeholders as described in the slide entitled “Define or validate the organization’s value streams”:

      • Analyze the value streams to identify and describe the organization’s capabilities that support them.
      • Consider the objective of your value stream. (This can highlight which capabilities support which value stream.)
      • As you initiate your engagement with your stakeholders, don’t start a blank page. Leverage the examples on the next slides as a starting point for your business capability map.
      • When using these examples, consider: What are the activities that make up your particular business? Keep the ones that apply to your organization, remove the ones that don’t, and add any needed.

      Align data management to the organization’s value realization activities.

      Info-Tech Insight

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

      For more information, refer to Info-Tech’s Document Your Business Architecture.

      1.2.2 Identify your business capabilities

      Input: List of confirmed value streams and their related business capabilities

      Output: Business capability map with value streams for your organization

      Materials: Your existing business capability map, Business Alignment worksheet provided in the Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool, Info-Tech’s Document Your Business Architecture blueprint

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data leads and administrators

      Confirm your organization's existing business capability map or initiate the formulation of a business capability map:

      • If you have an existing business capability map, meet with the relevant business owners/stakeholders to confirm that the content is accurate and up to date. Confirm the value streams (how your organization creates and captures value) and their business capabilities reflect the organization’s current business environment.
      • If you do not have an existing business capability map, complete this activity to initiate the formulation of a map (value streams and related business capabilities):
        1. Define the organization’s value streams. Meet with senior leadership and other key business stakeholders to define how your organization creates and captures value.
        2. Define the relevant business capabilities. Meet with senior leadership and other key business stakeholders to define the business capabilities.

      Note: A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation. Business capabilities are business terms defined using nouns such as “Marketing” or “Research and Development.” They represent stable business functions, are unique and independent of one another, and typically will have a defined business outcome.

      Example business capability map – Retail Banking

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

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

      Info-Tech Tip: Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realization capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data management program.

      Example business capability map for: Retail Banking

      Example business capability map for Retail Banking with value stream items as column headers, and rows 'Enabling', 'Shared', and 'Defining'.

      For this business capability map, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Retail Banking.

      Example business capability map – Higher Education

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

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

      Info-Tech Tip: Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realization capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data management program.

      Example business capability map for: Higher Education

      Example business capability map for Higher Education with value stream items as column headers, and rows 'Enabling', 'Shared', and 'Defining'.

      For this business capability map, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Higher Education.

      Example business capability map – Local Government

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

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

      Info-Tech Tip: Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realization capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data governance program.

      Example business capability map for: Local Government

      Example business capability map for Local Government with value stream items as column headers, and rows 'Enabling', 'Shared', and 'Defining'.

      For this business capability map, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Local Government.

      Example business capability map – Manufacturing

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

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

      Info-Tech Tip: Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realization capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data governance program.

      Example business capability map for: Manufacturing

      Example business capability map for Manufacturing with value stream items as column headers, and rows 'Enabling', 'Shared', and 'Defining'.

      For this business capability map, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Manufacturing.

      Example business capability map – Retail

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

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

      Info-Tech Tip: Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realization capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data governance program.

      Example business capability map for: Retail

      Example business capability map for Retail with value stream items as column headers, and rows 'Enabling', 'Shared', and 'Defining'.

      For this business capability map, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Retail.

      1.2.3 Categorize your organization’s key capabilities

      Input: Strategic insight from senior business stakeholders on the business capabilities that drive value for the organization

      Output: Business capabilities categorized and prioritized (e.g. cost advantage creators, competitive advantage differentiators, high value/high risk) See next slide for an example

      Materials: Your existing business capability map or the business capability map derived in Activity 1.2.2

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data governance working group

      Determine which capabilities are considered high priority in your organization.

      1. Categorize or heatmap the organization’s key capabilities. Consult with senior and other key business stakeholders to categorize and prioritize the business’ capabilities. This will aid in ensuring your data governance future-state planning is aligned with the mandate of the business. One approach to prioritizing capabilities with business stakeholders is to examine them through the lens of cost advantage creators, competitive advantage differentiators, and/or by high value/high risk.
      2. Identify cost advantage creators. Focus on capabilities that drive a cost advantage for your organization. Highlight these capabilities and prioritize programs that support them.
      3. Identify competitive advantage differentiators. Focus on capabilities that give your organization an edge over rivals or other players in your industry.

      This categorization/prioritization exercise helps highlight prime areas of opportunity for building use cases, determining prioritization, and the overall optimization of data and data governance.

      For more information, refer to Info-Tech’s Document Your Business Architecture.

      Example of business capabilities categorization or heatmapping – Retail

      This exercise is useful in ensuring the data governance program is focused and aligned to support the priorities and direction of the business.

      • Depending on the mandate from the business, priority may be on developing cost advantage. Hence the capabilities that deliver efficiency gains are the ones considered to be cost advantage creators.
      • The business’ priority may be on maintaining or gaining a competitive advantage over its industry counterparts. Differentiation might be achieved in delivering unique or enhanced products, services, and/or experiences, and the focus will tend to be on the capabilities that are more end-stakeholder-facing (e.g. customer-, student-, patient,- and/or constituent-facing). These are the organization’s competitive advantage creators.

      Example: Retail

      Example business capability map for Retail with capabilities categorized into Cost Advantage Creators and Competitive Advantage creators via a legend. Value stream items as column headers, and rows 'Enabling', 'Shared', and 'Defining'.

      For this business capability map, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Retail.

      1.2.4 Develop a strategy map tied to data management

      Input: Strategic objectives as outlined by the organization’s business strategy and confirmed by senior leaders

      Output: A strategy map that maps your organizational strategic objectives to value streams, business capabilities, and ultimately data programs

      Materials: Your existing business capability map or the one created in Activity 1.2.2, Business strategy (see next slide for an example)

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data governance working group

      Identify the strategic objectives for the business. Knowing the key strategic objectives will drive business–data governance alignment. It’s important to make sure the right strategic objectives of the organization have been identified and are well understood.

      1. Meet with senior business leaders and other relevant stakeholders to help identify and document the key strategic objectives for the business.
      2. Leverage their knowledge of the organization’s business strategy and strategic priorities to visually represent how these map to value streams, business capabilities, and ultimately data and data governance needs and initiatives. Tip: Your map is one way to visually communicate and link the business strategy to other levels of the organization.
      3. Confirm the strategy mapping with other relevant stakeholders.

      Example of a strategy map tied to data management

      • Strategic objectives are the outcomes the organization is looking to achieve.
      • Value streams enable an organization to create and capture value in the market through interconnected activities that support strategic objectives.
      • Business capabilities define what a business does to enable value creation in value streams.
      • Data capabilities and initiatives are descriptions of action items on the data and data governance roadmap that will enable one or multiple business capabilities in its desired target state.

      Info-Tech Tip: Start with the strategic objectives, then map the value streams that will ultimately drive them. Next, link the key capabilities that enable each value stream. Then map the data and data governance initiatives that support those capabilities. This process will help you prioritize the data initiatives that deliver the most value to the organization.

      Example: Retail

      Example of a strategy map tied to data management with diagram column headers 'Strategic Objectives' (are realized through...) 'Value Streams' (are enabled by...) 'Key Capabilities' (are driven by...) 'Data Capabilities and Initiatives'. Row headers are objectives and fields are composed of three examples of each column header.

      For this strategy map, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Retail.

      Step 1.3

      Build High-Value Use Cases for Data Management

      Activities

      1.3.1 Build high-value use cases

      This step will guide you through the following activities:

      • Understand the main disciplines and makeup of a best-practice data management program.
      • Determine which data management capabilities are considered high priority by your organization.

      Outcomes of this step

      • A foundation for data management initiative planning that’s aligned with the organization’s business architecture: value streams, business capability map, and strategy map

      Build Business Context and Drivers

      Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4

      1.3.1 Build high-value use cases

      Input: Value streams and business capabilities as defined by business leaders, Business stakeholders’ subject area expertise, Data custodian systems, integration, and data knowledge

      Output: Use cases that articulate data-related challenges, needs, or opportunities that are tied to defined business capabilities and hence, if addressed, will deliver measurable value to the organization

      Materials: Your business capability map from Activity 1.2.2, Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template, Whiteboard or flip charts (or shared screen if working remotely), Markers/pens

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards and business SMEs, Data custodians, Data leads and administrators

      This business needs gathering activity will highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities that are clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

      1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owner, stewards, SMEs) from a particular line of business as well the relevant data custodian(s) to build cases for their units. Leverage the business capability map you created for facilitating this act.
      2. Leverage Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template as seen on the next slide.
      3. Have the stakeholders move through each breakout session outlined in the use case worksheet. Use flip charts or a whiteboard to brainstorm and document their thoughts.
      4. Debrief and document results in the Data Use Case Framework Template.
      5. Repeat this exercise with as many lines of the business as possible, leveraging your business capability map to guide your progress and align with business value.

      Tip: Don’t conclude these use case discussions without substantiating what measures of success will be used to demonstrate the business value of the effort to produce the desired future state, as relevant to each particular use case.

      Download Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template

      Data use cases

      Sample Data

      The following is the list of use cases as articulated by key stakeholders at [Organization Name].

      The stakeholders see these as areas that are relevant and highly valuable for delivering strategic value to [Organization Name].

      Use Case 1: Customer/Student/Patient/Resident 360 View

      Use Case 2: Project/Department Financial Performance

      Use Case 3: Vendor Lifecycle Management

      Use Case 4: Project Risk Management

      Prioritization of use cases

      Example table for use case prioritization. Column headers are 'Use Case', 'Order of Priority', and 'Comments'. Fields are empty.

      Use case 1

      Sample Data

      Problem statement:

      • We are not realizing our full growth potential because we do not have a unified 360 view of our customers/clients/[name of external stakeholder].
      • This impacts: our cross-selling; upselling; talent acquisition and retention; quality of delivery; ability to identify and deliver the right products, markets, and services...

      If we could solve this:

      • We would be able to better prioritize and position ourselves to meet evolving customer needs.
      • We would be able to optimize the use of our limited resources.

      Use case 1: challenges, risks, and opportunities

      Sample Data

      1. What is the number one risk you need to alleviate?
        • Loss of potential revenue, whether from existing or net new customers.
          • How?
            • By not maximizing opportunities with customers or even by losing customers; by not understanding or addressing their greatest needs
            • By not being able to win potential new customers because we don’t understand their needs
      2. What is the number one opportunity you wish to see happen?
        • The ability to better understand and anticipate the needs of both existing and potential customers.
      3. What is the number one pain point you have when working with data?
        • I can’t do my job with confidence because it’s not based on comprehensive, sound, reliable data. My group spends significant time reconciling data sets with little time left for data use and analysis.
      4. What are your challenges in performing the activity today?
        • I cannot pull together customer data in a timely manner due to having a high level of dependence on specific individuals with institutional knowledge rather than having easy access to information.
        • It takes too much time and effort to pull together what we know about a customer.
        • The necessary data is not consolidated or readily/systematically available for consumption.
        • These challenges are heightened when dealing with customers across markets.

      Use case 1 (cont'd)

      Sample Data

      1. What does “amazing” look like if we solve this perfectly?
        • Employees have immediate, self-service access to necessary information, leading to better and more timely decisions. This results in stronger business and financial growth.
      2. What other business unit activities/processes will be impacted/improved if we solve this?
        • Marketing/bid and proposal, staffing, procurement, and contracting strategy
      3. What compliance/regulatory/policy concerns do we need to consider in any solution?
        • PII, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, etc.
      4. What measures of success/change should we use to prove the value of the effort (KPIs/ROI)?
        • Win rate, number of services per customer, gross profit, customer retention, customer satisfaction scores, brand awareness, and net promoter score
      5. What are the steps in the process/activity today?
        • Manual aggregation (i.e. pull data from systems into Excel), reliance on unwritten knowledge, seeking IT support, canned reports

      Use case 1 (cont'd)

      Sample Data

      1. What are the applications/systems used at each step?
        • Salesforce CRM, Excel, personal MS Access databases, SharePoint
      2. What data elements (domains) are involved, created, used, or transformed at each step?
        • Bid and proposal information, customer satisfaction, forecast data, list of products, corporate entity hierarchy, vendor information, key staffing, recent and relevant news, and competitor intelligence

      Use case worksheet

      Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

      1.

      What business capability (or capabilities) in your business area is this use case tied to?

      		 Examples: Demand Planning, Assortment Planning, Allocation & Replenishment, Fulfillment Planning, Customer Management
      2.

      What are your data-related challenges in performing this today?

      Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

      Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

      3.

      What are the steps in the process/activity today?
      4.

      What are the applications/systems used at each step today?
      5.

      What data domains are involved, created, used, or transformed at each step today?

      Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

      Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

      6.

      What does an ideal or improved state look like?
      7.

      What other business units, business capabilities, activities, or processes will be impacted and/or improved if this were to be solved?
      8.

      Who are the stakeholders impacted by these changes? Who needs to be consulted?
      9.

      What are the risks to the organization (business capability, revenue, reputation, customer loyalty, etc.) if this is not addressed?

      Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

      Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

      10.

      What compliance, regulatory, or policy concerns do we need to consider in any solution?
      11.

      What measures of success or change should we use to prove the value of the effort (KPIs/ROI)? What is the measurable business value of doing this?

      Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

      Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

      10.

      Conclusion: What are the data capabilities that need to be optimized, addressed, or improved to support or help realize the business capability (or capabilities) highlighted in this use case?

      (Tip: This will inform your future-state data capabilities optimization planning and roadmapping activities.)

      Data Management Workshop
      Use Case 1: Covid-19 Emergency Management

      [SAMPLE]
      Problem Statement

      Inability to provide insights to DPH due to inconsistent data, inaccurate reporting, missing governance, and unknown data sources resulting in decisions that impact citizens being made without accurate information.

      Challenges
      • Data is not suitable for analytics. It takes lot of effort to clean data.
      • Data intervals are not correct and other data quality issues.
      • The roles are not clearly defined.
      • Lack of communication between key stakeholders.
      • Inconsistent data/reporting/governance in the agencies. This has resulted in number of issues for Covid-19 emergency management. Not able to report accurately on number of cases, deaths, etc.
      • Data collection systems changed overtime (forms, etc.).
      • GIS has done all the reporting. However, why GIS is doing all the reporting is not clear. GIS provides critical information for location. Reason: GIS was ready with reporting solution ArcGIS.
      • Problem with data collection, consolidation, and providing hierarchical view.
      • Change in requirements, metrics – managing crisis by email and resulting in creating one dashboard after another. Not sure whether these dashboards being used.
      • There is a lot of manual intervention and repeated work.
      		 What Does Amazing Look Like?
      • One set of dashboards (or single dashboard) – too much time spend on measure development
      • Accurate and timely data
      • Automated data
      • Access to granular data (for researchers and other stakeholders)
      • Clear ownership of data and analytics
      • It would have been nice to have governance already prior to this crisis
      • Proper metrics to measure usage and value
      • Give more capabilities such as predictive analytics, etc.
      Related Processes/Impact
      • DPH
      • Schools
      • Business
      • Citizens
      • Resources & Funding
      • Data Integration & GIS
      • Data Management
      • Automated Data Quality
      		Compliance
      • HIPAA, FERPA, CJIS, IRS
      • FEMA
      • State compliance requirement – data classification
      • CDC
      • Federal data-sharing agreements/restrictions
      		 Benefits/KPIs
      • Reduction in cases
      • Timely response to outbreak
      • Better use of resources
      • Economic impact
      • Educational benefits
      • Trust and satisfaction

      Data Management Workshop
      Use Case 1: Covid-19 Emergency Management

      [SAMPLE]
      Problem Statement

      Inability to provide insights to DPH due to inconsistent data, inaccurate reporting, missing governance, and unknown data sources resulting in decisions that impact citizens being made without accurate information.

      Current Steps in Process Activity (Systems)
      1. Collect data through Survey123 using ArcGIS (hospitals are managed to report by 11 am) – owned KYEM
      2. KYEM stores this information/data
      3. Deduplicate data (emergency preparedness group)
      4. Generate dashboard using ArcGIS
      5. Map to monitor status of the update
      6. Error correction using web portal (QAQC)
      7. Download Excel/CVS after all 97 hospital reports
      8. Sent to federal platform (White House, etc.)
      9. Generate reports for epidemiologist (done manually for public reporting)
      		Data Flow diagram

      Data flow diagram.

      SystemsData Management Dimensions
      1. Data Governance
      2. Data Quality
      3. Data Integrity
      4. Data Integration
      1. Data Architecture
      2. Metadata
      3. Data Warehouse, Reporting & Analytics
      4. Data Security

      Data Management Workshop
      Use Case 1: Covid-19 Emergency Management

      [SAMPLE]

      Problem Statement

      Inability to provide insights to DPH due to inconsistent data, inaccurate reporting, missing governance, and unknown data sources resulting in decisions that impact citizens being made without accurate information.

      List Future Process Steps

      Prior to COVID-19 Emergency Response:

      • ArcGIS data integrated available in data warehouse/data lake.
      • KYEM data integrated and available in data warehouse/data lake.
      • CHFS data integrated and available in data warehouse/data lake.
      • Reporting standards and tools framework established.

      After COVID-19 Emergency Response:

      • Collect data through Survey123 using ArcGIS (hospitals are managed to report by 11 am) – owned KYEM.
      • Error correction using web portal (QAQC).
      • Generate reports/dashboard/files as per reporting/analytical requirements:
        • Federal reporting
        • COVID dashboards
        • Epidemiologist reports
        • Lab reporting
      		Future Process and Data Flow

      Data flow diagram with future processes.

      Step 1.4

      Create a Vision and Guiding Principles for Data Management

      Activities

      1.4.1 Craft a vision

      1.4.2 Create guiding principles

      This step will guide you through the following activities:

      • Leverage your organization’s existing business capability map or initiate the formulation of a business capability map, guided by info-Tech’s approach.
      • Determine which business capabilities are considered high priority by your organization.
      • Map your organization’s strategic objectives to value streams and capabilities to communicate how objectives are realized with the support of data.

      Outcomes of this step

      • A foundation for data management initiative planning that’s aligned with the organization’s business architecture: value streams, business capability map, and strategy map

      Build Business Context and Drivers

      Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4

      1.4.1 Craft a vision

      Input: Organizational vision and mission statements, Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data capability map

      Output: Vision and mission statements

      Materials: Markers and pens, Whiteboard, Online whiteboard, Vision samples and templates

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data managers, Data owners, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor

      Complete the vision statement to set the direction, the “why,” for the changes we’re making. The vision is a reference point that should galvanize everyone in the organization and set guardrails for technical and process decisions to follow.

      1. Bring together key business stakeholders (content owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to craft a data management vision statement.
      2. Start by brainstorming keywords, such as customer-focused, empower the business, service excellence, findable and manageable, protected, accessible, paperless.
      3. Highlight the keywords that resonate most with the group. Refer to example vision statements for ideas.

      Create a common data management vision that is consistently communicated to the organization

      A data management program should be an enterprise-wide initiative.

      • To create a strong vision for data management, there must be participation from the business and IT. A common vision will articulate the state the organization wishes to achieve and how it will reach that state. Visioning helps to develop long-term goals and direction.
      • Once the vision is established, it must be effectively communicated to everyone, especially those who are involved in creating, managing, disposing, or archiving data.
      • The data management program should be periodically refined. This will ensure the organization continues to incorporate best methods and practices as the organization grows and data needs evolve.
      		 Stock image of a megaphone with multiple icons pouring from its opening.

      Info-Tech Tips

      • Use information from the stakeholder interviews to derive business goals and objectives.
      • Work to integrate different opinions and perspectives into the overall vision for data management.
      • Brainstorm guiding principles for content and understand the overall value to the organization.

      Create compelling vision and mission statements for the organization’s future data management practice

      A vision represents the way your organization intends to be in the future.

      A clear vision statement helps align the entire organization to the same end goal.

      Your vision should be brief, concise, and inspirational; it is attempting to say a lot in a few words, so be very thoughtful and careful with the words you choose. Consider your strengths across departments – business and IT, the consumers of your services, and your current/future commitments to service quality.

      Remember that a vision statement is internally facing for other members of your company throughout the process.

      		A mission expresses why you exist.

      While your vision is a declaration of where your organization aspires to be in the future, your mission statement should communicate the fundamental purpose of the data management practice.

      It identifies the function of the practice, what it produces, and its high-level goals that are linked to delivering timely, high-quality, relevant, and valuable data to business processes and end users. Consider if the practice is responsible for providing data for analytical and/or operational use cases.

      A mission statement should be a concise and clear statement of purpose for both internal and external stakeholders.

      “The Vision is the What, Where or Who you want the company to become. The Mission is the WHY the company exists, it is your purpose, passion or cause.” (Doug Meyer-Cuno, Forbes, 2021)

      Data Management Vision and Mission Statements: Draft

      Vision and mission statements crafted by the workshop participants. These statements are to be reviewed, refined into a single version, approved by members of the senior leadership team, and then communicated to the wider organization.

      Corporate

      Group 1

      Group 2
      Vision:
      Create and maintain an institution of world-class excellence.       		Vision: Vision:
      Mission:
      Foster an economic and financial environment conducive to sustainable economic growth and development.       		Mission: Mission:

      Information management framework

      The information management framework is a way to organize all the ECM program’s guidelines and artifacts

      Information management framework with 'Information Management Vision' above six principles. Below them are 'Information Management Policies' and 'Information Management Standards and Procedures.'

      The vision is a statement about the organization’s goals and provides a basis to guide decisions and rally employees toward a shared goal.

      The principles or themes communicate the organization’s priorities for its information management program.

      Policies are a set of official guidelines that determine a course of action. For example: Company is committed to safety for its employees.

      Procedures are a set of actions for doing something. For example: Company employees will wear protective gear while on the production floor.

      Craft your vision

      Use the insights you gathered from users and stakeholders to develop a vision statement
      • The beginning of a data management practice is a clear set of goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).
        A good set of goals takes time and input from senior leadership and stakeholders.
      • The data management program lead is selling a compelling vision of what is possible.
      • The vision also helps set the scope and expectations about what the data management program lead is and is not doing.
      • Be realistic about what you can do and how long it will take to see a difference.
      Table comparing the talk (mission statements, vision statements, and values) with the walk (strategies/goals, objectives, and tactical plans). Example vision statements:
      • The organization is dedicated to creating an enabling structure that helps the organization get the right information to the right people at the right time.
      • The organization is dedicated to creating a program that recognizes data as an asset, establishing a data-centric culture, and ensuring data quality and accessibility to achieve service excellence.
        •
      		The vision should be short, memorable, inspirational and draw a clear picture of what that future-state data management experience looks like.

      Is it modern and high end, with digital self-service?

      Is it a trusted and transparent steward of customer assets?

      1.4.2 Create guiding principles

      Input: Sample data management guiding principles, Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data capability map

      Output: Data management guiding principles

      Materials: Markers and pens, Whiteboard, Online whiteboard, Guiding principles samples and templates

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data managers, Data owners, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor

      Draft a set of guiding principles that express your program’s values as a framework for decisions and actions and keep the data strategy alive.

      1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to craft a set of data management guiding principles.
      2. Refer to industry sample guiding principles for data management.
      3. Discuss what’s important to stakeholders and owners, e.g. security, transparency, integrity. Good guiding principles address real challenges.
      4. A helpful tip: Craft principles as “We will…” statements for the problems you’ve identified.

      Twelve data management universal principles

      		 [SAMPLE]
      Principle Definitions
      Data Is Accessible Data is accessible across the organization based on individuals’ roles and privileges.
      Treat Data as an Asset Treat data as a most valuable foundation to make right decisions at the right time. Manage the data lifecycle across organization.
      Manage Data Define strategic enterprise data management that defines, integrates, and effectively retrieves data to generate accurate, consistent insights.
      Define Ownership & Stewardship Organizations should clearly appoint data owners and data stewards and ensure all team members understand their role in the company’s data management system.
      Use Metadata Use metadata to ensure data is properly managed by tacking how data has been collected, verified, reported, and analyzed.
      Single Source of Truth Ensure the master data maintenance across the organization.
      Ensure Data Quality Ensure data integrity though out the lifecycle of data by establishing a data quality management program.
      Data Is Secured Classify and maintain the sensitivity of the data.
      Maximize Data Use Extend the organization’s ability to make the most of its data.
      Empower the Users Foster data fluency and technical proficiency through training to maximize optimal business decision making.
      Share the Knowledge Share and publish the most valuable insights appropriately.
      Consistent Data Definitions Establish a business data glossary that defines consistent business definitions and usage of the data.

      Create a Data Management Roadmap

      Phase 2

      Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

      Phase 1

      1.1 Review the Data Management Framework

      1.2 Understand and Align to Business Drivers

      1.3 Build High-Value Use Cases

      1.4 Create a Vision

      Phase 2

      2.1 Assess Data Management

      2.2 Build Your Data Management Roadmap

      2.3 Organize Business Data Domains

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      • Understand your current data management capabilities.
      • Define target-state capabilities required to achieve business goals and enable the data strategy.
      • Identify priority initiatives and planning timelines for data management improvements.

      This phase involves the following participants:

      • Data Management Lead/Information Management Lead, CDO, Data Lead
      • Senior Business Leaders
      • Business SMEs
      • Data owners, records managers, regulatory subject matter experts (e.g. legal counsel, security)

      Step 2.1

      Assess Your Data Management Capabilities

      Activities

      2.1.1 Define current state of data management capabilities

      2.1.2 Set target state and identify gaps

      This step will guide you through the following activities:

      • Assess the current state of your data management capabilities.
      • Define target-state capabilities required to achieve business goals and enable the data strategy.
      • Identify gaps and prioritize focus areas for improvement.

      Outcomes of this step

      • A prioritized set of improvement areas aligned with business value stream and drivers

      Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

      Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3

      Define current state

      The Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool will help you analyze your organization’s data requirements, identify data management strategies, and systematically develop a plan for your target data management practice.
      • Based on Info-Tech’s Data Management Framework, evaluate the current-state performance levels for your organization’s data management practice.
      • Use the CMMI maturity index to assign values 1 to 5 for each capability and enabler.

      A visualization of stairs numbered up from the bottom. Main headlines of each step are 'Initial and Reactive', 'Managed while developing DG capabilities', 'Defined DG capabilities', 'Quantitatively Managed by DG capabilities', and 'Optimized'.

      		Sample of the 'Data Management Current State Assessment' form the Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool.

      2.1.1 Define current state

      Input: Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data management capability map

      Output: Current-state data management capabilities

      Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

      Assign a maturity level value from 1 to 5 for each question in the assessment tool, organized into capabilities, e.g. Data Governance, Data Quality, Risk.

      1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to assign current-state maturity levels in each question of the worksheet.
      2. Remember that there is more distance between levels 4 and 5 than there is between 1 and 2 – the distance between levels is not even throughout.
      3. To help assign values, think of the higher levels as representing cross-enterprise standardization, monitored for continuous improvement, formalized and standardized, while the lower levels mean applied within individual units, not formalized or tracked for performance.
      4. In tab 4, “Current State Assessment,” populate a current-state value for each item in the Data Management Capabilities worksheet.
      5. Once you’ve entered values in tab 4, a visual and summary report of the results will be generated on tab 5, “Current State Results.”

      2.1.2 Set target state and identify gaps

      Input: Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data management capability map to identify priorities

      Output: Target-state data management capabilities, Gaps identification and analysis

      Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

      Assign a maturity level value from 1 to 5 for each question in the assessment tool, organized into capabilities, e.g., Data Governance, Data Quality, Risk.

      1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to assign target-state maturity levels in each question of the worksheet.
      2. Remember that there is more distance between levels 4 and 5 than there is between 1 and 2 – the distance between levels is not even throughout.
      3. To help assign values, think of the higher levels as representing cross-enterprise standardization, monitored for continuous improvement, formalized and standardized, while the lower levels mean applied within individual units, not formalized or tracked for performance.
      4. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” enter maturity values in each item of the Capabilities worksheet in the Target State column.
      5. Once you’ve assigned both target-state and current-state values, the tool will generate a gap analysis chart on tab 7, “Gap Analysis Results,” where you can start to decide first- and second-line priorities.

      Step 2.2

      Build Your Data Management Roadmap

      Activities

      2.2.1 Describe gaps

      2.2.2 Define gap initiatives

      2.2.2 Build a data management roadmap

      This step will guide you through the following activities:

      • Identify and understand data management gaps.
      • Develop data management improvement initiatives.
      • Build a data management–prioritized roadmap.

      Outcomes of this step

      • A foundation for data management initiative planning that’s aligned with the organization’s business architecture: value streams, business capability map, and strategy map

      Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

      Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3

      2.2.1 Describe gaps

      Input: Target-state maturity level

      Output: Detail and context about gaps to lead planners to specific initiatives

      Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

      Based on the gaps result, describe the nature of the gap, which will lead to specific initiatives for the data management plan:

      1. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” the same tab where you entered your target-state maturity level, enter additional context about the nature and extent of each gap in the Gap Description column.
      2. Based on the best-practices framework we walked through in Phase 1, note the specific areas that are not fully developed in your organization; for example, we don’t have a model of our environment and its integrations, or there isn’t an established data quality practice with proactive monitoring and intervention.

      2.2.2 Define gap initiatives

      Input: Gaps analysis, Gaps descriptions

      Output: Data management initiatives

      Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

      Based on the gap analysis, start to define the data management initiatives that will close the gaps and help the organization achieve its target state.

      1. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” the same tab where you entered your target-state maturity level, note in the Gap Initiative column what actions you can take to address the gap for each item. For example, if we found through diagnostics and use cases that users didn’t understand the meaning of their data or reports, an initiative might be, “Build a standard enterprise business data catalog.”
      2. It’s an opportunity to brainstorm, to be creative, and think about possibilities. We’ll use the roadmap step to select initiatives from this list.
      3. There are things we can do right away to make a difference. Acknowledge the resources, talent, and leadership momentum you already have in your organization and leverage those to find activities that will work in your culture. For example, one company held a successful Data Day to socialize the roadmap and engage users.

      2.2.3 Build a data management roadmap

      Input: Gap initiatives, Target state and current-state assessment

      Output: Data management initiatives and roadmap

      Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

      Start to list tangible actions you will take to address gaps and achieve data objectives and business goals along with timelines and responsibility:

      1. With an understanding of your priority areas and specific gaps, and referring back to your use cases, draw up specific initiatives that you can track, measure, and align with your original goals.
      2. For example, in data governance, initiatives might include:
        • Assign data owners and stewards for all data assets.
        • Consolidate disparate business data catalogs.
        • Create a data governance charter or terms of reference.
      3. Alongside the initiatives, fill in other detail, especially who is responsible and timing (start and end dates). Assigning responsibility and some time markers will help to keep momentum alive and make the work projects real.

      Step 2.3

      Organize Business Data Domains

      Activities

      2.3.1 Define business data domains and assign owners

      This step will guide you through the following activities:

      • Identify business data domains that flow through and support the systems environment and business processes.
      • Define and organize business data domains with assigned owners, artifacts, and profiles.
      • Apply the domain map to building governance program.

      Outcomes of this step

      • Business data domain map with assigned owners and artifacts

      Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

      Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3

      2.3.1 Define business data domains

      Input: Target-state maturity level

      Output: Detail and context about gaps to lead planners to specific initiatives

      Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

      Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

      Identify the key data domains for each line of business, where the data resides, and the main contact or owner.

      1. We have an understanding of what the business wants to achieve, e.g. build customer loyalty or comply with privacy laws. But where is the data that can help us achieve that? What systems is that data moving and living in and who, if anyone, owns it?
      2. Define the main business data domains apart from what system it may be spread over. Use the worksheet on the next slide as an example.
      3. Examples of business data domains: Customer, Product, Vendor.
      4. Each domain should have owners and associated business processes. Assign data domain owners, application owners, and business process owners.

      Business and data domains

      [SAMPLE]

      Business Domain App/Data Domains Business Stewards Application Owners Business Owners
      Client Experience and Sales Tech Salesforce (Sales, Service, Experience Clouds), Mulesoft (integration point) (Any team inputting data into the system)
      Quality and Regulatory Salesforce
      Operations Salesforce, Salesforce Referrals, Excel spreadsheets, SharePoint
      Finance Workday, Sage 300 (AccPac), Salesforce, Moneris Finance
      Risk/Legal Network share drive/SharePoint
      Human Resources Workday, Network share drive/SharePoint HR team
      Corporate Sales Salesforce (Sales, Service, Health, Experience Clouds),
      Sales and Client Success Mitel, Outlook, PDF intake forms, Workday, Excel. Sales & Client Success Director, Marketing Director CIO, Sales & Client Success Director, Marketing Director

      Embrace the technology

      Make the available data governance tools and technology work for you:
      • Data catalog
      • Business data glossary
      • Data lineage
      • Metadata management
      While data governance tools and technologies are no panacea, leverage their automated and AI-enabled capabilities to augment your data governance program.       		Array of logos of tech companies whose products are used for this type of work: Informatica, Collibra, Tibco, Alation, Immuta, TopQuadrant, and SoftwareReviews.

      Additional Support

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

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

      To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.

      Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.

      		The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:
      Sample of the Data Governance Strategy Map slide from earlier.

      Build Your Business and User Context

      Work with your core team of stakeholders to build out your data management roadmap, aligning data management initiatives with business capabilities, value streams, and, ultimately, your strategic priorities.       		Sample of a 'Data Management Enablers' table.

      Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State

      Develop a data management future-state roadmap and plan based on an understanding of your current data governance capabilities, your operating environment, and the driving needs of your business.

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Stock image of people pointing to a tablet with a dashboard.

      Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy

      Key to building and fostering a data-driven culture.
      Sample of the 'Data & Analytics Landscape' slide from earlier.

      Understand the Data and Analytics Landscape

      Optimize your data and analytics environment.
      Stock image of co-workers looking at the same thing.

      Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics

      Data architecture best practices to prepare data for reporting and analytics.

      Research Contributors

      Name Position Company
      Anne Marie Smith Board of Directors DAMA International
      Andy Neill Practice Lead, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
      Dirk Coetsee Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
      Graham Price Executive Advisor, Advisory Executive Services Info-Tech Research Group
      Igor Ikonnikov Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
      Jean Bujold Senior Workshop Delivery Director Info-Tech Research Group
      Mario Cantin Chief Data Strategist Prodago
      Martin Sykora Director NexJ Analytics
      Michael Blaha Author, Patterns of Data Modeling Consultant
      Rajesh Parab Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
      Ranjani Ranganathan Product Manager, Research – Workshop Delivery Info-Tech Research Group
      Reddy Doddipalli Senior Workshop Director Info-Tech Research Group

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      The Rush Trap: Why "Move Fast and Break Things" Breaks Your Business

      • Large vertical image:

      Most business leaders think that the best way to beat the competition is to push their development teams harder and demand faster delivery. I've seen the opposite happen many times.

      When you prioritize "shipping fast" and "getting to market first," you often end up taking the longest time to succeed, because your team must spend months, sometimes years, addressing the problems caused by your haste. On the surface, things appear to be improving, but internally, they can feel overwhelming. You will notice this impact on your staff.

      This is the harsh truth about rushing IT development:

      Every shortcut creates two new problems.

      Here's what really happens in the codebase when you tell your team to "just get it done fast": you don't do proper input validation and sanitization because you say, "We'll add that later." And then you have to deal with SQL injection attacks and data breaches for months. You could have avoided this wasted time by using simple parameterized queries and validation frameworks.

      In 2024, the average cost of a data breach was $4.88 million. 73% of these breaches require more than 200 days to resolve. You only code for the happy flow, but real users submit incorrect data, experience network timeouts, and encounter failures with third-party APIs. 

      Your app crashes more than it should because you didn't set up proper error handling, or circuit breakers, or graceful degradation patterns. I know these take time to implement, but what would you rather have? Customers abandoning it?

      Businesses lose an average of $5,600 per minute when their systems go down, and e-commerce sites can lose up to $300,000 per hour during busy times. Instead of fixing the root causes of problems, you just patch them up with quick fixes. That memory leak gets a band-aid restart script instead of proper garbage collection. Instead of being optimized, the slow database query is cached.

      Soon, you will find yourself struggling to keep your building intact.

      To keep up with technical debt, companies usually have to spend 23–42% of their total IT budget each year.

      You don't do full testing because "writing unit tests takes longer than manual testing." This approach does not include load testing, test-driven development, or integration testing. Your first real test is when you have paying customers in production. Companies that don't test their software properly have 60% more bugs in their products and spend 40% more time fixing them than companies that do.

      You start without being able to properly monitor and see what's going on. There are no logging frameworks, no application performance monitoring, and no health checks in place. When things go wrong—and they will—it's difficult to figure out what's amiss. Without proper monitoring, it takes an average of 4.5 hours to find and fix IT problems. With full observability tools, you can cut that time down to just 45 minutes.

      It's easy to see that every shortcut you take today will cause two new problems tomorrow. Each of those problems makes two more. You're going to face serious problems with technical debt, security holes, and unstable systems soon. All because you were in a hurry to meet some random deadline.

      People often overlook the true cost of rushing in those "move fast and break things" success stories. You don't guarantee a quick time to market when you rush code to market. You're just making sure that failure to market happens quickly. Remember that most Silicon Valley break-movers lose millions, but you never read about those; you only read about the 1 in 350 VC-backed companies that make it. That is a staggering 0.29%. I would not bet on that strategy just yet.

      Because code that is rushed doesn't just break once. It breaks all the time. In production. This issue arises when dealing with real customers. At the worst times. Your developers are putting out fires instead of adding new features. Instead of adding the features that the customer asked for, they're fixing race conditions at 2 AM. They're patching vulnerabilities in dependencies rather than creating the next version.

      According to research, developers in environments with a lot of technical debt spend 42% of their time on maintenance and bug fixes, while those in well-architected systems spend only 23% of their time on these tasks. Bad code drives up your infrastructure costs by requiring more servers to handle the same load. Your database runs slower because no one took the time to make the right indexes or make the queries run faster. Unoptimized applications typically require 3 to 5 times more infrastructure resources, directly impacting your cloud computing and operational expenses.

      The costs of getting new customers go up because rushed products have higher churn rates. People stop using apps that crash a lot or don't work well. For example, 53% of mobile users will stop using an app if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. It costs 5 to 25 times more to get a new customer than to keep an old one.

      In the meantime, what about your competitor who took an extra month to set up proper error handling, security controls, and performance optimization? They're growing smoothly while you're still working on the base.

      The slow way is the quick way

      Let me tell you a myth that is costing you millions: The race isn't about speed unless you're in a real winner-take-all market with huge network effects. It's about lasting.

      There is usually room for more than one winner in most markets. Your real job isn't to be the first to market; it's to still be there when the "fast movers" fail because they owe too much money. The businesses that are the biggest in their markets aren't usually the first ones there. They are the ones who took the time to use excellent software engineering practices from the start. They used well-known security frameworks like the OWASP guidelines to make their systems safe, set up the right authentication and authorization patterns, and made sure their APIs were designed with security and resilience in mind from the start.

      Companies that have good security practices have 76% fewer security incidents and save an average of $1.76 million for every breach they avoid. They wrote code for failure scenarios using patterns like retry logic with exponential backoff, circuit breakers to stop failures from spreading, and bulkhead isolation to keep problems from spreading.

      They set up full logging and monitoring so they could find problems before customers did. Systems that are built well and have the right resilience patterns are up 99.9% of the time, while systems that are built quickly are up 95% to 98% of the time. While you may believe that 95% to 98% uptime is an acceptable figure to agree to, take a moment to consider what that actually translates to in terms of downtime for your availability metrics. Remember that you should only calculate the times you really want to be available. This discrepancy is due to the fact that any unavailability during your downtime is not taken into account. But failures do not take your opening hours into consideration. 

      Successful companies used domain-driven design to get the business requirements right, created complete API documentation, and built automated testing suites that found regressions before deployment. Companies that do a lot of testing deliver features 2.5 times faster and with 50% fewer bugs after deployment.

      They made sure that their environments were always the same by using infrastructure as code, setting up the right CI/CD pipelines with automated security scanning and regression testing, and planning for horizontal scaling from the start.

      Companies that have mature DevOps practices deploy 208 times more often and have lead times that are 106 times faster, all while being more reliable.

      What this means for your process of development

      The truth is that your development schedule isn't about meeting deadlines. The purpose is to create systems that function effectively when real people use them in real-life situations with actual data and at a large scale. If your code crashes under load because you didn't use the right caching strategies or database connection pooling, it doesn't matter how fast it is to market.

      If you neglect to conduct security code reviews and utilize static analysis tools, the likelihood of hacking increases significantly.

      Think about the return on investment: putting in an extra 20–30% up front for the right architecture, security, and testing usually cuts the total cost of ownership by 60–80% over the life of the application.

      The first "delay" of 2 to 4 weeks for proper engineering practices saves 6 to 12 months of fixing technical debt later on.

      You have a simple choice: either take the time to follow excellent software engineering practices now, or spend the next two years telling customers why your system is down again while your competitors take your market share. The companies that last and eventually take over choose quality engineering over random speed. I leave it up to your imagination as to what multi-trillion-dollar company immediately comes to mind.

      I am always up for a conversation.

      Embrace Business-Managed Applications

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      • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
      • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy
      • The traditional model of managing applications does not address the demands of today’s rapidly changing market and digitally minded business, putting stress on scarce IT resources. The business is fed up with slow IT responses and overbearing desktop and system controls.
      • The business wants more control over the tools they use. Software as a service (SaaS), business process management (BPM), robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), and low-code development platforms are all on their radar.
      • However, your current governance and management structures do not accommodate the risks and shifts in responsibilities to business-managed applications.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • IT is a business partner, not just an operator. Effective business operations hinge on high-quality, valuable, fit-for-purpose applications. IT provides the critical insights, guidance, and assistance to ensure applications are implemented and leveraged in a way that maximizes return on investment, whether it is being managed by end users or lines of business (LOBs). This can only happen if the organization views IT as a critical asset, not just a supporting player.
      • All applications should be business owned. You have applications because LOBs need them to meet the objectives and key performance indicators defined in the business strategy. Without LOBs, there would be no need for business applications. LOBs define what the application should be and do for it to be successful, so LOBs should own them.
      • Everything boils down to trust. The business is empowered to make their own decisions on how they want to implement and use their applications and, thus, be accountable for the resulting outcomes. Guardrails, role-based access, application monitoring, and other controls can help curb some risk factors, but it should not come at the expense of business innovation and time-sensitive opportunities. IT must trust the business will make rational application decisions, and the business must trust IT to support them in good times and bad.

      Impact and Result

      • Focus on the business units that matter. BMA can provide significant value to LOBs if teams and stakeholders are encouraged and motivated to adopt organizational and operational changes.
      • Reimagine the role of IT. IT is no longer the gatekeeper that blocks application adoption. Rather, IT enables the business to adopt the tools they need to be productive and they guide the business on successful BMA practices.
      • Instill business accountability. With great power comes great responsibility. If the business wants more control of their applications, they must be willing to take ownership of the outcomes of their decisions.

      Embrace Business-Managed Applications Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should embrace business-managed applications, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      • Embrace Business-Managed Applications – Phases 1-3
      • Business-Managed Applications Communication Template

      1. State your objectives

      Level-set the expectations for your business-managed applications.

      • Embrace Business- Managed Applications – Phase 1: State Your Objectives

      2. Design your framework and governance

      Identify and define your application managers and owners and build a fit-for-purpose governance model.

      • Embrace Business-Managed Applications – Phase 2: Design Your Framework & Governance

      3. Build your roadmap

      Build a roadmap that illustrates the key initiatives to implement your BMA and governance models.

      • Embrace Business-Managed Applications – Phase 3: Build Your Roadmap

      [infographic]

      Workshop: Embrace Business-Managed Applications

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 State Your Objectives

      The Purpose

      Define business-managed applications in your context.

      Identify your business-managed application objectives.

      State the value opportunities with business-managed applications.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A consensus definition and list of business-managed applications goals

      Understanding of the business value business-managed applications can deliver

      Activities

      1.1 Define business-managed applications.

      1.2 List your objectives and metrics.

      1.3 State the value opportunities.

      Outputs

      Grounded definition of a business-managed application

      Goals and objectives of your business-managed applications

      Business value opportunity with business-managed applications

      2 Design Your Framework & Governance

      The Purpose

      Develop your application management framework.

      Tailor your application delivery and ownership structure to fit business-managed applications.

      Discuss the value of an applications committee.

      Discuss technologies to enable business-managed applications.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Fit-for-purpose and repeatable application management selection framework

      Enhanced application governance model

      Applications committee design that meets your organization’s needs

      Shortlist of solutions to enable business-managed applications

      Activities

      2.1 Develop your management framework.

      2.2 Tune your delivery and ownership accountabilities.

      2.3 Design your applications committee.

      2.4 Uncover your solution needs.

      Outputs

      Tailored application management selection framework

      Roles definitions of application owners and managers

      Applications committee design

      List of business-managed application solution features and services

      3 Build Your Roadmap

      The Purpose

      Build your roadmap to implement busines-managed applications and build the foundations of your optimized governance model.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Implementation initiatives

      Adoption roadmap

      Activities

      3.1 Build your roadmap.

      Outputs

      Business-managed application adoption roadmap

       

      Build a More Effective Brand Architecture

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      • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
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      Neglecting to maintain the brand architecture can have the following consequences:

      • Inconsistent branding across product lines, services, and marketing communications.
      • Employee confusion regarding product lines, services, and brand structure.
      • Difficulties in launching new products or services or integrating acquired brands.
      • Poor customer experience in navigating the website or understanding the offerings.
      • Inability to differentiate from competitors.
      • Weak brand equity and a lack of brand loyalty.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      Brand architecture is the way a company organizes and manages its portfolio of brands to achieve strategic goals. It encompasses the relationships between brands, from sub-brands to endorsed brands to independent brands, and how they interact with each other and with the master brand. With a clear brand architecture, businesses can optimize their portfolio, enhance their competitive position, and achieve sustainable growth and success in the long run.

      Impact and Result

      Establishing and upholding a well-defined brand architecture is critical to achieve:

      • Easy recognition and visibility
      • Consistent branding
      • Operational efficiency
      • Customer loyalty
      • Ability to easily adapt to changes
      • Competitive differentiation
      • Distinctive brand image
      • Business success

      Build a More Effective Brand Architecture Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Build a More Effective Brand Architecture Storyboard – Develop a brand architecture that supports your business goals, clarifies your brand portfolio, and enhances your overall brand equity.

      We recommend a two-step approach that involves defining or reimagining the brand architecture. This means choosing the right strategy by analyzing the current brand portfolio, identifying the core brand elements, and determining and developing the structure that fits with the brand and business goals. A well-thought-out brand architecture also facilitates the integration of new brands and new product launches.

      • Build a More Effective Brand Architecture Storyboard

      2. Brand Architecture Strategy Template – The brand architecture template is a tool for creating a coherent brand identity.

      Create a brand identity that helps you launch new products and services, prepare for acquisitions, and modify your brand strategy. Allocate resources more effectively and identify new opportunities for growth. A brand architecture can provide insights into how different brands fit together and contribute to the overall brand strategy.

