The Small Enterprise Guide to People and Resource Management

Quickly start getting the right people, with the right skills, at the right time

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Managing the people in your department is essential, whether you have three employees or 300. Depending on your available time, resources, and current workforce management maturity, you may choose to focus on the overall essentials, or dive deep into particular areas of talent management. Use the questions below to help guide you to the right Info-Tech resources that best align with your current needs.

Analyst Perspective

Workforce planning is even more important for small enterprises than large organizations.

It can be tempting to think of workforce planning as a bureaucratic exercise reserved for the largest and most formal of organizations. But workforce planning is never more important than in small enterprises, where every individual accounts for a significant portion of your overall productivity.

Without workforce planning, organizations find themselves in reactive mode, hiring new staff as the need arises. They often pay a premium for having to fill a position quickly or suffer productivity losses when a critical role goes unexpectedly vacant.

A workforce plan helps you anticipate these challenges, come up with solutions to mitigate them, and allocate resources for the most impact, which means a greater return on your workforce investment in the long run.

This blueprint will help you accomplish this quickly and efficiently. It will also provide you with the essential development and knowledge transfer tools to put your plan into action.

Jane Kouptsova
Senior Research Analyst, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

52% of small business owners agree that labor quality is their most important problem.¹

Almost half of all small businesses face difficulty due to staff turnover.

76% of executives expect the talent market to get even more challenging.²

Common Obstacles

76% of executives expect workforce planning to become a top strategic priority for their organization.²

But…

30% of small businesses do not have a formal HR function.³

Small business leaders are often left at a disadvantage for hiring and retaining the best talent, and they face even more difficulty due to a lack of support from HR.

Small enterprises must solve the strategic workforce planning problem, but they cannot invest the same time or resources that large enterprises have at their disposal.

Info-Tech's Approach

A modular, lightweight approach to workforce planning and talent management, tailored to small enterprises

Clear activities that guide your team to decisive action

Founded on your IT strategy, ensuring you have not just good people, but the right people

Concise yet comprehensive, covering the entire workforce lifecycle from competency planning to development to succession planning and reskilling

Info-Tech Insight

Every resource counts. When one hire represents 10% of your workforce, it is essential to get it right.

¹CNBC & SurveyMonkey. ²ADP. ³Clutch.

Labor quality is small enterprise's biggest challenge

The key to solving it is strategic workforce planning

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is a systematic process designed to identify and address gaps in today's workforce, including pinpointing the human capital needs of the future.

Linking workforce planning with strategic planning ensures that you have the right people in the right positions, in the right places, at the right time, with the knowledge, skills, and attributes to deliver on strategic business goals.

SWP helps you understand the makeup of your current workforce and how well prepared it is or isn't