      • Brand Architecture Strategy Template

      Infographic

      Workshop: Build a More Effective Brand Architecture

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Brand Mind Mapping

      The Purpose

      The brand mind mapping workshop is an exercise that helps with visualizing brand architecture and improving coherence and effectiveness in brand portfolio management.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      This exercise can help businesses:

      Allocate their resources more effectively.

      Identify new opportunities for growth.

      Gain a competitive advantage in their market.

      Activities

      1.1 Brand Mind Mapping

      Outputs

      Visual representation of the brand architecture and its various components

      Further reading

      Build a More Effective Brand Architecture

      Strategically optimize your portfolio to increase brand recognition and value.

      Analyst perspective

      Brand Architecture

      Nathalie Vezina, Marketing Research Director, SoftwareReviews Advisory

      Nathalie Vezina
      Marketing Research Director
      SoftwareReviews Advisory

      This blueprint highlights common brand issues faced by companies, such as inconsistencies in branding and sub-branding due to absent or inadequate planning and documentation or non-compliance with the brand architecture. It emphasizes the importance of aligning or modifying the company's brand strategy with the existing architecture to create a consistent brand when launching new products, services, or divisions or preparing for acquisitions.

      Changing the brand architecture can be challenging, as it often requires significant resources, time, and effort. Additionally, there may be resistance from stakeholders who have become attached to the existing brand architecture and may not see the value in making changes. However, it's important for companies to address suboptimal brand architecture to ensure consistency and clarity in brand messaging and support business growth and success.

      This blueprint guides brand leaders on building and updating their brand architecture for optimal clarity, consistency, adaptability, and efficiency.

      Executive summary

      Your Challenge Common Obstacles SoftwareReviews’ Approach
      A company's brand architecture can help brand managers build a stronger brand that supports the company's goals and increases brand value. Failing to maintain the brand architecture can have the following consequences:
      • Inconsistent branding across product lines, services, and marketing communications
      • Employee confusion regarding product lines, services, and brand structure.
      • Difficulties in launching new products or services or integrating acquired brands.
      • Poor customer experience in navigating the website or understanding the offerings.
      • Inability to differentiate from competitors.
      • Weak brand equity and a lack of brand loyalty.
      		 Establishing and maintaining a clear brand architecture can pose significant issues for brand leaders. Despite these obstacles, defining the brand architecture can yield substantial benefits for businesses. Common constraints are:
      • Lack of knowledge on the subject, resulting in difficulties securing buy-in from stakeholders.
      • Siloed teams and competing priorities.
      • Limited resources and time constraints.
      • Resistance to change from employees or customers.
      • Inconsistent execution and adherence to brand guidelines.
      • Lack of communication and coordination when acquiring new brands.
      		 With focused and effective efforts and guidance, brand leaders can define or reimagine their brand architecture. Developing and maintaining a clear and consistent brand architecture involves:
      • Defining the brand architecture strategy.
      • Analyzing the current brand portfolio and identifying the core brand elements.
      • Determining and developing the proper brand structure.
      • Updating brand guidelines and messaging.
      • Rolling out the brand architecture across touchpoints and assets.
      • Facilitating the integration of new brands.
      • Monitoring and adjusting the architecture as needed for relevance to business goals.

      "[B]rand architecture is like a blueprint for a house...the foundation that holds all the pieces together, making sure everything fits and works seamlessly."
      Source: Verge Marketing

      The basics of brand architecture

      The significance of brand hierarchy organization

      Brand architecture is the hierarchical organization and its interrelationships. This includes shaping the brand strategy and structuring the company's product and service portfolio.

      A well-designed brand architecture helps buyers navigate a company's product offerings and creates a strong brand image and loyalty.

      A company's brand architecture typically includes three levels:

      • Master or parent brand
      • Sub-brands
      • Endorsed brands

      Choosing the right architecture depends on business strategy, products and services, and target audience. It should be reviewed periodically as the brand evolves, new products and services are launched, or new brands are acquired.

      "A brand architecture is the logical, strategic, and relational structure for your brands, or put another way, it is the entity's 'family tree' of brands, sub-brands, and named products."
      Source: Branding Strategy Insider

      Enhancing a company's brand hierarchy for better business outcomes

      Maximize brand strategy with a well-defined and managed brand architecture.

      Align brand architecture with business goals
      A well-defined brand architecture aligned with business objectives contributes to building brand recognition, facilitating brand extension, and streamlining brand portfolio management. In addition, it improves marketing effectiveness and customer experience.
      With a clear and consistent brand architecture, companies can strengthen their brand equity, increase awareness and loyalty, and grow in their competitive environment.

      Effectively engage with the desired buyers
      A clear and consistent brand architecture enables companies to align their brand identity and value proposition with the needs and preferences of their target audience, resulting in increased customer loyalty and satisfaction.
      Establishing a unique market position and reinforcing brand messaging and positioning allows companies to create a more personalized and engaging customer experience, driving business growth.

      Maintain a competitive edge
      An effective brand architecture allows companies to differentiate themselves from their competitors by establishing their unique position in the market. It also provides a structured framework for introducing new products or services under the same brand, leveraging the existing one.
      By aligning their brand architecture with their business objectives, companies can achieve sustainable growth and outperform their competitors in the marketplace.

      "A well-defined brand architecture provides clarity and consistency in how a brand is perceived by its audience. It helps to create a logical framework that aligns with a brand's overall vision and objectives."
      Source: LinkedIn

      Pitfalls of neglecting brand guidelines

      Identifying the negative effects on business and brand value.

      Deficient brand architecture can manifest in various ways.

      Here are some common symptoms:

      • Lack of clarity around the brand's personality and values
      • Inconsistent messaging and branding
      • Inability to differentiate from competitors
      • Weak brand identity
      • Confusion among customers and employees
      • Difficulty launching new products/services or integrating acquired brands
      • Lack of recognition and trust from consumers, leading to potential negative impacts on the bottom line

      Brand architecture helps to ensure that your company's brands are aligned with your business goals and objectives, and that they work together to create a cohesive and consistent brand image.

      The most common obstacles in developing and maintaining a clear brand architecture

      Establishing and maintaining a clear brand architecture requires the commitment of the entire organization and a collaborative effort.

      Lack of stakeholder buy-in > Resistance to change

      Siloed teams > Inconsistent execution

      Limited resources > Lack of education and communication

      Types of brand architectures

      Different approaches to structuring brand hierarchy

      Brand architecture is a framework that encompasses three distinct levels, each comprising a different type of branding strategy.

      Types of brand architectures

      Examples of types of brand architectures

      Well-known brands with different brand and sub-brands structures

      Examples of types of brand architectures

      Pros and cons of each architecture types

      Different approaches to organizing a brand portfolio

      The brand architecture impacts the cohesiveness, effectiveness, and market reach. Defining or redefining organization changes is crucial for company performance.

      Branded House Endorsed Brands House of Brands
      Other Designations
      • "Monolithic brands"
      • "Sub-brands"
      • "Freestanding brands"
      Description
      • Single brand name for all products/services
      • Creates a unique and powerful image that can easily be identified
      • The master brand name endorses a range of products/services marketed under different sub-brands
      • Decentralized brands
      • Can target diverse markets with separate brand names for each product/service
      Marketing & Comms
      • Highly efficient
      • Eliminates split branding efforts by product/service
      • Product differentiation and tailoring messages to specific customer segments are limited
      • Each brand has its unique identity
      • Benefit from the support and resources of the master brand
      • Allows for unique branding and messaging per products/services for specific customer segments
      • Can experiment with different offerings and strategies
      Impact on Sales
      • Good cross-selling opportunities by leveraging a strong brand name
      • Benefit from the master brand's credibility, building customer trust and increasing sales
      • Tailored marketing to specific segments can increase market share and profitability
      • Creates competitive advantage and builds loyalty
      Cost Effectiveness
      • Cost-effective
      • No separate branding efforts per product/service
      • Lack of economy of scale
      • Fragmentation of resources and duplication of effort
      • Lack of economy of scale
      • Fragmentation of resources and duplication of effort
      Reputation and Image
      • More control over the brand image, messages, and perception, leading to strong recognition
      • Increased vulnerability to negative events can damage the entire brand, products/services offered
      • Mitigated risk, protecting the master brand's reputation and financial performance
      • Negative events with one brand can damage the master and other brands, causing a loss of credibility
      • Reduced risk, safeguarding the master brand's reputation and financial performance
      • Each brand builds its own equity, enhancing the company's financial performance and value
      Consistency
      • Ensures consistency with the company's brand image, values, and messaging
      • Helps build trust and loyalty
      • Inconsistent branding and messaging can cause confusion and misunderstandings
      • Unclear link between master/endorsed brands
      • Reduces trust and brand loyalty
      • Difficult to establish a clear and consistent corporate identity
      • Can reduce overall brand recognition and loyalty

      Brand naming decision tree

      Create a naming process for brand alignment and resonance with the target audience

      To ensure a chosen name is effective and legally/ethically sound, consider the ease of pronunciation/spelling, the availability for registration of brand/domain name, any negative connotations/associations in any language/culture, and potential legal/ethical issues.

      Brand naming decision tree

      To ensure a chosen name is effective and legally/ethically sound, consider the ease of pronunciation/spelling, the availability for registration of brand/domain name, any negative connotations/associations in any language/culture, and potential legal/ethical issues.

      Advantages of defining brand architecture

      Maximize your brand potential with a clear architecture strategy.

      Clear offering

      Adaptability

      Consistent branding

      Competitive differentiation

      Operational efficiency

      Strong brand identity

      Customer loyalty

      Business success

      "Responding to external influences, all brands must adapt and change over time. A clear system can aid in managing the process, ensuring that necessary changes are implemented effectively and efficiently."
      Source: The Branding Journal

      SoftwareReviews' brand architecture creation methodology

      Develop and Implement a Robust Brand Architecture

      Phase Steps

      		 Step 1 Research and Analysis
      1.1 Define brand architecture strategy
      1.2 Brand audit
      1.3 Identify brand core elements

      Step 2 Development and Implementation
      2.1 Determine brand hierarchy
      2.2 Develop or update brand guidelines
      2.3 Roll out brand architecture
      Phase Outcomes
      • Brand current performance is assessed
      • Issues are highlighted and can be addressed
      • Brand structure is developed and implemented across touchpoints and assets
      • Adjustments are made on an ongoing basis for consistency and relevance to business goals

      Insight summary

      Brand Architecture: Organize and manage your portfolio of brands
      Brand architecture is the way a company organizes and manages its portfolio of brands to achieve strategic goals. It encompasses the relationships between brands, from sub-brands to endorsed brands to independent brands, and how they interact with each other and with the master brand. With a clear brand architecture, businesses can optimize their portfolio, enhance their competitive position, and achieve sustainable growth and success in the long run.

      Aligning brand architecture to business strategy
      Effective brand architecture aligns with the company's business strategy, marketing objectives, and customer needs. It provides clarity and coherence to the brand portfolio, helps customers navigate product offerings, and maximizes overall equity of the brand.

      Choosing between three types of brand architecture
      A company's choice of brand architecture depends on factors like product range, target markets, and strategic objectives. Each approach, Branded House, Endorsed, or House of Brands, has its own pros and cons, and the proper option relies on the company's goals, resources, and constraints.

      A logical brand hierarchy for more clarity
      The order of importance of brands in the portfolio, including the relationships between the master and sub-brands, and the positioning of each in the market is fundamental. A clear and logical hierarchy helps customers understand the value proposition of each brand and reduces confusion.

      A win-win approach
      Clear brand architecture can help customers easily navigate and understand the product offering, reinforce the brand identity and values, and improve customer loyalty and retention. Additionally, it can help companies optimize their marketing strategies, streamline their product development and production processes, and maximize their revenue and profitability.

      Brand architecture, an ongoing process
      Brand architecture is not a one-time decision but an ongoing process that requires regular review and adjustment. As business conditions change, companies may need to revise their brand portfolio, brand hierarchy, or brand extension and acquisition strategies to remain competitive and meet customer needs.

      Brand architecture creation tools

      This blueprint comes with tools to help you develop your brand architecture.

      Brand Architecture Toolkit

      This kit includes a Brand Architecture Mini-Audit, a Brand Architecture template, and templates for Brand Matrix, Ecosystem, and Development Strategy.

      Use this kit to develop a strong brand architecture that aligns with your business goals, clarifies your brand portfolio, and enhances overall brand equity.

      Brand Architecture Toolkit

      Brand Architecture

      Develop a robust brand architecture that supports your business goals, clarifies your brand portfolio, and enhances your overall brand equity.

      "A brand architecture is the logical, strategic, and relational structure for your brands, or put another way, it is the entity's 'family tree' of brands, sub-brands, and named products."
      Source: Branding Strategy Insider

      Consequences of Neglected Brand Guidelines

      When a company neglects its brand architecture and guidelines, it can result in a number of negative consequences, such as:

      • Lack of clarity around the brand's personality and values
      • Inconsistent messaging and branding
      • Inability to differentiate from competitors
      • Weak brand identity
      • Confusion among customers and employees
      • Difficulty launching new products/services or integrating acquired brands
      • Lack of recognition and trust from consumers, leading to potential negative impacts on the bottom line.

      Benefits of SoftwareReviews' Methodology

      By following SoftwareReviews' methodology to develop and maintain a brand architecture, businesses can:

      • Establish a unique market position and stand out from competitors
      • Ensure that marketing efforts are focused and effective
      • Create personalized and engaging customer experiences
      • Reinforce messaging and positioning
      • Increase customer loyalty and satisfaction
      • Build brand recognition and awareness

      Marq, formerly Lucidpress, surveyed over 400 brand management experts and found that "if the brand was consistent, revenue would increase by 10-20%."

      Methodology for Defining Brand Architecture

      Who benefits from this research?

      This research is designed for:

      • Organizations that value their brand and want to ensure that it is communicated effectively and consistently across all touchpoints.
      • Business owners, marketers, brand managers, creative teams, and anyone involved in the development and implementation of brand strategy.

      This research will also assist:

      • Sales and customer experience teams
      • Channel partners
      • Buyers

      This research will help you:

      • Establish a unique market position and stand out from competitors.
      • Create a more personalized and engaging customer experience.
      • Ensure that marketing efforts are focused and effective.
      • Reinforce brand messaging and positioning.

      This research will help them:

      • Increase customer loyalty and satisfaction
      • Build brand recognition and awareness
      • Drive business growth and profitability.

      SoftwareReviews 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."
      Included Within Advisory Membership Optional Add-Ons

      Guided Implementation

      What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      Research & Analysis
      Call #1: Discuss brand architecture strategy (define objectives, scope and stakeholders). Call #3: Identify core brand components and ensure they align with the brand strategy. Call #5: Develop or update brand guidelines. Optional Calls:
      • Brand Diagnostic
      • Brand Strategy and Tactics
      • Brand Voice Guidelines
      • Asset Creation and Management
      • Brand Messaging
      Call #2: Conduct a brand audit. Call #4: Define and document the brand hierarchy. Call #6: Roll out the brand architecture and monitoring.

      A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Marketing Analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

      Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

      Brand Mind Mapping Workshop Overview

      Total duration: 3-4 hours

      Activities
      Visually map out the different elements of your brand portfolio, including corporate brands, sub-brands, product brands, and their relationships with each other.

      The workshop also aims to explore additional elements, such as brand expansions, acquisitions, and extensions, and brand attributes and positioning.

      Deliverables
      Get a mind map that represents the brand architecture and its various components, which can be used to evaluate and improve the overall coherence and effectiveness of the brand portfolio. The mind map can also provide insights into how different brands fit together and contribute to the overall brand strategy.

      Participants

      • Business owners
      • Head of Branding and anyone involved with the brand strategy

      Tools

      • Brand Architecture Template, slides 7 and 8

      Brand Mind Mapping

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

      Get started!

      Develop a brand architecture that supports your business goals, clarifies your brand portfolio, and enhances your overall brand equity.

      Develop and Implement a Robust Brand Architecture

      Step 1 Research and Analysis
      1.1 Define architecture strategy
      1.2 Perform brand audit
      1.3 Identify brand core elements

      Step 2 Development and Implementation
      2.1 Determine brand hierarchy
      2.2 Develop or update brand guidelines
      2.3 Roll out brand architecture

      Phase Outcome

      • Brand current performance is assessed
      • Issues are highlighted and can be addressed
      • Brand structure is developed and implemented across touchpoints and assets
      • Adjustments made on an ongoing basis for consistency and relevance to business goals

      Develop and implement a robust brand architecture

      Steps 1.1, 1.2 & 1.3 Define architecture strategy, audit brand, and identify core elements.

      Total duration: 2.5-4.5 hours

      Objective
      Define brand objectives (hierarchy, acquired brand inclusion, product distinction), scope, and stakeholders. Analyze the brand portfolio to identify gaps or inconsistencies. Identify brand components (name, logo, tagline, personality) and align them with the brand and business strategy.

      Output
      By completing these steps, you will assess your current brand portfolio and evaluate its consistency and alignment with the overall brand strategy.

      Participants

      • Business owners
      • Head of Branding and anyone involved with the brand strategy

      Tools

      • Diagnose Brand Health to Improve Business Growth Blueprint (optional)
      • Brand Awareness Strategy Template (optional)

      1.1 Define Brand Architecture Strategy
      (60-120 min.)

      Define

      Define brand objectives (hierarchy, inclusion of an acquired brand, product distinction), scope, and stakeholders.

      1.2 Conduct Brand Audit
      (30-60 min.)

      Assess

      Assess the state of your brand architecture using the "Brand architecture mini-audit checklist," slide 9 of the Brand Architecture Strategy Template. Check the boxes that correspond to the state of your brand architecture. Those left unchecked represent areas for improvement.

      For a more in-depth analysis of your brand performance, follow the instructions and use the tools provided in the Diagnose Brand Health to Improve Business Growth blueprint (optional).

      1.3 Identify Core Brand Elements
      (60-90 min.)

      Identify

      Define brand components (name, logo, tagline, personality). Align usage with strategy. You can develop your brand strategy, if not already existing, using the Brand Awareness Strategy Template (optional).

      Tip!

      Continuously monitor and adjust your brand architecture - it's not static and should evolve over time. You can also adapt your brand strategy as needed to stay relevant and competitive.

      Develop and implement a robust brand architecture

      Steps 2.1. 2.2 & 2.3 Develop brand hierarchy, guidelines, and rollout architecture.

      Total duration: 3.5-5.5 hours

      Objective
      Define your brand structure and clarify the role and market position of each. Create concise brand expression guidelines, implement them across all touchpoints and assets, and adjust as needed to stay aligned with your business goals.

      Output
      This exercise will help you establish and apply your brand structure, with a plan for ongoing updates and adjustments to maintain consistency and relevance.

      Participants

      • Business owners
      • Head of Branding and anyone involved with the brand strategy

      Tools

      • Brand Architecture Template
      • Brand Voice Guidelines
      • Brand Messaging Template
      • Asset Creation and Management List Template

      2.1 Determine Brand Hierarchy
      (30-60 min.)

      Analyze & Document

      In the Brand Architecture Strategy Template, complete the brand matrix, ecosystem, development strategy matrix, mind mapping, and architecture, to develop a strong brand architecture that aligns with your business goals and clarifies your brand portfolio and market position.

      2.2 Develop/Update Brand Guidelines
      (120-180 min.)

      Develop/Update

      Develop (or update existing) clear, concise, and actionable brand expression guidelines using the Brand Voice Guidelines and Brand Messaging Template.

      2.2 Rollout Brand Architecture
      Preparation (60-90 min.)

      Create & Implement

      Use the Asset Creation and Management List Template to implement brand architecture across touchpoints and assets.

      Monitor and Adjust

      Use slide 8, "Brand Strategy Development Matrix," of the Brand Architecture Strategy Template to identify potential and future brand development strategies to build or enhance your brand based on your current brand positioning and business goals. Monitor, and adjust as needed, for relevance to the brand and business strategy.

      Tip!

      Make your brand architecture clear and simple for your target audience, employees, and stakeholders. This will avoid confusion and help your audience understand your brand structure.

      Prioritizing clarity and simplicity will communicate your brand's value proposition effectively and create a strong brand that resonates with your audience and supports your business goals.

      Related SoftwareReviews research

      Diagnose Brand Health to Improve Business Growth

      Have a significant and well-targeted impact on business success and growth by knowing how your brand performs, identifying areas of improvement, and making data-driven decisions to fix them.

      • Increase brand awareness and equity.
      • Build trust and improve customer retention and loyalty.
      • Achieve higher and faster growth.

      Accelerate Business Growth and Valuation by Building Brand Awareness

      Successfully build awareness and help the business grow. Stand out from the competition and continue to grow in a sustainable way.

      • Get a clear understanding of the buyer's needs and your key differentiator.
      • Achieve strategy alignment and readiness.
      • Create and manage assets.

      Bibliography

      "Brand Architecture: Definition, Types, Strategies, and Examples." The Branding Journal, 2022.

      "Brand Architecture: What It Is and How to Build Your Brand's Framework." HubSpot, 2021.

      "Brand Architecture Framework." Verge Marketing, 2021.

      "Brand consistency-the competitive advantage and how to achieve it." Marq/Lucidpress, 2021.

      "Building brands for growth: A fresh perspective." McKinsey & Company. Accessed on 31 March 2023.

      Daye, Derrick. "Brand Architecture Strategy Guide." Branding Strategy Insider, The Blake Project, 13 May 2021.

      Todoran, Adrian. "Choosing the Perfect Brand Architecture Strategy for Your Business." LinkedIn, 2023.

      Build Your Data Quality Program

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      • Parent Category Name: Data Management
      • Parent Category Link: /data-management
      • Experiencing the pitfalls of poor data quality and failing to benefit from good data quality, including:
        • Unreliable data and unfavorable output.
        • Inefficiencies and costly remedies.
        • Dissatisfied stakeholders.
      • The chances of successful decision-making capabilities are hindered with poor data quality.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Address the root causes of your data quality issues and form a viable data quality program.
        • Be familiar with your organization’s data environment and business landscape.
        • Prioritize business use cases for data quality fixes.
        • Fix data quality issues at the root cause to ensure proper foundation for your data to flow.
      • It is important to sustain best practices and grow your data quality program.

      Impact and Result

      • Implement a set of data quality initiatives that are aligned with overall business objectives and aimed at addressing data practices and the data itself.
      • Develop a prioritized data quality improvement project roadmap and long-term improvement strategy.
      • Build related practices such as artificial intelligence and analytics with more confidence and less risk after achieving an appropriate level of data quality.

      Build Your Data Quality Program Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should establish a data quality program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Define your organization’s data environment and business landscape

      Learn about what causes data quality issues, how to measure data quality, what makes a good data quality practice in relation to your data and business environments.

      • Business Capability Map Template

      2. Analyze your priorities for data quality fixes

      Determine your business unit priorities to create data quality improvement projects.

      • Data Quality Problem Statement Template
      • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

      3. Establish your organization’s data quality program

      Revisit the root causes of data quality issues and identify the relevant root causes to the highest priority business unit, then determine a strategy for fixing those issues.

      • Data Lineage Diagram Template
      • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

      4. Grow and sustain your data quality practices

      Identify strategies for continuously monitoring and improving data quality at the organization.

      Infographic

      Workshop: Build Your Data Quality Program

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Define Your Organization’s Data Environment and Business Landscape

      The Purpose

      Evaluate the maturity of the existing data quality practice and activities.

      Assess how data quality is embedded into related data management practices.

      Envision a target state for the data quality practice.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Understanding of the current data quality landscape

      Gaps, inefficiencies, and opportunities in the data quality practice are identified

      Target state for the data quality practice is defined

      Activities

      1.1 Explain approach and value proposition

      1.2 Detail business vision, objectives, and drivers

      1.3 Discuss data quality barriers, needs, and principles

      1.4 Assess current enterprise-wide data quality capabilities

      1.5 Identify data quality practice future state

      1.6 Analyze gaps in data quality practice

      Outputs

      Data Quality Management Primer

      Business Capability Map Template

      Data Culture Diagnostic

      Data Quality Diagnostic

      Data Quality Problem Statement Template

      2 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 1

      The Purpose

      Define improvement initiatives

      Define a data quality improvement strategy and roadmap

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Improvement initiatives are defined

      Improvement initiatives are evaluated and prioritized to develop an improvement strategy

      A roadmap is defined to depict when and how to tackle the improvement initiatives

      Activities

      2.1 Create business unit prioritization roadmap

      2.2 Develop subject areas project scope

      2.3 By subject area 1 data lineage analysis, root cause analysis, impact assessment, and business analysis

      Outputs

      Business Unit Prioritization Roadmap

      Subject area scope

      Data Lineage Diagram

      3 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 2

      The Purpose

      Define improvement initiatives

      Define a data quality improvement strategy and roadmap

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Improvement initiatives are defined

      Improvement initiatives are evaluated and prioritized to develop an improvement strategy

      A roadmap is defined to depict when and how to tackle the improvement initiatives

      Activities

      3.1 Understand how data quality management fits in with the organization’s data governance and data management programs

      3.2 By subject area 2 data lineage analysis, root cause analysis, impact assessment, and business analysis

      Outputs

      Data Lineage Diagram

      Root Cause Analysis

      Impact Analysis

      4 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 3

      The Purpose

      Determine a strategy for fixing data quality issues for the highest priority business unit

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Strategy defined for fixing data quality issues for highest priority business unit

      Activities

      4.1 Formulate strategies and actions to achieve data quality practice future state

      4.2 Formulate a data quality resolution plan for the defined subject area

      4.3 By subject area 3 data lineage analysis, root cause analysis, impact assessment, and business analysis

      Outputs

      Data Quality Improvement Plan

      Data Lineage Diagram

      5 Create a Plan for Sustaining Data Quality

      The Purpose

      Plan for continuous improvement in data quality

      Incorporate data quality management into the organization’s existing data management and governance programs

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Sustained and communicated data quality program

      Activities

      5.1 Formulate metrics for continuous tracking of data quality and monitoring the success of the data quality improvement initiative

      5.2 Workshop Debrief with Project Sponsor

      5.3 Meet with project sponsor/manager to discuss results and action items

      5.4 Wrap up outstanding items from the workshop, deliverables expectations, GIs

      Outputs

      Data Quality Practice Improvement Roadmap

      Data Quality Improvement Plan (for defined subject areas)

      Further reading

      Build Your Data Quality Program

      Quality Data Drives Quality Business Decisions

      Executive Brief

      Analyst Perspective

      Get ahead of the data curve by conquering data quality challenges.

      Regardless of the driving business strategy or focus, organizations are turning to data to leverage key insights and help improve the organization’s ability to realize its vision, key goals, and objectives.

      Poor quality data, however, can negatively affect time-to-insight and can undermine an organization’s customer experience efforts, product or service innovation, operational efficiency, or risk and compliance management. If you are looking to draw insights from your data for decision making, the quality of those insights is only as good as the quality of the data feeding or fueling them.

      Improving data quality means having a data quality management practice that is sustainably successful and appropriate to the use of the data, while evolving to keep pace with or get ahead of changing business and data landscapes. It is not a matter of fixing one data set at a time, which is resource and time intensive, but instead identifying where data quality consistently goes off the rails, and creating a program to improve the data processes at the source.

      Crystal Singh

      Research Director, Data and Analytics

      Info-Tech Research Group

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      Your organization is experiencing the pitfalls of poor data quality, including:

      • Unreliable data and unfavorable output.
      • Inefficiencies and costly remedies.
      • Dissatisfied stakeholders.

      Poor data quality hinders successful decision making.

      Common Obstacles

      Not understanding the purpose and execution of data quality causes some disorientation with your data.

      • Failure to realize the importance/value of data quality.
      • Unsure of where to start with data quality.
      • Lack of investment in data quality.

      Organizations tend to adopt a project mentality when it comes to data quality instead of taking the strategic approach that would be all-around more beneficial in the long term.

      Info-Tech’s Approach

      Address the root causes of your data quality issues by forming a viable data quality program.

      • Be familiar with your organization’s data environment and business landscape.
      • Prioritize business use cases for data quality fixes.
      • Fixing data quality issues at the root cause to ensure a proper foundation for your data to flow.

      It is important to sustain best practices and grow your data quality program.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Fix data quality issues as close as possible to the source of data while understanding that business use cases will each have different requirements and expectations from data quality.

      Data is the foundation of your organization’s knowledge

      Data enables your organization to make decisions.

      Reliable data is needed to facilitate data consumers at all levels of the enterprise.

      Insights, knowledge, and information are needed to inform operational, tactical, and strategic decision-making processes. Data and information are needed to manage the business and empower business processes such as billing, customer touchpoints, and fulfillment.

      Raw Data

      Business Information

      Actionable Insights

      Data should be at the foundation of your organization’s evolution. The transformational insights that executives are constantly seeking can be uncovered with a data quality practice that makes high-quality, trustworthy information readily available to the business users who need it.

      98% of companies use data to improve customer experience. (Experian Data Quality, 2019)

      High-Level Data Architecture

      The image is a graphic, which at the top shows different stages of data, and in the lower part of the graphic shows the data processes.

      Build Your Data Quality Program

      1. Data Quality & Data Culture Diagnostics Business Landscape Exercise
      2. Business Strategy & Use Cases
      3. Prioritize Use Cases With Poor Quality

      Info-Tech Insight

      As data is ingested, integrated, and maintained in the various streams of the organization's system and application architecture, there are multiple points where the quality of the data can degrade.

      1. Understand the organization's data culture and data quality environment across the business landscape.
      2. Prioritize business use cases with poor data quality.
      3. For each use case, identify data quality issues and requirements throughout the data pipeline.
      4. Fix data quality issues at the root cause.
      5. As data flow through quality assurance monitoring checkpoints, monitor data to ensure good quality output.

      Insight:

      Proper application of data quality dimensions throughout the data pipeline will result in superior business decisions.

      Data quality issues can occur at any stage of the data flow.

      The image shows the flow of data through various stages: Data Creation; Data Ingestion; Data Accumulation and Engineering; Data Delivery; and Reporting & Analytics. At the bottom, there are two bars: the left one labelled Fix data quality root causes here...; and the right reads: ...to prevent expensive cures here.

      The image is a legend that accompanies the data flow graphic. It indicates that a white and green square icon indicates Data quality dimensions; a red cube indicates a potential point of data quality degradation; the pink square indicates Root cause of poor data quality; and a green flag indicates Quality Assurance Monitoring.

      Prevent the domino effect of poor data quality

      Data is the foundation of decisions made at data-driven organizations.

      Therefore, if there are problems with the organization’s underlying data, this can have a domino effect on many downstream business functions.

      Let’s use an example to illustrate the domino effect of poor data quality.

      Organization X is looking to migrate their data to a single platform, System Y. After the migration, it has become apparent that reports generated from this platform are inconsistent and often seem wrong. What is the effect of this?

      1. Time must be spent on identifying the data quality issues, and often manual data quality fixes are employed. This will extend the time to deliver the project that depends on system Y by X months.
      2. To repair these issues, the business needs to contract two additional resources to complete the unforeseen work. The new resources cost $X each, as well as additional infrastructure and hardware costs.
      3. Now, the strategic objectives of the business are at risk and there is a feeling of mistrust in the new system Y.

      Three key challenges impacting the ability to deliver excellent customer experience

      30% Poor data quality

      30% Method of interaction changing

      30% Legacy systems or lack of new technology

      95% Of organizations indicated that poor data quality undermines business performance.

      (Source: Experian Data Quality, 2019)

      Maintaining quality data will support more informed decisions and strategic insight

      Improving your organization’s data quality will help the business realize the following benefits:

      Data-Driven Decision Making

      Business decisions should be made with a strong rationale. Data can provide insight into key business questions, such as, “How can I provide better customer satisfaction?”

      89% Of CIOs surveyed say lack of quality data is an obstacle to good decision making. (Larry Dignan, CIOs juggling digital transformation pace, bad data, cloud lock0in and business alignment, 2020)

      Customer Intimacy

      Improve marketing and the customer experience by using the right data from the system of record to analyze complete customer views of transactions, sentiments, and interactions.

      94% Percentage of senior IT leaders who say that poor data quality impinges business outcomes. (Clint Boulton, Disconnect between CIOs and LOB managers weakens data quality, 2016)

      Innovation Leadership

      Gain insights on your products, services, usage trends, industry directions, and competitor results to support decisions on innovations, new products, services, and pricing.

      20% Businesses lose as much as 20% of revenue due to poor data quality. (RingLead Data Management Solutions, 10 Stats About Data Quality I Bet You Didn’t Know)

      Operational Excellence

      Make sure the right solution is delivered rapidly and consistently to the right parties for the right price and cost structure. Automate processes by using the right data to drive process improvements.

      10-20% The implementation of data quality initiatives can lead to reductions in corporate budget of up to 20%. (HaloBI, 2015)

      However, maintaining data quality is difficult

      Avoid these pitfalls to get the true value out of your data.

      1. Data debt drags down ROI – a high degree of data debt will hinder you from attaining the ROI you’re expecting.
      2. Lack of trust means lack of usage – a lack of confidence in data results in a lack of data usage in your organization, which negatively effects strategic planning, KPIs, and business outcomes.
      3. Strategic assets become a liability – bad data puts your business at risk of failing compliance standards, which could result in you paying millions in fines.
      4. Increased costs and inefficiency – time spent fixing bad data means less workload capacity for your important initiatives and the inability to make data-based decisions.
      5. Barrier to adopting data-driven tech – emerging technologies, such as predictive analytics and artificial intelligence, rely on quality data. Inaccurate, incomplete, or irrelevant data will result in delays or a lack of ROI.
      6. Bad customer experience – Running your business on bad data can hinder your ability to deliver to your customers, growing their frustration, which negatively impacts your ability to maintain your customer base.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Data quality suffers most at the point of entry. This is one of the causes of the domino effect of data quality – and can be one of the most costly forms of data quality errors due to the error propagation. In other words, fix data ingestion, whether through improving your application and database design or improving your data ingestion policy, and you will fix a large majority of data quality issues.

      Follow Our Data & Analytics Journey

      Data Quality is laced into Data Strategy, Data Management, and Data Governance.

      • Data Strategy
        • Data Management
          • Data Quality
          • Data Governance
            • Data Architecture
              • MDM
              • Data Integration
              • Enterprise Content Management
              • Information Lifecycle Management
                • Data Warehouse/Lake/Lakehouse
                  • Reporting and Analytics
                  • AI

      Data quality is rooted in data management

      Extract Maximum Benefit Out of Your Data Quality Management.

      • Data management is the planning, execution, and oversight of policies, practices, and projects that acquire, control, protect, deliver, and enhance the value of data and information assets (DAMA, 2009).
      • In other words, getting the right information, to the right people, at the right time.
      • Data quality management exists within each of the data practices, information dimensions, business resources, and subject areas that comprise the data management framework.
      • Within this framework, an effective data quality practice will replace ad hoc processes with standardized practices.
      • An effective data quality practice cannot succeed without proper alignment and collaboration across this framework.
      • Alignment ensures that the data quality practice is fit for purpose to the business.

      The DAMA DMBOK2 Data Management Framework

      • Data Governance
        • Data Quality
        • Data Architecture
        • Data Modeling & Design
        • Data Storage & Operations
        • Data Security
        • Data Integration & Interoperability
        • Documents & Content
        • Reference & Master Data
        • Data Warehousing & Business Intelligence
        • Meta-data

      (Source: DAMA International)

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy

      • People often think that the main problems they need to fix first are related to data quality when the issues transpire at a much larger level. This blueprint is the key to building and fostering a data-driven culture.

      Create a Data Management Roadmap

      • Refer to this blueprint to understand data quality in the context of data disciplines and methods for improving your data management capabilities.

      Establish Data Governance

      • Define an effective data governance strategy and ensure the strategy integrates well with data quality with this blueprint.

      Info-Tech’s methodology for Data Quality

      Phase Steps 1. Define Your Organization’s Data Environment and Business Landscape 2. Analyze Your Priorities for Data Quality Fixes 3. Establish Your Organization’s Data Quality Program 4. Grow and Sustain Your Data Quality Practice
      Phase Outcomes This step identifies the foundational understanding of your data and business landscape, the essential concepts around data quality, as well as the core capabilities and competencies that IT needs to effectively improve data quality. To begin addressing specific, business-driven data quality projects, you must identify and prioritize the data-driven business units. This will ensure that data improvement initiatives are aligned to business goals and priorities. After determining whose data is going to be fixed based on priority, determine the specific problems that they are facing with data quality, and implement an improvement plan to fix it. Now that you have put an improvement plan into action, make sure that the data quality issues don’t keep cropping up. Integrate data quality management with data governance practices into your organization and look to grow your organization’s overall data maturity.

      Info-Tech Insight

      “Data Quality is in the eyes of the beholder.”– Igor Ikonnikov, Research Director

      Data quality means tolerance, not perfection

      Data from Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Diagnostic, which represents over 400 business stakeholders, shows that data quality is very important when satisfaction with data quality is low.

      However, when data quality satisfaction hit a threshold, it became less important.

      The image is a line graph, with the X-axis labelled Satisfaction with Data Quality, and the Y axis labelled Rated Importance for Data Quality. The line begins high, and then descends. There is text inside the graph, which is transcribed below.

      Respondents were asked “How satisfied are you with the quality, reliability, and effectiveness of the data you use to manage your group?” as well as to rank how important data quality was to their organization.

      When the business satisfaction of data quality reached a threshold value of 71-80%, the rated importance reached its lowest value.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Data needs to be good, but truly spectacular data may go unnoticed.

      Provide the right level of data quality, with the appropriate effort, for the correct usage. This blueprint will help you to determine what “the right level of data quality” means, as well as create a plan to achieve that goal for the business.

      Data Roles and Responsibilities

      Data quality occurs through three main layers across the data lifecycle

      Data Strategy

      Data Strategy should contain Data Quality as a standard component.

      ← Data Quality issues can occur throughout at any stage of the data flow →

      DQ Dimensions

      Timeliness – Representation – Usability – Consistency – Completeness – Uniqueness – Entry Quality – Validity – Confidence – Importance

      Source System Layer

      • Data Resource Manager/Collector: Enters data into a database and ensures that data collection sources are accurate

      Data Transformation Layer

      • ETL Developer: Designs data storage systems
      • Data Engineer: Oversees data integrations, data warehouses and data lakes, data pipelines
      • Database Administrator: Manages database systems, ensures they meet SLAs, performances, backups
      • Data Quality Engineer: Finds and cleanses bad data in data sources, creates processes to prevent data quality problems

      Consumption Layer

      • Data Scientist: Gathers and analyses data from databases and other sources, runs models, and creates data visualizations for users
      • BI Analyst: Evaluates and mines complex data and transforms it into insights that drive business value. Uses BI software and tools to analyze industry trends and create visualizations for business users
      • Data Analyst: Extracts data from business systems, analyzes it, and creates reports and dashboards for users
      • BI Engineer: Documents business needs on data analysis and reporting and develops BI systems, reports, and dashboards to support them
      Data Creation → [SLA] Data Ingestion [ QA] →Data Accumulation & Engineering → [SLA] Data Delivery [QA] →Reporting & Analytics
      Fix Data Quality root causes here… → to prevent expensive cures here.

      Executive Brief Case Study

      Industry: Healthcare

      Source: Primary Info-Tech Research

      Align source systems to maximize business output.

      A healthcare insurance agency faced data quality issues in which a key business use case was impacted negatively. Business rules were not well defined, and default values instead of real value caused a concern. When dealing with multiple addresses, data was coming from different source systems.

      The challenge was to identify the most accurate address, as some were incomplete, and some lacked currency and were not up to date. This especially challenged a key business unit, marketing, to derive business value in performing key activities by being unable to reach out to existing customers to advertise any additional products.

      For this initiative, this insurance agency took an economic approach by addressing those data quality issues using internal resources.

      Results

      Without having any MDM tools or having a master record or any specific technology relating to data quality, this insurance agency used in-house development to tackle those particular issues at the source system. Data quality capabilities such as data profiling were used to uncover those issues and address them.

      “Data quality is subjective; you have to be selective in terms of targeting the data that matters the most. When getting business tools right, most issues will be fixed and lead to achieving the most value.” – Asif Mumtaz, Data & Solution Architect

      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."

      Diagnostic and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

      Guided Implementation

      What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
      • Call #1: Learn about the concepts of data quality and the common root causes of poor data quality.
      • Call #2: Identify the core capabilities of IT for improving data quality on an enterprise scale.
      • Call #3: Determine which business units use data and require data quality remediation.
      • Call #4: Create a plan for addressing business unit data quality issues according to priority of the business units based on value and impact of data.
      • Call #5: Revisit the root causes of data quality issues and identify the relevant root causes to the highest priority business unit.
      • Call #6: Determine a strategy for fixing data quality issues for the highest priority business unit.
      • Call #7: Identify strategies for continuously monitoring and improving data quality at the organization.
      • Call #8: Learn how to incorporate data quality practices in the organization’s larger data management and data governance frameworks.
      • Call #9: Summarize results and plan next steps on how to evolve your data landscape.

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

      A typical GI is between eight to twelve calls over the course of four to six months.

      Workshop Overview

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

      Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
      Define Your Organization’s Data Environment and Business Landscape Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 1 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 2 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 3 Create a Plan for Sustaining Data Quality
      Activities
      1. Explain approach and value proposition.
      2. Detail business vision, objectives, and drivers.
      3. Discuss data quality barriers, needs, and principles.
      4. Assess current enterprise-wide data quality capabilities.
      5. Identify data quality practice future state.
      6. Analyze gaps in data quality practice.
      1. Create business unit prioritization roadmap.
      2. Develop subject areas project scope.
      3. By subject area 1:
      • Data lineage analysis
      • Root cause analysis
      • Impact assessment
      • Business analysis
      1. Understand how data quality management fits in with the organization’s data governance and data management programs.
      2. By subject area 2:
      • Data lineage analysis
      • Root cause analysis
      • Impact assessment
      • Business analysis
      1. Formulate strategies and actions to achieve data quality practice future state.
      2. Formulate data quality resolution plan for defined subject area.
      3. By subject area 3:
      • Data lineage analysis
      • Root cause analysis
      • Impact assessment
      • Business analysis
      1. Formulate metrics for continuous tracking of data quality and monitoring the success of the data quality improvement initiative.
      2. Workshop Debrief with Project Sponsor.
      • Meet with project sponsor/manager to discuss results and action items.
      • Wrap up outstanding items from the workshop, deliverables expectations, GIs.
      Deliverables
      1. Data Quality Management Primer
      2. Business Capability Map Template
      3. Data Culture Diagnostic
      4. Data Quality Diagnostic
      5. Data Quality Problem Statement Template
      1. Business Unit Prioritization Roadmap
      2. Subject area scope
      3. Data Lineage Diagram
      1. Data Lineage Diagram
      2. Root Cause Analysis
      3. Impact Analysis
      1. Data Lineage Diagram
      2. Data Quality Improvement Plan
      1. Data Quality Practice Improvement Roadmap
      2. Data Quality Improvement Plan (for defined subject areas)

      Phase 1

      Define Your Organization’s Data Environment and Business Landscape

      Build Your Data Quality Program

      Data quality is a methodology and must be treated as such

      A comprehensive data quality practice includes appropriate business requirements gathering, planning, governance, and oversight capabilities, as well as empowering technologies for properly trained staff, and ongoing development processes.

      Some common examples of appropriate data management methodologies for data quality are:

      • The data quality team has the necessary competencies and resources to perform the outlined workload.
      • There are processes that exist for continuously evaluating data quality performance capabilities.
      • Improvement strategies are designed to increase data quality performance capabilities.
      • Policies and procedures that govern data quality are well-documented, communicated, followed, and updated.
      • Change controls exist for revising policies and procedures, including communication of updates and changes.
      • Self-auditing techniques are used to ensure business-IT alignment when designing or recalibrating strategies.

      Effective data quality practices coordinate with other overarching data disciplines, related data practices, and strategic business objectives.

      “You don’t solve data quality with a Band-Aid; you solve it with a methodology.” – Diraj Goel, Growth Advisor, BC Tech

      Data quality can be defined by four key quality indicators

      Similar to measuring the acidity of a substance with a litmus test, the quality of your data can be measured using a simple indicator test. As you learn about common root causes of data quality problems in the following slides, think about these four quality indicators to assess the quality of your data:

      • Completeness – Closeness to the correct value. Encompasses accuracy, consistency, and comparability to other databases.
      • Usability – The degree to which data meets current user needs. To measure this, you must determine if the user is satisfied with the data they are using to complete their business functions.
      • Timeliness – Length of time between creation and availability of data.
      • Accessibility – How easily a user can access and understand the data (including data definitions and context). Interpretability can also be used to describe this indicator.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Quality is a relative term. Data quality is measured in terms of tolerance. Perfect data quality is both impossible and a waste of time and effort.

      How to get investment for your data quality program

      Follow these steps to convince leadership of the value of data quality:

      “You have to level with people, you cannot just start talking with the language of data and expect them to understand when the other language is money and numbers.” – Izabela Edmunds, Information Architect at Mott MacDonald

      1. Perform Phases 0 & 1 of this blueprint as this will offer value in carrying out the following steps.
      2. Build credibility. Show them your understanding of data and how it aligns to the business.
      3. Provide tangible evidence of how significant business use cases are impacted by poor quality data.
      4. Present the ROI of fixing the data quality issues you have prioritized.
      5. Explain how the data quality program will be established, implemented, and sustained.
      6. Prove the importance of fixing data quality issues at the source and how it is the most efficient, effective, and cost-friendly solution.

      Phase 1 deliverables

      Each of these deliverables serve as inputs to detect key outcomes about your organization and to help complete this blueprint:

      1. Data Culture Diagnostic

      Use this report to understand where your organization lies across areas relating to data culture.

      While the Quality & Trust area of the report might be most prevalent to this blueprint, this diagnostic may point out other areas demanding more attention.

      Please speak to your account manager for access

      2. Business Capability Map Template

      Perform this process to understand the capabilities that enable specific value streams. The output of this deliverable is a high-level view of your organization’s defined business capabilities.

      Download this tool

      Info-Tech Insight

      Understanding your data culture and business capabilities are foundational to starting the journey of data quality improvement.

      Key deliverable:

      3. Data Quality Diagnostic

      The Data Quality Report is designed to help you understand, assess, and improve key organizational data quality issues. This is where respondents across various areas in the organization can assess Data Quality across various dimensions.

      Download this tool

      Data Quality Diagnostic Value

      Prioritize business use cases with our data quality dimensions.

      • Complete this diagnostic for each major business use case. The output from the Data Culture Diagnostic and the Business Capability Map should help you understand which use cases to address.
      • Involve all key stakeholders involved in the business use case. There may be multiple business units involved in a single use case.
      • Prioritize the business use cases that need the most attention pertaining to data quality by comparing the scores of the Importance and Confidence data quality dimensions.

      If there are data elements that are considered of high importance and low confidence, then they must be prioritized.

      Sample Scorecard

      The image shows a screen capture of a scorecard, with sample information filled in.

      The image shows a screen capture of a scorecard, with sample information filled in.

      Poor data quality develops due to multiple root causes

      After you get to know the properties of good quality data, understand the underlying causes of why those indicators can point to poor data quality.

      If you notice that the usability, completeness, timeliness, or accessibility of the organization’s data is suffering, one or more of the following root causes are likely plaguing your data:

      Common root causes of poor data quality, through the lens of Info-Tech’s Five-Tier Data Architecture:

      The image shows a graphic of Info-Tech's Five-Tier Data Architecture, with root causes of poor data quality identified. In the data creation and ingestion stages, the root causes are identified as Poor system/application design, Poor database design, Inadequate enterprise integration. The root causes identified in the latter stages are: Absence of data quality policies, procedures, and standards, and Incomplete/suboptimal business processes

      These root causes of poor data quality are difficult to avoid, not only because they are often generated at an organization’s beginning stages, but also because change can be difficult. This means that the root causes are often propagated through stale or outdated business processes.

      Data quality problems root cause #1:

      Poor system or application design

      Application design plays one of the largest roles in the quality of the organization’s data. The proper design of applications can prevent data quality issues that can snowball into larger issues downstream.

      Proper ingestion is 90% of the battle. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is true in many different topics, and data quality is one of them. Designing an application so that data gets entered properly, whether by internal staff or external customers, is the single most effective way to prevent data quality issues.

      Some common causes of data quality problems at the application/system level include:

      • Too many open fields (free-form text fields that accept a variety of inputs).
      • There are no lookup capabilities present. Reference data should be looked up instead of entered.
      • Mandatory fields are not defined, resulting in blank fields.
      • No validation of data entries before writing to the underlying database.
      • Manual data entry encourages human error. This can be compounded by poor application design that facilitates the incorrect data entry.

      Data quality problems root cause #2:

      Poor database design

      Database design also affects data quality. How a database is designed to handle incoming data, including the schema and key identification, can impact the integrity of the data used for reporting and analytics.

      The most common type of database is the relational database. Therefore, we will focus on this type of database.

      When working with and designing relational databases, there are some important concepts that must be considered.

      Referential integrity is a term that is important for the design of relational database schema, and indicates that table relationships must always be consistent.

      For table relationships to be consistent, primary keys (unique value for each row) must uniquely identify entities in columns of the table. Foreign keys (field that is defined in a second table but refers to the primary key in the first table) must agree with the primary key that is referenced by the foreign key. To maintain referential integrity, any updates must be propagated to the primary parent key.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Other types of databases, including databases with unstructured data, need data quality consideration. However, unstructured data may have different levels of quality tolerance.

      At the database level, some common root causes include:

      1. Lack of referential integrity.
      2. Lack of unique keys.
      3. Don’t have restricted data range.
      4. Incorrect datatype, string fields that can hold too many characters.
      5. Orphaned records.

      Databases and People:

      Even though database design is a technology issue, don’t forget about the people.

      A lack of training employees on database permissions for updating/entering data into the physical databases is a common problem for data quality.

      Data quality problems root cause #3:

      Improper integration and synchronization of enterprise data

      Data ingestion is another category of data-quality-issue root causes. When moving data in Tier 2, whether it is through ETL, ESB, point-to-point integration, etc., the integrity of the data during movement and/or transformation needs to be maintained.

      Tier 2 (the data ingestion layer) serves to move data for one of two main purposes:

      • To move data from originating systems to downstream systems to support integrated business processes.
      • To move data to Tier 3 where data rests for other purposes. This movement of data in its purest form means we move raw data to storage locations in an overall data warehouse environment reflecting any security, compliance and other standards in our choices for how to store. Also, it is where data is transformed for unique business purpose that will also be moved to a place of rest or a place of specific use. Data cleansing and matching and other data-related blending tasks occur at this layer.

      This ensures the data is pristine throughout the process and improves trustworthiness of outcomes and speed to task completion.

      At the integration layer, some common root causes of data quality problems include:

      1. No data mask. For example, zip code should have a mask of five numeric characters.
      2. Questionable aggregation, transformation process, or incorrect logic.
      3. Unsynchronized data refresh process in an integrated environment.
      4. Lack of a data matching tool.
      5. Lack of a data quality tool.
      6. Don’t have data profiling capability.
      7. Errors with data conversion or migration processes – when migrating, decommissioning, or converting systems – movement of data sets.
      8. Incorrect data mapping between data sources and targets.

      Data quality problems root cause #4:

      Insufficient and ineffective data quality policies and procedures

      Data policies and procedures are necessary for establishing standards around data and represent another category of data-quality-issue root causes. This issue spans across all five of the 5 Tier Architecture.

      Data policies are short statements that seek to manage the creation, acquisition, integrity, security, compliance, and quality of data. These policies vary amongst organizations, depending on your specific data needs.

      • Policies describe what to do, while standards and procedures describe how to do something.
      • There should be few data policies, and they should be brief and direct. Policies are living documents and should be continuously updated to respond to the organization’s data needs.
      • The data policies should highlight who is responsible for the data under various scenarios and rules around how to manage it effectively.

      Some common root causes of data quality issues related to policies and procedures include:

      1. Policies are absent or out of date.
      2. Employees are largely unaware of policies in effect.
      3. Policies are unmonitored and unenforced.
      4. Policies are in multiple locations.
      5. Multiple versions of the same policy exist.
      6. Policies are managed inconsistently across different silos.
      7. Policies are written poorly by untrained authors.
      8. Inadequate policy training program.
      9. Draft policies stall and lose momentum.
      10. Weak policy support from senior management.

      Data quality problems root cause #5:

      Inefficient or ineffective business processes

      Some common root causes of data quality issues related to business processes include:

      1. Multiple entries of the same record leads to duplicate records proliferating in the database.
      2. Many business definitions of data.
      3. Failure to document data manipulations when presenting data.
      4. Failure to train people on how to understand data.
      5. Manually intensive processes can result in duplication of effort (creates room for errors).
      6. No clear delineation of dependencies of business processes within or between departments, which leads to a siloed approach to business processes, rather than a coordinated and aligned approach.

      Business processes can impact data quality. How data is entered into systems, as well as employee training and knowledge about the correct data definitions, can impact the quality of your organization’s data.

      These problematic business process root causes can lead to:

      Duplicate records

      Incomplete data

      Improper use of data

      Wrong data entered into fields

      These data quality issues will result in costly and inefficient manual fixes, wasting valuable time and resources.

      Phase 1 Summary

      1. Data Quality Understanding

      • Understanding that data quality is a methodology and should be treated as such.
      • Data quality can be defined by four key indicators which are completeness, usability, timeliness, and accessibility.
      • Explained how to get investment for your data quality program and showcasing its value to leadership.

      2. Phase 0 Deliverables

      Introduced foundational tools to help you throughout this blueprint:

      • Complete the Data Culture Diagnostic and Business Capability Map Template as they are foundational in understanding your data culture and business capabilities to start the journey of data quality improvement.
      • Involve key relevant stakeholders when completing the Data Quality Diagnostic for each major business use case. Use the Importance and Confidence dimensions to help you prioritize which use case to address.

      3. Common Root Causes

      Addressed where multiple root causes can occur throughout the flow of your data.

      Analyzed the following common root causes of data quality:

      1. Poor system or application design
      2. Poor database design
      3. Improper integration and synchronization of enterprise data
      4. Insufficient and ineffective data quality policies and procedures
      5. Inefficient or ineffective business processes

      Phase 2

      Analyze Your Priorities for Data Quality Fixes

      Build Your Data Quality Program

      Business Context & Data Quality

      Establish the business context of data quality improvement projects at the business unit level to find common goals.

      • To ensure the data improvement strategy is business driven, start your data quality project evaluation by understanding the business context. You will then determine which business units use data and create a roadmap for prioritizing business units for data quality repairs.
      • Your business context is represented by your corporate business vision, mission, goals and objectives, differentiators, and drivers. Collectively, they provide essential information on what is important to your organization, and some hints on how to achieve that. In this step, you will gather important information about your business view and interpret the business view to establish a data view.

      Business Vision

      Business Goals

      Business Drivers

      Business Differentiators

      Not every business unit uses data to the same extent

      A data flow diagram can provide value by allowing an organization to adopt a proactive approach to data quality. Save time by knowing where the entry points are and where to look for data flaws.

      Understanding where data lives can be challenging as it is often in motion and rarely resides in one place. There are multiple benefits that come from taking the time to create a data flow diagram.

      • Mapping out the flow of data can help provide clarity on where the data lives and how it moves through the enterprise systems.
      • Having a visual of where and when data moves helps to understand who is using data and how it is being manipulated at different points.
      • A data flow diagram will allow you to elicit how data is used in a different use case.

      Info-Tech’s Four-Column Model of Data will help you to identify the essential aspects of your data:

      Business Use Case →Used by→Business Unit →Housed in→Systems→Used for→Usage of the Data

      Not every business unit requires the same standard of data quality

      To prioritize your business units for data quality improvement projects, you must analyze the relative importance of the data they use to the business. The more important the data is to the business, the higher the priority is of fixing that data. There are two measures for determining the importance of data: business value and business impact.

      Business Value of Data

      Business value of data can be evaluated by thinking about its ties to revenue generation for the organization, as well as how it is used for productivity and operations at the organization.

      The business value of data is assessed by asking what would happen to the following parameters if the data is not usable (due to poor quality, for example):

      • Loss of Revenue
      • Loss of Productivity
      • Increased Operating Costs

      Business Impact of Data

      Business impact of data should take into account the effects of poor data on both internal and external parties.

      The business impact of data is assessed by asking what the impact would be of bad data on the following parameters:

      • Impact on Customers
      • Impact on Internal Staff
      • Impact on Business Partners

      Value + Impact = Data Priority Score

      Ensure that the project starts on the right foot by completing Info-Tech’s Data Quality Problem Statement Template

      Before you can identify a solution, you must identify the problem with the business unit’s data.

      Download this tool

      Use Info-Tech’s Data Quality Problem Statement Template to identify the symptoms of poor data quality and articulate the problem.

      Info-Tech’s Data Quality Problem Statement Template will walk you through a step-by-step approach to identifying and describing the problems that the business unit feels regarding its data quality.

      Before articulating the problem, it helps to identify the symptoms of the problem. The following W’s will help you to describe the symptoms of the data quality issues:

      What

      Define the symptoms and feelings produced by poor data quality in the business unit.

      Where

      Define the location of the data that are causing data quality issues.

      When

      Define how severe the data quality issues are in frequency and duration.

      Who

      Define who is affected by the data quality problems and who works with the data.

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      Symptoms vs. Problems. Often, people will identify a list of symptoms of a problem and mistake those for the problem. Identifying the symptoms helps to define the problem, but symptoms do not help to identify the solution. The problem statement helps you to create solutions.

      Define the project problem to articulate the purpose

      1 hour

      Input

      • Symptoms of data quality issues in the business unit

      Output

      • Refined problem description

      Materials

      • Data Quality Problem Statement Template

      Participants

      • Data Quality Improvement Project team
      • Business line representatives

      A defined problem helps you to create clear goals, as well as lead your thinking to determine solutions to the problem.

      A problem statement consists of one or two sentences that summarize a condition or issue that a quality improvement team is meant to address. For the improvement team to fix the problem, the problem statement therefore has to be specific and concise.

      Instructions

      1. Gather the Data Quality Improvement Project Team in a room and start with an issue that is believed to be related to data quality.
      2. Ask what are the attributes and symptoms of that reality today; do this with the people impacted by the issue. This should be an IT and business collaboration.
      3. Draw your conclusions of what it all means: what have you collectively learned?
      4. Consider the implications of your conclusions and other considerations that must be taken into account such as regulatory needs, compliance, policy, and targets.
      5. Develop solutions – Contain the problem to something that can be solved in a realistic timeframe, such as three months.

      Download the Data Quality Problem Statement Template

      Case Study

      A strategic roadmap rooted in business requirements primes a data quality improvement plan for success.

      MathWorks

      Industry

      Software Development

      Source

      Primary Info-Tech Research

      As part of moving to a formalized data quality practice, MathWorks leveraged an incremental approach that took its time investigating business cases to support improvement actions. Establishing realistic goals for improvement in the form of a roadmap was a central component for gaining executive approval to push the project forward.

      Roadmap Creation

      In constructing a comprehensive roadmap that incorporated findings from business process and data analyses, MathWorks opted to document five-year and three-year overall goals, with one-year objectives that supported each goal. This approach ensured that the tactical actions taken were directed by long-term strategic objectives.

      Results – Business Alignment

      In presenting their roadmap for executive approval, MathWorks placed emphasis on communicating the progression and impact of their initiatives in terms that would engage business users. They focused on maintaining continual lines of communication with business stakeholders to demonstrate the value of the initiatives and also to gradually shift the corporate culture to one that is invested in an effective data quality practice.

      “Don’t jump at the first opportunity, because you may be putting out a fire with a cup of water where a fire truck is needed.” – Executive Advisor, IT Research and Advisory Firm

      Use Info-Tech’s Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool to create your strategy for improving data quality

      Assess IT’s capabilities and competencies around data quality and plan to build these as the organization’s data quality practice develops. Before you can fix data quality, make sure you have the necessary skills and abilities to fix data quality correctly.

      The following IT capabilities are developed on an ongoing basis and are necessary for standardizing and structuring a data quality practice:

      • Meeting Business Needs
      • Services and Projects
      • Policies, Procedures, and Standards
      • Roles and Organizational Structure
      • Oversight and Communication
      • Data Quality of Different Data Types

      Download this Tool

      Data Handling and Remediation Competencies:

      • Data Standardization: Formatting values into consistent standards based on industry standards and business rules.
      • Data Cleansing: Modification of values to meet domain restrictions, integrity constraints, or other business rules for sufficient data quality for the organization.
      • Data Matching: Identification, linking, and merging related entries in or across sets of data.
      • Data Validation: Checking for correctness of the data.

      After these capabilities and competencies are assessed for a current and desired target state, the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool will suggest improvement actions that should be followed in order to build your data quality practice. In addition, a roadmap will be generated after target dates are set to create your data quality practice development strategy.

      Benchmark current and identify target capabilities for your data quality practice

      1 hour

      Input

      • Current and desired data quality practices in the organization

      Output

      • Assessment of where the gaps lie in your data quality practice

      Materials

      • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

      Participants

      • Data Quality Project Lead
      • Business Line Representatives
      • Business Architects

      Use the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool to evaluate the baseline and target capabilities of your practice in terms of how data quality is approached and executed.

      Download this Tool

      Instructions

      1. Invite the appropriate stakeholders to participate in this exercise. Examples:
        1. Business executives will have input in Tab 2
        2. Unique stakeholders: communications expert or executive advisors may have input
      2. On Tab 2: Practice Components, assess the current and target states of each capability on a scale of 1–5. Note: “Ad hoc” implies a capability is completed, but randomly, informally, and without a standardized method.

      These results will set the baseline against which you will monitor performance progress and keep track of improvements over time.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Focus on early alignment. Assessing capabilities within specific people’s job functions can naturally result in disagreement or debate, especially between business and IT people. Remind everyone that data quality should ultimately serve business needs wherever possible.

      Visualization improves the holistic understanding of where gaps exist in your data quality practice

      To enable deeper analysis on the results of your practice assessment, Tab 3: Data Quality Practice Scorecard in the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool creates visualizations of the gaps identified in each of your practice capabilities and related data management practices. These diagrams serve as analysis summaries.

      Gap assessment of “Meeting Business Needs” capabilities

      The image shows a screen capture of the Gap assessment of “Meeting Business Needs” capabilities, with sample information filled in.

      Visualization of gap assessment of data quality practice capabilities

      The image shows a bar graph titled Data Quality Capabilities.

      1. Enhance your gap analyses by forming a relative comparison of total gaps in key practice capability areas, which will help in determining priorities.
      • Example: In Tab 2 compare your capabilities within “Policies, Procedures, and Standards.” Then in Tab 3, compare your overall capabilities in “Policies, Procedures, and Standards” versus “Empowering Technologies.”
    • Put these up on display to improve discussion in the gap analyses and prioritization sessions.
    • Improve the clarity and flow of your strategy template, final presentations, and summary documents by copying and pasting the gap assessment diagrams.

      • Before engaging in the data quality improvement project plan, receive signoff from IT regarding feasibility

      The final piece of the puzzle is to gain sign-off from IT.

      Hofstadter's law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

      This means that before engaging IT in data quality projects to fix the business units’ data in Phase 2, IT must assess feasibility of the data quality improvement plan. A feasibility analysis is typically used to review the strengths and weaknesses of the projects, as well as the availability of required skills and technologies needed to complete them. Use the following workflow to guide you in performing a feasibility analysis:

      Project evaluation process:

      Present capabilities

      • Operational Capabilities
      • System Capabilities
      • Schedule Capabilities
        • Summary of Evaluation Results
          • Recommendations/ modifications to the project plan

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      While the PMO identifies and coordinates projects, IT must determine how long and for how much.

      Conduct gap analysis sessions to review and prioritize the capability gaps

      1 hour

      Input

      • Current and Target State Assessment

      Output

      • Documented initiatives to help you get to the target state

      Materials

      • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

      Participants

      • Data Quality team
      • IT representatives

      Instructions

      • Analyze Gap Analysis Results – As a group, discuss the high-level results on Tab 3: Data Quality Practice Score. Discuss the implications of the gaps identified.
      • Do a line-item review of the gaps between current and target levels for each assessed capability by using Tab 2: Practice Components.
      • Brainstorm Alignment Strategies – Brainstorm the effort and activities that will be necessary to support the practice in building its capabilities to the desired target level. Ask the following questions:
        • What activities must occur to enable this capability?
        • What changes/additions to resources, process, technology, business involvement, and communication must occur?
      • Document Data Quality Initiatives – Turn activities into initiatives by documenting them in Tab 4. Data Quality Practice Roadmap. Review the initiatives and estimate the start and end dates of each one.
      • Continue to evaluate the assessment results in order to create a comprehensive set of data quality initiatives that support your practice in building capabilities.

      Download this Tool

      Create the organization’s data quality improvement strategy roadmap

      1 hour

      Input

      • Data quality practice gaps and improvement actions

      Output

      • Data quality practice improvement roadmap

      Materials

      • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

      Participants

      • Data Quality Project Lead
      • Business Executives
      • IT Executives
      • Business Architects

      Generating Your Roadmap

      1. Plan the sequence, starting time, and length of each initiative in the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool.
      2. The tool will generate a Gantt chart based on the start and length of your initiatives.
      3. The Gantt chart is generated in Tab 4: Data Quality Practice Roadmap, and can be used to organize and ensure that all of the essential aspects of data quality are addressed.

      Use the Practice Roadmap to plan and improve data quality capabilities

      Download this Tool

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      To help get you started, Info-Tech has provided an extensive list of data quality improvement initiatives that are commonly undertaken by organizations looking to improve their data quality.

      Establish Baseline Metrics

      Baseline metrics will be improved through:

      2 hours

      Create practice-level metrics to monitor your data quality practice.

      Instructions:

      1. Establish metrics for both the business and IT that will be used to determine if the data quality practice development is effective.
      2. Set targets for each metric.
      3. Collect current data to calculate the metrics and establish a baseline.
      4. Assign an owner for tracking each metric to be accountable for performance.
      Metric Current Goal
      Usage (% of trained users using the data warehouse)
      Performance (response time)
      Performance (response time)
      Resource utilization (memory usage, number of machine cycles)
      User satisfaction (quarterly user surveys)
      Data quality (% values outside valid values, % fields missing, wrong data type, data outside acceptable range, data that violates business rules. Some aspects of data quality can be automatically tracked and reported)
      Costs (initial installation and ongoing, Total Cost of Ownership including servers, software licenses, support staff)
      Security (security violations detected, where violations are coming from, breaches)
      Patterns that are used
      Reduction in time to market for the data
      Completeness of data that is available
      How many "standard" data models are being used
      What is the extra business value from the data governance program?
      How much time is spent for data prep by BI & analytics team?

      Phase 2 summary

      As you improve your data quality practice and move from reactive to stable, don’t rest and assume that you can let data quality keep going by itself. Rapidly changing consumer requirements or other pains will catch up to your organization and you will fall behind again. By moving to the proactive and predictive end of the maturity scale, you can stay ahead of the curve. By following the methodology laid out in Phase 1, the data quality practices at your organization will improve over time, leading to the following results:

      Chaotic

      Before Data Quality Practice Improvements

      • No standards to data quality

      Reactive

      Year 1

      • Processes defined
      • Data cleansing approach to data quality

      Stable

      Year 2

      • Business rules/ stewardship in place
      • Education and training

      Proactive

      Year 3

      • Data quality practices fully in place and embedded in the culture
      • Trusted and intelligent enterprise

      (Global Data Excellence, Data Excellence Maturity Model)

      Phase 3

      Establish Your Organization’s Data Quality Program

      Build Your Data Quality Program

      Create a data lineage diagram to map the data journey and identify the data subject areas to be targeted for fixes

      It is important to understand the various data that exist in the business unit, as well as which data are essential to business function and require the highest degree of quality efforts.

      Visualize your databases and the flow of data. A data lineage diagram can help you and the Data Quality Improvement Team visualize where data issues lie. Keeping the five-tier architecture in mind, build your data lineage diagram.

      Reminder: Five-Tier Architecture

      The image shows the Five-Tier Architecture graphic.

      Use the following icons to represent your various data systems and databases.

      The image shows four icons. They are: the image of a square and a computer monitor, labelled Application; the image of two sheets of paper, labelled Desktop documents; the image of a green circle next to a computer monitor, labelled Web Application; and a blue cylinder labelled Database.

      Use Info-Tech’s Data Lineage Diagram to document the data sources and applications used by the business unit

      2 hours

      Input

      • Data sources and applications used by the business unit

      Output

      • Data lineage diagram

      Materials

      • Data Lineage Diagram Template

      Participants

      • Business Unit Head/Data Owner
      • Business Unit SMEs
      • Data Analysts/Architects

      Map the flow and location of data within a business unit by creating a system context diagram.

      Gain an accurate view of data locations and uses: Engage business users and representatives with a wide breadth of knowledge-related business processes and the use of data by related business operations.

      1. Sit down with key business representatives of the business unit.
      2. Document the sources of data and processes in which they’re involved, and get IT confirmation that the sources of the data are correct.
      3. Map out the sources and processes in a system context diagram.

      Download this Tool

      Sample Data Lineage Diagram

      The image shows a sample data lineage diagram, split into External Applications and Internal Applications, and showing the processes involved in each.

      Leverage Info-Tech’s Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool to document business context

      1 hour

      Input

      • Business vision, goals, and drivers

      Output

      • Business context for the data quality improvement project

      Materials

      • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

      Participants

      • Data Quality project lead
      • Business line representatives
      • IT executives

      Develop goals and align them with specific objectives to set the framework for your data quality initiatives.

      In the context of achieving business vision, mission, goals, and objectives and sustaining differentiators and key drivers, think about where and how data quality is a barrier. Then brainstorm data quality improvement objectives that map to these barriers. Document your list of objectives in Tab 5. Prioritize business units of the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool.

      Establishing Business Context Example

      Healthcare Industry
      Vision To improve member services and make service provider experience more effective through improving data quality and data collection, aggregation, and accessibility for all the members.
      Goals

      Establish meaningful metrics that guide to the improvement of healthcare for member effectiveness of health care providers:

      • Data collection
      • Data harmonization
      • Data accessibility and trust by all constituents.
      Differentiator Connect service consumers with service providers, that comply with established regulations by delivering data that is accurate, trusted, timely, and easy to understand to connect service providers and eliminate bureaucracy and save money and time.
      Key Driver Seamlessly provide a healthcare for members.

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      Document the identified business units and their associated data

      30 minutes

      Input

      • Business units

      Output

      • Documented business units to begin prioritization

      Materials

      • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

      Participants

      • Project Manager

      Instructions

      1. Using Tab 5: Prioritize Business Units of the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool, document the business units that use data in the organization. This will likely be all business units in the organization.
      2. Next, document the primary data used by those business units.
      3. These inputs will then be used to assess business unit priority to generate a data quality improvement project roadmap.

      The image shows a screen capture of Tab 5: Prioritize Business Units, with sample information inputted.

      Reminder – Not every business unit requires the same standard of data quality

      To prioritize your business units for data quality improvement projects, you must analyze the relative importance of the data they use to the business. The more important the data is to the business, the higher the priority is of fixing that data. There are two measures for determining the importance of data: business value and business impact.

      Business Value of Data

      Business value of data can be evaluated by thinking about its ties to revenue generation for the organization, as well as how it is used for productivity and operations at the organization.

      The business value of data is assessed by asking what would happen to the following parameters if the data is not usable (due to poor quality, for example):

      • Loss of Revenue
      • Loss of Productivity
      • Increased Operating Costs

      Business Impact of Data

      Business impact of data should take into account the effects of poor data on both internal and external parties.

      The business impact of data is assessed by asking what the impact would be of bad data on the following parameters:

      • Impact on Customers
      • Impact on Internal Staff
      • Impact on Business Partners

      Value + Impact = Data Priority Score

      Assess the business unit priority order for data quality improvements

      2 hours

      Input

      • Assessment of value and impact of business unit data

      Output

      • Prioritization list for data quality improvement projects

      Materials

      • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

      Participants

      • Project Manager
      • Data owners

      Instructions

      Instructions In Tab 5: Prioritize Business Units of the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool, assess business value and business impact of the data within each documented business unit.

      Use the ratings High, Medium, and Low to measure the financial, productivity, and efficiency value and impact of each business unit’s data.

      In addition to these ratings, assess the number of help desk tickets that are submitted to IT regarding data quality issues. This parameter is an indicator that the business unit’s data is high priority for data quality fixes.

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      Create a business unit order roadmap for your data quality improvement projects

      1 hour

      Input

      • Rating of importance of data for each business unit

      Output

      • Roadmap for data quality improvement projects

      Materials

      • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

      Participants

      • Project Manager
      • Product Manager
      • Business line representatives

      Instructions

      After assessing the business units for the business value and business impact of their data, the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool automatically assesses the prioritization of the business units based on your ratings. These prioritizations are then summarized in a roadmap on Tab 6: Data Quality Project Roadmap. The following is an example of a project roadmap:

      The image shows an example of a project roadmap, with three business units listed vertically along the left hand side, and a Gantt chart showing the time periods in which each Business Unit would work. At the bottom, a table shows the Length of the Project in days (100), and the start date for the first project.

      On Tab 6, insert the timeline for your data quality improvement projects, as well as the starting date of your first data quality project. The roadmap will automatically update with the chosen timing and dates.

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      Identify metrics at the business unit level to track data quality improvements

      As you improve the data quality for specific business units, measuring the benefits of data quality improvements will help you demonstrate the value of the projects to the business.

      Use the following table to guide you in creating business-aligned metrics:

      Business Unit Driver Metrics Goal
      Sales Customer Intimacy Accuracy of customer data. Percent of missing or incomplete records. 10% decrease in customer record errors.

      Marketing

      		 Customer Intimacy Accuracy of customer data. Percent of missing or incomplete records. 10% decrease in customer record errors.
      Finance Operational Excellence Relevance of financial reports. Decrease in report inaccuracy complaints.
      HR Risk Management Accuracy of employee data. 10% decrease in employee record errors.
      Shipping Operational Excellence Timeliness of invoice data. 10% decrease in time to report.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Relating data governance success metrics to overall business benefits keeps executive management and executive sponsors engaged because they are seeing actionable results. Review metrics on an ongoing basis with those data owners/stewards who are accountable, the data governance steering committee, and the executive sponsors.

      Case Study

      Address data quality with the right approach to maximize the ROI

      EDC

      Industry: Government

      Source: Environment Development of Canada (EDC)

      Challenge

      Environment Development Canada (EDC) would initially identify data elements that are important to the business purely based on their business instinct.

      Leadership attempted to tackle the enterprise’s data issues by bringing a set of different tools into the organization.

      It didn’t work out because the fundamental foundational layer, which is the data and infrastructure, was not right – they didn't have the foundational capabilities to enable those tools.

      Solution

      Leadership listened to the need for one single team to be responsible for the data persistence.

      Therefore, the data platform team was granted that mandate to extensively execute the data quality program across the enterprise.

      A data quality team was formed under the Data & Analytics COE. They had the mandate to profile the data and to understand what quality of data needed to be achieved. They worked constantly with the business to build the data quality rules.

      Results

      EDC tackled the source of their data quality issues through initially performing a data quality management assessment with business stakeholders.

      From then on, EDC was able to establish their data quality program and carry out other key initiatives that prove the ROI on data quality.

      Begin your data quality improvement project starting with the highest priority business unit

      Now that you have a prioritized list for your data quality improvement projects, identify the highest priority business unit. This is the business unit you will work through Phase 3 with to fix their data quality issues.

      Once you have initiated and identified solutions for the first business unit, tackle data quality for the next business unit in the prioritized list.

      The image is a graphic labelled as Phase 2. On the left, there is a vertical arrow pointing upward labelled Priority of Business Units. Next to it, there are three boxes, with downward pointing arrows between them, each box labelled as each Business Unit's Data Quality Improvement Project. From there an arrow points right to a circle. Inside the circle are the steps necessary to complete the data quality improvement project.

      Create and document your data quality improvement team

      1 hour

      Input

      • Individuals who fit the data quality improvement plan team roles

      Output

      • Project team

      Materials

      • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

      Participants

      • Data owner
      • Project Manager
      • Product Manager

      The Data Quality Improvement Plan is a concise document that should be created for each data quality project (i.e. for each business unit) to keep track of the project.

      Instructions

      1. Meet with the data owner of the business unit identified for the data quality improvement project.
      2. Identify individuals who fit the data quality improvement plan team roles.
      3. Using the Data Quality Improvement Plan Template to document the roles and individuals who will fit those roles.
      4. Have an introductory meeting with the Improvement team to clarify roles and responsibilities for the project.

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      Team role Assigned to
      Data Owner [Name]
      Project Manager [Name]
      Business Analyst/BRM [Name]
      Data Steward [Name]
      Data Analyst [Name]

      Document the business context of the Data Quality Improvement Plan

      1 hour

      Input

      • Project team
      • Identified data attributes

      Output

      • Business context for the data quality improvement plan

      Materials

      • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

      Participants

      • Data owner
      • Project Sponsor
      • Product owner

      Data quality initiatives have to be relevant to the business, and the business context will be used to provide inputs to the data improvement strategy. The context can then be used to determine exactly where the root causes of data quality issues are, which will inform your solutions.

      Instructions

      The business context of the data quality improvement plan includes documenting from previous activities:

      1. The Data Quality Improvement Team.
      2. Your Data Lineage Diagram.
      3. Your Data Quality Problem Statement.

      Info-Tech Best Practice

      While many organizations adopt data quality principles, not all organizations express them along the same terms. Have multiple perspectives within your organization outline principles that fit your unique data quality agenda. Anyone interested in resolving the day-to-day data quality issues that they face can be helpful for creating the context around the project.

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      Now that you have a defined problem, revisit the root causes of poor data quality

      You previously fleshed out the problem with data quality present in the business unit chosen as highest priority. Now it is time to figure out what is causing those problems.

      In the table below, you will find some of the common categories of causes of data quality issues, as well as some specific root causes.

      Category Description
      1. System/Application Design Ineffective, insufficient, or even incorrect system/application design accepts incorrect and missing data elements to the source applications and databases. The data records in those source systems may propagate into systems in tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the 5-tier architecture, creating domino and ripple effects.
      2. Database design Database is created and modeled in an incorrect manner so that the management of the data records is incorrect, resulting in duplicated and orphaned records, and records that are missing data elements or records that contain incorrect data elements. Poor operational data in databases often leads to issues in tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5.
      3. Enterprise Integration Data or information is improperly integrated, transformed, masked, and aggregated in tier 2. In addition, some data integration tasks might not be timely, resulting in out-of-date data or even data that contradicts with other data. Enterprise integration is a precursor of loading a data warehouse and data marts. Issues in this layer affect tier 3, 4 and 5 on the 5-tier architecture.
      4. Policies and Procedures Policies and procedures are not effectively used to reinforce data quality. In some situations, policy gaps are found. In others, policies are overlapped and duplicated. Policies may also be out-of-date or too complex, affecting the users’ ability to interpret the policy objectives. Policies affect all tiers in the 5-tier architecture.
      5. Business Processes Improper business process design introduces poor data into the data systems. Failure to create processes around approving data changes, failure to document key data elements, and failure to train employees on the proper uses of data make data quality a burning problem.

      Leverage a root cause analysis approach to pinpoint the origins of your data issues

      A root cause analysis is a systematic approach to decompose a problem into its components. Use fishbone diagrams to help reveal the root causes of data issues.

      The image shows a fishbone diagram on the left, which starts with Process on the left, and then leads to Application and Integration, and then Database and Policies. This section is titled Root causes. The right hand section is titled Lead to problems with data... and includes 4 circles with the word or in between each. The circles are labelled: Completeness; Usability; Timeliness; Accessibility.

      Info-Tech recommends five root cause categories for assessing data quality issues:

      Application Design. Is the issue caused by human error at the application level? Consider internal employees, external partners/suppliers, and customers.

      Database Design. Is the issue caused by a particular database and stems from inadequacies in its design?

      Integration. Data integration tools may not be fully leveraged, or data matching rules may be poorly designed.

      Policies and Procedures. Do the issues take place because of lack of governance?

      Business Processes. Do the issues take place due to insufficient processes?

      For Example:

      When performing a deeper analysis of your data issues related to the accuracy of the business unit’s data, you would perform a root cause analysis by assessing the contribution of each of the five categories of data quality problem root causes:

      The image shows another fishbone diagram, with example information filled in. The first section on the left is titled Application Design, and includes the text: Data entry problems lead to incorrect accounting entries. The second is Integration, and includes the text: Data integration tools are not fully leveraged. The third section is Policies, and includes the text: No policy on standardizing name and address. The last section is Database design, with text that reads: Databases do not contain unique keys. The diagram ends with an arrow pointing right to a blue circle with Accuracy in it.

      Leverage a combination of data analysis techniques to identify and quantify root causes

      Info-Tech Insight

      Including all attributes of the key subject area in your data profiling activities may produce too much information to make sense of. Conduct data profiling primarily at the table level and undergo attribute profiling only if you are able to narrow down your scope sufficiently.

      Data Profiling Tool

      Data profiling extracts a sample of the target data set and runs it through multiple levels of analysis. The end result is a detailed report of statistics about a variety of data quality criteria (duplicate data, incomplete data, stale data, etc.).

      Many data profiling tools have built-in templates and reports to help you uncover data issues. In addition, they quantify the occurrences of the data issues.

      E-Discovery Tool

      This supplements a profiling tool. For Example, use a BI tool to create a custom grouping of all the invalid states (e.g. “CAL,” “AZN,” etc.) and visualize the percentage of invalid states compared to all states.

      SQL Queries

      This supplements a profiling tool. For example, use a SQL statement to group the customer data by customer segment and then by state to identify which segment–state combinations contain poor data.

      Identify the data issues for the particular business unit under consideration

      2 hours

      Input

      • Issues with data quality felt by the business unit
      • Data lineage diagram

      Output

      • Categorized data quality issues

      Materials

      • Whiteboard, markers, sticky notes
      • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

      Participants

      • Data quality improvement project team
      • Business line representatives

      Instructions

      1. Gather the data quality improvement project team in a room, along with sticky notes and a whiteboard.
      2. Display your previously created data lineage diagram on the whiteboard.
      3. Using color-coded sticky notes, attach issues to each component of the data lineage diagram that team members can identify. Use different colors for the four quality attributes: Completeness, Usability, Timeliness, and Accessibility.

      Example:

      The image shows the data lineage diagram that has been shown in previous sections. In addition, the image shows 4 post-its arranges around the diagram, labelled: Usability; Completeness; Timeliness; and Accessibility.

      Map the data issues on fishbone diagrams to identify root causes

      1 hour

      Input

      • Categorized data quality issues

      Output

      • Completed fishbone diagrams

      Materials

      • Whiteboard, markers, sticky notes
      • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

      Participants

      • Data quality improvement project team

      Now that you have data quality issues classified according to the data quality attributes, map these issues onto four fishbone diagrams.

      The image shows a fishbone diagram, which is titled Example: Root cause analysis diagram for data accuracy.

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      Get to know the root causes behind system/application design mistakes

      Suboptimal system/application design provides entry points for bad data.

      Business Process
      Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
      Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
      Insufficient data mask No data mask is defined for a free-form text field in a user interface. E.g. North American phone number should have 4 masks – country code (1-digit), area code (3-digit), and local number (7-digit). X X
      Too many free-form text fields Incorrect use of free-form text fields (fields that accept a variety of inputs). E.g. Use a free-form text field for zip code instead of a backend look up. X X
      Lack of value lookup Reference data is not looked up from a reference list. E.g. State abbreviation is entered instead of being looked up from a standard list of states. X X
      Lack of mandatory field definitions Mandatory fields are not identified and reinforced. Resulting data records with many missing data elements. E.g. Some users may fill up 2 or 3 fields in a UI that has 20 non-mandatory fields. X

      The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Application Design section is highlighted.

      Get to know the root causes behind common database design mistakes

      Improper database design allows incorrect data to be stored and propagated.

      Business Process
      Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
      Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
      Incorrect referential integrity Referential integrity constraints are absent or incorrectly implemented, resulting in child records without parent records, or related records are updated or deleted in a cascading manner. E.g. An invoice line item is created before an invoice is created. X X
      Lack of unique keys Lack of unique keys creating scenarios where record uniqueness cannot be guaranteed. E.g. Customer records with the same customer_ID. X X
      Data range Fail to define a data range for incoming data, resulting in data values that are out of range. E.g. The age field is able to store an age of 999. X X
      Incorrect data type Incorrect data types are used to store data fields. E.g. A string field is used to store zip codes. Some users use that to store phone numbers, birthdays, etc. X X

      The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Database Design section is highlighted

      Get to know the root causes behind enterprise integration mistakes

      Improper data integration or synchronization may create poor analytical data.

      Business Process
      Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
      Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
      Incorrect transformation Transformation is done incorrectly. A wrong formula may have been used, transformation is done at the wrong data granularity, or aggregation logic is incorrect. E.g. Aggregation is done for all customers instead of just active customers. X X
      Data refresh is out of sync Data is synchronized at different intervals, resulting in a data warehouse where data domains are out of sync. E.g. Customer transactions are refreshed to reflect the latest activities but the account balance is not yet refreshed. X X
      Data is matched incorrectly Fail to match records from disparate systems, resulting in duplications and unmatched records. E.g. Unable to match customers from different systems because they have different cust_ID. X X
      Incorrect data mapping Fields from source systems are not properly matched with data warehouse fields. E.g. Status fields from different systems are mixed into one field. X X

      The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Integration section is highlighted

      Get to know the root causes behind policy and procedure mistakes

      Suboptimal policies and procedures undermine the effect of best practices.

      Business Process
      Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
      Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
      Policy Gaps There are gaps in the policy landscape in terms of some missing key policies or policies that are not refreshed to reflect the latest changes. E.g. A data entry policy is absent, leading to inconsistent data entry practices. X X
      Policy Communications Policies are in place but the policies are not communicated effectively to the organization, resulting in misinterpretation of policies and under-enforcement of policies. E.g. The data standard is created but very few developers are aware of its existence. X X
      Policy Enforcement Policies are in place but not proactively re-enforced and that leads to inconsistent application of policies and policy adoption. E.g. Policy adoption is dropping over time due to lack of reinforcement. X X
      Policy Quality Policies are written by untrained authors and they do not communicate the messages. E.g. A non-technical data user may find a policy that is loaded with technical terms confusing. X X

      The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Policies section is highlighted

      Get to know the root causes behind common business process mistakes

      Ineffective and inefficient business processes create entry points for poor data.

      Business Process
      Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
      Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
      Lack of training Key data personnel and business analysts are not trained in data quality and data governance, leading to lack of accountability. E.g. A data steward is not aware of downstream impact of a duplicated financial statement. X X
      Ineffective business process The same piece of information is entered into data systems two or more times. Or a piece of data is stalled in a data system for too long. E.g. A paper form is scanned multiple times to extract data into different data systems. X X
      Lack of documentation Fail to document the work flows of the key business processes. A lack of work flow results in sub-optimal use of data. E.g. Data is modeled incorrectly due to undocumented business logic. X X
      Lack of integration between business silos Business silos hold on to their own datasets resulting in data silos in which data is not shared and/or data is transferred with errors. E.g. Data from a unit is extracted as a data file and stored in a shared drive with little access. X X

      The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Processes section is highlighted

      Phase 3 Summary

      1. Data Lineage Diagram
      • Creating the data lineage diagram is recommended to help visualize the flow of your data and to map the data journey and identify the data subject areas to be targeted for fixes.
      • The data lineage diagram was leveraged multiple times throughout this Phase. For example, the data lineage diagram was used to document the data sources and applications used by the business unit
    • Business Context
      • Business context was documented through the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool.
      • The same tool was used to document identified business units and their associated data.
      • Metrics were also identified at the business unit level to track data quality improvements.
    • Common Root Causes
      • Leverage a root cause analysis approach to pinpoint the origins of your data quality issues.
      • Analyzed and got to know the root causes behind the following:
        1. System/application design mistakes
        2. Common database design mistakes
        3. Enterprise integration mistakes
        4. Policies and procedures mistakes
        5. Common business processes mistakes

      • Phase 4

      Grow and Sustain Your Data Quality Program

      Build Your Data Quality Program

      For the identified root causes, determine the solutions for the problem

      As you worked through the previous step, you identified the root causes of your data quality problems within the business unit. Now, it is time to identify solutions.

      The following slides provide an overview of the solutions to common data quality issues. As you identify solutions that apply to the business unit being addressed, insert the solution tables in Section 4: Proposed Solutions of the Data Quality Improvement Plan Template.

      All data quality solutions have two components to them:

      • Technology
      • People

      For the next five data quality solution slides, look for the slider for the contributions of each category to the solution. Use this scale to guide you in creating solutions.

      When designing solutions, keep in mind that solutions to data quality problems are not mutually exclusive. In other words, an identified root cause may have multiple solutions that apply to it.

      For example, if an application is plagued with inaccurate data, the application design may be suboptimal, but also the process that leads to data being entered may need fixing.

      Data quality improvement strategy #1:

      Fix data quality issues by improving system/application design.

      Technology

      Application Interface Design

      Restrict field length – Capture only the characters you need for your application.

      Leverage data masks – Use data masks in standardized fields like zip code and phone number.

      Restrict the use of open text fields and use reference tables – Only present open text fields when there is a need. Use reference tables to limit data values.

      Provide options – Use radio buttons, drop-down lists, and multi-select instead of using open text fields.

      Data Validation at the Application Level

      Validate data before committing – Use simple validation to ensure the data entered is not random numbers and letters.

      Track history – Keep track of who entered what fields.

      Cannot submit twice – Only design for one-time submission.

      People

      Training

      Data-entry training – Training that is related to data entry, creating, or updating data records.

      Data resolution training – Training data stewards or other dedicated data personnel on how to resolve data records that are not entered properly.

      Continuous Improvement

      Standards – Develop application design principles and standards.

      Field testing – Field data entry with a few people to look for abnormalities and discrepancies.

      Detection and resolution – Abnormal data records should be isolated and resolved ASAP.

      Application Testing

      Thorough testing – Application design is your first line of defence against poor data. Test to ensure bad data is kept out of the systems.

      Case Study

      HMS

      Industry: Healthcare

      Source: Informatica

      Improve your data quality ingestion procedures to provide better customer intimacy for your users

      Healthcare Management Systems (HMS) provides cost containment services for healthcare sponsors and payers, and coordinates benefits services. This is to ensure that healthcare claims are paid correctly to both government agencies and individuals. To do so, HMS relies on data, and this data needs to be of high quality to ensure the correct decisions are made, the right people get the correct claims, and the appropriate parties pay out.

      To improve the integrity of HMS’s customer data, HMS put in place a framework that helped to standardize the collection of high volume and highly variable data.

      Results

      Working with a data quality platform vendor to establish a framework for data standardization, HMS was able to streamline data analysis and reduce new customer implementations from months to weeks.

      HMS data was plagued with a lack of standardization of data ingestion procedures.

      Before improving data quality processes After improving data quality processes
      Data Ingestion Data Ingestion
      Many standards of ingestion. Standardized data ingestion
      Data Storage Data Storage
      Lack of ability to match data, creating data quality errors.
      Data Analysis Data Analysis
      = =
      Slow Customer Implementation Time 50% Reduction in Customer Implementation Time

      Data quality improvement strategy #2:

      Fix data quality issues using proper database design.

      Technology

      Database Design Best Practices

      Referential integrity – Ensure parent/child relationships are maintained in terms of cascade creation, update, and deletion.

      Primary key definition – Ensure there is at least one key to guarantee the uniqueness of the data records, and primary key should not allow null.

      Validate data domain – Create triggers to check the data values entered in the database fields.

      Field type and length – Define the most suitable data type and length to hold field values.

      One-Time Data Fix (more on the next slide)

      Explore solutions – Where to fix the data issues? Is there a case to fix the issues?

      Running profiling tools to catch errors – Run scans on the database with defined criteria to identify occurrences of questionable data.

      Fix a sample before fixing all records – Use a proof-of-concept approach to explore fix options and evaluate impacts before fixing the full set.

      People

      The DBA Team

      Perform key tasks in pairs – Take a pair approach to perform key tasks so that validation and cross-check can happen.

      Skilled DBAs – DBAs should be certified and accredited.

      Competence – Assess DBA competency on an ongoing basis.

      Preparedness – Develop drills to stimulate data issues and train DBAs.

      Cross train – Cross train team members so that one DBA can cover another DBA.

      Data quality improvement strategy #3:

      Improve integration and synchronization of enterprise data.

      Technology

      Integration Architecture

      Info-Tech’s 5-Tier Architecture – When doing transformations, it is good practice to persist the integration results in tier 3 before the data is further refined and presented in tier 4.

      Timing, timing, and timing – Think of the sequence of events. You may need to perform some ETL tasks before other tasks to achieve synchronization and consistence.

      Historical changes – Ensure your tier 3 is robust enough to include historical data. You need to enable type 2 slowly, changing dimension to recreate the data at a point in time.

      Data Cleansing

      Standardize – Leverage data standardization to standardize name and address fields to improve matching and integration.

      Fuzzy matching – When there are no common keys between datasets. The datasets can only be matched by fuzzy matching. Fuzzy matching is not hard science; define a confidence level and think about a mechanism to deal with the unmatched.

      People

      Reporting and Documentations

      Business data glossary and data lineage – Define a business data glossary to enhance findability of key data elements. Document data mappings and ETL logics.

      Create data quality reports – Many ETL platforms provide canned data quality reports. Leverage those quality reports to monitor the data health.

      Code Review

      Create data quality reports – Many ETL platforms provide canned data quality reports. Leverage those quality reports to monitor the data health.

      ARB (architectural review board) – All ETL codes should be approved by the architectural review board to ensure alignment with the overall integration strategy.

      Data quality improvement strategy #4:

      Improve data quality policies and procedures.

      Technology

      Policy Reporting

      Data quality reports – Leverage canned data quality reports from the ETL platforms to monitor data quality on an on-going basis. When abnormalities are found, provoke the right policies to deal with the issues.

      Store policies in a central location that is well known and easy to find and access. A key way that technology can help communicate policies is by having them published on a centralized website.

      Make the repository searchable and easily navigable. myPolicies helps you do all this and more.

      myPolicies helps you do all this and more.

      Go to this link

      People

      Policy Review and Training

      Policy review – Create a schedule for reviewing policies on a regular basis – invite professional writers to ensure polices are understandable.

      Policy training – Policies are often unread and misread. Training users and stakeholders on policies is an effective way to make sure those users and stakeholders understand the rationale of the policies. It is also a good practice to include a few scenarios that are handled by the policies.

      Policy hotline/mailbox – To avoid misinterpretation of the policies, a policy hotline/mailbox should be set up to answer any data policy questions from the end users/stakeholders.

      Policy Communications

      Simplified communications – Create handy one-pagers and infographic posters to communicate the key messages of the polices.

      Policy briefing – Whenever a new data project is initiated, a briefing of data policies should be given to ensure the project team follows the policies from the very beginning.

      Data quality improvement strategy #5:

      Streamline and optimize business processes.

      Technology

      Requirements Gathering

      Data Lineage – Leverage a metadata management tool to construct and document data lineage for future reference.

      Documentations Repository – It is a best practice to document key project information and share that knowledge across the project team and with the stakeholder. An improvement understanding of the project helps to identify data quality issues early on in the project.

      “Automating creation of data would help data quality most. You have to look at existing processes and create data signatures. You can then derive data off those data codes.” – Patrick Bossey, Manager of Business Intelligence, Crawford and Company

      People

      Requirements Gathering

      Info-Tech’s 4-Column Model – The datasets may exist but the business units do not have an effective way of communicating the quality needs. Use our four-column model and the eleven supporting questions to better understand the quality needs. See subsequent slides.

      I don’t know what the data means so I think the quality is poor – It is not uncommon to see that the right data presented to the business but the business does not trust the data. They also do not understand the business logic done on the data. See our Business Data Glossary in subsequent slides.

      Understand the business workflow – Know the business workflow to understand the manual steps associated with the workflow. You may find steps in which data is entered, manipulated, or consumed inappropriately.

      “Do a shadow data exercise where you identify the human workflows of how data gets entered, and then you can identify where data entry can be automated.” – Diraj Goel, Growth Advisor, BC Tech

      Brainstorm solutions to your data quality issues

      4 hours

      Input

      • Data profiling results
      • Preliminary root cause analyses

      Output

      • Proposals for data fix
      • Fixed issues

      Materials

      • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

      Participants

      • Business and Data Analysts
      • Data experts and stewards

      After walking through the best-practice solutions to data quality issues, propose solutions to fix your identified issues.

      Instructions

      1. Review Root Cause Analyses: Revisit the root cause analysis and data lineage diagram you have generated in Step 3.2. to understand the issues in greater details.
      2. Characterize Each Issue: You may need to generate a data profiling report to characterize the issue. The report can be generated by using data quality suites, BI platforms, or even SQL statements.
      3. Brainstorm the Solutions: As a group, discuss potential ways to fix the issue. You can tackle the issues by approaching from these areas:
      Solution Approaches
      Technology Approach
      People Approach

      X crossover with

      Problematic Areas
      Application/System Design
      Database Design
      Data Integration and Synchronization
      Policies and Procedures
      Business Processes
      1. Document and Communicate: Document the solutions to your data issues. You may need to reuse or refer to the solutions. Also brainstorm some ideas on how to communicate the results back to the business.

      Download this Tool

      Sustaining your data quality requires continuous oversight through a data governance practice

      Quality data is the ultimate outcome of data governance and data quality management. Data governance enables data quality by providing the necessary oversight and controls for business processes in order to maintain data quality. There are three primary groups (at right) that are involved in a mature governance practice. Data quality should be tightly integrated with all of them.

      Define an effective data governance strategy and ensure the strategy integrates well with data quality with Info-Tech’s Establish Data Governance blueprint.

      Visit this link

      Data Governance Council

      This council establishes data management practices that span across the organization. This should be comprised of senior management or C-suite executives that can represent the various departments and lines of business within the organization. The data governance council can help to promote the value of data governance, facilitate a culture that nurtures data quality, and ensure that the goals of the data governance program are well aligned with business objectives.

      Data Owners

      Identifying the data owner role within an organization helps to create a greater degree of accountability for data issues. They often oversee how the data is being generated as well as how it is being consumed. Data owners come from the business side and have legal rights and defined control over a data set. They ensure data is available to the right people within the organization.

      Data Stewards

      Conflict can occur within an organization’s data governance program when a data steward’s role is confused with that of the steering committee’s role. Data stewards exist to enforce decisions made about data governance and data management. Data stewards are often business analysts or power users of a particular system/dataset. Where a data owner is primarily responsible for access, a data steward is responsible for the quality of a dataset.

      Integrate the data quality management strategy with existing data governance committees

      Ongoing and regular data quality management is the responsibility of the data governance bodies of the organization.

      The oversight of ongoing data quality activities rests on the shoulders of the data governance committees that exist in the organization.

      There is no one-size-fits-all data governance structure. However, most organizations follow a similar pattern when establishing committees, councils, and cross-functional groups. They strive to identify roles and responsibilities at a strategic, tactical, and operational level:

      The image shows a pyramid, with Executive Sponsors at the top, with the following roles in descending order: DG Council; Steering Committee; Working Groups; Data Owners and Data Stewards; and Data Users. Along the left side of the pyramid, there are three labels, in ascending order: Operational, Tactical, and Strategic.

      The image is a flow chart showing project roles, in two sections: the top section is labelled Governing Bodies, and the lower section is labelled Data Quality Improvement Team. There is a note indicating that the Data Owner reports to and provides updates regarding the state of data quality and data quality initiatives.

      Create and update the organization’s Business Data Glossary to keep up with current data definitions

      2 hours

      Input

      • Metrics and goals for data quality

      Output

      • Regularly scheduled data quality checkups

      Materials

      • Business Data Glossary Template
      • Data Quality Dashboard

      Participants

      • Data steward

      A crucial aspect of data quality and governance is the Business Data Glossary. The Business Data Glossary helps to align the terminology of the business with the organization’s data assets. It allows the people who interact with the data to quickly identify the applications, processes, and stewardship associated with it, which will enhance the accuracy and efficiency of searches for organization data definitions and attributes, enabling better access to the data. This will, in turn, enhance the quality of the organization’s data because it will be more accurate, relevant, and accessible.

      Use the Business Data Glossary Template to document key aspects of the data, such as:

      • Definition
      • Source System
      • Possible Values
      • Data Steward
      • Data Sensitivity
      • Data Availability
      • Batch or Live
      • Retention

      Data Element

      • Mkt-Product
      • Fin-Product

      Info-Tech Insight

      The Business Data Glossary ensures that the crucial data that has key business use by key business systems and users is appropriately owned and defined. It also establishes rules that lead to proper data management and quality to be enforced by the data owners.

      Download this Tool

      Data Steward(s): Use the Data Quality Improvement Plan of the business unit for ongoing quality monitoring

      Integrating your data quality strategy into the organization’s data governance program requires passing the strategy over to members of the data governance program. The data steward role is responsible for data quality at the business unit level, and should have been involved with the creation and implementation of the data quality improvement project. After the data quality repairs have been made, it is the responsibility of the data steward to regularly monitor the quality of the business unit’s data.

      Create Improvement Plan ↓
      • Data Quality Improvement Team identifies root cause issues.
      • Brainstorm solutions.
      Implement Improvement Plan ↓
      • Data Quality Improvement Team works with IT.
      Sustain Improvement Plan
      • Data Steward should regularly monitor data quality.

      Download this tool

      See Info-Tech’s Data Steward Job Description Template for a detailed understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the data steward.

      Responsible for sustaining

      The image shows a screen capture of a document entitled Business Context & Subject Area Selection.

      Develop a business-facing data quality dashboard to show improvements or a sudden dip in data quality

      One tool that the data steward can take advantage of is the data quality dashboard. Initiatives that are implemented to address data quality must have metrics defined by business objectives in order to demonstrate the value of the data quality improvement projects. In addition, the data steward should have tools for tracking data quality in the business unit to report issues to the data owner and data governance steering committee.

      • Example 1: Marketing uses data for direct mail and e-marketing campaigns. They care about customer data in particular. Specifically, they require high data quality in attributes such as customer name, address, and product profile.
      • Example 2: Alternatively, Finance places emphasis on financial data, focusing on attributes like account balance, latency in payment, credit score, and billing date.

      The image is Business dashboard on Data Quality for Marketing. It features Data Quality metrics, listed in the left column, and numbers for each quarter over the course of one year, on the right.

      Notes on chart:

      General improvement in billing address quality

      Sudden drop in touchpoint accuracy may prompt business to ask for explanations

      Approach to creating a business-facing data quality dashboard:

      1. Schedule a meeting with the functional unit to discuss what key data quality metrics are essential to their business operations. You should consider the business context, functional area, and subject area analyses you completed in Phase 1 as a starting point.
      2. Discuss how to gather data for the key metrics and their associated calculations.
      3. Discuss and decide the reporting intervals.
      4. Discuss and decide the unit of measurement.
      5. Generate a dashboard similar to the example. Consider using a BI or analytics tool to develop the dashboard.

      Data quality management must be sustained for ongoing improvements to the organization’s data

      • Data quality is never truly complete; it is a set of ongoing processes and disciplines that requires a permanent plan for monitoring practices, reviewing processes, and maintaining consistent data standards.
      • Setting the expectation to stakeholders that a long-term commitment is required to maintain quality data within the organization is critical to the success of the program.
      • A data quality maintenance program will continually revise and fine-tune ongoing practices, processes, and procedures employed for organizational data management.

      Data quality is a program that requires continual care:

      →Maintain→Good Data →

      Data quality management is a long-term commitment that shifts how an organization views, manages, and utilizes its corporate data assets. Long-term buy-in from all involved is critical.

      “Data quality is a process. We are trying to constantly improve the quality over time. It is not a one-time fix.” – Akin Akinwumi, Manager of Data Governance, Startech.com

      Define a data quality review agenda for data quality sustainment

      2 hours

      Input

      • Metrics and goals for data quality

      Output

      • Regularly scheduled data quality checkups

      Materials

      • Data Quality Diagnostic
      • Data Quality Dashboard

      Participants

      • Data Steward

      As a data steward, you are responsible for ongoing data quality checks of the business unit’s data. Define an improvement agenda to organize the improvement activities. Organize the activities yearly and quarterly to ensure improvement is done year-round.

      Quarterly

      • Measure data quality metrics against milestones. Perform a regular data quality health check with Info-Tech’s Data Quality Diagnostic.
      • Review the business unit’s Business Data Glossary to ensure that it is up to date and comprehensive.
      • Assess progress of practice area initiatives (time, milestones, budget, benefits delivered).
      • Analyze overall data quality and report progress on key improvement projects and corrective actions in the executive dashboard.
      • Communicate overall status of data quality to oversight body.

      Annually

      • Calculate your current baseline and measure progress by comparing it to previous years.
      • Set/revise quality objectives for each practice area and inter-practice hand-off processes.
      • Re-evaluate/re-establish data quality objectives.
      • Set/review data quality metrics and tracking mechanisms.
      • Set data quality review milestones and timelines.
      • Revisit data quality training from an end-user perspective and from a practitioner perspective.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Do data quality diagnostic at the beginning of any improvement plan, then recheck health with the diagnostic at regular intervals to see if symptoms are coming back. This should be a monitoring activity, not a data quality fixing activity. If symptoms are bad enough, repeat the improvement plan process.

      Take the next step in your Data & Analytics Journey

      After establishing your data quality program, look to increase your data & analytics maturity.

      • Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a concept that many organizations strive to implement. AI can really help in areas such as data preparation. However, implementing AI solutions requires a level of maturity that many organizations are not at.
      • While a solid data quality foundation is essential for AI initiatives being successful, AI can also ensure high data quality.
      • An AI analytics solution can address data integrity issues at the earliest point of data processing, rapidly transforming these vast volumes of data into trusted business information. This can be done through Anomaly detection, which flags “bad” data, identifying suspicious anomalies that can impact data quality. By tracking and evaluating data, anomaly detection gives critical insights into data quality as data is processed. (Ira Cohen, The End to a Never-Ending Story? Improve Data Quality with AI Analytics, anodot, 2020)

      Consider… “Garbage in, garbage out.”

      Lay a solid foundation by addressing your data quality issues prior to investing heavily in an AI solution.

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Are You Ready for AI?

      • Use AI as a compelling event to expedite funding, resources, and project plans for your data-related initiatives. Check out this note to understand what it takes to be ready to implement AI solutions.

      Get Started With Artificial Intelligence

      • Current AI technology is data-enabled, automated, adaptive decision support. Once you believe you are ready for AI, check out this blueprint on how to get started.

      Build a Data Architecture Roadmap

      • The data lineage diagram was a key tool used in establishing your data quality program. Check out this blueprint and learn how to optimize your data architecture to provide greatest value from data.

      Create an Architecture for AI

      • Build your target state architecture from predefined best practice building blocks. This blueprint assists members first to assess if they have the maturity to embrace AI in their organization, and if so, which AI acquisition model fits them best.

      Phase 4 Summary

      1. Data Quality Improvement Strategy
      • Brainstorm solutions to your data quality issues using the following data quality improvement strategies as a guide:
        1. Fix data quality issues by improving system/application design
        2. Fix data quality issues using proper database design
        3. Improve integration and synchronization of enterprise data
        4. Improve data quality policies and procedures
        5. Streamline and optimize business processes
    • Sustain Your Data Quality Program
      • Quality data is the ultimate outcome of data governance and data quality management.
      • Sustaining your data quality requires continuous oversight through a data governance practice.
      • There are three primary groups (Data Governance Council, Data Owners, and Data Stewards) that are involved in a mature governance practice.
    • Grow Your Data & Analytics Maturity
      • After establishing your data quality program, take the next step in increasing your data & analytics maturity.
      • Good data quality is the foundation of pursuing different ways of maximizing the value of your data such as implementing AI solutions.
      • Continue your data & analytics journey by referring to Info-Tech’s quality research.

      • Research Contributors and Experts

      Izabela Edmunds

      Information Architect Mott MacDonald

      Akin Akinwumi

      Manager of Data Governance Startech.com

      Diraj Goel

      Growth Advisor BC Tech

      Sujay Deb

      Director of Data Analytics Technology and Platforms Export Development Canada

      Asif Mumtaz

      Data & Solution Architect Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

      Patrick Bossey

      Manager of Business Intelligence Crawford and Company

      Anonymous Contributors

      Ibrahim Abdel-Kader

      Research Specialist Info-Tech Research Group

      Ibrahim is a Research Specialist at Info-Tech Research Group. In his career to date he has assisted many clients using his knowledge in process design, knowledge management, SharePoint for ECM, and more. He is expanding his familiarity in many areas such as data and analytics, enterprise architecture, and CIO-related topics.

      Reddy Doddipalli

      Senior Workshop Director Info-Tech Research Group

      Reddy is a Senior Workshop Director at Info-Tech Research Group, focused on data management and specialized analytics applications. He has over 25 years of strong industry experience in IT leading and managing analytics suite of solutions, enterprise data management, enterprise architecture, and artificial intelligence–based complex expert systems.

      Andy Neill

      Practice Lead, Data & Analytics and Enterprise Architecture Info-Tech Research Group

      Andy leads the data and analytics and enterprise architecture practices at ITRG. He has over 15 years of experience in managing technical teams, information architecture, data modeling, and enterprise data strategy. He is an expert in enterprise data architecture, data integration, data standards, data strategy, big data, and development of industry standard data models.

      Crystal Singh

      Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

      Crystal is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group. She brings a diverse and global perspective to her role, drawing from her professional experiences in various industries and locations. Prior to joining Info-Tech, Crystal led the Enterprise Data Services function at Rogers Communications, one of Canada’s leading telecommunications companies.

      Igor Ikonnikov

      Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

      Igor is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group. He has extensive experience in strategy formation and execution in the information management domain, including master data management, data governance, knowledge management, enterprise content management, big data, and analytics.

      Andrea Malick

      Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

      Andrea Malick is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group, focused on building best practices knowledge in the enterprise information management domain, with corporate and consulting leadership in enterprise architecture and content management (ECM).

      Natalia Modjeska

      Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

      Natalia Modjeska is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group. She advises members on topics related to AI, machine learning, advanced analytics, and data science, including ethics and governance. Natalia has over 15 years of experience in developing, selling, and implementing analytical solutions.

      Rajesh Parab

      Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

      Rajesh Parab is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group. He has over 20 years of global experience and brings a unique mix of technology and business acumen. He has worked on many data-driven business applications. In his previous architecture roles, Rajesh created a number of product roadmaps, technology strategies, and models.

      Bibliography

      Amidon, Kirk. "Case Study: How Data Quality Has Evolved at MathWorks." The Fifth MIT Information Quality Industry Symposium. 13 July 2011. Web. 19 Aug. 2015.

      Boulton, Clint. “Disconnect between CIOs and LOB managers weakens data quality.” CIO. 05 February 2016. Accessed June 2020.

      COBIT 5: Enabling Information. Rolling Meadows, IL: ISACA, 2013. Web.

      Cohen, Ira. “The End to a Never-Ending Story? Improve Data Quality with AI Analytics.” anodot. 2020.

      “DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK Guide).” First Edition. DAMA International. 2009. Digital. April 2014.

      "Data Profiling: Underpinning Data Quality Management." Pitney Bowes. Pitney Bowes - Group 1 Software, 2007. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

      Data.com. “Data.com Clean.” Salesforce. 2016. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

      “Dawn of the CDO." Experian Data Quality. 2015. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

      Demirkan, Haluk, and Bulent Dal. "Why Do So Many Analytics Projects Fail?" The Data Economy: Why Do so Many Analytics Projects Fail? Analytics Magazine. July-Aug. 2014. Web.

      Dignan, Larry. “CIOs juggling digital transformation pace, bad data, cloud lock-in and business alignment.” ZDNet. 11 March 2020. Accessed July.

      Dumbleton, Janani, and Derek Munro. "Global Data Quality Research - Discussion Paper 2015." Experian Data Quality. 2015. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

      Eckerson, Wayne W. "Data Quality and the Bottom Line - Achieving Business Success through a Commitment to High Quality Data." The Data Warehouse Institute. 2002. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

      “Infographic: Data Quality in BI the Costs and Benefits.” HaloBI. 2015 Web.

      Lee, Y.W. and Strong, D.M. “Knowing-Why About Data Processes and Data Quality.” Journal of Management Information Systems. 2004.

      “Making Data Quality a Way of Life.” Cognizant. 2014. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

      "Merck Serono Achieves Single Source of Truth with Comprehensive RIM Solutions." www.productlifegroup.com. ProductLife Group. 15 Apr. 2015. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.

      Myers, Dan. “List of Conformed Dimensions of Data Quality.” Conformed Dimensions of Data Quality (CDDQ). 2019. Web.

      Redman, Thomas C. “Make the Case for Better Data Quality.” Harvard Business Review. 24 Aug. 2012. Web. 19 Aug. 2015.

      RingLead Data Management Solutions. “10 Stats About Data Quality I Bet You Didn’t Know.” RingLead. Accessed 7 July 2020.

      Schwartzrock, Todd. "Chrysler's Data Quality Management Case Study." Online video clip. YouTube. 21 April. 2011. Web. 18 Aug. 2015

      “Taking control in the digital age.” Experian Data Quality. Jan 2019. Web.

      “The data-driven organization, a transformation in progress.” Experian Data Quality. 2020. Web.

      "The Data Quality Benchmark Report." Experian Data Quality. Jan. 2015. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

      “The state of data quality.” Experian Data Quality. Sept. 2013. Web. 17 Aug. 2015.

      Vincent, Lanny. “Differentiating Competence, Capability and Capacity.” Innovation Management Services. Web. June 2008.

      “7 ways poor data quality is costing your business.” Experian Data Quality. July 2020. Web.

      Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}228|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: 10.0/10 Overall Impact
      • member rating average dollars saved: $3,820 Average $ Saved
      • member rating average days saved: 2 Average Days Saved
      • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
      • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management

      Understanding the differences in IaaS platform agreements, purchasing options, associated value, and risks. What are your options for:

      • Upfront or monthly payments
      • Commitment discounts
      • Support options
      • Migration planning and support

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      IaaS platforms offer similar technical features, but they vary widely on their procurement model. By fully understanding the procurement differences and options, you will be able to purchase wisely, save money both long and short term, and mitigate investment risk.

      Most vendors have similar processes and options to buy. Finding a transparent explanation and summary of each platform in a side-by-side review is difficult.

      • Are vendor reps being straight forward?
      • What are the licensing requirements?
      • What discounts or incentives can I negotiate?
      • How much do I have to commit to and for how long?

      Impact and Result

      This project will provide several benefits for both IT and the business. It includes:

      • Best IaaS platform to support current and future procurement requirements.
      • Right-sized cloud commitment tailored to the organization’s budget.
      • Predictable and controllable spend model.
      • Flexible and reliable IT infrastructure that supports the lines of business.
      • Reduced financial and legal risk.

      Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to learn how the public cloud IaaS procurement models compare. Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand the top three platforms, features, and benefits to support and inform the IaaS vendor choice.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Educate

      Learn the IaaS basics, terminologies, purchasing options, licensing requirements, hybrid options, support, and organization requirements through a checklist process.

      • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 1: Educate
      • Public Cloud Procurement Checklist
      • Microsoft Public Cloud Licensing Guide

      2. Evaluate

      Review and understand the features, downsides, and differences between the big three players.

      • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 2: Evaluate
      • Public Cloud Procurement Comparison Summary

      3. Execute

      Decide on a primary vendor that meets requirements, engage with a reseller, negotiate pricing incentives, migration costs, review, and execute the agreement.

      • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 3: Execute
      • Public Cloud Acquisition Executive Summary Template

      Infographic

      Drive Customer Convenience by Enabling Text-Based Customer Support

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}531|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: N/A
      • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
      • member rating average days saved: N/A
      • Parent Category Name: Customer Relationship Management
      • Parent Category Link: /customer-relationship-management
      • Text messaging services and applications (such as SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger) have seen explosive growth over the last decade. They are an entrenched part of consumers’ daily lives. For many demographics, text messaging rather than audio calls is the preferred medium of communication via smartphone.
      • Despite the popularity of text messaging services and applications with consumers, organizations have been slow to adequately incorporate these channels into their customer service strategy.
      • The result is a major disconnect between the channel preferences of consumers and the customer service options being offered by businesses.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • IT must work with their counterparts in customer service to build a technology roadmap that incorporates text messaging services and apps as a core channel for customer interaction. Doing so will increase IT’s stature as an innovator in the eyes of the business, while allowing the broader organization to leapfrog competitors that have not yet added text-based support to their repertoire of service channels. Incorporating text messaging as a customer service channel will increase customer satisfaction, improve retention, and reduce cost-to-serve.
      • A prudent strategy for text-based customer service begins with defining the value proposition and creating objectives: is there a strong fit with the organization’s customers and service use cases? Next, organizations must create a technology enablement roadmap for text-based support that incorporates the right tools and applications to deliver it. Finally, the strategy must address best practices for text-based customer service workflows and appropriate resourcing.

      Impact and Result

      • Understand the value and use cases for text-based customer support.
      • Create a framework for enabling technologies that will support scalable text-based customer service.
      • Improve underlying business metrics such as customer satisfaction, retention, and time to resolution by having a plan for text-based support.
      • Better align IT with customer service and support needs.

      Drive Customer Convenience by Enabling Text-Based Customer Support Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should be leveraging text-based services for customer support, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Create the business case for text-based customer support

      Understand the use cases and benefits of using text-based services for customer support, and establish how they align to the organization’s current service strategy.

      • Drive Customer Convenience by Enabling Text-Based Customer Support – Phase 1: Create the Business Case for Text-Based Customer Support
      • Text-Based Customer Support Strategic Summary Template
      • Text-Based Customer Support Project Charter Template
      • Text-Based Customer Support Business Case Assessment

      2. Create a technology enablement framework for text-based customer support

      Identify the right applications that will be needed to adequately support a text-based support strategy.

      • Drive Customer Convenience by Enabling Text-Based Customer Support – Phase 2: Create a Technology Enablement Framework for Text-Based Customer Support
      • Text-Based Customer Support Requirements Traceability Matrix

      3. Create customer service workflows for text-based support

      Create repeatable workflows and escalation policies for text-centric support.

      • Drive Customer Convenience by Enabling Text-Based Customer Support – Phase 3: Create Customer Service Workflows for Text-Based Support
      • Text-Based Customer Support TCO Tool
      • Text-Based Customer Support Acceptable Use Policy
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Drive Customer Convenience by Enabling Text-Based Customer Support

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Create the Business Case for Text-Based Support

      The Purpose

      Create the business case for text-based support.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A clear direction on the drivers and value proposition of text-based customer support for your organization.

      Activities

      1.1 Identify customer personas.

      1.2 Define business and IT drivers.

      Outputs

      Identification of IT and business drivers.

      Project framework and guiding principles for the project.

      2 Create a Technology Enablement Framework for Text-Based Support

      The Purpose

      Create a technology enablement framework for text-based support.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Prioritized requirements for text-based support and a vetted shortlist of the technologies needed to enable it.

      Activities

      2.1 Determine the correct migration strategy based on the current version of Exchange.

      2.2 Plan the user groups for a gradual deployment.

      Outputs

      Exchange migration strategy.

      User group organization by priority of migration.

      3 Create Service Workflows for Text-Based Support

      The Purpose

      Create service workflows for text-based support.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Customer service workflows and escalation policies, as well as risk mitigation considerations.

      Present final deliverable to key stakeholders.

      Activities

      3.1 Review the text channel matrix.

      3.2 Build the inventory of customer service applications that are needed to support text-based service.

      Outputs

      Extract requirements for text-based customer support.

      4 Finalize Your Text Service Strategy

      The Purpose

      Finalize the text service strategy.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Resource and risk mitigation plan.

      Activities

      4.1 Build core customer service workflows for text-based support.

      4.2 Identify text-centric risks and create a mitigation plan.

      4.3 Identify metrics for text-based support.

      Outputs

      Business process models assigned to text-based support.

      Formulation of risk mitigation plan.

      Key metrics for text-based support.

      Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

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      • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
      • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management

      Organizations can struggle to understand what service-level agreements (SLAs) are required and how they can differ depending on the service type. In addition, these other challenges can also cloud an organization’s knowledge of SLAs:

      • No standardized SLAs documents, service levels, or metrics
      • Dealing with lost productivity and revenue due to persistent downtime
      • Not understanding SLAs components and what service levels are required for a particular service
      • How to manage the SLA and hold the vendor accountable

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      SLAs need to have clear, easy-to-measure objectives, to meet expectations and service level requirements, including meaningful reporting and remedies to hold the provider accountable to its obligations.

      Impact and Result

      This project will provide several benefits and learnings for almost all IT workers:

      • Better understanding of an SLA framework and required SLA elements
      • Standardized service levels and metrics aligned to the organization’s requirements
      • Reduced time in reviewing, evaluating, and managing service provider SLAs

      Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements Research & Tools

      Start here – Read our Executive Brief

      Understand how to resolve your challenges with SLAs and their components and ensuring adequate metrics. Learn how to create meaningful SLAs that meet your requirements and manage them effectively.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Understand SLA elements – Understand the elements of SLAs, service types, service levels, metrics/KPIs, monitoring, and reporting

      • SLA Checklist
      • SLA Evaluation Tool

      2. Create requirements – Create your own SLA criteria and templates that meet your organization’s requirements

      • SLA Template & Metrics Reference Guide

      3. Manage obligations – Learn the SLA Management Framework to track providers’ performance and adherence to their commitments.

      • SLO Tracker & Trending Tool

      Infographic

      Workshop: Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Understand the Elements of SLAs

      The Purpose

      Understand key components and elements of an SLA.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Properly evaluate an SLA for required elements.

      Activities

      1.1 SLA overview, objectives, SLA types, service levels

      1.2 SLA elements and objectives

      1.3 SLA components: monitoring, reporting, and remedies

      1.4 SLA checklist review

      Outputs

      SLA Checklist 

      Evaluation Process

      SLA Checklist

      Evaluation Process

      SLA Checklist

      Evaluation Process

      SLA Checklist

      Evaluation Process

      2 Create SLA Criteria and Management Framework

      The Purpose

      Apply knowledge of SLA elements to create internal SLA requirements.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Templated SLAs that meet requirements.

      Framework to manage SLOs.

      Activities

      2.1 Creating SLA criteria and requirements

      2.2 SLA templates and policy

      2.3 SLA evaluation activity

      2.4 SLA Management Framework

      2.5 SLA monitoring, tracking, and remedy reconciliation

      Outputs

      Internal SLA Management Framework

      Evaluation of current SLAs

      SLA tracking and trending

      Internal SLA Management Framework

      Evaluation of current SLAs

      SLA tracking and trending

      Internal SLA Management Framework

      Evaluation of current SLAs

      SLA tracking and trending

      Internal SLA Management Framework

      Evaluation of current SLAs

      SLA tracking and trending

      Internal SLA Management Framework

      Evaluation of current SLAs

      SLA tracking and trending

      Further reading

      Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

      Hold Service Providers more accountable to their contractual obligations with meaningful SLA components & remedies

      EXECUTIVE BRIEF

      Analyst Perspective

      Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

      Every year organizations outsource more and more IT infrastructure to the cloud, and IT operations to managed service providers. This increase in outsourcing presents an increase in risk to the CIO to save on IT spend through outsourcing while maintaining required and expected service levels to internal customers and the organization. Ensuring that the service provider constantly meets their obligations so that the CIO can meet their obligation to the organization can be a constant challenge. This brings forth the importance of the Service Level Agreement.

      Research clearly indicates that there is a general lack of knowledge when comes to understanding the key elements of a Service Level Agreement (SLA). Even less understanding of the importance of the components of Service Levels and the Service Level Objectives (SLO) that service provider needs to meet so that the outsourced service consistently meets requirements of the organization. Most service providers are very good at providing the contracted service and they all are very good at presenting SLOs that are easy to meet with very few or no ramifications if they don’t meet their objectives. IT leaders need to be more resolute in only accepting SLOs that are meaningful to their requirements and have meaningful, proactive reporting and associated remedies to hold service providers accountable to their obligations.

      Ted Walker

      Principal Research Director, Vendor Practice

      Info-Tech Research Group

      Executive Brief

      Vendors provide service level commitments to customers in contracts to show a level of trust, performance, availability, security, and responsiveness in an effort create a sense of confidence that their service or platform will meet your organization’s requirements and expectations. Sifting through these promises can be challenging for many IT Leaders. Customers struggle to understand and evaluate what’s in the SLA – are they meaningful and protect your investment? Not understanding the details of SLAs applicable to various types of Service (SaaS, MSP, Service Desk, DR, ISP) can lead to financial and compliance risk for the organization as well as poor customer satisfaction.

      This project will provide IT leadership the knowledge & tools that will allow them to:

      • Understand what SLAs are and why they need them.
      • Develop standard SLAs that meet the organization’s requirements.
      • Negotiate meaningful remedies aligned to Service Levels metrics or KPIs.
      • Create SLA monitoring & reporting and remedies requirements to hold the provider accountable.

      This research:

      1. Is designed for:
      • The CIO or CFO who needs to better understand their provider’s SLAs.
      • The CIO or BU that could benefit from improved service levels.
      • Vendor management who needs to standardize SLAs for the organization IT leadership that needs consistent service levels to the business
      • The contract manager who needs a better understanding of contact SLAs
    • Will help you:
      • Understand what a Service Level Agreement is and what it’s for
      • Learn what the components are of an SLA and why you need them
      • Create a checklist of required SLA elements for your organization
      • Develop standard SLA template requirements for various service types
      • Learn the importance of SLA management to hold providers accountable
    • Will also assist:
      • Vendor management
      • Procurement and sourcing
      • Organizations that need to understand SLAs within contract language
      • With creating standardized monitoring & reporting requirements
      • Organizations get better position remedies & credits to hold vendors accountable to their commitments

      • Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)

      Hold service providers more accountable to their contractual obligations with meaningful SLA components and remedies

      The Problem

      IT Leadership doesn't know how to evaluate an SLA.

      Misunderstanding of obligations given the type of service provided (SAAS, IAAS, DR/BCP, Service Desk)

      Expectations not being met, leading to poor service from the provider.

      No way to hold provider accountable.

      Why it matters

      SLAS are designed to ensure that outsourced IT services meet the requirements and expectations of the organization. Well-written SLAs with all the required elements, metrics, and remedies will allow IT departments to provide the service levels to their customer and avoid financial and contractual risk to the organization.

      The Solution

      1. Understand the key service elements within an SLA
      • Develop a solid understanding of the key elements within an SLA and why they're important.
    • Establish requirements to create SLA criteria
      • Prioritize contractual services and establish concise SLA checklists and performance metrics.
    • Manage SLA obligations to ensure commitments are met
      • Review the five steps for effective SLA management to track provider performance and deal with chronic issues.

      • Service types

      • Availability/Uptime
      • Response Times
      • Resolution Time
      • Accuracy
      • First-Call Resolution

      Agreement Types

      • SaaS/IaaS
      • Service Desk
      • MSP
      • Co-Location
      • DR/BCP
      • Security Ops

      Performance Metrics

      • Reporting
      • Remedies & Credits
      • Monitoring
      • Exclusion

      Example SaaS Provider

      • Response Times ✓
      • Availability/Uptime ✓
      • Resolution Time ✓
      • Update Times ✓
      • Coverage Time ✓
      • Monitoring ✓
      • Reporting ✓
      • Remedies/Credits ✓

      SLA Management Framework

      1. SLO Monitoring
      • SLOs must be monitored by the provider, otherwise they can't be measured.
    • Concise Reporting
      • This is the key element for the provider to validate their performance.
    • Attainment Tracking
      • Capturing SLO metric attainment provides performance trending for each provider.
    • Score carding
      • Tracking details provide input into overall vendor performance ratings.
    • Remedy Reconciliation
      • From SLO tracking, missed SLOs and associated credits needs to be actioned and consumed.

      • Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      To understand which SLAs are required for your organization and how they can differ depending on the service type. In addition, these other challenges can also cloud your knowledge of SLAs

      • No standardized SLA documents, Service levels, or metrics
      • Dealing with lost productivity & revenue due to persistent downtime
      • Understanding SLA components and what service levels are requires for a particular service
      • How to manage the SLA and hold the vendor accountable

      Common Obstacles

      There are several unknowns that SLA can present to different departments within the organization:

      • Little knowledge of what service levels are required
      • Not knowing SLO standards for a service type
      • Lack of resources to manage vendor obligations
      • Negotiating required metrics/KPIs with the provider
      • Low understanding of the risk that poor SLAs can present to the organization

      Info-Tech's Approach

      Info-Tech has a three-step approach to effective SLAs

      • Understand the elements of an SLA
      • Create Requirements for your organization
      • Manage the SLA obligations

      There are some basic components that every SLA should have – most don’t have half of what is required

      Info-Tech Insight

      SLAs need to have clear, easy to measure objectives to meet your expectations and service level requirements, including meaningful reporting and remedies to hold the provider accountable to their obligations.

      Your challenge

      This research is designed to help organizations gain a better understanding of what an SLA is, understand the importance of SLAs in IT contracts, and ensure organizations are provided with rock-solid SLAs that meet their requirements and not just what the vendor wants to provide.

      • Vendors can make SLAs weak and difficult to understand; sometimes the metrics are meaningless. Not fully understanding what makes up a good SLA can bring unknown risks to the organization.
      • Managing vendor SLA obligations effectively is important. Are adequate resources available? Does the vendor provide manual vs. automated processes and which do you need? Is the process proactive from the vendor or reactive from the customer?

      SLAs come in many variations and for many service types. Understanding what needs to be in them is one of the keys to reducing risk to your organization.

      “One of the biggest mistakes an IT leader can make is ignoring the ‘A’ in SLA,” adds Wendy M. Pfeiffer, CIO at Nutanix. “

      An agreement isn’t a one-sided declaration of IT capabilities, nor is it a one-sided demand of business requirements,” she says. “An agreement involves creating a shared understanding of desired service delivery and quality, calculating costs related to expectations, and then agreeing to outcomes in exchange for investment.” (15 SLA mistakes IT leaders still make | CIO)

      Common obstacles

      There are typically a lot of unknowns when it comes to SLAs and how to manage them.

      Most organizations don’t have a full understanding of what SLAs they require and how to ensure they are met by the vendor. Other obstacles that SLAs can present are:

      • Inadequate resources to create and manage SLAs
      • Poor awareness of standard or required SLA metrics/KPIs
      • Lack of knowledge about each provider’s commitment as well as your obligations
      • Low vendor willingness to provide or negotiate meaningful SLAs and credits
      • The know-how or resources to effectively monitor and manage the SLA’s performance

      SLAs need to address your requirements

      55% of businesses do not find all of their service desk metrics useful or valuable (Freshservice.com)

      27% of businesses spend four to seven hours a month collating metric reports (Freshservice.com)

      Executive Summary

      Info-Tech’s Approach

      • Understand the elements of an SLA
        • Availability
        • Monitoring
        • Response Times
        • SLO Calculation
        • Resolution Time
        • Reporting
        • Milestones
        • Exclusions
        • Accuracy
        • Remedies & Credits
      • Create standard SLA requirements and criteria
        • SLA Element Checklist
        • Corporate Requirements and Standards
        • SLA Templates and Policy
      • Effectively Manage the SLA Obligations
        • SLA Management Framework
          • SLO Monitoring
          • Concise Reporting
          • Attainment Tracking
          • Score Carding
          • Remedy Reconciliation

      Info-Tech’s three phase approach

      Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

      Phase 1

      Understand SLA Elements

      Phase Content:

      • 1.1 What are SLAs, types of SLAs, and why are they needed?
      • 1.2 Elements of an SLA
      • 1.3 Obligation management monitoring, Reporting requirements
      • 1.4 Exclusions
      • 1.5 SLAs vs. SLOs vs. SLIs

      Outcome:

      This phase will present you with an understanding of the elements of an SLA: What they are, why you need them, and how to validate them.

      Phase 2

      Create Requirements

      Phase Content:

      • 2.1 Create a list of your SLA criteria
      • 2.2 Develop SLA policy & templates
      • 2.3 Create a negotiation strategy
      • 2.4 SLA Overachieving discussion

      Outcome:

      This phase will leverage knowledge gained in Phase 1 and guide you through the creation of SLA requirements, criteria, and templates to ensure that providers meet the service level obligations needed for various service types to meet your organization’s service expectations.

      Phase 3

      Manage Obligations

      Phase Content:

      • 3.1 SLA Monitoring, Tracking
      • 3.2 Reporting
      • 3.3 Vendor SLA Reviews & Optimizing
      • 3.4 Performance management

      Outcome:

      This phase will provide you with an SLA management framework and the best practices that will allow you to effectively manage service providers and their SLA obligations.

      Insight summary

      Overarching insight

      SLAs need to have clear, easy-to-measure objectives to meet your expectations and service level requirements, including meaningful reporting and remedies to hold the provider accountable to their obligations.

      Phase 1 insight

      Not understanding the required elements of an SLA and not having meaningful remedies to hold service providers accountable to their obligations can present several risk factors to your organization.

      Phase 2 insight

      Creating standard SLA criteria for your organization’s service providers will ensure consistent service levels for your business units and customers.

      Phase 3 insight

      SLAs can have appropriate SLOs and remedies but without effective management processes they could become meaningless.

      Tactical insight

      Be sure to set SLAs that are easily measurable from regularly accessible data and that are straight forward to interpret.

      Tactical insight

      Beware of low, easy to attain service levels and metrics/KPIs. Service levels need to meet your expectations and needs not the vendor’s.

      Blueprint deliverables

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

      SLA Tracker & Trending Tool

      Track the provider’s SLO attainment and see how their performance is trending over time

      SLA Evaluation Tool

      Evaluate SLA service levels, metrics, credit values, reporting, and other elements

      SLA Template & Metrics Reference Guide

      Reference guide for typical SLA metrics with a generic SLA Template

      Service-Level Agreement Checklist

      Complete SLA component checklist for core SLA and contractual elements.

      Key deliverable:

      Service-Level Agreement Evaluation Tool

      Evaluate each component of the SLA , including service levels, metrics, credit values, reporting, and processes to meet your requirements

      Blueprint objectives

      Understand the components of an SLA and effectively manage their obligations

      • To provide an understanding of different types of SLAs, their required elements, and what they mean to your organization. How to identify meaningful service levels based on service types. We will break down the elements of the SLA such as service types and define service levels such as response times, availability, accuracy, and associated metrics or KPIs to ensure they are concise and easy to measure.
      • To show how important it is that all metrics have remedies to hold the service provider accountable to their SLA obligations.

      Once you have this knowledge you will be able to create and negotiate SLA requirements to meet your organization’s needs and then manage them effectively throughout the term of the agreement.

      InfoTech Insight:

      Right-size your requirements and create your SLO criteria based on risk mitigation and create measurements that motivate the desired behavior from the SLA.

      Blueprint benefits

      IT Benefits

      • An understanding of standard SLA service levels and metrics
      • Reduced financial risk through clear and concise easy-to-measure metrics and KPIs
      • Improved SLA commitments from the service provider
      • Meaningful reporting and remedies to hold the provider accountable
      • Service levels and metrics that meet your requirements to support your customers

      Business Benefits

      • Better understanding of an SLA framework and required SLA elements
      • Improved vendor performance
      • Standardized service levels and metrics aligned to your organization’s requirements
      • Reduced time in reviewing and comprehending vendor SLAs
      • Consistent performance from your service providers

      Measure the value of this blueprint

      1. Dollars Saved
      • Improved performance from your service provider
      • Reduced financial risk through meaningful service levels & remedies
      • Dollars gained through:
        • Reconciled credits from obligation tracking and management
        • Savings due to automated processes
    • Time Saved
      • Reduced time in creating effective SLAs through requirement templates
      • Time spent tracking and managing SLA obligations
      • Reduced negotiation time
      • Time spent tracking and reconciling credits
    • Knowledge Gained
      • Understanding of SLA elements, service levels, service types, reporting, and remedies
      • Standard metrics and KPIs required for various service types and levels
      • How to effectively manage the service provider obligations
      • Tactics to negotiate appropriate service levels to meet your requirements

      • 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 wound help keep us on track."

      Workshop

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

      Consulting

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

      Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

      Guided Implementation

      What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

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

      Phase 1 - Understand

      • Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific SLA challenges

      Phase 2 - Create Requirements

      • Call #2: Review key SLA and how to identify them
      • Call #3: Deep dive into SLA elements and why you need them
      • Call #4: Review your service types and SLA criteria
      • Call #5: Create internal SLA requirements and templates

      Phase 3 - Management

      • Call #6: Review SLA Management Framework
      • Call #7: Review and create SLA Reporting and Tracking

      Workshop Overview

      Contact your account representative for more information.

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

      Day 1 Day 2
      Understanding SLAs SLA Templating & Management
      Activities

      1.1 SLA overview, objectives, SLA types, service levels

      1.2 SLA elements and objectives

      1.3 SLA components – monitoring, reporting, remedies

      1.4 SLA Checklist review

      2.1 Creating SLA criteria and requirements

      2.2 SLA policy & template

      2.3 SLA evaluation activity

      2.4 SLA management framework

      2.5 SLA monitoring, tracking, remedy reconciliation

      Deliverables
      1. SLA Checklist
      2. SLA policy & template creation
      3. SLA management gap analysis
      1. Evaluation of current SLAs
      2. SLA tracking and trending
      3. Create internal SLA management framework

      Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

      Phase 1

      Phase 1

      Understand SLA Elements

      Phase Steps

      • 1.1 What are SLAs, the types of SLAs, and why are they needed?
      • 1.2 Elements of an SLA
      • 1.3 Obligation management monitoring, Reporting requirements
      • 1.4 Exclusions and exceptions
      • 1.5 SLAs vs. SLOs vs. SLIs

      Create Requirements

      Manage Obligations

      1.1 What are SLAs, the types of SLAs, and why are they needed?

      SLA Overview

      What is a Service Level Agreement?

      An SLA is an overarching contractual agreement between a service provider and a customer (can be external or internal) that describes the services that will be delivered by the provider. It describes the service levels and associated performance metrics and expectations, how the provider will show it has attained the SLAs, and defines any remedies or credits that would apply if the provider fails to meet its commitments. Some SLAs also include a change or revision process.

      SLAs come in a few forms. Some are unique, separate, standalone documents that define the service types and levels in more detail and is customized to your needs. Some are separate documents that apply to a service and are web posted or linked to an MSA or SSA. The most common is to have them embedded in, or as an appendix to an MSA or SSA. When negotiating an MSA it’s generally more effective to negotiate better service levels and metrics at the same time.

      Objectives of an SLA

      To be effective, SLAs need to have clearly described objectives that define the service type(s) that the service provider will perform, along with commitment to associated measurable metrics or KPIs that are sufficient to meet your expectations. The goal of these service levels and metrics is to ensure that the service provider is committed to providing the service that you require, and to allow you to maintain service levels to your customers whether internal or external.

      1.1 What are SLAs, the types of SLAs, and why are they needed?

      Key Elements of an SLA

      Principle service elements of an SLA

      There are several more common service-related elements of an SLA. These generally include:

      • The Agreement – the document that defines service levels and commitments.
      • The service types – the type of service being provided by the vendor. These can include SaaS, MSP, Service Desk, Telecom/network, PaaS, Co-Lo, BCP, etc.
      • The service levels – these are the measurable performance objectives of the SLA. They include availability (uptime), response times, restore times, priority level, accuracy level, resolution times, event prevention, completion time, etc.
      • Metrics/KPIs – These are the targets or commitments associated to the service level that the service provider is obligated to meet.
      • Other elements – Reporting requirements, monitoring, remedies/credit values and process.

      Contractual Construct Elements

      These are construct components of an SLA that outline their roles and responsibilities, T&Cs, escalation process, etc.

      In addition, there are several contractual-type elements including, but not limited to:

      • A statement regarding the purpose of the SLA.
      • A list of services being supplied (service types).
      • An in-depth description of how services will be provided and when.
      • Vendor and customer requirements.
      • Vendor and customer obligations.
      • Acknowledgment/acceptance of the SLA.
      • They also list each party’s responsibilities and how issues will be escalated and resolved.

      Common types of SLAs explained

      Service-level SLA

      • This service-level agreement construct is the Service-based SLA. This SLA covers an identified service for all customers in general (for example, if an IT service provider offers customer response times for a service to several customers). In a service-based agreement, the response times would be the same and apply to all customers using the service. Any customer using the service would be provided the same SLA – in this case the same defined response time.

      Customer-based SLA

      • A customer-based SLA is a unique agreement with one customer. The entire agreement is defined for one or all service levels provided to a particular customer (for example, you may use several services from one telecom vendor). The SLAs for these services would be covered in one contract between you and the vendor, creating a unique customer-based vendor agreement. Another scenario could be where a vendor offers general SLAs for its services but you negotiate a specific SLA for a particular service that is unique or exclusive to you. This would be a customer-based SLA as well.

      Multi-level SLA

      • This service-level agreement construct is the multi-level SLA. In a multi-level SLA, components are defined to the organizational levels of the customer with cascading coverage to sublevels of the organization. The SLA typically entails all services and is designed to the cover each sub-level or department within the organization. Sometimes the multi-level SLA is known as a master organization SLA as it cascades to several levels of the organization.

      InfoTech Insight: Beware of low, easy to attain Service levels and metrics/KPIs. Service levels need to meet your requirements, expectations, and needs not the vendor’s.

      1.2 Elements of SLA-objectives, service types, and service levels

      Objectives of Service Levels

      The objective of the service levels and service credits are to:

      • Ensure that the services are of a consistently high quality and meet the requirements of the customer
      • Provide a mechanism whereby the customer can attain meaningful recognition of the vendors failure to deliver the level of service for which it was contracted to deliver
      • Incentivize the vendor or service provider to comply with and to expeditiously provide a remedy for any failure to attain the service levels committed to in the SLA
      • To ensure that the service provider fulfills the defined objectives of the outsourced service

      Service types

      There are several service types that can be part of an SLA. Service types are the different nature of services associated with the SLA that the provider is performing and being measured against. These can include:

      Service Desk, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, ISP/Telecom/Network MSP, DR & BCP, Co-location security ops, SOW.

      Each service type should have standard service level targets or obligations that can vary depending on your requirements and reliance on the service being provided.

      Service levels

      Service levels are measurable targets, metrics, or KPIs that the service provider has committed to for the particular service type. Service levels are the key element of SLAs – they are the performance expectations set between you and the provider. The service performance of the provider is measured against the service level commitments. The ability of the provider to consistently meet these metrics will allow your organization to fully benefit from the objectives of the service and associated SLAs. Most service levels are time related but not all are.

      Common service levels are:

      Response times, resolution times per percent, restore/recovery times, accuracy, availability/uptime, completion/milestones, updating/communication, latency.

      Each service level has standard or minimum metrics for the provider. The metrics, or KPIs, should be relatively easy to measure and report against on a regular basis. Service levels are generally negotiable to meet your requirements.

      1.2.1 Activity SLA Checklist Tool

      1-2 hours

      Input

      • SLA content, Service elements
      • Contract terms & exclusions
      • Service metrices/KPIs

      Output

      • A concise list of SLA components
      • A list of missing SLA elements
      • Evaluation of the SLA

      Materials

      • Comprehensive checklist
      • Service provider SLA
      • Internal templates or policies

      Participants

      • Vendor or contract manager
      • IT or business unit manager
      • Legal
      • Finance

      Using this checklist will help you review a provider’s SLA to ensure it contains adequate service levels and remedies as well as contract-type elements.

      Instructions:

      Use the checklist to identify the principal service level elements as well as the contractual-type elements within the SLA.

      Review the SLA and use the dropdowns in the checklist to verify if the element is in the SLA and whether it is within acceptable parameters as well the page or section for reference.

      The checklist contains a list of service types that can be used for reference of what SLA elements you should expect to see in that service type SLA.

      Download the SLA Checklist Tool

      1.3 Monitoring, reporting requirements, remedies/credit process

      Monitoring & Reporting

      As mentioned, well-defined service levels are key to the success of the SLA. Validating that the metrics/KPIs are being met on a consistent basis requires regular monitoring and reporting. These elements of the SLA are how you hold the provider accountable to the SLA commitments and obligations. To achieve the service level, the service must be monitored to validate that timelines are met and accuracy is achieved.

      • Data or details from monitoring must then be presented in a report and delivered to the customer in an agreed-upon format. These formats can be in a dashboard, portal, spreadsheet, or csv file, and they must have sufficient criteria to validate the service-level metric. Reports should be kept for future review and to create historical trending.
      • Monitoring and reporting should be the responsibility of the service provider. This is the only way that they can validate to the customer that a service level has been achieved.
      • Reporting criteria and delivery timelines should be defined in the SLA and can even have a service level associated with it, such as a scheduled report delivery on the fifth day of the following month.
      • Reports need to be checked and balanced. When defining report criteria, be sure to define data source(s) that can be easily validated by both parties.
      • Report criteria should include compliance requirements, target metric/KPIs, and whether they were attained.
      • The report should identify any attainment shortfall or missed KPIs.

      Too many SLAs do not have these elements as often the provider tries to put the onus on the customer to monitor their performance of the service levels. .

      1.3.1 Monitoring, reporting requirements, remedies/credit process

      Remedies and Credits

      Service-level reports validate the performance of the service provider to the SLA metrics or KPIs. If the metrics are met, then by rights, the service provider is doing its job and performing up to expectations of the SLA and your organization.

      • What if the metrics are not being met either periodically or consistently? Solving this is the goal of remedies. Remedies are typically monetary costs (in some form) to the provider that they must pay for not meeting a service-level commitment. Credits can vary significantly and should be aligned to the severity of the missed service level. Sometimes there no credits offered by the vendor. This is a red flag in an SLA.
      • Typically expressed as a monetary credit, the SLA will have service levels and associated credits if the service-level metric/KPI is not met during the reporting period. Credits can be expressed in a dollar format, often defined as a percentage of a monthly fee or prorated annual fee. Although less common, some SLAs offer non-financial credits. These could include: an extension to service term, additional modules, training credits, access to a higher support level, etc.
      • Regardless of how the credit is presented, this is typically the only way to hold your provider accountable to their commitments and to ensure they perform consistently to expectations. You must do a rough calculation to validate the potential monetary value and if the credit is meaningful enough to the provider.

      Research shows that credit values that equate to just a few dollars, when you are paying the provider tens of thousands of dollars a month for a service or product, the credit is insignificant and therefore doesn’t incent the provider to achieve or maintain a service level.

      1.3.2 Monitoring, reporting requirements, remedies/credit process

      Credit Process

      Along with meaningful credit values, there must be a defined credit calculation method and credit redemption process in the SLA.

      Credit calculation. The credit calculation should be simple and straight forward. Many times, we see providers define complicated methods of calculating the credit value. In some cases complicated service levels require higher effort to monitor and report on, but this shouldn’t mean that the credit for missing the service level needs to require the same effort to calculate. Do a sample credit calculation to validate if the potential credit value is meaningful enough or meets your requirements.

      Credit redemption process. The SLA should define the process of how a credit is provided to the customer. Ideally the process should be fairly automated by the service provider. If the report shows a missed service level, that should trigger a credit calculation and credit value posted to account followed by notification. In many SLAs that we review, the credit process is either poorly defined or not defined at all. When it is defined, the process typically requires the customer to follow an onerous process and submit a credit request that must then be validated by the provider and then, if approved, posted to your account to be applied at year end as long as you are in complete compliance with the agreement and up-to-date on your account etc. This is what we need to avoid in provider-written SLAs. You need a proactive process where the service provider takes responsibility for missing an SLA and automatically assigns an accurate credit to your account with an email notice.

      Secondary level remedies. These are remedies for partial performance. For example, the platform is accessible but some major modules are not working (i.e.: the payroll platform is up and running and accessible but the tax table is not working properly so you can’t complete your payroll run on-time). Consider the requirement of a service level, metric, and remedy for critical components of a service and not just the platform availability.

      Info-Tech Insight SLA’s without adequate remedies to hold the vendor accountable to their commitments make the SLAs essentially meaningless.

      1.4 Exclusions indemnification, force majeure, scheduled maintenance

      Contract-Related Exclusions

      Attaining service-level commitments by the provider within an SLA can depend on other factors that could greatly influence their performance to service levels. Most of these other factors are common and should be defined in the SLA as exclusions or exceptions. Exceptions/exclusions can typically apply to credit calculations as well. Typical exceptions to attaining service levels are:

      • Denial of Service (DoS) attacks
      • Communication/ISP outage
      • Outages of third-party hosting
      • Actions or inactions of the client or third parties
      • Scheduled maintenance but not emergency maintenance
      • Force majeure events which can cover several different scenarios

      Attention should be taken to review the exceptions to ensure they are in fact not within the reasonable control of the provider. Many times the provider will list several exclusions. Often these are not reasonable or can be avoided, and in most cases, they allow the service provider the opportunity to show unjustified service-level achievements. These should be negotiated out of the SLA.

      1.5 Activity SLA Evaluation Tool

      1-2 hours

      Input

      • SLA content
      • SLA elements
      • SLA objectives
      • SLO calculation methods

      Output

      • Rating of the SLA service levels and objectives
      • Overall rating of the SLA content
      • Targeted list of required improvements

      Materials

      • SLA comprehensive checklist
      • Service provider SLA

      Participants

      • Vendor or contract manager
      • IT manager or leadership
      • Application or business unit manager

      The SLA Evaluation Tool will allow you evaluate an SLA for content. Enter details into the tool and evaluate the service levels and SLA elements and components to ensure the agreement contains adequate SLOs to meet your organization’s service requirements.

      Instructions:

      Review and identify SLA elements within the service provider’s SLA.

      Enter service-level details into the tool and rate the SLOs.

      Enter service elements details, validate that all required elements are in the SLA, and rate them accordingly.

      Capture and evaluate service-level SLO calculations.

      Review the overall rating for the SLA and create a targeted list for improvements with the service provider.

      Download the SLA Evaluation Tool

      1.5 Clarification: SLAs vs. SLOs vs. SLIs

      SLA – Service-Level Agreement The promise or commitment

      • This is the formal agreement between you and your service provider that contains their service levels and obligations with measurable metrics/KPIs and associated remedies. SLAs can be a separate or unique document, but are most commonly embedded within an MSA, SOW, SaaS, etc. as an addendum or exhibit.

      SLO – Service-Level Objective The goals or targets

      • This service-level agreement construct is the customer-based SLA. A Customer-based SLA is a unique agreement with one customer. The entire agreement is defined for one or all service levels provided to a particular customer. For example, you may use several services from one telecom vendor. The SLAs for these services would be covered in one contract between you and the Telco vendor, creating a unique customer-based to vendor agreement. Another scenario: a vendor offers general SLAs for its services and you negotiate a specific SLA for a particular service that is unique or exclusive to you. This would be a customer-based SLA as well.

      Other common names are Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs )

      SLI – Service-Level Indicator How did we do? Did we achieve the objectives?

      • An SLI is the actual metric attained after the measurement period. SLI measures compliance with an SLO (service level objective). So, for example, if your SLA specifies that your systems will be available 99.95% of the time, your SLO is 99.95% uptime and your SLI is the actual measurement of your uptime. Maybe it’s 99.96%. maybe 99.99% or even 99.75% For the vendor to be compliant to the SLA, the SLI(s) must meet or exceed the SLOs within the SLA document.

      Other common names: attainment, results, actual

      Info-Tech Insight:

      Web-posted SLAs that are not embedded within a signed MSA, can present uncertainty and risk as they can change at any time and typically without direct notice to the customer

      Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

      Phase 2

      Understand SLA Elements

      Phase 2

      Create Requirements

      Phase Steps

      • 2.1 Create a list of your SLA criteria
      • 2.2 Develop SLA policy & templates
      • 2.3 Create a negotiation strategy
      • 2.4 SLA overachieving discussion

      Manage Obligations

      2.1 Create a list of your SLA criteria

      Principle Service Elements

      With your understanding of the types of SLAs and the elements that comprise a well-written agreement

      • The next step is to start to create a set of SLA criteria for service types that your organization outsources or may require in the future.
      • This criteria should define the elements of the SLA with tolerance levels that will require the provider to meet your service expectations.
      • Service levels, metrics/KPIs, associated remedies and reporting criteria. This criteria could be captured into table-like templates that can be referenced or inserted into service provider SLAs.
      • Once you have defined minimum service-level criteria, we recommend that you do a deeper review of the various service provider types that your organization has in place. The goal of the review is to understand the objective of the service type and associated service levels and then compare them to your requirements for the service to meet your expectations. Service levels and KPIs should be no less than if your IT department was providing the service with its own resources and infrastructure.
      • Most IT departments have service levels that they are required to meet with their infrastructure to the business units or organization, whether it’s App delivery, issue or problem resolution, availability etc. When any of these services are outsourced to an external service provider, you need to make all efforts to ensure that the service levels are equal to or better than the previous or existing internal expectations.
      • Additionally, the goal is to identify service levels and metrics that don’t meet your requirements or expectations and/or service levels that are missing.

      2.2 Develop SLA policies and templates

      Contract-type Elements

      After creating templates for minimum-service metrics & KPIs, reporting criteria templates, process, and timing, the next step should be to work on contract-type elements and additional service-level components. These elements should include:

      • Reporting format, criteria, and timelines
      • Monitoring requirements
      • Minimum acceptable remedy or credits process; proactive by provider vs. reactive by customer
      • Roles & responsibilities
      • Acceptable exclusion details
      • Termination language for persistent failure to meet SLOs

      These templates or criteria minimums can be used as guidelines or policy when creating or negotiating SLAs with a service provider.

      Start your initial element templates for your strategic vendors and most common service types: SaaS, IaaS, Service Desk, SecOps, etc. The goal of SLA templates is to create simple minimum guidelines for service levels that will allow you to meet your internal SLAs and expectations. Having SLA templates will show the service provider that you understand your requirements and may put you in a better negotiating position when reviewing with the provider.

      When considering SLO metrics or KPIs consider the SMART guidance:

      Simple: A KPI should be easy to measure. It should not be complicated, and the purpose behind recording it must be documented and communicated.

      Measurable: A KPI that cannot be measured will not help in the decision-making process. The selected KPIs must be measurable, whether qualitatively or quantitatively. The procedure for measuring the KPIs must be consistent and well-defined.

      Actionable: KPIs should contribute to the decision-making process of your organization. A KPI that does not make any such contributions serves no purpose.

      Relevant: KPIs must be related to operations or functions that a security team seeks to assess.

      Time-based: KPIs should be flexible enough to demonstrate changes over time. In a practical sense, an ideal KPI can be grouped together by different time intervals.

      (Guide for Security Operations Metrics)

      2.2.1 Activity: Review SLA Template & Metrics Reference Guide

      1-2 hours

      Input

      • Service level metrics
      • List of who is accountable for PPM decisions

      Output

      • SLO templates for service types
      • SLA criteria that meets your organization’s requirements

      Materials

      • SLA Checklist
      • SLA criteria list with SLO & credit values
      • PPM Decision Review Workbook

      Participants

      • Vendor manager
      • IT leadership
      • Procurement or contract manager
      1. Review the SLA Template and Metrics Reference Guide for common metrics & KPIs for the various service types. Each Service Type tab has SLA elements and SLO metrics typically associated with the type of service.
      2. Some service levels have common or standard credits* that are typically associated with the service level or metric.
      3. Use the SLA Template to enter service levels, metrics, and credits that meet your organization’s criteria or requirements for a given service type.

      Download the SLA Template & Metrics Reference Guide

      *Credit values are not standard values, rather general ranges that our research shows to be the typical ranges that credit values should be for a given missed service level

      2.3 Create a negotiation strategy

      Once you have created service-level element criteria templates for your organization’s requirements, it’s time to document a negotiation position or strategy to use when negotiating with service providers. Not all providers are flexible with their SLA commitments, in fact most are reluctant to change or create “unique” SLOs for individual customers. Particularly cloud vendors providing IaaS, SaaS, or PaaS, SLAs. ISP/Telcom, Co-Lo and DR/BU providers also have standard SLOs that they don’t like to stray far from. On the other hand, security ops (SIEM), service desk, hardware, and SOW/PS providers who are generally contracted to provide variable services are somewhat more flexible with their SLAs and more willing to meet your requirements.

      • Service providers want to avoid being held accountable to SLOs, and their SLAs are typically written to reflect that.

      The goal of creating internal SLA templates and policies is to set a minimum baseline of service levels that your organization is willing to accept, and that will meet their requirements and expectations for the outsourced service. Using these templated SLOs will set the basis for negotiating the entire SLA with the provider. You can set the SLA purpose, objectives, roles, and responsibilities and then achieve these from the service provider with solid SLOs and associated reporting and remedies.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Web-posted SLAs that are not embedded within a signed MSA can present uncertainty and risk as they can change at any time and typically without direct notice to the customer

      2.3.1 Negotiating strategy guidance

      • Be prepared. Create a negotiating plan and put together a team that understands your organization’s requirements for SLA.
      • Stay informed. Request provider’s recent performance data and negotiate SLOs to the provider’s average performance.
      • Know what you need. Corporate SLA templates or policies should be positioned to service providers as baseline minimums.
      • Show some flexibility. Be willing to give up some ground on one SLO in exchange for acceptance of SLOs that may be more important to your organization.
      • Re-group. Have a fallback position or Plan B. What if the provider can’t or won’t meet your key SLOs? Do you walk?
      • Do your homework. Understand what the typical standard SLOs are for the type of service level.

      2.4 SLO overachieving incentive discussion

      Monitoring & Reporting

      • SLO overachieving metrics are seen in some SLAs where there is a high priority for a service provider to meet and or exceed the SLOs within the SLA. These are not common terms but can be used to improve the overall service levels of a provider. In these scenarios the provider is sometimes rewarded for overachieving on the SLOs, either consistently or on a monthly or quarterly basis. In some cases, it can make financial sense to incent the service provider to overachieve on their commitments. Incentives can drive behaviors and improved performance by the provider that can intern improve the benefits to your organization and therefore justify an incent of some type.
      • Example: You could have an SLO for invoice accuracy. If not achieved, it could cost the vendor if they don’t meet the accuracy metric, however if they were to consistently overachieve the metric it could save accounts payable hours of time in validation and therefore you could pass on some of these measurable savings to the provider.
      • Overachieving incentives can add complexity to the SLA so they need to be easily measurable and simple to manage.
      • Overachieving incentives can also be used in provider performance improvement plans, where a provider might have poor trending attainment and you need to have them improve their performance in a short period of time. Incentives typically will motivate provider improvement and generally will cost much less than replacing the provider.
      • There is another school of thought that you shouldn’t have to pay a provider for doing their job; however, others are of the opinion that incentives or bonuses improve the overall performance of individuals or teams and are therefore worth consideration if both parties benefit from the over performance.

      Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

      Phase 3

      Understand SLA Elements

      Create Requirements

      Phase 3

      Manage Obligations

      Phase Steps

      • 3.1 SLA monitoring and tracking
      • 3.2 Reporting
      • 3.3 Vendor SLA reviews & optimizing
      • 3.4 Performance management

      3.1 SLA monitoring, tracking, and remedy reconciliation

      The next step to effective SLAs is the management component. It could be fruitless if you were to spend your time and efforts negotiating your required service levels and metrics and don’t have some level of managing the SLA. In that situation you would have no way of knowing if the service provider is attaining their SLOs.

      There are several key elements to effective SLA management:

      • SLO monitoring
      • Simple, concise reporting
      • SLO attainment tracking
      • Score carding & trending
      • Remedy reconciliation

      SLA Management framework

      SLA Monitoring → Concise Reporting → Attainment Tracking → Score Carding →Remedy Reconciliation

      “A shift we’re beginning to see is an increased use of data and process discovery tools to measure SLAs,” says Borowski of West Monroe. “While not pervasive yet, these tools represent an opportunity to identify the most meaningful metrics and objectively measure performance (e.g., cycle time, quality, compliance). When provided by the client, it also eliminates the dependency on provider tools as the source-of-truth for performance data.” – Stephanie Overby

      3.1 SLA management framework

      SLA Performance Management

      • SLA monitoring provides data for SLO reports or dashboards. Reports provide attainment data for tacking over time. Attainment data feeds scorecards and allows for trending analysis. Missed attainment data triggers remedies.
      • All service providers monitor their systems, platforms, tickets, agents, sensors etc. to be able to do their jobs. Therefore, monitoring is readily available from your service provider in some form.
      • One of the key purposes of monitoring is to generate data into internal reports or dashboards that capture the performance metrics of the various services. Therefore, service-level and metric reports are readily available for all of the service levels that a service provider is contracted or engaged to provide.
      • Monitoring and reporting are the key elements that validate how your service provider is meeting its SLA obligations and thus are very important elements of an SLA. SLO report data becomes attainment data once the metric or KPI has been captured.
      • As a component of effective SLA management, this attainment data needs to be tracked/recorded in an easy-to-read format or table over a period of time. Attainment data can then be used to generate scorecards and trending reports for your review both internally and with the provider as required.
      • If attainment data shows that the service provider is meeting their SLA obligations, then the SLA is meeting your requirements and expectations. If on the other hand, attainment data shows that obligations are not being met, then actions must be taken to hold the service provider accountable. The most common method is through remedies that are typically in the form of a credit through a defined process (see Sec. 1.3). Any credits due for missed SLOs should also be tracked and reported to stakeholders and accounting for validation, reconciliation, and collection.

      3.2 Reporting

      Monitoring & Reporting

      • Many SLAs are silent on monitoring and reporting elements and require that the customer, if aware or able, to monitor the providers service levels and attainment and create their own KPI and reports. Then if SLOs are not met there is an arduous process that the customer must go through to request their rightful credit. This manual and reactive method creates all kinds of risk and cost to the customer and they should make all attempts to ensure that the service provider proactively provides SLO/KPI attainment reports on a regular basis.
      • Automated monitoring and reporting is a common task for many IT departments. There is no reason that a service provider can’t send reports proactively in a format that can be easily interpreted by the customer. The ideal state would be to capture KPI report data into a customer’s internal service provider scorecard.
      • Automated or automatic credit posting is another key element that service providers tend to ignore, primarily in hopes that the customer won’t request or go through the trouble of the process. This needs to change. Some large cloud vendors already have automated processes that automatically post a credit to your account if they miss an SLO. This proactive credit process should be at the top of your negotiation checklist. Service providers are avoiding thousands of credit dollars every year based on the design of their credit process. As more customers push back and negotiate more efficient credit processes, vendors will soon start to change and may use it as a differentiator with their service.

      3.2.1 Performance tracking and trending

      What gets measured gets done

      SLO Attainment Tracking

      A primary goal of proactive and automated reporting and credit process is to capture the provider’s attainment data into a tracker or vendor scorecard. These tracking scorecards can easily create status reports and performance trending of service providers, to IT leadership as well as feed QBR agenda content.

      Remedy Reconciliation

      Regardless of how a credit is processed it should be tracked and reconciled with internal stakeholders and accounting to ensure credits are duly applied or received from the provider and in a timely manner. Tracking and reconciliation must also align with your payment terms, whether monthly or annually.

      “While the adage, ‘You can't manage what you don't measure,’ continues to be true, the downside for organizations using metrics is that the provider will change their behavior to maximize their scores on performance benchmarks.” – Rob Lemos

      3.2.1 Activity SLA Tracker and Trending Tool

      1-2 hours setup

      Input

      • SLO metrics/KPIs from the SLA
      • Credit values associated with SLO

      Output

      • Monthly SLO attainment data
      • Credit tracking
      • SLO trending graphs

      Materials

      • Service provider SLO reports
      • Service provider SLA
      • SLO Tracker & Trending Tool

      Participants

      • Contract or vendor managers
      • Application or service managers
      • Service provider

      An important activity in the SLA management framework is to track the provider’s SLO attainment on a monthly or quarterly basis. In addition, if an SLO is missed, an associated credit needs to be tracked and captured. This activity allows you to capture the SLOs from the SLA and track them continually and provide data for trending and review at vendor performance meetings and executive updates.

      Instructions: Enter SLOs from the SLA as applicable.

      Each month, from the provider’s reports or dashboards, enter the SLO metric attainment.

      When an SLO is met, the cell will turn green. If the SLO is missed, the cell will turn red and a corresponding cell in the Credit Tracker will turn green, meaning that a credit needs to be reconciled.

      Use the Trending tab to view trending graphs of key service levels and SLOs.

      Download the SLO Tracker and Trending Tool

      3.3 Vendor SLA reviews and optimizing

      Regular reviews should be done with providers

      Collecting attainment data with scorecards or tracking tools provides summary information on the performance of the service provider to their SLA obligations. This information should be used for regular reviews both internally and with the provider.

      Regular attainment reviews should be used for:

      • Performance trending upward or downward
      • Identifying opportunities to revise or improve SLOs
      • Optimizing SLO and processes
      • Creating a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) for the service provider

      Some organizations choose to review SLA performance with providers at regular QBRs or at specific SLA review meetings

      This should be determined based on the criticality, risk, and strategic importance of the provider’s service. Providers that provide essential services like ERP, payroll, CRM, HRIS, IaaS etc. should be reviewed much more regularly to ensure that any decline in service is identified early and addressed properly in accordance with the service provider. Negative trending performance should also be documented for consideration at renewal time.

      3.4 Performance management

      Dealing with persistent poor performance and termination

      Service providers that consistently miss key service level metrics or KPIs present financial and security risk to the organization. Poor performance of a service provider reflects directly on the IT leadership and will affect many other business aspects of the organization including:

      • Ability to conduct day-to-day business activities
      • Meet internal obligations and expectations
      • Employee productivity and satisfaction
      • Maintain corporate policies or industry compliance
      • Meet security requirements

      Communication is key. Poor performance of a service provider needs to be dealt with in a timely manner in order to avoid more critical impact of the poor performance. Actions taken with the provider can also vary depending again on the criticality, risk, and strategic importance of the provider’s service.

      Performance reviews should provide the actions required with the goal of:

      • Making the performance problems into opportunities
      • Working with the provider to create a PIP with aggressive timelines and ramifications if not attained
      • Non-renewal or termination consideration, if feasible including provider replacement options, risk, costs, etc.
      • SLA renegotiation or revisions
      • Warning notifications to the service provider with concise issues and ramifications

      To avoid the issues and challenges of dealing with chronic poor performance, consider a Persistent or Chronic Failure clause into the SLA contract language. These clauses can define chronic failure, scenarios, ramifications there of, and defined options for the client including increased credit values, non-monetary remedies, and termination options without liability.

      Info-Tech Insight

      It’s difficult to prevent chronic poor performance but you can certainly track it and deal with it in a way that reduces risk and cost to your organization.

      SLA Hall of Shame

      Crazy service provider SLA content collection

      • Excessive list of unreasonable exclusions
      • Subcontractors’ behavior could be excluded
      • Downtime credit, equal to downtime percent x the MRC
      • Controllable FM events (internal labor issues, health events)
      • Difficult downtime or credit calculations that don’t make sense
      • Credits are not valid if agreement is terminated early or not renewed
      • Customer is not current on their account, SLA or credits do not count/apply
      • Total downtime = to prorated credit value (down 3 hrs = 3/720hrs = 0.4% credit)
      • SLOs don’t apply if customer fails to report the issue or request a trouble ticket
      • Downtime during off hours (overnight) do not count towards availability metrics
      • Different availability commitments based on different support-levels packages
      • Extending the agreement term by the length of downtime as a form of a remedy

      SLA Dos and Don’ts

      Dos

      • Do negotiate SLOs to vendor’s average performance
      • Do strive for automated reporting and credit processes
      • Do right-size and create your SLO criteria based on risk mitigation
      • Do review SLA attainment results with strategic service providers on a regular basis
      • Do ensure that all key elements and components of an SLA are present in the document or appendix

      Don'ts

      • Don’t accept the providers response that “we can’t change the SLOs for you because then we’d have to change them for everyone”
      • Don’t leave SLA preparation to the last minute. Give it priority as you negotiate with the provider
      • Don’t create complex SLAs with numerous service levels and SLOs that need to be reported and managed
      • Don’t aim for absolute perfection. Rather, prioritize which service levels are most important to you for the service

      Summary of Accomplishment

      Problem Solved

      Knowledge Gained

      • Understanding of the elements and components of an SLA
      • A list of SLO metrics aligned to service types that meet your organization’s criteria
      • SLA metric/KPI templates
      • SLA Management process for your provider’s service objectives
      • Reporting and tracking process for performance trending

      Deliverables Completed

      • SLA component and contract element checklist
      • Evaluation or service provider SLAs
      • SLA templates for strategic service types
      • SLA tracker for strategic service providers

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

      Contact your account representative for more information.

      workshops@infotech.com

      1-888-670-8889

      Related Info-Tech Research

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      Ensure Cloud Security in IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS Environments

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      Bibliography

      Henderson, George. “3 Most Common Types of Service Level Agreement (SLA).” Master of Project Academy. N.d. Web.

      “Guide to Security Operations Metrics.” Logsign. Oct 5, 2020. Web.

      Lemos, Rob. “4 lessons from SOC metrics: What your SpecOps team needs to know.” TechBeacon. N.d. Web.

      “Measuring and Making the Most of Service Desk Metrics.” Freshworks. N.d. Web.

      Overby, Stephanie. “15 SLA Mistakes IT Leaders Still Make.” CIO. Jan 21, 2021.

      Get Started With Artificial Intelligence

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      Get Started With Artificial Intelligence Research & Tools

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      Read our concise Executive Brief to get up to speed with the rapid changes in AI technologies taking over the world today, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you on your AI journey.

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      Understand what AI really is in the modern world and how AI technologies impact the business functions.

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      Skills Development on the Mainframe Platform

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      Mainframes remain a critical part of an organization’s infrastructure and will need to support these platforms for the foreseeable future. Despite the importance, it can be a challenge for organizations to find qualified resources to support them. Meanwhile, companies are unsure of where to find help to train and develop their teams on mainframe technologies and are at risk of a skills gap within their teams.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Mainframes continue to have wide usage, particularly in enterprise organizations. The complexity of moving or replatforming many of these applications means these platforms will be around for a long time still.
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      Impact and Result

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      Skills Development on the Mainframe Platform Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

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      Your mainframes are not going to disappear overnight. These systems often support the most critical operations in your organization. You need to ensure you have the right qualified resources to support your platforms.

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      Design a Tabletop Exercise to Support Your Security Operation

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      Impact and Result

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      Design a Tabletop Exercise to Support Your Security Operation Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should design a tabletop exercise, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Plan

      Evaluate the need for a tabletop exercise.

      • Design a Tabletop Exercise to Support Your Security Operation – Phase 1: Plan

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      Determine the topics, scope, objectives, and participant roles and responsibilities.

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      Create briefings, guides, reports, and exercise injects.

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      • Design a Tabletop Exercise to Support Your Security Operation – Inject Examples

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      Host the exercise in a conference or classroom setting.

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      Plan to ensure measurement and continued improvement.

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      • There are many voices with different opinions on the role of project management. This causes confusion and unnecessary churn.
      • Project management and product management naturally align to different time horizons. Harmonizing their viewpoints can take significant work.
      • Different parts of the organization have diverse views on how to govern and fund pieces of work, which leads to confusion when it comes to the role of project management.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      There is no one-size-fits-all approach to product delivery. For many organizations product delivery requires detailed project management practices, while for others it requires much less. Taking an outcome-first approach when planning your product transformation is critical to make the right decision on the balance between project and product management.

      Impact and Result

      • Get alignment on the definition of projects and products.
      • Understand the differences between delivering projects and delivering products.
      • Line up your project management activities with the needs of Agile and product-centric projects.
      • Understand how funding can change when moving away from project-centric delivery.

      Define the Role of Project Management in Agile and Product-Centric Delivery Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Define the Role of Project Management in Agile and Product-Centric Delivery – A guide that walks you through how to define the role of project management in product-centric and Agile delivery environments.

      The activities in this research will guide you through clarifying how you want to talk about projects and products, aligning project management and agility, specifying the different activities for project management, and identifying key differences with funding of products instead of projects.

      • Define the Role of Project Management in Agile and Product-Centric Delivery Storyboard
      [infographic]

      Further reading

      Define the Role of Project Management in Agile and Product-Centric Delivery

      Projects and products are not mutually exclusive.

      Table of Contents

      3 Analyst Perspective

      4 Executive Summary

      7 Step 1.1: Clarify How You Want to Talk About Projects and Products

      13 Step 1.2: Align Project Management and Agility

      16 Step 1.3: Specify the Different Activities for Project Management

      20 Step 1.4: Identify Key Differences in Funding of Products Instead of Projects

      25 Where Do I Go Next?

      26 Bibliography

      Analyst Perspective

      Project management still has an important role to play!

      When moving to more product-centric delivery practices, many assume that projects are no longer necessary. That isn’t necessarily the case!

      Product delivery can mean different things to different organizations, and in many cases it can involve the need to maintain both projects and project delivery.

      Projects are a necessary vehicle in many organizations to drive value delivery, and the activities performed by project managers still need to be done by someone. It is the form and who is involved that will change the most.

      Photo of Ari Glaizel, Practice Lead, Applications Delivery and Management, Info-Tech Research Group.

      Ari Glaizel
      Practice Lead, Applications Delivery and Management
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge
      • Organizations are under pressure to align the value they provide with the organization’s goals and overall company vision.
      • In response, they are moving to more product-centric delivery practices.
      • Previously, project managers focused on the delivery of objectives through a project, but changes in delivery practices result in de-emphasizing this. What should project managers should be doing?
      		 Common Obstacles
      • There are many voices with different opinions on the role of project management. This causes confusion and unnecessary churn.
      • Project management and product management naturally align to different time horizons. Harmonizing their viewpoints can take significant work.
      • Different parts of the organization have very specific views on how to govern and fund pieces of work, which leads to confusion about the role of project management.
      		 Info-Tech’s Approach
      • Get alignment on the definition of projects and products.
      • Understand the differences between delivering projects and products.
      • Line up your project management activities with the needs of Agile and product-centric projects.
      • Understand how funding can change when moving away from project-centric delivery.

      Info-Tech Insight

      There is no one-size-fits-all approach to product delivery. For many organizations product delivery requires detailed project management practices, while for others it requires much less. Taking an outcome-first approach when planning your product transformation is critical to make the right decision on the balance between project and product management.

      Your evolution of delivery practice is not a binary switch

      1. PROJECTS WITH WATERFALL The project manager is accountable for delivery of the project, and the project manager owns resources and scope.
      2. PROJECTS WITH AGILE DELIVERY A transitional state where the product owner is accountable for feature delivery and the project manager accountable for the overall project.
      3. PRODUCTS WITH AGILE PROJECT AND OPERATIONAL DELIVERY The product owner is accountable for the delivery of the project and products, and the project manager plays a role of facilitator and enabler.
      4. PRODUCTS WITH AGILE DELIVERY Delivery of products can happen without necessarily having projects. However, projects could be instantiated to cover major initiatives.

      Info-Tech Insight

      • Organizations do not need to go to full product and Agile delivery to improve delivery practices! Every organization needs to make its own determination on how far it needs to go. You can do it in one step or take each step and evaluate how well you are delivering against your goals and objectives.
      • Many organizations will go to Products With Agile Project and Operational Delivery, and some will go to Products With Agile Delivery.

      Activities to undertake as you transition to product-centric delivery

      1. PROJECTS WITH WATERFALL
        • Clarify how you want to talk about projects and products. The center of the conversation will start to change.
      2. PROJECTS WITH AGILE DELIVERY
        • Align project management and agility. They are not mutually exclusive (but not necessarily always aligned).
      3. PRODUCTS WITH AGILE PROJECT AND OPERATIONAL DELIVERY
        • Specify the different activities for project management. As you mature your product practices, project management becomes a facilitator and collaborator.
      4. PRODUCTS WITH AGILE DELIVERY
        • Identify key differences in funding. Delivering products instead of projects requires a change in the focus of your funding.

      Step 1.1

      Clarify How You Want to Talk About Projects and Products

      Activities
      • 1.1.1 Define “product” and “project” in your context
      • 1.1.2 Brainstorm potential changes in the role of projects as you become Agile and product-centric

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Product owners
      • Product managers
      • Development team leads
      • Portfolio managers
      • Business analysts

      Outcomes of this step

      • An understanding of how the role can change through the evolution from project to more product-centric practices

      Definition of terms

      Project

      “A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates a beginning and an end to the project work or a phase of the project work. Projects can stand alone or be part of a program or portfolio.” (PMBOK, PMI)       		Stock image of an open head with a city for a brain.

      Product

      “A tangible solution, tool, or service (physical or digital) that enables the long-term and evolving delivery of value to customers and stakeholders based on business and user requirements.” (Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision, Info-Tech Research Group)

      Info-Tech InsightLet these definitions be a guide, not necessarily to be taken verbatim. You need to define these terms in your context based on your particular needs and objectives. The only caveat is to be consistent with your usage of these terms in your organization.

      1.1.1 Define “product” and “project” in your context

      30-60 minutes

      Output: Your enterprise/organizational definition of products and projects

      Participants: Executives, Product/project managers, Applications teams

      1. Discuss what “product” and “project” mean in your organization.
      2. Create common, enterprise-wide definitions for “product” and “project.”

        3. Screenshot of the previous slide's definitions of 'Project' and 'Product'.

      Agile and product management does not mean projects go away

      Diagram laying out the roadmap for 'Continuous delivery of value'. Beginning with 'Projects With Agile Delivery' in which Projects with features and services end in a Product Release that is disconnected from the continuum. Then the 'Products With Agile Project and Operational Delivery' and 'Products With Agile Delivery' which are connected by a 'Product Roadmap' and 'Product Backlog' have Product Releases that connect to the continuum.

      Projects Within Products

      Regardless of whether you recognize yourself as a “product-based” or “project-based” shop, the same basic principles should apply.

      You go through a period or periods of project-like development to build or implement a version of an application or product.

      You also have parallel services along with your project development that encompass the more product-based view. These may range from basic support and maintenance to full-fledged strategy teams or services like sales and marketing.

      Info-Tech Note

      As your product transformation continues, projects can become optional and needed only as part of your organization’s overall delivery processes

      Identify the differences between a project-centric and a product-centric organization

      Project Product
      Fund projects — Funding –› Fund teams
      Line-of-business sponsor — Prioritization –› Product owner
      Project owner — Accountability –› Product owner
      Makes specific changes to a product —Product management –› Improves product maturity and support of the product
      Assignment of people to work — Work allocation –› Assignment of work to product teams
      Project manager manages — Capacity management –› Team manages

      Info-Tech Insight

      Product delivery requires significant shifts in the way you complete development and implementation work and deliver value to your users. Make the changes that support improving end-user value and enterprise alignment.

      1.1.2 Brainstorm potential changes in the role of projects as you become Agile and product-centric

      5-10 minutes

      Output: Increased appreciation of the relationship between project and product delivery

      Participants: Executives, Product/project managers, Applications teams

      • Discuss as a group:
        • What stands out in the evolution from project to product?
        • What concerns do you have with the change?
        • What will remain the same?
        • Which changes feel the most impactful?
          • Screenshot of the slide's 'Continuous delivery of value' diagram.

      Step 1.2

      Align Project Management and Agility

      Activities
      • 1.2.1 Explore gaps in Agile/product-centric delivery of projects

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Executives
      • Product/Project managers
      • Applications teams

      Outcomes of this step

      • A clearer view of how agility can be introduced into projects.

      Challenges with the project management role in Agile and product-centric organizations

      Many project managers feel left out in the cold. That should not be the case!

      In product-centric, Agile teams, many roles that a project manager previously performed are now taken care of to different degrees by the product owner, delivery team, and process manager.

      The overall change alters the role of project management from one that orchestrates all activities to one that supports, monitors, and escalates.

      Product Owner
      • Defines the “what” and heavily involved in the “when” and the “why”
      • Accountable for delivery of value
      Delivery team members
      • Define the “how”
      • Accountable for building and delivering high-quality deliverables
      • Can include roles like user experience, interaction design, business analysis, architecture
      Process Manager
      • Facilitates the other teams to ensure valuable delivery
      • Can potentially, in a Scrum environment, play the scrum master role, which involves leading scrums, retrospectives, and sprint reviews and working to resolve team issues and impediments
      • Evolves into more of a facilitator and communicator role

      1.2.1 Explore gaps in Agile/ product-centric delivery of projects

      5-10 minutes

      Output: An assessment of what is in the way to effectively deliver on Agile and product-focused projects

      Participants: Executives, Product/project managers, Applications teams

      • Discuss as a group:
        • What project management activities do you see in Agile/product roles?
        • What gaps do you see?
        • How can project management help Agile/product teams be successful?

      Step 1.3

      Specify the Different Activities for Project Management

      Activities
      • 1.3.1 Articulate the changes in a project manager’s role

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Executives
      • Product/Project managers
      • Applications teams

      Outcomes of this step

      • An understanding of the role of project management in an Agile and product context

      Kicking off the project

      Product-centric delivery still requires key activities to successfully deliver value. Where project managers get their information from does change.

      Stock photo of many hands grabbing a 2D rocketship.
      Project Charter

      Project managers should still define a charter and capture the vision and scope. The vision and high-level scope is primarily defined by the product owner.

      		Key Stakeholders and Communication

      Clearly defining stakeholders and communication needs is still important. However, they are defined based on significant input and cues by the product owner.

      Standardizing on Tools and Processes

      To ensure consistency across projects, project managers will want to align tools to how the team manages their backlog and workflow. This will smooth communication about status with stakeholders.

      Info-Tech Insight

      1. Product management plays a similar role to the one that was traditionally filled by the project sponsor except for a personal accountability to the product beyond the life of the project.
      2. When fully transitioned to product-centric delivery, these activities could be replaced by a product canvas. See Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision for more information.

      During the project: Three key activities

      The role of project management evolves from a position of ownership to a position of communication, collaboration, and coordination.

      1. Support
        • Communicate Agile/product team needs to leadership
        • Liaise and co-ordinate for non-Agile/product-focused parts of the organization
        • Coach members of the team
      2. Monitoring
        • Regular status updates to PMO still required
        • Metrics aligned with Agile/product practices
        • Leverage similar tooling and approaches to what is done locally on Agile/product teams (if possible)
      3. Escalation
        • Still a key escalation point for roadblocks that go outside the product teams
        • Collaborate closely with Agile/product team leadership and scrum masters (if applicable)
      		 Cross-section of a head, split into three levels with icons representing the three steps detailed on the left, 'Support', 'Monitoring', and 'Escalation'.

      1.3.1: Articulate the changes in a project manager’s role

      5-10 minutes

      Output: Current understanding of the role of project management in Agile/product delivery

      Participants: Executives, Product/project managers, Applications teams

      Why is this important?

      Project managers still have a role to play in Agile projects and products. Agreeing to what they should be doing is critical to successfully moving to a product-centric approach to delivery.

      • Review how Info-Tech views the role of project management at project initiation and during the project.
      • Review the state of your Agile and product transformation, paying special attention to who performs which roles.
      • Discuss as a group:
        • What are the current activities of project managers in your organization?
        • Based on how you see delivery practices evolving, what do you see as the new role of project managers when it comes to Agile-centric and product-centric delivery.

      Step 1.4

      Identify Key Differences in Funding of Products Instead of Projects

      Activities
      • 1.4.1 Discuss traditional versus product-centric funding methods

      This step involves the following participants:

      • Executives
      • Product owners
      • Product managers
      • Project managers
      • Delivery managers

      Outcomes of this step

      • Identified differences in funding of products instead of projects

      Planning and budgeting for products and families

      Reward for delivering outcomes, not features

      Autonomy

      Icon of a diamond.

      Fund what delivers value

      Fund long-lived delivery of value through products (not projects).

      Give autonomy to the team to decide exactly what to build.

      		Flexibility

      Icon of a dollar sign.

      Allocate iteratively

      Allocate to a pool based on higher-level business case.

      Provide funds in smaller amounts to different product teams and initiatives based on need.

      Arrow cycling right in a clockwise motion.



      Arrow cycling left in a clockwise motion.

      		Accountability

      Icon of a target.

      Measure and adjust

      Product teams define metrics that contribute to given outcomes.

      Track progress and allocate more (or less) funds as appropriate.

      		Stock image of two suited hands exchanging coins.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Changes to funding require changes to product and Agile practices to ensure product ownership and accountability.

      (Adapted from Bain & Company)

      Budgeting approaches must evolve as you mature your product operating environment

      TRADITIONAL PROJECTS WITH WATERFALL DELIVERY TRADITIONAL PROJECTS WITH AGILE DELIVERY PRODUCTS WITH AGILE PROJECT DELIVERY PRODUCTS WITH AGILE DELIVERY

      WHEN IS THE BUDGET TRACKED?

      		 Budget tracked by major phases Budget tracked by sprint and project Budget tracked by sprint and project Budget tracked by sprint and release

      HOW ARE CHANGES HANDLED?

      		 All change is by exception Scope change is routine; budget change is by exception Scope change is routine; budget change is by exception Budget change is expected on roadmap cadence

      WHEN ARE BENEFITS REALIZED?

      		 Benefits realization post project completion Benefits realization ongoing throughout the life of the project Benefits realization ongoing throughout the life of the product Benefits realization ongoing throughout life of the product

      WHO DRIVES?

      		 Project Manager
      • Project team delivery role
      • Refines project scope, advocates for changes in the budget
      • Advocates for additional funding in the forecast
      		 Product Owner
      • Project team delivery role
      • Refines project scope, advocates for changes in the budget
      • Advocates for additional funding in the forecast
      		 Product Manager
      • Product portfolio team role
      • Forecasting new initiatives during delivery to continue to drive value throughout the life of the product
      		 Product Manager
      • Product family team role
      • Forecasting new initiatives during delivery to continue to drive value throughout the life of the product
      ˆ ˆ
      Hybrid Operating Environments

      Info-Tech Insight

      As you evolve your approach to product delivery, you will be decoupling the expected benefits, forecast, and budget. Managing them independently will improve your ability adapt to change and drive the right outcomes!

      1.4.1 Discuss traditional versus product-centric funding methods

      30 minutes

      Output: Understanding of funding principles and challenges

      Participants: Executives, Product owners, Product managers, Project managers, Delivery managers

      1. Discuss how projects are currently funded.
      2. Review how the Agile/product funding models differ from how you currently operate.
      3. What changes do you need to consider to support a product delivery model?
      4. For each change, identify the key stakeholders and list at least one action to take.

      Case Study

      Global Digital Financial Services Company

      This financial services company looked to drive better results by adopting more product-centric practices.

      • Its projects exhibited:
        • High complexity/strong dependencies between components
        • High implementation effort
        • High clarification/reconciliation (more than two departments involved)
        • Multiple methodologies (Agile/Waterfall/Hybrid)
      • The team recognized they could not get rid of projects entirely, but getting to a level where there was a coordinated delivery between projects and products being implemented is important.
      Results
      • Moving several initiatives to more product-centric practices allowed for:
        • Delivery within current assigned capacity
        • Limited need for coordination across departments
        • Lower complexity
        • A unified Agile approach to delivery
      • Through balancing the needs of projects and products, there were three key insights about the project management’s role:
        • The role of project management changes depending on the context of the work. There is no one-size-fits-all definition.
        • Project management played a much bigger role when work spanned multiple products and business units.
        • Project management was used as a key coordinator when delivery became complicated and multilayered.
      		 Example of a company where practices fall equally into 'Project' and 'Product' categories, with some being shared by both.
      Example of a product-centric company where practices fall mainly into the 'Product category', leaving only one in 'Project'.

      Where Do I Go Next?

      Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision

      • Build a product vision your organization can take from strategy through execution.

      Build a Better Product Owner

      • Strengthen the product owner role in your organization by focusing on core capabilities and proper alignment.

      Implement Agile Practices That Work

      • Improve collaboration and transparency with the business to minimize project failure.

      Implement DevOps Practices That Work

      • Streamline business value delivery through the strategic adoption of DevOps practices.

      Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

      • Turn planning into action with a realistic PMO timeline.

      Deliver Digital Products at Scale

      • Deliver value at the scale of your organization through defining enterprise product families.

      Extend Agile Practices Beyond IT

      • Further the benefits of Agile by extending a scaled Agile framework to the business.

      Spread Best Practices With an Agile Center of Excellence

      • Facilitate ongoing alignment between Agile teams and the business with a set of targeted service offerings.

      Tailor IT Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects

      • Spend less time managing processes and more time delivering results.

      Bibliography

      Cobb, Chuck. “Are there Project Managers in Agile?” High Impact Project Management, n.d. Web.

      Cohn, Mike. “What Is a Product?” Mountain Goat Software, 6 Sept. 2016. Web.

      Cobb, Chuck. “Agile Project Manager Job Description.” High Impact Project Management, n.d. Web.

      “How do you define a product?” Scrum.org, 4 April 2017. Web.

      Johnson, Darren, et al. “How to Plan and Budget for Agile at Scale.” Bain & Company, 8 Oct. 2019. Web.

      “Product Definition.” SlideShare, uploaded by Mark Curphey, 25 Feb. 2007. Web.

      Project Management Institute. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). 7th ed., Project Management Institute, 2021.

      Schuurman, Robbin. “Scrum Master vs Project Manager – An Overview of the Differences.” Scrum.org, 11 Feb 2020. Web.

      Schuurman, Robbin. “Product Owner vs Project Manager.” Scrum.org, 12 March 2020. Web.

      Vlaanderen, Kevin. “Towards Agile Product and Portfolio Management.” Academia.edu, 2010. Web.

      “What is a Developer in Scrum?” Scrum.org, n.d. Web.

      “What is a Scrum Master?” Scrum.org, n.d. Web.

      “What is a Product Owner?” Scrum.org, n.d. Web.

      Project Management

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      • member rating overall impact: 9.7/10
      • member rating average dollars saved: $303,499
      • member rating average days saved: 42
      • Parent Category Name: Project Portfolio Management and Projects
      • Parent Category Link: /ppm-and-projects
      • byline: Right-size the project management body of knowledge for all your IT projects.

      The challenge

      • Ill-defined or even lack of upfront project planning will increase the perception that your IT department cannot deliver value because most projects will go over time and budget.
      • The perception is those traditional ways of delivering projects via the PMBOK only increase overhead and do not have value. This is less due to the methodology and more to do with organizations trying to implement best-practices that far exceed their current capabilities.
      • Typical best-practices are too clinical in their approach and place unrealistic burdens on IT departments. They fail to address the daily difficulties faces by staff and are not sized to fit your organization.
      • Take a flexible approach and ensure that your management process is a cultural and capacity fit for your organization. Take what fits from these frameworks and embed them tailored into your company.

      Our advice

      Insight

      • The feather-touch is often the right touch. Ensure that you have a lightweight approach for most of your projects while applying more rigor to the more complex and high-risk developments.
      • Pick the right tools. Your new project management processes need the right tooling to be successful. Pick a tool that is flexible enough o accommodate projects of all sizes without imposing undue governance onto smaller projects.
      • Yes, take what fits within your company from frameworks, but there is no cherry-picking. Ensure your processes stay in context: If you do not inform for effective decision-making, all will be in vain. Develop your methods such that guide the way to big-picture decision taking and support effective portfolio management.

      Impact and results 

      • The right amount of upfront planning is a function of the type of projects you have and your company. The proper levels enable better scope statements, better requirements gathering, and increased business satisfaction.
      • An investment in a formal methodology is critical to projects of all sizes. An effective process results in more successful projects with excellent business value delivery.
      • When you have a repeatable and consistent approach to project planning and execution, you can better communicate between the IT project managers and decision-makers.
      • Better communication improves the visibility of the overall project activity within your company.

      The roadmap

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      Get started.

      Read our executive brief to understand why you should tailor project management practices to the type of projects you do and your company and review our methodology. We show you how we can support you.

      Lay the groundwork for project management success

      Assess your current capabilities to set the right level of governance.

      • Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects – Phase 1: Lay the Groundwork for PM Success (ppt)
      • Project Management Triage Tool (xls)
      • COBIT BAI01 (Manage Programs and Projects) Alignment Workbook (xls)
      • Project Level Definition Matrix (xls)
      • Project Level Selection Tool (xls)
      • Project Level Assessment Tool (xls)
      • Project Management SOP Template (doc)

      Small project require a lightweight framework

      Increase small project's throughput.

      • Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects – Phase 2: Build a Lightweight PM Process for Small Initiatives (ppt)
      • Level 1 Project Charter Template (doc)
      • Level 1 Project Status Report Template (doc)
      • Level 1 Project Closure Checklist Template (doc)

      Build the standard process medium and large-scale projects

      The standard process contains fully featured initiation and planning.

      • Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects – Phase 3: Establish Initiation and Planning Protocols for Medium-to-Large Projects (ppt)
      • Project Stakeholder and Impact Assessment Tool (xls)
      • Level 2 Project Charter Template (doc)
      • Level 3 Project Charter Template (doc)
      • Kick-Off Meeting Agenda Template (doc)
      • Scope Statement Template (doc)
      • Project Staffing Plan(xls)
      • Communications Management Plan Template (doc)
      • Customer/Sponsor Project Status Meeting Template (doc)
      • Level 2 Project Status Report Template (doc)
      • Level 3 Project Status Report Template (doc)
      • Quality Management Workbook (xls)
      • Benefits Management Plan Template (xls)
      • Risk Management Workbook (xls)

      Build a standard process for the execution and closure of medium to large scale projects

      • Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects – Phase 4: Develop Execution and Closing Procedures for Medium-to-Large Projects (ppt)
      • Project Team Meeting Agenda Template (doc)
      • Light Project Change Request Form Template (doc)
      • Detailed Project Change Request Form Template (doc)
      • Light Recommendation and Decision Tracking Log Template (xls)
      • Detailed Recommendation and Decision Tracking Log Template (xls)
      • Deliverable Acceptance Form Template (doc)
      • Handover to Operations Template (doc)
      • Post-Mortem Review Template (doc)
      • Final Sign-Off and Acceptance Form Template (doc)

      Implement your project management standard operating procedures (SOP)

      Develop roll-out and training plans, implement your new process and track metrics.

      • Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects – Phase 5: Implement Your PM SOP (ppt)
      • Level 2 Project Management Plan Template (doc)
      • Project Management Process Costing Tool (xls)
      • Project Management Process Training Plan Template (doc)
      • Project Management Training Monitoring Tool (xls)
      • Project Management Process Implementation Timeline Tool (MS Project)
      • Project Management Process Implementation Timeline Tool (xls)

       

       

      Prevent Data Loss Across Cloud and Hybrid Environments

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      • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
      • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
      • Organizations are often beholden to compliance obligations that require protection of sensitive data.
      • All stages of the data lifecycle exist in the cloud and all stages provide opportunity for data loss.
      • Organizations must find ways to mitigate insider threats without impacting legitimate business access.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Data loss prevention is the outcome of a well-designed strategy that incorporates multiple, sometimes disparate, tools within your existing security program.
      • The journey to data loss prevention is complex and should be taken in small and manageable steps.

      Impact and Result

      • Organizations will achieve data comprehension.
      • Organizations will align DLP with their current security program and architecture.
      • A DLP strategy will be implemented with a distinct goal in mind.

      Prevent Data Loss Across Cloud and Hybrid Environments Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Prevent Data Loss Across Cloud and Hybrid Environments Storyboard – A guide to handling data loss prevention in cloud services.

      This research describes an approach to strategize and implement DLP solutions for cloud services.

      • Prevent Data Loss Across Cloud and Hybrid Environments Storyboard

      2. Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner – A workbook designed to guide you through identifying and prioritizing your data and planning what DLP actions should be applied to protect that data.

      Use this tool to identify and prioritize your data, then use that information to make decisions on DLP strategies based on classification and data environment.

      • Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner
      [infographic]

      Further reading

      Prevent Data Loss Across Cloud and Hybrid Environments

      Leverage existing tools and focus on the data that matters most to your organization.

      Analyst Perspective

      Data loss prevention is an additional layer of protection

      Driven by reduced operational costs and improved agility, the migration to cloud services continues to grow at a steady rate. A recent report by Palo Alto Networks indicates workload in the cloud increased by 13% last year, and companies are expecting to move an additional 11% of their workload to the cloud in the next 24 months1.

      However, moving to the cloud poses unique challenges for cyber security practitioners. Cloud services do not offer the same level of management and control over resources as traditional IT approaches. The result can be reduced visibility of data in cloud services and reduced ability to apply controls to that data, particularly data loss prevention (DLP) controls.

      It’s not unusual for organizations to approach DLP as a point solution. Many DLP solutions are marketed as such. The truth is, DLP is a complex program that uses many different parts of an organization’s security program and architecture. To successfully implement DLP for data in the cloud, an organization should leverage existing security controls and integrate DLP tools, whether newly acquired or available in cloud services, with its existing security program.

      Photo of Bob Wilson
      Bob Wilson
      CISSP
      Research Director, Security and Privacy
      Info-Tech Research Group

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      Organizations must prevent the misuse and leakage of data, especially sensitive data, regardless of where it’s stored.

      Organizations often have compliance obligations requiring protection of sensitive data.

      All stages of the data lifecycle exist in the cloud and all stages provide opportunity for data loss.

      Organizations must find ways to mitigate insider threats without impacting legitimate business access.

      Common Obstacles

      Many organizations must handle a plethora of data in multiple varied environments.

      Organizations don’t know enough about the data they use or where it is located.

      Different systems offer differing visibility.

      Necessary privileges and access can be abused.

      Info-Tech’s Approach

      The path to data loss prevention is complex and should be taken in small and manageable steps.

      First, organizations must achieve data comprehension.

      Organizations must align DLP with their current security program and architecture.

      Organizations need to implement DLP with a distinct goal in mind.

      Once the components are in place it’s important to measure and improve.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Data loss prevention is the outcome of a well-designed strategy that incorporates multiple, sometimes disparate, tools within your existing security program.

      Your challenge

      Protecting data is a critical responsibility for organizations, no matter where it is located.

      45% of breaches occurred in the cloud (“Cost of a Data Breach 2022,” IBM Security, 2022).

      A diagram that shows the mean time to detect and contain.

      It can take upwards of 12 weeks to identify and contain a breach (“Cost of a Data Breach 2022,” IBM Security, 2022).

      • Compliance obligations will require organizations to protect certain data.
      • All data states can exist in the cloud, and each state provides a unique opportunity for data loss.
      • Insider threats, whether intentional or not, are especially challenging for organizations. It’s necessary to prevent illicit data use while still allowing work to happen.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Data loss prevention doesn’t depend on a single tool. Many of the leading cloud service providers offer DLP controls with their services and these controls should be considered.

      Common obstacles

      As organizations increasingly move data into the cloud, their environments become more complex and vulnerable to insider threats

      • It’s not uncommon for an organization not to know what data they use, where that data exists, or how they are supposed to protect it.
      • Cloud systems, especially software as a service (SaaS) applications, may not provide much visibility into how that data is stored or protected.
      • Insider threats are a primary concern, but employees must be able to access data to perform their duties. It isn’t always easy to strike a balance between adequate access and being too restrictive with controls.

      Insider threats are a significant concern

      53%

      53% of a study’s respondents think it is more difficult to detect insider threats in the cloud.

      Source: "2023 Insider Threat Report," Cybersecurity Insiders, 2023

      45%

      Only about 45% of organizations think native cloud app functionality is useful in detecting insider threats.

      Source: "2023 Insider Threat Report," Cybersecurity Insiders, 2023

      Info-Tech Insight

      An insider threat management (ITM) program focuses on the user. DLP programs focus on the data.

      Insight summary

      DLP is not just a single tool. It’s an additional layer of security that depends on different components of your security program, and it requires time and effort to mature.

      Organizations should leverage existing security architecture with the DLP controls available in the cloud services they use.

      Data loss prevention is not a point solution

      Data loss prevention is the outcome of a well-designed strategy that incorporates multiple, sometimes disparate tools within your existing security program.

      Prioritize data

      Start with the data that matters most to your organization.

      Define an objective

      Having a clearly defined objective will make implementing a DLP program much easier.

      DLP is a layer

      Data loss prevention is not foundational, and it depends on many other parts of a mature information security program.

      The low hanging fruit is sweet

      Start your DLP implementation with a quick win in mind and build on small successes.

      DLP is a work multiplier

      Your organization must be prepared to investigate alerts and respond to incidents.

      Prevent data loss across cloud or hybrid environments

      A diagram that shows preventing data loss across cloud or hybrid environments

      Data loss prevention is not a point solution.
      It’s the outcome of a well-designed strategy that incorporates multiple, sometimes disparate tools within your existing security program.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Leverage existing security tools where possible.

      Data loss prevention (DLP) overview

      DLP is an additional layer of security.

      DLP is a set of technologies and processes that provides additional data protection by identifying, monitoring, and preventing data from being illicitly used or transmitted.

      DLP depends on many components of a mature security program, including but not limited to:

      • Acceptable use policy
      • Data classification policy and data handling guidelines
      • Identity and access management

      DLP is achieved through some or all of the following tactics:

      • Identify: Data is detected using policies, rules, and patterns.
      • Monitor: Data is flagged and data activity is logged.
      • Prevent: Action is taken on data once it has been detected.

      Info-Tech Insight

      DLP is not foundational. Your information security program needs to be moderately mature to support a DLP strategy.

      DLP approaches and methods

      DLP uses a handful of techniques to achieve its tactics:

      • Policy and access rights: Limits access to data based on user permissions or other contextual attributes.
      • Isolation or virtualization: Data is isolated in an environment with channels for data leakage made unavailable.
      • Cryptographic approach: Data is encrypted.
      • Quantifying and limiting: Use or transfer of data is restricted by quantity.
      • Social and behavioral analysis: The DLP system detects anomalous activity, such as users accessing data outside of business hours.
      • Pattern matching: Data content is analyzed for specific patterns.
      • Data mining and text clustering: Large sets are analyzed, typically with machine learning (ML), to identify patterns.
      • Data fingerprinting: Data files are matched against a pre-calculated hash or based on file contents.
      • Statistical Analysis: Data content is analyzed for sensitive data. Usually involves machine learning.


      DLP has two primary approaches for applying techniques:

      • Content-based: Data is identified through inspecting its content. Fingerprinting and pattern matching are examples of content-based methods.
      • Context-based: Data is identified based on its situational or contextual attributes. Some factors that may be used are source, destination, and format.

      Some DLP tools use both approaches.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Different DLP products will support different methods. It is important to keep these in mind when choosing a DLP solution.

      Start by defining your data

      Define data by answering the 5 “W”s

      Who? Who owns the data? Who needs access? Who would be impacted if it was lost?
      What? What data do you have? What type of data is it? In what format does it exist?
      When? When is the data generated? When is it used? When is it destroyed?
      Where? Where is the data stored? Where is it generated? Where is it used?
      Why? Why is the data needed?

      Use what you discover about your data to create a data inventory!

      Compliance requirements

      Compliance requirements often dictate what must be done to manage and protect data and vary from industry to industry.

      Some examples of compliance requirements to consider:

      • Healthcare - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
      • Financial Services - Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
      • Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS)

      Info-Tech Insight

      Why is especially important. If you don’t need a specific piece of data, dispose of it to reduce risk and administrative overhead related to maintaining or protecting data.

      Classify your data

      Data classification facilitates making decisions about how data is treated.

      Data classification is a process by which data is categorized.

      • The classifications are often based on the sensitivity of the data or the impact a loss or breach of that data would have on the organization.
      • Data classification facilitates decisions about data handling and how information security controls are implemented. Instead of considering many different types of data individually, decisions are based on a handful of classification levels.
      • A mature data classification should include a formalized policy, handling standards, and a steering committee.

      Refer to our Discover and Classify Your Data blueprint for guidance on data classification.

      Sample data classification schema

      Label

      Category
      Top Secret Data that is mission critical and highly likely to negatively impact the organization if breached. The “crown jewels.”
      Examples: Trade secrets, military secrets
      Confidential Data that must not be disclosed, either because of a contractual or regulatory requirement or because of its value to the organization.
      Examples: Payment card data, private health information, personally identifiable information, passwords
      Internal Data that is intended for organizational use, which should be kept private.
      Examples: Internal memos, sales reports
      Limited Data that isn’t generally intended for public consumption but may be made public.
      Examples: Employee handbooks, internal policies
      Public Data that is meant for public consumption and anonymous access.
      Examples: Press releases, job listings, marketing material

      Info-Tech Insight

      Data classification should be implemented as a continuous program, not a one-time project.

      Understand data risk

      Knowing where and how your data is at risk will inform your DLP strategy.

      Data exists in three states, and each state presents different opportunities for risk. Different DLP methodologies will be appropriate for different states.

      Data states

      In use

      • End-user devices
      • Mobile devices
      • Servers

      In motion

      • Cloud services
      • Email
      • Web/web apps
      • Instant messaging
      • File transfers

      At rest

      • Cloud services
      • Databases
      • End-user devices
      • Email archives
      • Backups
      • Servers
      • Physical storage devices

      Causes of Risk

      The most common causes of data loss can be categorized by people, processes, and technology.

      A diagram that shows the categorization of causes of risk.

      Check out our Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program blueprint for guidance on risk management, including how to do a full risk assessment.

      Prioritize your data

      Know what data matters most to your organization.

      Prioritizing the data that most needs protection will help define your DLP goals.

      The prioritization of your data should be a business decision based on your comprehension of the data. Drivers for prioritizing data can include:

      • Compliance-driven: Noncompliance is a risk in itself and your organization may choose to prioritize data based on meeting compliance requirements.
      • Audit-driven: Data can be prioritized to prepare for a specific audit objective or in response to an audit finding.
      • Business-driven: Data could be prioritized based on how important it is to the organization’s business processes.

      Info-Tech Insight

      It’s not feasible for most organizations to apply DLP to all their data. Start with the most important data.

      Activity: Prioritize your data

      Input: Lists of data, data types, and data environments
      Output: A list of data types with an estimated priority
      Materials: Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner worksheet
      Participants: Security leader, Data owners

      1-2 hours

      For this activity, you will use the Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner workbook to prioritize your data.

      1. Start with tab “2. Setup” and fill in the columns. Each column features a short explanation of itself, and the following slides will provide more detail about the columns.
      2. On tab “3. Data Prioritization,” work through the rows by selecting a data type and moving left to right. This sheet features a set of instructions at the top explaining each column, and the following slides also provide some guidance. On this tab, you may use data types and data environments multiple times.

      Click to download the Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner

      Activity: Prioritize your data

      In the Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner tool, start with tab “2. Setup.”

      A diagram that shows tab 2 setup

      Next, move to tab “3. Data Prioritization.”

      A diagram that shows tab 3 Data Prioritization.

      Click to download the Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner

      Determine DLP objectives

      Your DLP strategy should be able to function as a business case.

      DLP objectives should achieve one or more of the following:

      • Prevent disclosure or unauthorized use of data, regardless of its state.
      • Preserve usability while providing adequate security.
      • Improve security, privacy, and compliance capabilities.
      • Reduce overall risk for the enterprise.

      Example objectives:

      • Prevent users from emailing ePHI to addresses outside of the organization.
      • Detect when a user is uploading an unusually large amount of data to a cloud drive.

      Most common DLP use cases:

      • Protection of data, primarily from internal threats.
      • Meet compliance requirements to protect data.
      • Automate the discovery and classification of data.
      • Provide better data management and visibility across the enterprise.
      • Manage and protect data on mobile devices.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Having a clear idea of your objectives will make implementing a DLP program easier.

      Align DLP with your existing security program/architecture

      DLP depends on many different aspects of your security program.
      To the right are some components of your existing security program that will support DLP.


      1. Data handling standards or guidelines: These specify how your organization will handle data, usually based on its classification. Your data handling standards will inform the development of DLP rules, and your employees will have a clear idea of data handling expectations.

      2. Identity and access management (IAM): IAM will control the access users have to various resources and data and is integral to DLP processes.

      3. Incident response policy or plan: Be sure to consider your existing incident handling processes when implementing DLP. Modifying your incident response processes to accommodate alerts from DLP tools will help you efficiently process and respond to incidents.

      4. Existing security tools: Firewalls, email gateways, security information and event management (SIEM), and other controls should be considered or leveraged when implementing a DLP solution.

      5. Acceptable use policy: An organization must set expectations for acceptable/unacceptable use of data and IT resources.

      6. User education and awareness: Aside from baseline security awareness training, organizations should educate users about policies and communicate the risks of data leakage to reduce risk caused by user error.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Consider DLP as a secondary layer of protection; a safety net. Your existing security program should do most of the work to prevent data misuse.

      Cloud service models

      A fundamental challenge with implementing DLP with cloud services is the reduced flexibility that comes with managing less of the technology stack. Each cloud model offers varying levels of abstraction and control to the user.

      Infrastructure as a service (IaaS): This service model provides customers with virtualized technology resources, such as servers and networking infrastructure. IaaS allows users to have complete control over their virtualized infrastructure without needing to purchase and maintain hardware resources or server space. Popular examples include Amazon Web Servers, Google Cloud Engine, and Microsoft Azure.

      Platform as a service (PaaS): This service model provides users with an environment to develop and manage their own applications without needing to manage an underlying infrastructure. Popular examples include Google Cloud Engine, OpenShift, and SAP Cloud.

      Software as a service (SaaS): This service model provides customers with access to software that is hosted and maintained by the cloud provider. SaaS offers the least flexibility and control over the environment. Popular examples include Salesforce, Microsoft Office, and Google Workspace.

      A diagram that shows cloud models, including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Cloud service providers may include DLP controls and functionality for their environments with the subscription. These tools are usually well suited for DLP functions on that platform.

      Different DLP tools

      DLP products often fall into general categories defined by where those tools provide protection. Some tools fit into more than one category.

      Cloud DLP refers to DLP products that are designed to protect data in cloud environments.

      • Cloud access security broker (CASB): This system, either in-cloud or on-premises, sits between cloud service users and cloud service providers and acts as a point of control to enforce policies on cloud-based resources. CASBs act on data in motion, for the most part, but can detect and act on data at rest through APIs.
      • Existing tools integrated within a service: Many cloud services provide DLP tools to manage data loss in their service.

      Endpoint DLP: This DLP solution runs on an endpoint computing device and is suited to detecting and controlling data at rest on a computer as well as data being uploaded or downloaded. Endpoint DLP would be feasible for IaaS.

      Network DLP: Network DLP, deployed on-premises or as a cloud service, enforces policies on network flows between local infrastructure and the internet.

      • “Email DLP”: Detects and enforces security policies specifically on data in motion as emails.

      A diagram of CASB

      Choosing a DLP solution

      You will also find that some DLP solutions are better suited for some cloud service models than others.


      DLP solution types that are better suited for SaaS: CASB and Integrated Tools

      DLP solution types that are better suited for PaaS: CASB, Integrated Tools, Network DLP

      DLP solution types that are better suited for IaaS: CASB, Integrated Tools, Network DLP, and Endpoint DLP

      Your approach for DLP will vary depending on the data state you’ll be acting on and whether you are trying to detect or prevent.

      A diagram that shows DLP tactics by approach and data state

      Click to download the Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner
      Check the tab labeled “6. DLP Features Reference” for a list of common DLP features.

      Activity: Plan DLP methods

      Input: Knowledge of data states for data types
      Output: A set of technical DLP policy rules for each data type by environment
      Materials: The same Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner worksheet from the earlier activity
      Participants: Security leader, Data owners

      1-2 hours

      Continue with the same workbook used in the previous activity.

      1. On tab “4. DLP Methods,” indicate the expected data state the DLP control will act on. Then, select the type of DLP control your organization intends to use for that data type in that data environment.
      2. DLP actions are suggested based on the classification of the data type, but these may be overridden by manually selecting your preferred action.
      3. You will find more detail on this activity on the following slide, and you will find some additional guidance in the instructional text at the top of the worksheet.
      4. Once you have populated the columns on this worksheet, a summary of suggested DLP rules can be found on tab “5. Results.”

      Click to download the Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner

      Activity: Plan DLP methods

      Use tab “4. DLP Methods” to plan DLP rules and technical policies.

      A diagram that shows tab 4 DLP Methods

      See tab “5. Results” for a summary of your DLP policies.

      A diagram that shows tab 5 Results.

      Click to download the Data Loss Prevention Strategy Planner

      Implement your DLP program

      Take the steps to properly implement your DLP program

      1. It’s important to shift the culture. You will need leadership’s support to implement controls and you’ll need stakeholders’ participation to ensure DLP controls don’t negatively affect business processes.
      2. Integrate DLP tools with your security program. Most cloud service providers, like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google provide DLP controls in their native environment. Many of your other security controls, such as firewalls and mail gateways, can be used to achieve DLP objectives.
      3. DLP is best implemented with a crawl, walk, then run approach. Following change management processes can reduce friction.
      4. Communicating controls to users will also reduce friction.

      A diagram of implementing DLP program

      Info-Tech Insight

      After a DLP program is implemented, alerts will need to be investigated and incidents will need a response. Be prepared for DLP to be a work multiplier!

      Measure and improve

      Metrics of effectiveness

      DLP attempts to tackle the challenge of promptly detecting and responding to an incident.
      To measure the effectiveness of your DLP program, compare the number of events, number of incidents, and mean time to respond to incidents from before and after DLP implementation.

      Metrics that indicate friction

      A high number of false positives and rule exceptions may indicate that the rules are not working well and may be interfering with legitimate use.
      It’s important to address these issues as the frustration felt by employees can undermine the DLP program.

      Tune DLP rules

      Establish a process for routinely using metrics to tune rules.
      This will improve performance and reduce friction.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Aside from performance-based tuning, it’s important to evaluate your DLP program periodically and after major system or business changes to maintain an awareness of your data environment.

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Photo of Discover and Classify Your Data

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      Understand where your data lives and who has access to it. This blueprint will help you develop an appropriate data classification system by conducting interviews with data owners and by incorporating vendor solutions to make the process more manageable and end-user friendly.

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      Identify the Components of Your Cloud Security Architecture

      This blueprint and associated tools are scalable for all types of organizations within various industry sectors. It allows them to know what types of risk they are facing and what security services are strongly recommended to mitigate those risks.

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      Data Loss Prevention on SoftwareReviews

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      Don’t settle for just any vendor – find the one you can trust. Use the Emotional Footprint report to see which vendors treat their customers right.

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      Bibliography

      Alhindi, Hanan, Issa Traore, and Isaac Woungang. "Preventing Data Loss by Harnessing Semantic Similarity and Relevance." jisis.org Journal of Internet Services and Information Security, 31 May 2021. Accessed 2 March 2023. https://jisis.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/jisis-2021-vol11-no2-05.pdf

      Cash, Lauryn. "Why Modern DLP is More Important Than Ever." Armorblox, 10 June 2022. Accessed 10 February 2023. https://www.armorblox.com/blog/modern-dlp-use-cases/

      Chavali, Sai. "The Top 4 Use Cases for a Modern Approach to DLP." Proofpoint, 17 June 2021. Accessed 7 February 2023. https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/information-protection/top-4-use-cases-modern-approach-dlp

      Crowdstrike. "What is Data Loss Prevention?" Crowdstrike, 27 Sept. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023. https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/data-loss-prevention-dlp/

      De Groot, Juliana. "What is Data Loss Prevention (DLP)? Definition, Types, and Tips." Digital Guardian, 8 February 2023. Accessed 9 Feb. 2023. https://digitalguardian.com/blog/what-data-loss-prevention-dlp-definition-data-loss-prevention

      Denise. "Learn More About DLP Key Use Cases." CISO Platform, 28 Nov. 2019. Accessed 10 February 2023. https://www.cisoplatform.com/profiles/blogs/learn-more-about-dlp-key-use-cases

      Google. "Cloud Data Loss Prevention." Google Cloud Google, n.d. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. https://cloud.google.com/dlp#section-6

      Gurucul. "2023 Insider Threat Report." Cybersecurity Insiders, 13 Jan. 2023. Accessed 23 Feb. 2023. https://gurucul.com/2023-insider-threat-report

      IBM Security. "Cost of a Data Breach 2022." IBM Security, 1 Aug. 2022. Accessed 13 Feb. 2023. https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/3R8N1DZJ

      Mell, Peter & Grance, Tim. "The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing." NIST CSRC NIST, Sept. 2011. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-145/final

      Microsoft. "Plan for Data Loss Prevention (DLP)." Microsoft 365 Solutions and Architecture Microsoft, 6 Feb. 2023. Accessed 14 Feb. 2023. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/dlp-overview-plan-for-dlp

      Nanchengwa, Christopher. "The Four Questions for Successful DLP Implementation." ISACA Journal ISACA, 1 Jan. 2019. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023. https://www.isaca.org/resources/isaca-journal/issues/2019/volume-1/the-four-questions-for-successful-dlp-implementation

      Palo Alto Networks. "The State of Cloud Native Security 2023." Palo Alto Networks, 2 March 2023. Accessed 23 March 2023. https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/content/dam/pan/en_US/assets/pdf/reports/state-of-cloud-native-security-2023.pdf

      Pritha. "Top Six Metrics for your Data Loss Prevention Program." CISO Platform, 27 Nov. 2019. Accessed 10 Feb. 2023. https://www.cisoplatform.com/profiles/blogs/top-6-metrics-for-your-data-loss-prevention-program

      Raghavarapu, Mounika. "Understand DLP Key Use Cases." Cymune, 12 June 2021. Accessed 7 Feb. 2023. https://www.cymune.com/blog-details/DLP-key-use-cases

      Sheela, G. P., & Kumar, N. "Data Leakage Prevention System: A Systematic Report." International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering BEIESP, 30 Nov. 2019. Accessed 2 March 2023. https://www.ijrte.org/wp-content/uploads/papers/v8i4/D6904118419.pdf

      Sujir, Shiv. "What is Data Loss Prevention? Complete Guide [2022]." Pathlock, 15 Sep. 2022. Accessed 7 February 2023. https://pathlock.com/learn/what-is-data-loss-prevention-complete-guide-2022/

      Wlosinski, Larry G. "Data Loss Prevention - Next Steps." ISACA Journal, 16 Feb. 2018. Accessed 21 Feb. 2023. https://www.isaca.org/resources/isaca-journal/issues/2018/volume-1/data-loss-preventionnext-steps

      There should never be only one.

      • Large vertical image:
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      Today, we're talking about a concept that’s both incredibly simple and dangerously overlooked: the single point of failure, or SPOF for short.

      Imagine you’ve built an impenetrable fortress. It has high walls, a deep moat, and strong gates. But the entire fortress can only be accessed through a single wooden bridge. That bridge is your single point of failure. If it collapses or is destroyed, your magnificent fortress is completely cut off. It doesn't matter how strong the rest of it is; that one weak link renders the entire system useless.

      In your work, your team, and your processes and technology, these single bridges are everywhere. A SPOF is any part of a system that, if it stops working, will cause the entire system to shut down. It’s the one critical component, the one indispensable person, or the one vital process that everything else depends on.

      When you identify and fix these weak points, you're strengthening the foundation of something that can withstand shocks and surprises. It’s about creating truly resilient systems and teams, not just seemingly strong ones. So, let’s explore where these risks hide and what you can do about them.

      When People Become the Problem

      For those of you who know me, saying something like this feels at odds with who I am. And yet, it's one of the most common and riskiest areas in any organization. Human single points of failure don't happen because of malicious intent. They typically grow out of positive intentions, hard work, and necessity. But the result is the same: a fragile system completely dependent on an individual.

      The Rise of the Hero

      We all know a colleague like this. The “hero” is the one person who has all the answers. When a critical system goes down at 3 AM, they're the only one who can fix it. They understand the labyrinthine codebase nobody else dares to touch. They have the historical context for every major decision made in the last decade. On the surface, this person is indispensable. Management loves them because they solve problems. The team relies on them because they’re a walking encyclopedia.

      But here’s the inconvenient truth: your hero is your most significant liability.

      Such behavior isn’t their fault. They likely became the hero by stepping up when no one else would or could. The hero may actually feel like they are the only ones qualified to handle the issue because “management” does not take the necessary actions to train other people. Or “management” places other priorities. Be aware; the issue is a perception thing. The manager is likely to be very concerned about the well-being of their employees. (I'm taking "black companies," akin to black sites, out of the equation for a moment and concentrating on generally healthy workplaces.) The hero will likely feel a strong bond to their environment. Furthermore, every hero is different. There is a single point of failure, but not a single type of person. Every person has a different driver.

      I watched a YouTube video by a famous entrepreneur the other day. And she said something that triggered a response in me because it sows the seeds of the hero. She said, "Would you rather have an employee who just fixes things, handles problems, and deals with issues?" Or an employee that talks about it? Obviously, the large majority will take the person behind door number 1. I would too. But then you need to step up as a manager, as an owner, and as an executive and enforce knowledge sharing.

      If you channel all critical knowledge and capabilities through one person and let that person become your go-to specialist for everything, you create a massive SPOF. What happens when your hero becomes sick, takes a well-deserved two-week vacation to a place with no internet, or leaves the company for a new opportunity? The system stops working. A minor issue becomes a major crisis because the only person who can fix it is unavailable.

      This overreliance also stifles growth. Other team members don't get the opportunity to learn and develop new skills because the hero is always there to swoop in and save the day. The answer? I guess that depends on your situation and what your ability is to keep this person happy without alienating the rest of the team. The answer may lie in the options discussed later in the article around KPIs.

      The Knowledge Hoarders

      A step beyond the individual hero is the team that acts as a collective SPOF. This group is the team that “protects” its know-how. They might use complex, undocumented tools, speak in a language of acronyms only they understand, or resist any attempts to standardize their processes. They've built a silo around their work, making themselves indispensable as a unit.

      Unlike the hero, their behavior often comes from a place of perceived self-preservation. If they are the only ones who understand how something works, their jobs are secure, right? But this behavior is incredibly damaging to the organization's resilience. It is also just plain wrong. The team becomes inundated with requests for new features but also for help in solving incidents. In numerous instances, the result is that the team fails in both. Next, the manager is called to senior management because the business is complaining that things don't progress as expected. 

      This team thus has become a bottleneck. Any other team that needs to interact with their system is completely at their mercy. Progress slows to a crawl, dependent on their availability and willingness to cooperate. Preservation has turned into survival.  

      The real root cause at the heart of both the hero and the knowledge-hoarding team is a failure of knowledge management. When you don't share, document, and make information accessible, you actively create single points of failure. We'll dive deeper into building a robust knowledge-sharing culture in a future article, but for now, recognize that knowledge kept in one person's or team's head is a disaster waiting to happen.

      When Your Technology is a House of Cards

      People aren't the only source of fragility. The way you build and manage your technology stacks can easily create critical SPOFs that leave you vulnerable. These are often less obvious at first, but they can cause dangerous failures when they finally break.

      The Danger of the Single Node

      Let's start with the most straightforward technical SPOF: the single-node setup. Imagine you have a critical application like maybe your company's main website or an internal database. If you run that entire application on one single server (a single “node”), you've created a classic SPOF.

      It’s like a restaurant with only one chef. If that chef goes home, the kitchen closes. It doesn't matter how many waiters or tables you have. If that single server experiences a hardware failure, a software crash, or even just needs to be rebooted for an update, your entire service goes offline. There is no failover. The service is simply down until that one machine is fixed, patched, or rebooted.

      You need to set up your systems so that when one node goes down, the other takes over. This is not just something for large enterprises. SMEs must do the same. I've had numerous calls from business owners who did something to their web server or system, and now “it doesn't work!” Not only are they down, but now they have to call me, and I then must arrange for subject matter experts to resolve it immediately. Typically at a cost much larger than if they had set up their system with active, warm, or even cold standbys. 

      The Mystery of Closed Technologies

      Another major risk comes from an overreliance on closed, proprietary technologies. This happens when you build a core part of your business on a piece of software or hardware that you don't control and can't inspect. It’s a “black box.” You know what it’s supposed to do, but you have no idea how it works or how to fix it if it breaks. When something goes wrong, you are completely at the mercy of the company that created it. You will need to submit a support ticket and wait.

      This scenario is actually relatable to the next chapter.

      The Trap of Vendor Lock-In

      Closely related to closed technology is the concept of vendor lock-in. This is a subtle but powerful SPOF. It happens when you become so deeply integrated with a single vendor's ecosystem that the cost and effort of switching to a competitor are impossibly high. Your vendor effectively becomes a strategic single point of failure. Your ability to innovate, control costs, and pivot your strategy is now tied to the decisions of another company.

      Such arrangements may even run afoul of legal standards. In Europe, the DORA and NIS2 regulations apply. DORA specifically mandates that companies have exit plans for their systems, starting with their critical and important functions. "Functions" refers to business services, to be clear. 

      But we get there so easily. The native functions of AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, just to name a few, are very enticing to use. They offer convenience, low code, and performance on tap. It's just that, once you integrate deeply with them, they have you, hook, line, and sinker. And then you have people like me, or worse, your regulator, who demands, “What is your exit plan?”

      Your Resilience Playbook: Practical Steps to Eliminate SPOFs

      Identifying your single points of failure is the first step. The real work is in systematically eliminating them. This isn't about a single, massive project; it's about building new habits and principles into your daily work. Here's a playbook I think you can start using today.

      Mitigate People-Based Risks

      The cure for depending on one person is to create a culture where knowledge is fluid and shared by default. Your goal is to move from individual heroics to collective resilience.

      • Mandate real vacations. This might sound strange, but one of the best ways to reveal and fix a “hero” problem is to make sure your hero takes a real, disconnected vacation. This isn't a punishment; it's a benefit to them and a necessary stress test for the team. It forces others to step up and document their processes in preparation. The first time will be painful, but it becomes easier each time as the team builds its own knowledge.

      • Adopt the “teach, don't just do” rule. Coach your senior experts to see their role as multipliers. When someone asks them a question, their first instinct should be to show, not just to do. This can be a five-minute screen-sharing session, grabbing a colleague to pair program on a fix, or taking ten minutes to write down the answer in a shared knowledge base so it never has to be asked again.

        Many companies have knowledge-sharing solutions in place. Take a moment to actually use them. Prepare for when new people come into the company. Have a place where they can get into the groove and learn the heartbeat of the company. There is a reason why the Madonna song is so captivating to so many people. Getting into the groove elevates you. And the same thing happens in your company. 

      • Rotate responsibilities and run "game days." Actively move people around. Let a developer handle support tickets for a week to understand common customer issues. Have your infrastructure expert sit with the product team. Also, create “game days” where you simulate a crisis. For example: "All right team, our lead developer is 'on vacation' today. Let's practice a full deployment without them.” This makes learning safe and proactive.

      • Celebrate team success, not individual firefighting. Shift your praise and recognition. Instead of publicly thanking a single person for working all night to resolve a problem, celebrate the team that built a system so resilient it didn't break in the first place. Reward the team that wrote excellent documentation that allowed a junior member to solve a complex issue. Culture follows what you celebrate. At the same time, if the team does not pony up, definitely praise the person and follow up with the team to fix the issue.

      • Host internal demos and tech talks. Create a regular, informal forum where people can share what they're working on. This could be a “brown bag lunch” session or a Friday afternoon demo. It demystifies what other teams are doing, breaks down silos, and encourages people to ask questions in a low-pressure environment.

      • Remunerate sharing. Make sharing knowledge a bonus-eligible key performance indicator. The more sharing an expert does, with their peers acknowledging this, the more the expert earns. You can easily incorporate this into your peer feedback system. 

      • Run DRP exercises without your top engineers: This approach is taking a leap of faith, and I would never recommend this until all of the above are in place and proven. 

      Building Resilient Technical Systems

      The core principle here is to assume failure will happen and to design for it. A resilient system isn't one where parts never fail, but one where the system as a whole keeps working even when they do.

      • Embrace the rule of three. This is a simple but powerful guideline. For critical data, aim to have three copies on two different types of media, with one copy stored off-site (or in a different cloud region). For critical services, aim for at least three instances running in different availability zones. This simple rule protects you from a wide range of common failures.

      • Automate everything you can. Every manual process is a potential SPOF. It relies on a person remembering a series of steps perfectly, often under pressure. Automate your testing, your deployments, your server setup, and your backup procedures. Scripts are consistent and repeatable; exhausted humans at 3 AM are not.

      • Use health checks and smart monitoring. It's not enough to have a backup server; you need to know that it's healthy and ready to take over. Implement automated health checks that constantly monitor your primary and redundant systems. Your monitoring should alert you the moment a backup component fails, not just when the primary one does.

      • Practice chaos engineering. Don't wait for a real failure to test your resilience. Intentionally introduce failures in a controlled environment. This is known as chaos engineering. Start small. What happens if you turn off a non-critical service during work hours? Does the system handle it gracefully? Does the team know how to respond? This approach turns a potential crisis into a planned, educational drill.

      Avoiding Technology and Vendor Traps

      Your resilience also depends on the choices you make about the technology and partners you rely on. The goal is to maintain control over your destiny.

      • Build abstraction layers. Instead of having your application code talk directly to a specific vendor's service, create an intermediary layer that you control. This “abstraction layer” acts as a buffer. If you ever need to switch vendors, you only have to update your abstraction layer, not your entire application. It’s more work up front but gives you immense flexibility later.

      • Make “ease of exit” a key requirement. When you evaluate a new technology or vendor, make portability a primary concern. Ask tough questions: How do we get our data out? What is the process for migrating to a competitor? Is the technology based on open standards? Run a small proof of concept to test how hard it would be to leave before you commit fully.

      • Consider a multi-vendor strategy. For your most critical dependencies, like cloud hosting, avoid relying entirely on a single provider if you can. Using services from two or more vendors is an advanced strategy, but it provides the ultimate protection against a massive, platform-wide outage or unfavorable changes in pricing or terms.

      It's a journey, not a destination

      You will never be “ready.” Building resilience by eliminating single points of failure isn't a one-time project you can check off a list. It’s a continuous process. New SPOFs will emerge as your systems evolve, people change roles, and your business grows.

      The key is to make this thinking a part of your culture. Make “What's the bus factor for this project?” a regular question in your planning meetings. Make redundancy and documentation a non-negotiable requirement for new systems. By constantly looking for the one thing that can bring everything down, you can build teams and technology that don't just survive shocks—they eat them for breakfast.

      Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

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      • Parent Category Name: Organizational Design
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      Most organizations go through an organizational redesign to:

      • Better align to the strategic objectives of the organization.
      • Increase the effectiveness of IT as a function.
      • Provide employees with clarity in their roles and responsibilities.
      • Support new capabilities.
      • Better align IT capabilities to suit the vision.
      • Ensure the IT organization can support transformation initiatives.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Organizational redesign is only as successful as the process leaders engage in. It shapes a story framed in a strong foundation of need and a method to successfully implement and adopt the new structure.
      • Benchmarking your organizational redesign to other organizations will not work. Other organizations have different strategies, drivers, and context. It’s important to focus on your organization, not someone else's.
      • You could have the best IT employees in the world, but if they aren’t structured well your organization will still fail in reaching its vision.

      Impact and Result

      • We are often unsuccessful in organizational redesign because we lack an understanding of why this initiative is required or fail to recognize that it is a change initiative.
      • Successful organizational design requires a clear understanding of why it is needed and what will be achieved by operating in a new structure.
      • Additionally, understanding the impact of the change initiative can lead to greater adoption by core stakeholders.

      Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Research & Tools

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Deck – A defined method of redesigning your IT structure that is founded by clear drivers and consistently considering change management practices.

      The purpose of this storyboard is to provide a four-phased approach to organizational redesign.

      • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure – Phases 1-4

      2. Communication Deck – A method to communicate the new organizational structure to critical stakeholders to gain buy-in and define the need.

      Use this templated Communication Deck to ensure impacted stakeholders have a clear understanding of why the new organizational structure is needed and what that structure will look like.

      • Organizational Design Communications Deck

      3. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Executive Summary Template – A template to secure executive leadership buy-in and financial support for the new organizational structure to be implemented.

      This template provides IT leaders with an opportunity to present their case for a change in organizational structure and roles to secure the funding and buy-in required to operate in the new structure.

      • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Executive Summary

      4. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Workbook – A method to document decisions made and rationale to support working through each phase of the process.

      This Workbook allows IT and business leadership to work through the steps required to complete the organizational redesign process and document key rationale for those decisions.

      • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Workbook

      5. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Operating Models and Capability Definitions – A tool that can be used to provide clarity on the different types of operating models that exist as well as the process definitions of each capability.

      Refer to this tool when working through the redesign process to better understand the operating model sketches and the capability definitions. Each capability has been tied back to core frameworks that exist within the information and technology space.

      • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Operating Models and Capability Definitions

      Infographic

      Workshop: Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Establish the Organizational Design Foundation

      The Purpose

      Lay the foundation for your organizational redesign by establishing a set of organizational design principles that will guide the redesign process.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Clearly articulate why this organizational redesign is needed and the implications the strategies and context will have on your structure.

      Activities

      1.1 Define the org design drivers.

      1.2 Document and define the implications of the business context.

      1.3 Align the structure to support the strategy.

      1.4 Establish guidelines to direct the organizational design process.

      Outputs

      Clear definition of the need to redesign the organizational structure

      Understanding of the business context implications on the organizational structure creation.

      Strategic impact of strategies on organizational design.

      Customized Design Principles to rationalize and guide the organizational design process.

      2 Create the Operating Model Sketch

      The Purpose

      Select and customize an operating model sketch that will accurately reflect the future state your organization is striving towards. Consider how capabilities will be sourced, gaps in delivery, and alignment.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A customized operating model sketch that informs what capabilities will make up your IT organization and how those capabilities will align to deliver value to your organization.

      Activities

      2.1 Augmented list of IT capabilities.

      2.2 Capability gap analysis

      2.3 Identified capabilities for outsourcing.

      2.4 Select a base operating model sketch.

      2.5 Customize the IT operating model sketch.

      Outputs

      Customized list of IT processes that make up your organization.

      Analysis of which capabilities require dedicated focus in order to meet goals.

      Definition of why capabilities will be outsourced and the method of outsourcing used to deliver the most value.

      Customized IT operating model reflecting sourcing, centralization, and intended delivery of value.

      3 Formalize the Organizational Structure

      The Purpose

      Translate the operating model sketch into a formal structure with defined functional teams, roles, reporting structure, and responsibilities.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A detailed organizational chart reflecting team structures, reporting structures, and role responsibilities.

      Activities

      3.1 Categorize your IT capabilities within your defined functional work units.

      3.2 Create a mandate statement for each work unit.

      3.3 Define roles inside the work units and assign accountability and responsibility.

      3.4 Finalize your organizational structure.

      Outputs

      Capabilities Organized Into Functional Groups

      Functional Work Unit Mandates

      Organizational Chart

      4 Plan for the Implementation & Change

      The Purpose

      Ensure the successful implementation of the new organizational structure by strategically communicating and involving stakeholders.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      A clear plan of action on how to transition to the new structure, communicate the new organizational structure, and measure the effectiveness of the new structure.

      Activities

      4.1 Identify and mitigate key org design risks.

      4.2 Define the transition plan.

      4.3 Create the change communication message.

      4.4 Create a standard set of FAQs.

      4.5 Align sustainment metrics back to core drivers.

      Outputs

      Risk Mitigation Plan

      Change Communication Message

      Standard FAQs

      Implementation and sustainment metrics.

      Further reading

      Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

      Designing an IT structure that will enable your strategic vision is not about an org chart – it’s about how you work.

      EXECUTIVE BRIEF

      Analyst Perspective

      Structure enables strategy.

      The image contains a picture of Allison Straker.

      Allison Straker

      Research Director,

      Organizational Transformation

      The image contains a picture of Brittany Lutes.

      Brittany Lutes

      Senior Research Analyst,

      Organizational Transformation

      An organizational structure is much more than a chart with titles and names. It defines the way that the organization operates on a day-to-day basis to enable the successful delivery of the organization’s information and technology objectives. Moreover, organizational design sees beyond the people that might be performing a specific role. People and role titles will and often do change frequently. Those are the dynamic elements of organizational design that allow your organization to scale and meet specific objectives at defined points of time. Capabilities, on the other hand, are focused and related to specific IT processes.

      Redesigning an IT organizational structure can be a small or large change transformation for your organization. Create a structure that is equally mindful of the opportunities and the constraints that might exist and ensure it will drive the organization towards its vision with a successful implementation. If everyone understands why the IT organization needs to be structured that way, they are more likely to support and adopt the behaviors required to operate in the new structure.

      Executive Summary

      Your Challenge

      Your organization needs to reorganize itself because:

      • The current IT structure does not align to the strategic objectives of the organization.
      • There are inefficiencies in how the IT function is currently operating.
      • IT employees are unclear about their role and responsibilities, leading to inconsistencies.
      • New capabilities or a change in how the capabilities are organized is required to support the transformation.

      Common Obstacles

      Many organizations struggle when it comes redesigning their IT organizational structure because they:

      • Jump right into creating the new organizational chart.
      • Do not include the members of the IT leadership team in the changes.
      • Do not include the business in the changes.
      • Consider the context in which the change will take place and how to enable successful adoption.

      Info-Tech’s Approach

      Successful IT organization redesign includes:

      • Understanding the drivers, context, and strategies that will inform the structure.
      • Remaining objective by focusing on capabilities over people or roles.
      • Identifying gaps in delivery, sourcing strategies, customers, and degrees of centralization.
      • Remembering that organizational design is a change initiative and will require buy-in.

      Info-Tech Insight

      A successful redesign requires a strong foundation and a plan to ensure successful adoption. Without these, the organizational chart has little meaning or value.

      Your challenge

      This research is designed to help organizations who are looking to:

      • Redesign the IT structure to align to the strategic objectives of the enterprise.
      • Increase the effectiveness in how the IT function is operating in the organization.
      • Provide clarity to employees around their roles and responsibilities.
      • Ensure there is an ability to support new IT capabilities and/or align capabilities to better support the direction of the organization.
      • Align the IT organization to support a business transformation such as becoming digitally enabled or engaging in M&A activities.

      Organizational design is a challenge for many IT and digital executives

      69% of digital executives surveyed indicated challenges related to structure, team silos, business-IT alignment, and required roles when executing on a digital strategy.

      Source: MIT Sloan, 2020

      Common obstacles

      These barriers make IT organizational redesign difficult to address for many organizations:

      • Confuse organizational design and organizational charts as the same thing.
      • Start with the organizational chart, not taking into consideration the foundational elements that will make that chart successful.
      • Fail to treat organizational redesign as a change management initiative and follow through with the change.
      • Exclude impacted or influential IT leaders and/or business stakeholders from the redesign process.
      • Leverage an operating model because it is trending.

      To overcome these barriers:

      • Understand the context in which the changes will take place.
      • Communicate the changes to those impacted to enable successful adoption and implementation of a new organizational structure.
      • Understand that organizational design is for more than just HR leaders now; IT executives should be driving this change.

      Succeed in Organizational Redesign

      75% The percentage of change efforts that fail.

      Source: TLNT, 2019

      55% The percentage of practitioners who identify how information flows between work units as a challenge for their organization.

      Source: Journal of Organizational Design, 2019

      Organizational design defined

      If your IT strategy is your map, your IT organizational design represents the optimal path to get there.

      IT organizational design refers to the process of aligning the organization’s structure, processes, metrics, and talent to the organization’s strategic plan to drive efficiency and effectiveness.

      Why is the right IT organizational design so critical to success?

      Adaptability is at the core of staying competitive today

      Structure is not just an organizational chart

      Organizational design is a never-ending process

      Digital technology and information transparency are driving organizations to reorganize around customer responsiveness. To remain relevant and competitive, your organizational design must be forward looking and ready to adapt to rapid pivots in technology or customer demand.

      The design of your organization dictates how roles function. If not aligned to the strategic direction, the structure will act as a bungee cord and pull the organization back toward its old strategic direction (ResearchGate.net, 2014). Structure supports strategy, but strategy also follows structure.

      Organization design is not a one-time project but a continuous, dynamic process of organizational self-learning and continuous improvement. Landing on the right operating model will provide a solid foundation to build upon as the organization adapts to new challenges and opportunities.

      Understand the organizational differences

      Organizational Design

      Organizational design the process in which you intentionally align the organizational structure to the strategy. It considers the way in which the organization should operate and purposely aligns to the enterprise vision. This process often considers centralization, sourcing, span of control, specialization, authority, and how those all impact or are impacted by the strategic goals.

      Operating Model

      Operating models provide an architectural blueprint of how IT capabilities are organized to deliver value. The placement of the capabilities can alter the culture, delivery of the strategic vision, governance model, team focus, role responsibility, and more. Operating model sketches should be foundational to the organizational design process, providing consistency through org chart changes.

      Organizational Structure

      The organizational structure is the chosen way of aligning the core processes to deliver. This can be strategic, or it can be ad hoc. We recommend you take a strategic approach unless ad hoc aligns to your culture and delivery method. A good organizational structure will include: “someone with authority to make the decisions, a division of labor and a set of rules by which the organization operates” (Bizfluent, 2019).

      Organizational Chart

      The capstone of this change initiative is an easy-to-read chart that visualizes the roles and reporting structure. Most organizations use this to depict where individuals fit into the organization and if there are vacancies. While this should be informed by the structure it does not necessarily depict workflows that will take place. Moreover, this is the output of the organizational design process.

      Sources: Bizfluent, 2019; Strategy & Business, 2015; SHRM, 2021

      The Technology Value Trinity

      The image contains a diagram of the Technology Value Trinity as described in the text below.

      All three elements of the Technology Value Trinity work in harmony to delivery business value and achieve strategic needs. As one changes, the others need to change as well.

      How do these three elements relate?

      • Digital and IT strategy tells you what you need to achieve to be successful.
      • Operating model and organizational design align resources to deliver on your strategy and priorities. This is done by strategically structuring IT capabilities in a way that enables the organizations vision and considers the context in which the structure will operate.
      • I&T governance is the confirmation of IT’s goals and strategy, which ensures the alignment of IT and business strategy and is the mechanism by which you continuously prioritize work to ensure that what is delivered is in line with the strategy.

      Too often strategy, organizational design, and governance are considered separate practices – strategies are defined without teams and resources to support. Structure must follow strategy.

      Info-Tech’s approach to organizational design

      Like a story, a strategy without a structure to deliver on it is simply words on paper.

      Books begin by setting the foundation of the story.

      Introduce your story by:

      • Defining the need(s) that are driving this initiative forward.
      • Introducing the business context in which the organizational redesign must take place.
      • Outlining what’s needed in the redesign to support the organization in reaching its strategic IT goals.

      The plot cannot thicken without the foundation. Your organizational structure and chart should not exist without one either.

      The steps to establish your organizational chart - with functional teams, reporting structure, roles, and responsibilities defined – cannot occur without a clear definition of goals, need, and context. An organizational chart alone won’t provide the insight required to obtain buy-in or realize the necessary changes.

      Conclude your story through change management and communication.

      Good stories don’t end without referencing what happened before. Use the literary technique of foreshadowing – your change management must be embedded throughout the organizational redesign process. This will increase the likelihood that the organizational structure can be communicated, implemented, and reinforced by stakeholders.

      Info-Tech uses a capability-based approach to help you design your organizational structure

      Once your IT strategy is defined, it is critical to identify the capabilities that are required to deliver on those strategic initiatives. Each initiative will require a combination of these capabilities that are only supported through the appropriate organization of roles, skills, and team structures.

      The image contains a diagram of the various services and blueprints that Info-Tech has to offer.

      Embed change management into organizational design

      Change management practices are needed from the onset to ensure the implementation of an organizational structure.

      For each phase of this blueprint, its important to consider change management. These are the points when you need to communicate the structure changes:

      • Phase 1: Begin to socialize the idea of new organizational structure with executive leadership and explain how it might be impactful to the context of the organization. For example, a new control, governance model, or sourcing approach could be considered.
      • Phase 2: The chosen operating model will influence your relationships with the business and can create/eliminate silos. Ensure IT and business leaders have insight into these possible changes and a willingness to move forward.
      • Phase 3: The new organizational structure could create or eliminate teams, reduce or increase role responsibilities, and create different reporting structures than before. It’s time to communicate these changes with those most impacted and be able to highlight the positive outcomes of the various changes.
      • Phase 4: Should consider the change management practices holistically. This includes the type of change and length of time to reach the end state, communication, addressing active resistors, acquiring the right skills, and measuring the success of the new structure and its adoption.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Do not undertake an organizational redesign initiative if you will not engage in change management practices that are required to ensure its successful adoption.

      Measure the value of the IT organizational redesign

      Given that the organizational redesign is intended to align with the overall vision and objectives of the business, many of the metrics that support its success will be tied to the business. Adapt the key performance indicators (KPIs) that the business is using to track its success and demonstrate how IT can enable the business and improve its ability to reach those targets.

      Strategic Resources

      The percentage of resources dedicated to strategic priorities and initiatives supported by IT operating model. While operational resources are necessary, ensuring people are allocating time to strategic initiatives as well will drive the business towards its goal state. Leverage Info-Tech’s IT Staffing Assessment diagnostic to benchmark your IT resource allocation.

      Business Satisfaction

      Assess the improvement in business satisfaction overall with IT year over year to ensure the new structure continues to drive satisfaction across all business functions. Leverage Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision diagnostic to see how your IT organization is perceived.

      Role Clarity

      The degree of clarity that IT employees have around their role and its core responsibilities can lead to employee engagement and retention. Consider measuring this core job driver by leveraging Info-Tech’s Employee Engagement Program.

      Customer & User Satisfaction

      Measure customer satisfaction with technology-enabled business services or products and improvements in technology-enabled client acquisition or retention processes. Assess the percentage of users satisfied with the quality of IT service delivery and leverage Info-Tech’s End-User Satisfaction Survey to determine improvements.

      Info-Tech’s methodology for Redesigning Your IT Organization

      Phase

      1. Establish the Organizational Design Foundation

      2. Create the Operating Model Sketch

      3. Formalize the Organizational Structure

      4. Plan for Implementation and Change

      Phase Outcomes

      Lay the foundation for your organizational redesign by establishing a set of organizational design principles that will guide the redesign process.

      Select and customize an operating model sketch that will accurately reflect the future state your organization is striving towards. Consider how capabilities will be sourced, gaps in delivery, and alignment.

      Translate the operating model sketch into a formal structure with defined functional teams, roles, reporting structure, and responsibilities.

      Ensure the successful implementation of the new organizational structure by strategically communicating and involving stakeholders.

      Insight summary

      Overarching insight

      Organizational redesign processes focus on defining the ways in which you want to operate and deliver on your strategy – something an organizational chart will never be able to convey.

      Phase 1 insight

      Focus on your organization, not someone else's’. Benchmarking your organizational redesign to other organizations will not work. Other organizations have different strategies, drivers, and context.

      Phase 2 insight

      An operating model sketch that is customized to your organization’s specific situation and objectives will significantly increase the chances of creating a purposeful organizational structure.

      Phase 3 insight

      If you follow the steps outlined in the first three phases, creating your new organizational chart should be one of the fastest activities.

      Phase 4 insight

      Throughout the creation of a new organizational design structure, it is critical to involve the individuals and teams that will be impacted.

      Tactical insight

      You could have the best IT employees in the world, but if they aren’t structured well your organization will still fail in reaching its vision.

      Blueprint deliverables

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


      Communication Deck

      Communicate the changes to other key stakeholders such as peers, managers, and staff.

      Workbook

      As you work through each of the activities, use this workbook as a place to document decisions and rationale.

      Reference Deck

      Definitions for every capability, base operating model sketches, and sample organizational charts aligned to those operating models.

      Job Descriptions

      Key deliverable:

      Executive Presentation

      Leverage this presentation deck to gain executive buy-in for your new organizational structure.

      Blueprint benefits

      IT Benefits

      • Create an organizational structure that aligns to the strategic goals of IT and the business.
      • Provide IT employees with clarity on their roles and responsibilities to ensure the successful delivery of IT capabilities.
      • Highlight and sufficiently staff IT capabilities that are critical to the organization.
      • Define a sourcing strategy for IT capabilities.
      • Increase employee morale and empowerment.

      Business Benefits

      • IT can carry out the organization’s strategic mission and vision of all technical and digital initiatives.
      • Business has clarity on who and where to direct concerns or questions.
      • Reduce the likelihood of turnover costs as IT employees understand their roles and its importance.
      • Create a method to communicate how the organizational structure aligns with the strategic initiatives of IT.
      • Increase ability to innovate the organization.

      Executive Brief Case Study

      IT design needs to support organizational and business objectives, not just IT needs.

      INDUSTRY: Government

      SOURCE: Analyst Interviews and Working Sessions

      Situation

      IT was tasked with providing equality to the different business functions through the delivery of shared IT services. The government created a new IT organizational structure with a focus on two areas in particular: strategic and operational support capabilities.

      Challenge

      When creating the new IT structure, an understanding of the complex and differing needs of the business functions was not reflected in the shared services model.

      Outcome

      As a result, the new organizational structure for IT did not ensure adequate meeting of business needs. Only the operational support structure was successfully adopted by the organization as it aligned to the individual business objectives. The strategic capabilities aspect was not aligned to how the various business lines viewed themselves and their objectives, causing some partners to feel neglected.

      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 are used throughout all four options.

      Guided Implementation

      What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

      Phase 1

      Call #1: Define the process, understand the need, and create a plan of action.

      Phase 2

      Call #2: Define org. design drivers and business context.

      Call #3: Understand strategic influences and create customized design principles.

      Call #4: Customize, analyze gaps, and define sourcing strategy for IT capabilities.

      Call #5: Select and customize the IT operating model sketch.

      Phase 3

      Call #6: Establish functional work units and their mandates.

      Call #7: Translate the functional organizational chart to an operational organizational chart with defined roles.

      Phase 4

      Call #8: Consider risks and mitigation tactics associated with the new structure and select a transition plan.

      Call #9: Create your change message, FAQs, and metrics to support the implementation plan.

      Workshop Overview

      Contact your account representative for more information.

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

      Day 1

      Day 2

      Day 3

      Day 4

      Day 5

      Establish the Organizational Redesign Foundation

      Create the Operating Model Sketch

      Formalize the Organizational Structure

      Plan for Implementation and Change

      Next Steps and
      Wrap-Up (offsite)

      Activities

      1.1 Define the org. design drivers.

      1.2 Document and define the implications of the business context.

      1.3 Align the structure to support the strategy.

      1.4 Establish guidelines to direct the organizational design process.

      2.1 Augment list of IT capabilities.

      2.2 Analyze capability gaps.

      2.3 Identify capabilities for outsourcing.

      2.4 Select a base operating model sketch.

      2.5 Customize the IT operating model sketch.

      3.1 Categorize your IT capabilities within your defined functional work units.

      3.2 Create a mandate statement for each work unit.

      3.3 Define roles inside the work units and assign accountability and responsibility.

      3.4 Finalize your organizational structure.

      4.1 Identify and mitigate key org. design risks.

      4.2 Define the transition plan.

      4.3 Create the change communication message.

      4.4 Create a standard set of FAQs.

      4.5 Align sustainment metrics back to core drivers.

      5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

      5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

      Deliverables
      1. Foundational components to the organizational design
      2. Customized design principles
      1. Heat mapped IT capabilities
      2. Defined outsourcing strategy
      3. Customized operating model
      1. Capabilities organized into functional groups
      2. Functional work unit mandates
      3. Organizational chart
      1. Risk mitigation plan
      2. Change communication message
      3. Standard FAQs
      4. Implementation and sustainment metrics
      1. Completed organizational design communications deck

      This blueprint is part one of a three-phase approach to organizational transformation

      PART 1: DESIGN

      PART 2: STRUCTURE

      PART 3: IMPLEMENT

      IT Organizational Architecture

      Organizational Sketch

      Organizational Structure

      Organizational Chart

      Transition Strategy

      Implement Structure

      1. Define the organizational design drivers, business context, and strategic alignment.

      2. Create customized design principles.

      3. Develop and customize a strategically aligned operating model sketch.

      4. Define the future-state work units.

      5. Create future-state work unit mandates.

      6. Define roles by work unit.

      7. Turn roles into jobs with clear capability accountabilities and responsibilities.

      8. Define reporting relationships between jobs.

      9. Assess options and select go-forward organizational sketch.

      11. Validate organizational sketch.

      12. Analyze workforce utilization.

      13. Define competency framework.

      14. Identify competencies required for jobs.

      15. Determine number of positions per job

      16. Conduct competency assessment.

      17. Assign staff to jobs.

      18. Build a workforce and staffing plan.

      19. Form an OD implementation team.

      20. Develop change vision.

      21. Build communication presentation.

      22. Identify and plan change projects.

      23. Develop organizational transition plan.

      24. Train managers to lead through change.

      25. Define and implement stakeholder engagement plan.

      26. Develop individual transition plans.

      27. Implement transition plans.

      Risk Management: Create, implement, and monitor risk management plan.

      HR Management: Develop job descriptions, conduct job evaluation, and develop compensation packages.

      Monitor and Sustain Stakeholder Engagement

      Phase 1

      Establish the Organizational Redesign Foundation

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      1.1 Define the organizational redesign driver(s)

      1.2 Create design principles based on the business context

      1.3a (Optional Exercise) Identify the capabilities from your value stream

      1.3b Identify the capabilities required to deliver on your strategies

      1.4 Finalize your list of design principles

      This phase involves the following participants:

      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Embed change management into the organizational design process

      Articulate the Why

      Changes are most successful when leaders clearly articulate the reason for the change – the rationale for the organizational redesign of the IT function. Providing both staff and executive leaders with an understanding for this change is imperative to its success. Despite the potential benefits to a redesign, they can be disruptive. If you are unable to answer the reason why, a redesign might not be the right initiative for your organization.

      Employees who understand the rationale behind decisions made by executive leaders are 3.6 times more likely to be engaged.

      McLean & Company Engagement Survey Database, 2021; N=123,188

      Info-Tech Insight

      Successful adoption of the new organizational design requires change management from the beginning. Start considering how you will convey the need for organizational change within your IT organization.

      The foundation of your organizational design brings together drivers, context, and strategic implications

      All aspects of your IT organization’s structure should be designed with the business’ context and strategic direction in mind.

      Use the following set of slides to extract the key components of your drivers, business context, and strategic direction to land on a future structure that aligns with the larger strategic direction.

      REDESIGN DRIVERS

      Driver(s) can originate from within the IT organization or externally. Ensuring the driver(s) are easy to understand and articulate will increase the successful adoption of the new organizational structure.

      BUSINESS CONTEXT

      Defines the interactions that occur throughout the organization and between the organization and external stakeholders. The context provides insight into the environment by both defining the purpose of the organization and the values that frame how it operates.

      STRATEGY IMPLICATIONS

      The IT strategy should be aligned to the overall business strategy, providing insight into the types of capabilities required to deliver on key IT initiatives.

      Understand IT’s desired maturity level, alignment with business expectations, and capabilities of IT

      Where are we today?

      Determine the current overall maturity level of the IT organization.

      Where do we want to be as an organization?

      Use the inputs from Info-Tech’s diagnostic data to determine where the organization should be after its reorganization.

      How can you leverage these results?

      The result of these diagnostics will inform the design principles that you’ll create in this phase.

      Leverage Info-Tech’s diagnostics to provide an understanding of critical areas your redesign can support:

      CIO Business Vision Diagnostic

      Management & Governance Diagnostic

      IT Staffing Diagnostic

      The image contains a picture of Info-Tech's maturity ladder.

      Consider the organizational design drivers

      Consider organizational redesign if …

      Effectiveness is a concern:

      • Insufficient resources to meet demand
      • Misalignment to IT (and business) strategies
      • Lack of clarity around role responsibility or accountability
      • IT functions operating in silos

      New capabilities are needed:

      • Organization is taking on new capabilities (digital, transformation, M&A)
      • Limited innovation
      • Gaps in the capabilities/services of IT
      • Other external environmental influences or changes in strategic direction

      Lack of business understanding

      • Misalignment between business and IT or how the organization does business
      • Unhappy customers (internal or external)

      Workforce challenges

      • Frequent turnover or inability to attract new skills
      • Low morale or employee empowerment

      These are not good enough reasons …

      • New IT leader looking to make a change for the sake of change or looking to make their legacy known
      • To work with specific/hand-picked leaders over others
      • To “shake things up” to see what happens
      • To force the organization to see IT differently

      Info-Tech Insight

      Avoid change for change’s sake. Restructuring could completely miss the root cause of the problem and merely create a series of new ones.

      1.1 Define the organizational redesign driver(s)

      1-2 hours

      1. As a group, brainstorm a list of current pain points or inhibitors in the current organizational structure, along with a set of opportunities that can be realized during your restructuring. Group these pain points and opportunities into themes.
      2. Leverage the pain points and opportunities to help further define why this initiative is something you’re driving towards. Consider how you would justify this initiative to different stakeholders in the organization.
      3. Questions to consider:
        1. Who is asking for this initiative?
        2. What are the primary benefits this is intended to produce?
        3. What are you optimizing for?
        4. What are we capable of achieving as an IT organization?
        5. Are the drivers coming from inside or outside the IT organization?
      4. Once you’ve determined the drivers for redesigning the IT organization, prioritize those drivers to ensure there is clarity when communicating why this is something you are focusing time and effort on.

      Input

      Output
      • Knowledge of the current organization
      • Pain point and opportunity themes
      • Defined drivers of the initiative

      Materials

      		 Participants
      • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

      Frame the organizational design within the context of the business

      Workforce Considerations:

      • How does your organization view its people resources? Does it have the capacity to increase the number of resources?
      • Do you currently have sufficient staff to meet the demands of the organization? Are you able to outsource resources when demand requires it?
      • Are the members of your IT organization unionized?
      • Is your workforce distributed? Do time zones impact how your team can collaborate?

      Business Context Consideration

      IT Org. Design Implication

      Culture:

      Culture, "the way we do things here,” has huge implications for executing strategy, driving engagement, and providing a guiding force that ensures organizations can work together toward common goals.

      • What is the culture of your organization? Is it cooperative, traditional, competitive, or innovative? (See appendix for details.)
      • Is this the target culture or a stepping-stone to the ideal culture?
      • How do the attitudes and behaviors of senior leaders in the organization reinforce this culture?

      Consider whether your organization’s culture can accept the operating model and organizational structure changes that make sense on paper.

      Certain cultures may lean toward particular operating models. For example, the demand-develop-service operating model may be supported by a cooperative culture. A traditional organization may lean towards the plan-build-run operating model.

      Ensure you have considered your current culture and added exercises to support it.

      If more capacity is required to accomplish the goals of the organization, you’ll want to prepare the leaders and explain the need in your design principles (to reflect training, upskilling, or outsourcing). Unionized environments require additional consideration. They may necessitate less structural changes, and so your principles will need to reflect other alternatives (hiring additional resources, creative options) to support organizational needs. Hybrid or fully remote workforces may impact how your organization interacts.

      Business context considerations

      Business Context Consideration

      IT Org. Design Implication

      Control & Governance:

      It is important to consider how your organization is governed, how decisions are made, and who has authority to make decisions.

      Strategy tells what you do, governance validates you’re doing the right things, and structure is how you execute on what’s been approved.

      • How do decisions get considered and approved in your organization? Are there specific influences that impact the priorities of the organization?
      • Are those in the organization willing to release decision-making authority around specific IT components?
      • Should the organization take on greater accountability for specific IT components?

      Organizations that require more controls may lean toward more centralized governance. Organizations that are looking to better enable and empower their divisions (products, groups, regions, etc.) may look to embed governance in these parts of the organization.

      For enterprise organizations, consider where IT has authority to make decisions (at the global, local, or system level). Appropriate governance needs to be built into the appropriate levels.

      Business context considerations

      Business Context Consideration

      IT Org. Design Implication

      Financial Constraints:

      Follow the money: You may need to align your IT organization according to the funding model.

      • Do partners come to IT with their budgets, or does IT have a central pool that they use to fund initiatives from all partners?
      • Are you able to request finances to support key initiatives/roles prioritized by the organization?
      • How is funding aligned: technology, data, digital, etc.? Is your organization business-line funded? Pooled?
      • Are there special products or digital transformation initiatives with resources outside IT? Product ownership funding?
      • How are regulatory changes funded?
      • Do you have the flexibility to adjust your budget throughout the fiscal year?
      • Are chargebacks in place? Are certain services charged back to business units

      Determine if you can move forward with a new model or if you can adjust your existing one to suit the financial constraints.

      If you have no say over your funding, pre-work may be required to build a business case to change your funding model before you look at your organizational structure – without this, you might have to rule out centralized and focus on hybrid/centralized. If you don’t control the budget (funding comes from your partners), it will be difficult to move to a more centralized model.

      A federated business organization may require additional IT governance to help prioritize across the different areas.

      Budgets for digital transformation might come from specific areas of the business, so resources may need to be aligned to support that. You’ll have to consider how you will work with those areas. This may also impact the roles that are going to exist within your IT organization – product owners or division owners might have more say.

      Business context considerations

      Business Context Consideration

      IT Org. Design Implication

      Business Perspective of IT:

      How the business perceives IT and how IT perceives itself are sometimes not aligned. Make sure the business’ goals for IT are well understood.

      • Are your business partners satisfied if IT is an order taker? Do they agree with the need for IT to become a business partner? Is IT expected to innovate and transform the organization?
      • Is what the business needs from IT the same as what IT is providing currently?

      Business Organization Structure and Growth:

      • How is the overall organization structured: Centralized/decentralized? Functionally aligned? Divided by regions?
      • In what areas does the organization prioritize investments?
      • Is the organization located across a diverse geography?
      • How big is the organization?
      • How is the organization growing and changing – by mergers and acquisitions?

      If IT needs to become more of a business partner, you’ll want to define what that means to your organization and focus on the capabilities to enable this. Educating your partners might also be required if you’re not aligned.

      For many organizations, this will include stakeholder management, innovation, and product/project management. If IT and its business partners are satisfied with an order-taker relationship, be prepared for the consequences of that.

      A global organization will require different IT needs than a single location. Specifically, site reliability engineering (SRE) or IT support services might be deployed in each region. Organizations growing through mergers and acquisitions can be structured differently depending on what the organization needs from the transaction. A more centralized organization may be appropriate if the driver is reuse for a more holistic approach, or the organization may need a more decentralized organization if the acquisitions need to be handled uniquely.

      Business context considerations

      Business Context Consideration

      IT Org. Design Implication

      Sourcing Strategy:

      • What are the drivers for sourcing? Staff augmentation, best practices, time zone support, or another reason?
      • What is your strategy for sourcing?
      • Does IT do all of your technology work, or are parts being done by business or other units?
      • Are we willing/able to outsource, and will that place us into non-compliance (regulations)?
      • Do you have vendor management capabilities in areas that you might outsource?
      • How cloud-driven is your organization?
      • Do you have global operations?

      Change Tolerance:

      • What’s your organization’s tolerance to make changes around organizational design?
      • What's the appetite and threshold for risk?

      Your sourcing strategy affects your organizational structure, including what capabilities you group together. Since managing outsourced capabilities also includes the need for vendor management, you’ll need to ensure there aren’t too many capabilities required per leader. Look closely at what can be achieved through your operating model if IT is done through other groups. Even though these groups may not be in scope of your organization changes, you need to ensure your IT team works with them effectively.

      If your organization is going to push back if there are big structural changes, consider whether the changes are truly necessary. It may be preferred to take baby steps – use an incremental versus big-bang approach.

      A need for incremental change might mean not making a major operating model change.

      Business context considerations

      Business Context Consideration

      IT Org Design. Implication

      Stakeholder Engagement & Focus:

      Identify who your customers and stakeholders are; clarify their needs and engagement model.

      • Who is the customer for IT products and services?
      • Is your customer internal? External? Both?
      • How much of a priority is customer focus for your organization?
      • How will IT interact with customers, end users, and partners? What is the engagement model desired?

      Business Vision, Services, and Products:

      Articulate what your organization was built to do.

      • What does the organization create or provide?
      • Are these products and services changing?
      • What are the most critical capabilities to your organization?
      • What makes your organization a success? What are critical success factors of the organization and how are they measuring this to determine success?

      For a customer or user focus, ensure capabilities related to understanding needs (stakeholder, UX, etc.) are prioritized. Hybrid, decentralized, or demand-develop-service models often have more of a focus on customer needs.

      Outsourcing the service desk might be a consideration if there’s a high demand for the service. A differentiation between these users might mean there’s a different demand for services.

      Think broadly in terms of your organizational vision, not just the tactical (widget creation). You might need to choose an operating model that supports vision.

      Do you need to align your organization with your value stream? Do you need to decentralize specific capabilities to enable prioritization of the key capabilities?

      1.2 Create design principles based on the business context

      1-3 hours

      1. Discuss the business context in which the IT organizational redesign will be taking place. Consider the following standard components of the business context; include other relevant components specific to your organization:
      • Culture
      • Workforce Considerations
      • Control and Governance
      • Financial Constraints
      • Business Perspective of IT
      • Business Organization Structure and Growth
      • Sourcing Strategy
      • Change Tolerance
      • Stakeholder Engagement and Focus
      • Business Vision, Services, and Products
    • Different stakeholders can have different perspectives on these questions. Be sure to consider a holistic approach and engage these individuals.
    • Capture your findings and use them to create initial design principles.
      • Input

      Output

      • Business context
      • Design principles reflecting how the business context influences the organizational redesign for IT

      Materials

      Participants

      • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
      • List of Context Questions
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

      How your IT organization is structured needs to reflect what it must be built to do

      Structure follows strategy – the way you design will impact what your organization can produce.

      Designing your IT organization requires an assessment of what it needs to be built to do:

      • What are the most critical capabilities that you need to deliver, and what does success look like in those different areas?
      • What are the most important things that you deliver overall in your organization?

      The IT organization must reflect your business needs:

      • Understand your value stream and/or your prioritized business goals.
      • Understand the impact of your strategies – these can include your overall digital strategy and/or your IT strategy

      1.3a (Optional Exercise) Identify the capabilities from your value stream

      1 hour

      1. Identify your organization’s value stream – what your overall organization needs to do from supplier to consumer to provide value. Leverage Info-Tech’s industry reference architectures if you haven’t identified your value stream, or use the Document Your Business Architecture blueprint to create yours.
      2. For each item in your value stream, list capabilities that are critical to your organizational strategy and IT needs to further invest in to enable growth.
      3. Also, list those that need further support, e.g. those that lead to long wait times, rework time, re-tooling, down-time, unnecessary processes, unvaluable processes.*
      4. Capture the IT capabilities required to enable your business in your draft principles.
      The image contains a screenshot of the above activity: Sampling Manufacturing Business Capabilities.
      Source: Six Sigma Study Guide, 2014
      Input Output
      • Organization’s value stream
      • List of IT capabilities required to support the IT strategy
      Materials Participants
      • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

      Your strategy will help you decide on your structure

      Ensure that you have a clear view of the goals and initiatives that are needed in your organization. Your IT, digital, business, and/or other strategies will surface the IT capabilities your organization needs to develop. Identify the goals of your organization and the initiatives that are required to deliver on them. What capabilities are required to enable these? These capabilities will need to be reflected in your design principles.

      Sample initiatives and capabilities from an organization’s strategies

      The image contains a screenshot of sample initiatives and capabilities from an organization's strategies.

      1.3b Identify the capabilities required to deliver on your strategies

      1 hour

      1. For each IT goal, there may be one or more initiatives that your organization will need to complete in order to be successful.
      2. Document those goals and infinitives. For each initiative, consider which core IT capabilities will be required to deliver on that goal. There might be one IT capability or there might be several.
      3. Identify which capabilities are being repeated across the different initiatives. Consider whether you are currently investing in those capabilities in your current organizational structure.
      4. Highlight the capabilities that require IT investment in your design principles.
      InputOutput
      • IT goals
      • IT initiatives
      • IT, digital, and business strategies
      • List of IT capabilities required to support the IT strategy
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

      Create your organizational design principles

      Your organizational design principles should define a set of loose rules that can be used to design your organizational structure to the specific needs of the work that needs to be done. These rules will guide you through the selection of the appropriate operating model that will meet your business needs. There are multiple ways you can hypothetically organize yourself to meet these needs, and the design principles will point you in the direction of which solution is the most appropriate as well as explain to your stakeholders the rationale behind organizing in a specific way. This foundational step is critical: one of the key reasons for organizational design failure is a lack of requisite time spent on the front-end understanding what is the best fit.

      The image contains an example of organizing design principles as described above.

      1.4 Finalize your list of design principles

      1-3 hours

      1. As a group, review the key outputs from your data collection exercises and their implications.
      2. Consider each of the previous exercises – where does your organization stand from a maturity perspective, what is driving the redesign, what is the business context, and what are the key IT capabilities requiring support. Identify how each will have an implication on your organizational redesign. Leverage this conversation to generate design principles.
      3. Vote on a finalized list of eight to ten design principles that will guide the selection of your operating model. Have everyone leave the meeting with these design principles so they can review them in more detail with their work units or functional areas and elicit any necessary feedback.
      4. Reconvene the group that was originally gathered to create the list of design principles and make any final amendments to the list as necessary. Use this opportunity to define exactly what each design principle means in the context of your organization so everyone has the same understanding of what this means moving forward.
      InputOutput
      • Organizational redesign drivers
      • Business context
      • IT strategy capabilities
      • Organizational design principles to help inform the selection of the right operating model sketch
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

      Example design principles

      Your eight to ten design principles will be those that are most relevant to YOUR organization. Below are samples that other organizations have created, but yours will not be the same.

      Design Principle

      Description

      Decision making

      We will centralize decision making around the prioritization of projects to ensure that the initiatives driving the most value for the organization as a whole are executed.

      Fit for purpose

      We will build and maintain fit-for-purpose solutions based on business units’ unique needs.

      Reduction of duplication

      We will reduce role and application duplication through centralized management of assets and clearly differentiated roles that allow individuals to focus within key capability areas.

      Managed security

      We will manage security enterprise-wide and implement compliance and security governance policies.

      Reuse > buy > build

      We will maximize reuse of existing assets by developing a centralized application portfolio management function and approach.

      Managed data

      We will create a specialized data office to provide data initiatives with the focus they need to enable our strategy.

      Design Principle

      Description

      Controlled technical diversity

      We will control the variety of technology platforms we use to allow for increased operability and reduction of costs.

      Innovation

      R&D and innovation are critical – we will build an innovation team into our structure to help us meet our digital agenda.

      Resourcing

      We will separate our project and maintenance activities to ensure each are given the dedicated support they need for success and to reduce the firefighting mentality.

      Customer centricity

      The new structure will be directly aligned with customer needs – we will have dedicated roles around relationship management, requirements, and strategic roadmapping for business units.

      Interoperability

      We will strengthen our enterprise architecture practices to best prepare for future mergers and acquisitions.

      Cloud services

      We will move toward hosted versus on-premises infrastructure solutions, retrain our data center team in cloud best practices, and build roles around effective vendor management, cloud provisioning, and architecture.

      Phase 2

      Create the Operating Model Sketch

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      2.1 Augment the capability list

      2.2 Heatmap capabilities to determine gaps in service

      2.3 Identify the target state of sourcing for your IT capabilities

      2.4 Review and select a base operating model sketch

      2.5 Customize the selected overlay to reflect the desired future state

      This phase involves the following participants:

      • CIO
      • IT Leadership

      Embed change management into the organizational design process

      Gain Buy-In

      Obtain desire from stakeholders to move forward with organizational redesign initiative by involving them in the process to gain interest. This will provide the stakeholders with assurance that their concerns are being heard and will help them to understand the benefits that can be anticipated from the new organizational structure.

      “You’re more likely to get buy-in if you have good reason for the proposed changes – and the key is to emphasize the benefits of an organizational redesign.”

      Source: Lucid Chart

      Info-Tech Insight

      Just because people are aware does not mean they agree. Help different stakeholders understand how the change in the organizational structure is a benefit by specifically stating the benefit to them.

      Info-Tech uses capabilities in your organizational design

      We differentiate between capabilities and competencies.

      Capabilities

      • Capabilities are focused on the entire system that would be in place to satisfy a particular need. This includes the people who are competent to complete a specific task and also the technology, processes, and resources to deliver.
      • Capabilities work in a systematic way to deliver on specific need(s).
      • A functional area is often made up of one or more capabilities that support its ability to deliver on that function.
      • Focusing on capabilities rather then the individuals in organizational redesign enables a more objective and holistic view of what your organization is striving toward.

      Competencies

      • Competencies on the other hand are specific to an individual. It determines if the individual poses the skills or ability to perform.
      • Competencies are rooted in the term competent, which looks to understand if you are proficient enough to complete the specific task at hand.
        • Source: The People Development Magazine, 2020

      Use our IT capabilities to establish your IT organization design

      The image contains a diagram of the various services and blueprints that Info-Tech has to offer.

      2.1 Augment the capability list

      1-3 hours

      1. Using the capability list on the previous slide, go through each of the IT capabilities and remove any capabilities for which your IT organization is not responsible and/or accountable. Refer to the Operating Model and Capability Definition List for descriptions of each of the IT capabilities.
      2. Augment the language of specific capabilities that you feel are not directly reflective of what is being done within your organizational context or that you feel need to be changed to reflect more specifically how work is being done in your organization.
      • For example, some organizations may refer to their service desk capability as help desk or regional support. Use a descriptive term that most accurately reflects the terminology used inside the organization today.
    • Add any core capabilities from your organization that are missing from the provided IT capability list.
      • For example, organizations that leverage DevOps capabilities for their product development may desire to designate this in their operating model.
    • Document the rationale for decisions made for future reference.
      • Input Output
      • Baseline list of IT capabilities
      • IT capabilities required to support IT strategy
      • Customized list of IT capabilities
      Materials Participants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Gaps in delivery

      Identify areas that require greater focus and attention.

      Assess the gaps between where you currently are and where you need to be. Evaluate how critical and how effective your capabilities are:

      • Criticality = Importance
        • Try to focus on those which are highly critical to the organization.
        • These may be capabilities that have been identified in your strategies as areas to focus on.
      • Effectiveness = Performance
        • Identify those where the process or system is broken or ineffective, preventing the team from delivering on the capability.
        • Effectiveness could take into consideration how scalable, adaptable, or sustainable each capability is.
        • Focus on the capabilities that are low or medium in effectiveness but highly critical. Addressing the delivery of these capabilities will lead to the most positive outcomes in your organization.

      Remember to identify what allows the highly effective capabilities to perform at the capacity they are. Leverage this when increasing effectiveness elsewhere.

      High Gap

      There is little to no effectiveness (high gap) and the capability is highly important to your organization.

      Medium Gap

      Current ability is medium in effectiveness (medium gap) and there might be some priority for that capability in your organization.

      Low Gap

      Current ability is highly effective (low gap) and the capability is not necessarily a priority for your organization.

      2.2 Heatmap capabilities to determine gaps in delivery

      1-3 hours

      1. At this point, you should have identified what capabilities you need to have to deliver on your organization's goals and initiatives.
      2. Convene a group of the key stakeholders involved in the IT organizational design initiative.
      3. Review your IT capabilities and color each capability border according to the effectiveness and criticality of that capability, creating a heat map.
      • Green indicates current ability is highly effective (low gap) and the capability is not necessarily a priority for your organization.
      • Yellow indicates current ability is medium in effectiveness (medium gap) and there might be some priority for that capability in your organization.
      • Red indicates that there is little to no effectiveness (high gap) and the capability is highly important to your organization.
      Input Output
      • Selected capabilities from activity 2.1
      • Gap analysis in delivery of capabilities currently
      Materials Participants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Don’t forget the why: why are you considering outsourcing?

      There are a few different “types” of outsourcing:

      1. Competitive Advantage – Working with a third-party organization for the knowledge, insights, and best practices they can bring to your organization.
      2. Managed Service– The third party manages a capability or function for your organization.
      3. Staff Augmentation – Your organization brings in contractors and third-party organizations to fill specific skills gaps.

      Weigh which sourcing model(s) will best align with the needed capabilities to deliver effectively

      Insourcing

      Staff Augmentation

      Managed Service

      Competitive Advantage

      Description

      The organization maintains full responsibility for the management and delivery of the IT capability or service.

      Vendor provides specialized skills and enables the IT capability or service together with the organization to meet demand.

      Vendor completely manages the delivery of value for the IT capability, product or service.

      Vendor has unique skills, insights, and best practices that can be taught to staff to enable insourced capability and competency.

      Benefits
      • Retains in-house control over proprietary knowledge and assets that provide competitive or operational advantage.
      • Gains efficiency due to integration into the organization’s processes.
      • Provision of unique skills.
      • Addresses variation in demand for resources.
      • Labor cost savings.
      • Improves use of internal resources.
      • Improves effectiveness due to narrow specialization.
      • Labor cost savings.
      • Gain insights into aspects that could provide your organization with advantages over competitors.
      • Long-term labor cost savings.
      • Short-term outsourcing required.
      • Increase in-house competencies.

      Drawbacks
      • Quality of services/capabilities might not be as high due to lack of specialization.
      • No labor cost savings.
      • Potentially inefficient distribution of labor for the delivery of services/capabilities.
      • Potential conflicts in management or delivery of IT services and capabilities.
      • Negative impact on staff morale.
      • Limited control over services/capabilities.
      • Limited integration into organization’s processes.
      • Short-term labor expenses.
      • Requires a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

      Your strategy for outsourcing will vary with capability and capacity

      The image contains a diagram to show the Develop Vendor Management Capabilities, as described in the text below.

      Capability

      Capacity

      Outsourcing Model

      Low

      Low

      Your solutions may be with you for a long time, so it doesn’t matter whether it is a strategic decision to outsource development or if you are not able to attract the talent required to deliver in your market. Look for a studio, agency, or development shop that has a proven reputation for long-term partnership with its clients.

      Low

      High

      Your team has capacity but needs to develop new skills to be successful. Look for a studio, agency, or development shop that has a track record of developing its customers and delivering solutions.

      High

      Low

      Your organization knows what it is doing but is strapped for people. Look at “body shops” and recruiting agencies that will support short-term development contracts that can be converted to full-time staff or even a wholesale development shop acquisition.

      High

      High

      You have capability and capacity for delivering on your everyday demands but need to rise to the challenge of a significant, short-term rise in demand on a critical initiative. Look for a major system integrator or development shop with the specific expertise in the appropriate technology.

      Use these criteria to inform your right sourcing strategy

      Sourcing Criteria

      Description

      Determine whether you’ll outsource using these criteria

      1. Critical or commodity

      Determine whether the component to be sourced is critical to your organization or if it is a commodity. Commodity components, which are either not strategic in nature or related to planning functions, are likely candidates for outsourcing. Will you need to own the intellectual property created by the third party? Are you ok if they reuse that for their other clients?

      2. Readiness to outsource

      Identify how easy it would be to outsource a particular IT component. Consider factors such as knowledge transfer, workforce reassignment or reduction, and level of integration with other components.

      Vendor management readiness – ensuring that you have sufficient capabilities to manage vendors – should also be considered here.

      3. In-house capabilities

      Determine if you have the capability to deliver the IT solutions in-house. This will help you establish how easy it would be to insource an IT component.

      4. Ability to attract resources (internal vs. outsourced)

      Determine if the capability is one that is easily sourced with full-time, internal staff or if it is a specialty skill that is best left for a third-party to source.

      Determine your sourcing model using these criteria

      		5. Cost

      Consider the total cost (investment and ongoing costs) of the delivery of the IT component for each of the potential sourcing models for a component.

      6. Quality

      Define the potential impact on the quality of the IT component being sourced by the possible sourcing models.

      7. Compliance

      Determine whether the sourcing model would fit with regulations in your industry. For example, a healthcare provider would only go for a cloud option if that provider is HIPAA compliant.

      8. Security

      Identify the extent to which each sourcing option would leave your organization open to security threats.

      9. Flexibility

      Determine the extent to which the sourcing model will allow your organization to scale up or down as demand changes.

      2.3 Identify capabilities that could be outsourced

      1-3 hours

      1. For each of the capabilities that will be in your future-state operating model, determine if it could be outsourced. Review the sourcing criteria available on the previous slide to help inform which sourcing strategy you will use for each capability.
      2. When looking to outsource or co-source capabilities, consider why that capability would be outsourced:
      • Competitive Advantage – Work with a third-party organization for the knowledge, insights, and best practices they can bring to your organization.
      • Managed Service – The third party manages a capability or function for your organization.
      • Staff Augmentation – Your organization brings in contractors and third-party organizations to fill specific skills gaps.
    • Place an asterisk (*) around the capabilities that will be leveraging one of the three previous sourcing options.
      • InputOutput
      • Customized IT capabilities
      • Sourcing strategy for each IT capability
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      What is an operating model?

      Leverage a cohesive operating model throughout the organizational design process.

      An IT operating model sketch is a visual representation of the way your IT organization needs to be designed and the capabilities it requires to deliver on the business mission, strategic objectives, and technological ambitions. It ensures consistency of all elements in the organizational structure through a clear and coherent blueprint.

      The visual should be the optimization and alignment of the IT organization’s structure to deliver the capabilities required to achieve business goals. Additionally, it should clearly show the flow of work so that key stakeholders can understand where inputs flow in and outputs flow out of the IT organization. Investing time in the front end getting the operating model right is critical. This will give you a framework to rationalize future organizational changes, allowing you to be more iterative and your model to change as the business changes.

      The image contains an example of an operating model as described in the text above.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Every structure decision you make should be based on an identified need, not on a trend.Build your IT organization to enable the priorities of the organization.

      Each IT operating model is characterized by a variety of advantages and disadvantages

      Centralized

      Hybrid

      Decentralized
      Advantages
      • Maximum flexibility to allocate IT resources across business units.
      • Low-cost delivery model and greatest economies of scale.
      • Control and consistency offers opportunity for technological rationalization and standardization and volume purchasing at the highest degree.
      • Centralizes processes and services that require consistency across the organization.
      • Decentralizes processes and services that need to be responsive to local market conditions.
      • Eliminates duplication and redundancy by allowing effective use of common resources (e.g. shared services, standardization).
      • Goals are aligned to the distinct business units or functions.
      • Greater flexibility and more timely delivery of services.
      • Development resources are highly knowledgeable about business-unit-specific applications.
      • Business unit has greatest control over IT resources and can set and change priorities as needed.

      Disadvantages
      • Less able to respond quickly to local requirements with flexibility.
      • IT can be resistant to change and unwilling to address the unique needs of end users.
      • Business units can be frustrated by perception of lack of control over resources.
      • Development of special business knowledge can be limited.
      • Requires the most disciplined governance structure and the unwavering commitment of the business; therefore, it can be the most difficult to maintain.
      • Requires new processes as pooled resources must be staffed to approved projects.
      • Redundancies, conflicts, and incompatible technologies can result from business units having differentiated services and applications – increasing cost.
      • Ability to share IT resources is low due to lack of common approaches.
      • Lack of integration limits the communication of data between businesses and reduces common reporting.

      Decentralization can take many forms – define what it means to your organization

      Decentralization can take a number of different forms depending on the products the organization supports and how the organization is geographically distributed. Use the following set of explanations to understand the different types of decentralization possible and when they may make sense for supporting your organizational objectives.

      Line of Business

      Decentralization by lines of business (LoB) aligns decision making with business operating units based on related functions or value streams. Localized priorities focus the decision making from the CIO or IT leadership team. This form of decentralization is beneficial in settings where each line of business has a unique set of products or services that require specific expertise or flexible resourcing staffing between the teams.

      Product Line

      Decentralization by product line organizes your team into operationally aligned product families to improve delivery throughput, quality, and resource flexibility within the family. By adopting this approach, you create stable product teams with the right balance between flexibility and resource sharing. This reinforces value delivery and alignment to enterprise goals within the product lines.

      Geographical

      Geographical decentralization reflects a shift from centralized to regional influences. When teams are in different locations, they can experience a number of roadblocks to effective communication (e.g. time zones, regulatory differences in different countries) that may necessitate separating those groups in the organizational structure, so they have the autonomy needed to make critical decisions.

      Functional

      Functional decentralization allows the IT organization to be separated by specialty areas. Organizations structured by functional specialization can often be organized into shared service teams or centers of excellence whereby people are grouped based on their technical, domain, or functional area within IT (Applications, Data, Infrastructure, Security, etc.). This allows people to develop specialized knowledge and skills but can also reinforce silos between teams.

      2.4 Review and select a base operating model sketch

      1 hour

      1. Review the set of base operating model sketches available on the following slides.
      2. For each operating model sketch, there are benefits and risks to be considered. Make an informed selection by understanding the risks that your organization might be taking on by adopting that particular operating model.
      3. If at any point in the selection process the group is unsure about which operating model will be the right fit, refer back to your design principles established in activity 1.4. These should guide you in the selection of the right operating model and eliminate those which will not serve the organization.
      InputOutput
      • Organizational design principles
      • Customized list of IT capabilities
      • Operating model sketch examples
      • Selected operating model sketch
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Centralized Operating Model #1: Plan-Build-Run

      I want to…

      • Establish a formalized governance process that takes direction from the organization on which initiatives should be prioritized by IT.
      • Ensure there is a clear separation between teams that are involved in strategic planning, building solutions, and delivering operational support.
      • Be able to plan long term by understanding the initiatives that are coming down the pipeline and aligning to an infrequent budgeting plan.

      BENEFITS

      • Effective at implementing long-term plans efficiently; separates maintenance and projects to allow each to have the appropriate focus.
      • More oversight over financials; better suited for fixed budgets.
      • Works across centralized technology domains to better align with the business’ strategic objectives – allows for a top-down approach to decision making.
      • Allows for economies of scale and expertise pooling to improve IT’s efficiency.
      • Well-suited for a project-driven environment that employs waterfall or a hybrid project management methodology that is less iterative.

      RISKS

      • Creates artificial silos between the build (developers) and run (operations staff) teams, as both teams focus on their own responsibilities and often fail to see the bigger picture.
      • Miss opportunities to deliver value to the organization or innovate due to an inability to support unpredictable/shifting project demands as decision making is centralized in the plan function.
      • The portfolio of initiatives being pursued is often determined before requirements analysis takes place, meaning the initiative might be solving the wrong need or problem.
      • Depends on strong hand-off processes to be defined and strong knowledge transfer from build to run functions in order to be successful.
      The image contains an example of a Centralized Operating Model: Plan-Build-Run.

      Centralized Operating Model #2: Demand-Develop-Service

      I want to…

      • Listen to the business to understand new initiatives or service enhancements being requested.
      • Enable development and operations to work together to seamlessly deliver in a DevOps culture.
      • Govern and confirm that initiatives being requested by the business are still aligned to IT’s overarching strategy and roadmap before prioritizing those initiatives.

      BENEFITS

      • Aligns well with an end-to-end services model; constant attention to customer demand and service supply.
      • Centralizes service operations under one functional area to serve shared needs across lines of business.
      • Allows for economies of scale and expertise pooling to improve IT’s efficiency.
      • Elevates sourcing and vendor management as its own strategic function; lends well to managed service and digital initiatives.
      • Development and operations housed together; lends well to DevOps-related initiatives and reduces the silos between these two core groups.

      RISKS

      • IT prioritizes the initiatives it thinks are a priority to the business based on how well it establishes good stakeholder relations and communications.
      • Depends on good governance to prevent enhancements and demands from being prioritized without approval from those with accountability and authority.
      • This model thrives in a DevOps culture but does not mean it ensures your organization is a “DevOps” organization. Be sure you're encouraging the right behaviors and attitudes.

      The image contains an example of a Centralized Operating Model: Demand, Develop, Service.

      Hybrid Operating Model #1: LOB/Functional Aligned

      I want to…

      • Better understand the various needs of the organization to align IT priorities and ensure the right services can be delivered.
      • Keep all IT decisions centralized to ensure they align with the overarching strategy and roadmap that IT has set.
      • Organize your shared services in a strategic manner that enables delivery of those services in a way that fits the culture of the organization and the desired method of operating.

      BENEFITS

      • Best of both worlds of centralization and decentralization; attempts to channel benefits from both centralized and decentralized models.
      • Embeds key IT functions that require business knowledge within functional areas, allowing for critical feedback and the ability to understand those business needs.
      • Places IT in a position to not just be “order takers” but to be more involved with the different business units and promote the value of IT.
      • Achieves economies of scale where necessary through the delivery of shared services that can be requested by the function.
      • Shared services can be organized to deliver in the best way that suits the organization.

      RISKS

      • Different business units may bypass governance to get their specific needs met by functions – to alleviate this, IT must have strong governance and prioritize amongst demand.
      • Decentralized role can be viewed as an order taker by the business if not properly embedded and matured.
      • No guaranteed synergy and integration across functions; requires strong communication, collaboration, and steering.
      • Cannot meet every business unit’s needs – can cause tension from varying effectiveness of the IT functions.

      The image contains an example of a Hybrid Operating Model: LOB/Functional Aligned.

      Hybrid Model #2: Product-Aligned Operating Model

      I want to…

      • Align my IT organization into core products (services) that IT provides to the organization and establish a relationship with those in the organization that have alignment to that product.
      • Have roles dedicated to the lifecycle of their product and ensure the product can continuously deliver value to the organization.
      • Maintain centralized set of standards as it applies to overall IT strategy, security, and architecture to ensure consistency across products and reduce silos.

      BENEFITS

      • Focus is on the full lifecycle of a product – takes a strategic view of how technology enables the organization.
      • Promotes centralized backlog around a specific value creator, rather than a traditional project focus that is more transactional.
      • Dedicated teams around the product family ensure you have all of the resources required to deliver on your product roadmap.
      • Reduces barriers between IT and business stakeholders; focuses on technology as a key strategic enabler.
      • Delivery is largely done through frequent releases that can deliver value.

      RISKS

      • If there is little or no business involvement, it could prevent IT from truly understanding business demand and prioritizing the wrong work.
      • A lack of formal governance can create silos between the IT products, causing duplication of efforts, missed opportunities for collaboration, and redundancies in application or vendor contracts.
      • Members of each product can interpret the definition of standards (e.g. architecture, security) differently.

      The image contains an example of the Hybrid Operating Model: Product-Aligned Operating Model.

      Hybrid Operating Model #3: Service-Aligned Operating Model

      I want to…

      • Decentralize the IT organization by the various IT services it offers to the organization while remaining centralized with IT strategy, governance, security and operational services.
      • Ensure IT services are defined and people resources are aligned to deliver on those services.
      • Enable each of IT’s services to have the autonomy to understand the business needs and be able to manage the operational and new project initiatives with a dedicated service owner or business relationship manager.

      BENEFITS

      • Strong enabler of agility as each service has the autonomy to make decisions around operational work versus project work based on their understanding of the business demand.
      • Individuals in similar roles that are decentralized across services are given coaching to provide common direction.
      • Allows teams to efficiently scale with service demand.
      • This is a structurally baseline DevOps model. Each group will have services built within that have their own dedicated teams that will handle the full gambit of responsibilities, from new features to enhancements and maintenance.

      RISKS

      • Service owners require a method to collaborate to avoid duplication of efforts or projects that conflict with the efforts of other IT services.
      • May result in excessive cost through role redundancies across different services, as each will focus on components like integration, stakeholder management, project management, and user experiences.
      • Silos cause a high degree of specialization, making it more difficult for team members to imagine moving to another defined service group, limiting potential career advancement opportunities.
      • The level of complex knowledge required by shared services (e.g. help desk) is often beyond what they can provide, causing them to rely on and escalate to defined service groups more than with other operating models.

      The image contains an example of the Hybrid Operating Model: Service-Aligned Operating Model.

      Decentralized Model: Division Decentralization (LoB, Geography, Function, Product)

      I want to…

      • Decentralize the IT organization to enable greater autonomy within specific groups that have differing customer demands and levels of support.
      • Maintain a standard level of service that can be provided by IT for all divisions.
      • Ensure each division has access to critical data and reports that supports informed decision making.

      BENEFITS

      • Organization around functions allows for diversity in approach in how areas are run to best serve a specific business unit’s needs.
      • Each functional line exists largely independently, with full capacity and control to deliver service at the committed SLAs.
      • Highly responsive to shifting needs and demands with direct connection to customers and all stages of the solution development lifecycle.
      • Accelerates decision making by delegating authority lower into the function.
      • Promotes a flatter organization with less hierarchy and more direct communication with the CIO.

      RISKS

      • Requires risk and security to be centralized and have oversight of each division to prevent the decisions of one division from negatively impacting other divisions or the enterprise.
      • Less synergy and integration across what different lines of business are doing can result in redundancies and unnecessary complexity.
      • Higher overall cost to the IT group due to role and technology duplication across different divisions.
      • It will be difficult to centralize aspects of IT in the future, as divisions adopt to a culture of IT autonomy.

      The image contains an example of the Decentralized Model: Division Decentralization.

      Enterprise Model: Multi-Modal

      I want to…

      • Have an organizational structure that leverages several different operating models based on the needs and requirements of the different divisions.
      • Provide autonomy and authority to the different divisions so they can make informed and necessary changes as they see fit without seeking approval from a centralized IT group.
      • Support the different initiatives the enterprise is focused on delivering and ensure the right model is adopted based on those initiatives.

      BENEFITS

      • Allows for the organization to work in ways that best support individual areas; for example, areas that support legacy systems can be supported through traditional operating models while areas that support digital transformations may be supported through more flexible operating models.
      • Enables a specialization of knowledge related to each division.

      RISKS

      • Inconsistency across the organization can lead to confusion on how the organization should operate.
      • Parts of the organization that work in more traditional operating models may feel limited in career growth and innovation.
      • Cross-division initiatives may require greater oversight and a method to enable operations between the different focus areas.

      The image contains an example of the Enterprise Model: Multi-Modal.

      Create enabling teams that bridge your divisions

      The following bridges might be necessary to augment your divisions:

      • Specialized augmentation: There might not be a sufficient number of resources to support each division. These teams will be leveraged across the divisions; this means that the capabilities needed for each division will exist in this bridge team, rather than in the division.
      • Centers of Excellence: Capabilities that exist within divisions can benefit from shared knowledge across the enterprise. Your organization might set up centers of excellence to support best practices in capabilities organization wide. These are Forums in the unfix model, or communities of practice and support capability development rather than deliveries of each division.
      • Facilitation teams might be required to support divisions through coaching. This might include Agile or other coaches who can help teams adopt practices and embed learnings.
      • Holistic teams provide an enterprise view as they work with various divisions. This can include capabilities like user experience, which can benefit from the holistic perspective rather than a siloed one. People with these capabilities augment the divisions on an as-needed basis.
      The image contains a diagram to demonstrate the use of bridges on divisions.

      2.5 Customize the selected sketch to reflect the desired future state

      1-3 hours

      1. Using the baseline operating model sketch, walk through each of the IT capabilities. Based on the outputs from activity 2.1:
        1. Remove any capabilities for which your IT organization is not responsible and/or accountable.
        2. Augment the language of specific capabilities that you feel are not directly reflective of what is being done within your organizational context or that you feel need to be changed to reflect more specifically how work is being done in your organization.
        3. Add any core capabilities from your organization that are missing from the provided IT capability list.
      2. Move capabilities to the right places in the operating model to reflect how each of the core IT processes should interact with one another.
      3. Add bridges as needed to support the divisions in your organization. Identify which capabilities will sit in these bridges and define how they will enable the operating model sketch to deliver.
      InputOutput
      • Selected base operating model sketch
      • Customized list of IT capabilities
      • Understanding of outsourcing and gaps
      • Customized operating model sketch
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/flip charts
      • Operating model sketch examples
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Document the final operating model sketch in the Communications Deck

      Phase 3

      Formalize the Organizational Structure

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      3.1 Create work units

      3.2 Create work unit mandates

      3.3 Define roles inside the work units

      3.4 Finalize the organizational chart

      3.5 Identify and mitigate key risks

      This phase involves the following participants:

      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Embed change management into the organizational design process

      Enable adoption of the new structure.

      You don’t have to make the change in one big bang. You can adopt alternative transition plans such as increments or pilots. This allows people to see the benefits of why you are undergoing the change, allows the change message to be repeated and applied to the individuals impacted, and provides people with time to understand their role in making the new organizational structure successful.

      “Transformational change can be invigorating for some employees but also highly disruptive and stressful for others.”

      Source: OpenStax, 2019

      Info-Tech Insight

      Without considering the individual impact of the new organizational structure on each of your employees, the change will undoubtedly fail in meeting its intended goals and your organization will likely fall back into old structured habits.

      Use a top-down approach to build your target-state IT organizational sketch

      The organizational sketch is the outline of the organization that encompasses the work units and depicts the relationships among them. It’s important that you create the structure that’s right for your organization, not one that simply fits with your current staff’s skills and knowledge. This is why Info-Tech encourages you to use your operating model as a mode of guidance for structuring your future-state organizational sketch.

      The organizational sketch is made up of unique work units. Work units are the foundational building blocks on which you will define the work that IT needs to get done. The number of work units you require and their names will not match your operating model one to one. Certain functional areas will need to be broken down into smaller work units to ensure appropriate leadership and span of control.

      Use your customized operating model to build your work units

      WHAT ARE WORK UNITS?

      A work unit is a functional group or division that has a discrete set of processes or capabilities that it is responsible for, which don’t overlap with any others. Your customized list of IT capabilities will form the building blocks of your work units. Step one in the process of building your structure is grouping IT capabilities together that are similar or that need to be done in concert in the case of more complex work products. The second step is to iterate on these work units based on the organizational design principles from Phase 1 to ensure that the future-state structure is aligned with enablement of the organization’s objectives.

      Work Unit Examples

      Here is a list of example work units you can use to brainstorm what your organization’s could look like. Some of these overlap in functionality but should provide a strong starting point and hint at some potential alternatives to your current way of organizing.

      • Office of the CIO
      • Strategy and Architecture
      • Architecture and Design
      • Business Relationship Management
      • Projection and Portfolio Management
      • Solution Development
      • Solution Delivery
      • DevOps
      • Infrastructure and Operations
      • Enterprise Information Security
      • Security, Risk & Compliance
      • Data and Analytics

      Example of work units

      The image contains an example of work units.

      3.1 Create functional work units

      1-3 hours

      1. Using a whiteboard or large tabletop, list each capability from your operating model on a sticky note and recreate your operating model. Use one color for centralized activities and a second color for decentralized activities.
      2. With the group of key IT stakeholders, review the operating model and any important definitions and rationale for decisions made.
      3. Starting with your centralized capabilities, review each in turn and begin to form logical groups of compatible capabilities. Review the decentralized capabilities and repeat the process, writing additional sticky notes for capabilities that will be repeated in decentralized units.
      4. Note: Not all capabilities need to be grouped. If you believe that a capability has a high enough priority, has a lot of work, or is significantly divergent from others put this capability by itself.
      5. Define a working title for each new work unit, and discuss the pros and cons of the model. Ensure the work units still align with the operating model and make any changes to the operating model needed.
      6. Review your design principles and ensure that they are aligned with your new work units.
      InputOutput
      • Organizational business objectives
      • Customized operating model
      • Defined work units
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Group formation

      Understand the impact of the functional groups you create.

      A group consists of two or more individuals who are working toward a common goal. Group formation is how those individuals are organized to deliver on that common goal. It should take into consideration the levels of hierarchy in your structure, the level of focus you give to processes, and where power is dispersed within your organizational design.

      Importance: Balance highly important capabilities with lower priority capabilities

      Specialization: The scope of each role will be influenced by specialized knowledge and a dedicated leader

      Effectiveness: Group capabilities that increase their efficacy

      Span of Control: Identify the right number of employees reporting to a single leader

      Choose the degree of specialization required

      Be mindful of the number of hats you’re placing on any one role.

      • Specialization exists when individuals in an organization are dedicated to performing specific tasks associated with a common goal and requiring a particular skill set. Aligning the competencies required to carry out the specific tasks based on the degree of complexity associated with those tasks ensures the right people and number of people can be assigned.
      • When people are organized by their specialties, it reduces the likelihood of task switching, reduces the time spent training or cross-training, and increases the focus employees can provide to their dedicated area of specialty.
      • There are disadvantages associated with aligning teams by their specialization, such as becoming bored and seeing the tasks they are performing as monotonous. Specialization doesn’t come without its problems. Monitor employee motivation

      Info-Tech Insight

      Smaller organizations will require less specialization simply out of necessity. To function and deliver on critical processes, some people might be asked to wear several hats.

      Avoid overloading the cognitive capacity of employees

      Cognitive load refers to the number of responsibilities that one can successfully take on.

      • When employees are assigned an appropriate number of responsibilities this leads to:
        • Engaged employees
        • Less task switching
        • Increased effectiveness on assigned responsibilities
        • Reduced bottlenecks
      • While this cognitive load can differ from employee to employee, when assigning role responsibilities, ensure each role isn’t being overburdened and spreading their focus thin.
      • Moreover, capable does not equal successful. Just because someone has the capability to take on more responsibilities doesn’t mean they will be successful.
      • Leverage the cognitive load being placed on your team to help create boundaries between teams and demonstrate clear role expectations.
      Source: IT Revolution, 2021

      Info-Tech Insight

      When you say you are looking for a team that is a “jack of all trades,” you are likely exceeding appropriate cognitive loads for your staff and losing productivity to task switching.

      Factors to consider for span of control

      Too many and too few direct reports have negative impacts on the organization.

      Complexity: More complex work should have fewer direct reports. This often means the leader will need to provide lots of support, even engaging in the work directly at times.

      Demand: Dynamic shifts in demand require more managerial involvement and therefore should have a smaller span of control. Especially if this demand is to support a 24/7 operation.

      Competency Level: Skilled employees should require less hands-on assistance and will be in a better position to support the business as a member of a larger team than those who are new to the role.

      Purpose: Strategic leaders are less involved in the day-to-day operations of their teams, while operational leaders tend to provide hands-on support, specifically when short-staffed.

      Group formation will influence communication structure

      Pick your poison…

      It’s important to understand the impacts that team design has on your services and products. The solutions that a team is capable of producing is highly dependent on how teams are structured. For example, Conway’s Law tells us that small distributed software delivery teams are more likely to produce modular service architecture, where large collocated teams are better able to create monolithic architecture. This doesn’t just apply to software delivery but also other products and services that IT creates. Note that small distributed teams are not the only way to produce quality products as they can create their own silos.

      Sources: Forbes, 2017

      Create mandates for each of your identified work units

      WHAT ARE WORK UNIT MANDATES?

      The work unit mandate should provide a quick overview of the work unit and be clear enough that any reader can understand why the work unit exists, what it does, and what it is accountable for.

      Each work unit will have a unique mandate. Each mandate should be distinguishable enough from your other work units to make it clear why the work is grouped in this specific way, rather than an alternative option. The mandate will vary by organization based on the agreed upon work units, design archetype, and priorities.

      Don’t just adopt an example mandate from another organization or continue use of the organization’s pre-existing mandate – take the time to ensure it accurately depicts what that group is doing so that its value-added activities are clear to the larger organization.

      Examples of Work Unit Mandates

      The Office of the CIO will be a strategic enabler of the IT organization, driving IT organizational performance through improved IT management and governance. A central priority of the Office of the CIO is to ensure that IT is able to respond to evolving environments and challenges through strategic foresight and a centralized view of what is best for the organization.

      The Project Management Office will provide standardized and effective project management practices across the IT landscape, including an identified project management methodology, tools and resources, project prioritization, and all steps from project initiation through to evaluation, as well as education and development for project managers across IT.

      The Solutions Development Group will be responsible for the high-quality development and delivery of new solutions and improvements and the production of customized business reports. Through this function, IT will have improved agility to respond to new initiatives and will be able to deliver high-quality services and insights in a consistent manner.

      3.2 Create work unit mandates

      1-3 hours

      1. Break into teams of three to four people and assign an equal number of work units to each team.
      2. Have each team create a set of statements that describe the overall purpose of that working group. Each mandate statement should:
      • Be clear enough that any reader can understand.
      • Explain why the work unit exists, what it does, and what it is accountable for.
      • Be distinguishable enough from your other work units to make it clear why the work is grouped in this specific way, rather than an alternative option.
    • Have each group present their work unit mandates and make changes wherever necessary.
      • InputOutput
      • Work units
      • Work unit mandates
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Identify the key roles and responsibilities for the target IT organization

      Now that you have identified the main units of work in the target IT organization, it is time to identify the roles that will perform that work. At the end of this step, the key roles will be identified, the purpose statement will be built, and accountability and responsibility for roles will be clearly defined. Make sure that accountability for each task is assigned to one role only. If there are challenges with a role, change the role to address them (e.g. split roles or shift responsibilities).

      The image contains an example of two work units: Enterprise Architecture and PMO. It then lists the roles of the two work units.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Do not bias your role design by focusing on your existing staff’s competencies. If you begin to focus on your existing team members, you run the risk of artificially narrowing the scope of work or skewing the responsibilities of individuals based on the way it is, rather than the way it should be.

      3.3 Define roles inside the work units

      1-3 hours

      1. Select a work unit from the organizational sketch.
      2. Describe the most senior role in that work unit by asking, “what would the leader of this group be accountable or responsible for?” Define this role and move the capabilities they will be accountable for under that leader. Repeat this activity for the capabilities this leader would be responsible for.
      3. Continue to define each role that will be required in that work unit to deliver or provide oversight related to those capabilities.
      4. Continue until key roles are identified and the capabilities each role will be accountable or responsible for are clarified.
      5. Remember, only one role can have accountability for each capability but several can have responsibility.
      6. For each role, use the list of capabilities that the position will be accountable, responsible, or accountable and responsible for to create a job description. Leverage your own internal job descriptions or visit our Job Descriptions page.
      InputOutput
      • Work units
      • Work unit mandates
      • Responsibilities
      • Accountabilities
      • Roles with clarified responsibilities and accountabilities
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Delivery model for product or solution development

      Can add additional complexity or clarity

      • Certain organizational structures will require a specific type of resourcing model to meet expectations and deliver on the development or sustainment of core products and solutions.
      • There are four common methods that we see in IT organizations:
        • Functional Roles: Completed work is handed off from functional team to functional team sequentially as outlined in the organization’s SDLC.
        • Shared Service & Resource Pools (Matrix): Resources are pulled whenever the work requires specific skills or pushed to areas where product demand is high.
        • Product or System: Work is directly sent to the teams who are directly managing the product or directly supporting the requestor.
        • Skills & Competencies: Work is directly sent to the teams who have the IT and business skills and competencies to complete the work.
      • Each of these will lead to a difference in how the functional team is skilled. They could have a great understanding of their customer, the product, the solution, or their service.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Despite popular belief, there is no such thing as the Spotify model, and organizations that structured themselves based on the original Spotify drawing might be missing out on key opportunities to obtain productivity from employees.

      Sources: Indeed, 2020; Agility Scales

      There can be different patterns to structure and resource your product delivery teams

      The primary goal of any product delivery team is to improve the delivery of value for customers and the business based on your product definition and each product’s demand. Each organization will have different priorities and constraints, so your team structure may take on a combination of patterns or may take on one pattern and then transform into another.

      Delivery Team Structure Patterns

      How Are Resources and Work Allocated?

      Functional Roles

      Teams are divided by functional responsibilities (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk) and arranged according to their placement in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

      Completed work is handed off from team to team sequentially as outlined in the organization’s SDLC.

      Shared Service and Resource Pools

      Teams are created by pulling the necessary resources from pools (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk).

      Resources are pulled whenever the work requires specific skills or pushed to areas where product demand is high.

      Product or System

      Teams are dedicated to the development, support, and management of specific products or systems.

      Work is directly sent to the teams who are directly managing the product or directly supporting the requester.

      Skills and Competencies

      Teams are grouped based on skills and competencies related to technology (e.g. Java, mobile, web) or familiarity with business capabilities (e.g. HR, Finance).

      Work is directly sent to the teams who have the IT and business skills and competencies to complete the work.

      Delivery teams will be structured according to resource and development needs

      Functional Roles

      Shared Service and Resource Pools

      Product or System

      Skills and Competencies

      When your people are specialists versus having cross-functional skills

      Leveraged when specialists such as Security or Operations will not have full-time work on the product

      When you have people with cross-functional skills who can self-organize around a product’s needs

      When you have a significant investment in a specific technology stack

      The image contains a diagram of functional roles.The image contains a diagram of shared service and resource pools.The image contains a diagram of product or system.The image contains a diagram of skills and competencies.

      For more information about delivering in a product operating model, refer to our Deliver Digital Products at Scale blueprint.

      3.4 Finalize the organizational chart

      1-3 hours

      1. Import each of your work units and the target-state roles that were identified for each.
      2. In the place of the name of each work unit in your organizational sketch, replace the work unit name with the prospective role name for the leader of that group.
      3. Under each of the leadership roles, import the names of team members that were part of each respective work unit.
      4. Validate the final structure as a group to ensure each of the work units includes all the necessary roles and responsibilities and that there is clear delineation of accountabilities between the work units.

      Input

      Output

      • Work units
      • Work unit mandates
      • Roles with accountabilities and responsibilities
      • Finalized organizational chart

      Materials

      Participants

      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook & Executive Communications Deck

      Proactively consider and mitigate redesign risks

      Every organizational structure will include certain risks that should have been considered and accepted when choosing the base operating model sketch. Now that the final organizational structure has been created, consider if those risks were mitigated by the final organizational structure that was created. For those risks that weren’t mitigated, have a tactic to control risks that remain present.

      3.5 Identify and mitigate key risks

      1-3 hours

      1. For each of the operating model sketch options, there are specific risks that should have been considered when selecting that model.
      2. Take those risks and transfer them into the correct slide of the Organizational Design Workbook.
      3. Consider if there are additional risks that need to be considered with the new organizational structure based on the customizations made.
      4. For each risk, rank the severity of that risk on a scale of low, medium, or high.
      5. Determine one or more mitigation tactic(s) for each of the risks identified. This tactic should reduce the likelihood or impact of the risk event happening.
      InputOutput
      • Final organizational structure
      • Operating model sketch benefits and risks
      • Redesign risk mitigation plan
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Phase 4

      Plan for Implementation & Change

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

      4.1 Select a transition plan

      4.2 Establish the change communication messages

      4.3 Be consistent with a standard set of FAQs

      4.4 Define org. redesign resistors

      4.5 Create a sustainment plan

      This phase involves the following participants:

      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership
      • HR Business Partners

      All changes require change management

      Change management is:

      Managing a change that requires replanning and reorganizing and that causes people to feel like they have lost control over aspects of their jobs.

      – Padar et al., 2017
      People Process Technology

      Embedding change management into organizational design

      PREPARE A

      Awareness: Establish the need for organizational redesign and ensure this is communicated well.

      This blueprint is mostly focused on the prepare and transition components.

      D

      Desire: Ensure the new structure is something people are seeking and will lead to individual benefits for all.

      TRANSITION K

      Knowledge: Provide stakeholders with the tools and resources to function in their new roles and reporting structure.

      A

      Ability: Support employees through the implementation and into new roles or teams.

      FUTURE R

      Reinforcement: Emphasize and reward positive behaviors and attitudes related to the new organizational structure.

      Implementing the new organizational structure

      Implementing the organizational structure can be the most difficult part of the process.

      • To succeed in the process, consider creating an implementation plan that adequately considers these five components.
      • Each of these are critical to supporting the final organizational structure that was established during the redesign process.

      Implementation Plan

      Transition Plan: Identify the appropriate approach to making the transition, and ensure the transition plan works within the context of the business.

      Communication Strategy: Create a method to ensure consistent, clear, and concise information can be provided to all relevant stakeholders.

      Plan to Address Resistance: Given that not everyone will be happy to move forward with the new organizational changes, ensure you have a method to hear feedback and demonstrate concerns have been heard.

      Employee Development Plan: Provide employees with tools, resources, and the ability to demonstrate these new competencies as they adjust to their new roles.

      Monitor and Sustain the Change: Establish metrics that inform if the implementation of the new organizational structure was successful and reinforce positive behaviors.

      Define the type of change the organizational structure will be

      As a result, your organization must adopt OCM practices to better support the acceptance and longevity of the changes being pursued.

      Incremental Change

      Transformational Change

      Organizational change management is highly recommended and beneficial for projects that require people to:

      • Adopt new tools and workflows.
      • Learn new skills.
      • Comply with new policies and procedures.
      • Stop using old tools and workflows.

      Organizational change management is required for projects that require people to:

      • Move into different roles, reporting structures, and career paths.
      • Embrace new responsibilities, goals, reward systems, and values.
      • Grow out of old habits, ideas, and behaviors.
      • Lose stature in the organization.

      Info-Tech Insight

      How you transition to the new organizational structure can be heavily influenced by HR. This is the time to be including them and leveraging their expertise to support the transition “how.”

      Transition Plan Options

      Description

      Pros

      Cons

      Example

      Big Bang Change

      Change that needs to happen immediately – “ripping the bandage off.”

      • It puts an immediate stop to the current way of operating.
      • Occurs quickly.
      • More risky.
      • People may not buy into the change immediately.
      • May not receive the training needed to adjust to the change.

      A tsunami in Japan stopped all imports and exports. Auto manufacturers were unable to get parts shipped and had to immediately find an alternative supplier.

      Incremental Change

      The change can be rolled out slower, in phases.

      • Can ensure that people are bought in along the way through the change process, allowing time to adjust and align with the change.
      • There is time to ensure training takes place.
      • It can be a timely process.
      • If the change is dragged on for too long (over several years) the environment may change and the rationale and desired outcome for the change may no longer be relevant.

      A change in technology, such as HRIS, might be rolled out one application at a time to ensure that people have time to learn and adjust to the new system.

      Pilot Change

      The change is rolled out for only a select group, to test and determine if it is suitable to roll out to all impacted stakeholders.

      • Able to test the success of the change initiative and the implementation process.
      • Able to make corrections before rolling it out wider, to aid a smooth change.
      • Use the pilot group as an example of successful change.
      • Able to gain buy-in and create change champions from the pilot group who have experienced it and see the benefits.
      • Able to prevent an inappropriate change from impacting the entire organization.
      • Lengthy process.
      • Takes time to ensure the change has been fully worked through.

      A retail store is implementing a new incentive plan to increase product sales. They will pilot the new incentive plan at select stores, before rolling it out broadly.

      4.1 Select a transition plan approach

      1-3 hours

      1. List each of the changes required to move from your current structure to the new structure. Consider:
        1. Changes in reporting structure
        2. Hiring new members
        3. Eliminating positions
        4. Developing key competencies for staff
      2. Once you’ve defined all the changes required, consider the three different transition plan approaches: big bang, incremental, and pilot. Each of the transition plan approaches will have drawbacks and benefits. Use the list of changes to inform the best approach.
      3. If you are proceeding with the incremental or the pilot, determine the order in which you will proceed with the changes or the groups that will pilot the new structure first.
      InputOutput
      • Customized operating model sketch
      • New org. chart
      • Current org. chart
      • List of changes to move from current to future state
      • Transition plan to support changes
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • HR Business Partners

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Make a plan to effectively manage and communicate the change

      Success of your new organizational structure hinges on adequate preparation and effective communication.

      The top challenge facing organizations in completing the organizational redesign is their organizational culture and acceptance of change. Effective planning for the implementation and communication throughout the change is pivotal. Make sure you understand how the change will impact staff and create tailored plans for communication.

      65% of managers believe the organizational change is effective when provided with frequent and clear communication.

      Source: SHRM, 2021

      Communicate reasons for organizational structure changes and how they will be implemented

      Leaders of successful change spend considerable time developing a powerful change message, i.e. a compelling narrative that articulates the desired end state, and that makes the change concrete and meaningful to staff.

      The organizational change message should:

      • Explain why the change is needed.
      • Summarize what will stay the same.
      • Highlight what will be left behind.
      • Emphasize what is being changed.
      • Explain how change will be implemented.
      • Address how change will affect various roles in the organization.
      • Discuss the staff’s role in making the change successful.

      Five elements of communicating change

      • What is the change?
      • Why are we doing it?
      • How are we going to go about it?
      • How long will it take us to do it?
      • What will the role be for each department and individual?
      Source: Cornelius & Associates, 2010

      4.2 Establish the change communication messages

      2 hours

      1. The purpose of this activity is to establish a change communication message you can leverage when talking to stakeholders about the new organizational structure.
      2. Review the questions in the Organizational Design Workbook.
      3. Establish a clear message around the expected changes that will have to take place to help realize the new organizational structure.
      InputOutput
      • Customized operating model sketch
      • New org. chart
      • Current org. chart
      • List of changes
      • Transition plan
      • Change communication message for new organizational structure
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Apply the following communication principles to make your IT organization redesign changes relevant to stakeholders

      Be Clear
      • Say what you mean and mean what you say.
      • Choice of language is important: “Do you think this is a good idea? I think we could really benefit from your insights and experience here.” Or do you mean: “I think we should do this. I need you to do this to make it happen.”
      • Don’t use jargon.

      Be Consistent
      • The core message must be consistent regardless of audience, channel, or medium.
      • Test your communication with your team or colleagues to obtain feedback before delivering to a broader audience.
      • A lack of consistency can be interpreted as an attempt at deception. This can hurt credibility and trust.

      Be Concise
      • Keep communication short and to the point so key messages are not lost in the noise.
      • There is a risk of diluting your key message if you include too many other details.

      Be Relevant
      • Talk about what matters to the stakeholder.
      • Talk about what matters to the initiative.
      • Tailor the details of the message to each stakeholder’s specific concerns.
      • IT thinks in processes but stakeholders only care about results: talk in terms of results.
      • IT wants to be understood but this does not matter to stakeholders. Think: “what’s in it for them?”
      • Communicate truthfully; do not make false promises or hide bad news.

      Frequently asked questions (FAQs) provide a chance to anticipate concerns and address them

      As a starting point for building an IT organizational design implementation, look at implementing an FAQ that will address the following:

      • The what, who, when, why, and where
      • The transition process
      • What discussions should be held with clients in business units
      • HR-centric questions

      Questions to consider answering:

      • What is the objective of the IT organization?
      • What are the primary changes to the IT organization?
      • What does the new organizational structure look like?
      • What are the benefits to our IT staff and to our business partners?
      • How will the IT management team share new information with me?
      • What is my role during the transition?
      • What impact is there to my reporting relationship within my department?
      • What are the key dates I should know about?

      4.3 Be consistent with a standard set of FAQs

      1 hour

      1. Beyond the completed communications plans, brainstorm a list of answers to the key “whats” of your organizational design initiative:
      • What is the objective of the IT organization?
      • What are the primary changes to the IT organization?
      • What does the new organizational structure look like?
      • What are the benefits to our IT staff and to our business partners?
    • Think about any key questions that may rise around the transition:
      • How will the IT management team share new information with me?
      • What is my role during the transition?
      • What impact is there to my reporting relationship within my department?
      • What are the key dates I should know about?
    • Determine the best means of socializing this information. If you have an internal wiki or knowledge-sharing platform, this would be a useful place to host the information.
      • InputOutput
      • Driver(s) for the new organizational structure
      • List of changes to move from current to future state
      • Change communication message
      • FAQs to provide to staff about the organizational design changes
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      The change reaction model

      The image contains a picture of the change reaction model. The model includes a double arrow pointing in both directions of left and right. On top of the arrow are 4 circles spread out on the arrow. They are labelled: Active Resistance, Detachment, Questioning, Acceptance.

      (Adapted from Cynthia Wittig)

      Info-Tech Insight

      People resist changes for many reasons. When it comes to organizational redesign changes, some of the most common reasons people resist change include a lack of understanding, a lack of involvement in the process, and fear.

      Include employees in the employee development planning process

      Prioritize

      Assess employee to determine competency levels and interests.

      Draft

      Employee drafts development goals; manager reviews.

      Select

      Manager helps with selection of development activities.

      Check In

      Manager provides ongoing check-ins, coaching, and feedback.

      Consider core and supplementary components that will sustain the new organizational structure

      Supplementary sustainment components:

      • Tools & Resources
      • Structure
      • Skills
      • Work Environment
      • Tasks
      • Disincentives

      Core sustainment components:

      • Empowerment
      • Measurement
      • Leadership
      • Communication
      • Incentives

      Sustainment Plan

      Sustain the change by following through with stakeholders, gathering feedback, and ensuring that the change rationale and impacts are clearly understood. Failure to so increases the potential that the change initiative will fail or be a painful experience and cost the organization in terms of loss of productivity or increase in turnover rates.

      Support sustainment with clear measurements

      • Measurement is one of the most important components of monitoring and sustaining the new organizational structure as it provides insight into where the change is succeeding and where further support should be added.
      • There should be two different types of measurements:
      1. Standard Change Management Metrics
      2. Organizational Redesign Metrics
    • When gathering data around metrics, consider other forms of measurement (qualitative) that can provide insights on opportunities to enhance the success of the organizational redesign change.
      1. Every measurement should be rooted to a goal. Many of the goals related to organizational design will be founded in the driver of this change initiative
      2. Once the goals have been defined, create one or more measurements that determines if the goal was successful.
      3. Use specific key performance indicators (KPIs) that contain a metric that is being measured and the frequency of that measurement.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Obtaining qualitative feedback from employees, customers, and business partners can provide insight into where the new organizational structure is operating optimally versus where there are further adjustments that could be made to support the change.

      4.4 Consider sustainment metrics

      1 hour

      1. Establish metrics that bring the entire process together and that will ensure the new organizational design is a success.
      2. Go back to your driver(s) for the organizational redesign. Use these drivers to help inform a particular measurement that can be used to determine if the new organizational design will be successful. Each measurement should be related to the positive benefits of the organization, an individual, or the change itself.
      3. Once you have a list of measurements, use these to determine the specific KPI that can be qualified through a metric. Often you are looking for an increase or decrease of a particular measurement by a dollar or percentage within a set time frame.
      4. Use the example metrics in the workbook and update them to reflect your organization’s drivers.
      InputOutput
      • Driver(s) for the new organizational structure
      • List of changes to move from current to future state
      • Change communication message
      • Sustainment metrics
      MaterialsParticipants
      • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
      • CIO
      • IT Leadership
      • Business Leadership

      Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

      Related Info-Tech Research

      Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

      • Continue into the second phase of the organizational redesign process by defining the required workforce to deliver.
      • Leveraging trends, data, and feedback from your employees, define the competencies needed to deliver on the defined roles.

      Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

      • Organizational design implementations can be highly disruptive for IT staff and business partners.
      • Without a structured approach, IT leaders may experience high turnover, decreased productivity, and resistance to the change.

      Define the Role of Project Management in Agile and Product-Centric Delivery

      • There are many voices with different opinions on the role of project management. This causes confusion and unnecessary churn.
      • Project management and product management naturally align to different time horizons. Harmonizing their viewpoints can take significant work.

      Research Contributors and Experts

      The image contains a picture of Jardena London.

      Jardena London

      Transformation Catalyst, Rosetta Technology Group

      The image contains a picture of Jodie Goulden.

      Jodie Goulden

      Consultant | Founder, OrgDesign Works

      The image contains a picture of Shan Pretheshan.

      Shan Pretheshan

      Director, SUPA-IT Consulting

      The image contains a picture of Chris Briley.

      Chris Briley

      CIO, Manning & Napier

      The image contains a picture of Dean Meyer.

      Dean Meyer

      President N. Dean Meyer and Associates Inc.

      The image contains a picture of Jimmy Williams.

      Jimmy Williams

      CIO, Chocktaw Nation of Oklahoma

      Info-Tech Research Group

      Cole Cioran, Managing Partner

      Dana Daher, Research Director

      Hans Eckman, Principal Research Director

      Ugbad Farah, Research Director

      Ari Glaizel, Practice Lead

      Valence Howden, Principal Research Director

      Youssef Kamar, Senior Manager, Consulting

      Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead

      Baird Miller, Executive Counsellor

      Josh Mori, Research Director

      Rajesh Parab, Research Director

      Gary Rietz, Executive Counsellor

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      Appendix

      IT Culture Framework

      This framework leverages McLean & Company’s adaptation of Quinn and Rohrbaugh’s Competing Values Approach.

      The image contains a diagram of the IT Culture Framework. The framework is divided into four sections: Competitive, Innovative, Traditional, and Cooperative, each with their own list of descriptors.

      Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake

      • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}481|cart{/j2store}
      • member rating overall impact: N/A
      • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
      • member rating average days saved: N/A
      • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
      • Parent Category Link: /service-desk

      • Customers expect a consumer experience with IT. It won’t be long until this expectation expands to IT service support.
      • Messaging and threads are becoming central to how businesses organize information and conversations, but voice isn’t going away. It is still by far people’s favorite channel.
      • Tickets are becoming more complicated. BYOD, telework, and SaaS products present a perfect storm.
      • Traditional service metrics are not made for self service. Your mean-time-to-resolve will increase and first-contact resolution will decrease.

      Our Advice

      Critical Insight

      • Bring the service desk to the people. Select channels that are most familiar to your users, and make it as easy possible to talk to a human.
      • Integrate channels. Users should have a consistent experience, and technicians should know user history.
      • Don’t forget the human aspect. People aren’t always good with technology. Allow them to contact a person if they are struggling.

      Impact and Result

      • Define which channels will be prioritized.
      • Identify improvements to these channels based on best practices and our members’ experiences.
      • Streamline your ticket intake process to remove unnecessary steps.
      • Prioritize improvements based on their value. Implement a set of improvements every quarter.

      Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake Research & Tools

      Start here – read the Executive Brief

      Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should improve your ticket intake, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

      Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

      1. Define and prioritize ticket channels

      Align your improvements with business goals and the shift-left strategy.

      • Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake – Phase 1: Define and Prioritize Ticket Channels
      • Service Desk Maturity Assessment
      • Service Desk Improvement Presentation Template

      2. Improve ticket channels

      Record potential improvements in your CSI Register, as you review best practices for each channel.

      • Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake – Phase 2: Improve Ticket Channels
      • Service Desk Continual Improvement Roadmap
      • Service Desk Ticket Intake Workflow Samples (Visio)
      • Service Desk Ticket Intake Workflow Samples (PDF)
      • Service Definition Checklist
      • Service Desk Site Visit Checklist Template

      3. Define next steps

      Streamline your ticket intake process and prioritize opportunities for improvement.

      • Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake – Phase 3: Define Next Steps
      [infographic]

      Workshop: Improve Service Desk Ticket Intake

      Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

      1 Optimize Ticket Channels

      The Purpose

      Brainstorm improvements to your systems and processes that will help you optimize.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Develop a single point of contact.

      Reduce the time before a technician can start productively working on a ticket.

      Enable Tier 1 and end users to complete more tickets.

      Activities

      1.1 Prioritize channels for improvement.

      1.2 Optimize the voice channel.

      1.3 Identify improvements for self service.

      1.4 Improve Tier 1 agents’ access to information.

      1.5 Optimize supplementary ticket channels.

      Outputs

      Action items to improve the voice channel.

      Populated CSI Register for self-service channels.

      Identified action items for the knowledgebase.

      Populated CSI Register for additional ticket channels.

      2 Streamline Ticket Intake

      The Purpose

      Create long-term growth by taking a sustainable approach to improvements.

      Key Benefits Achieved

      Streamline your overall ticket intake process for incidents and service requests.

      Activities

      2.1 Map out the incident intake processes.

      2.2 Identify opportunities to streamline the incident workflow.

      2.3 Map out the request processes.

      2.4 Identify opportunities to streamline the request workflow.

      Outputs

      Streamlined incident intake process.

      Streamlined request intake process.

      Populated CSI Register for request intake.

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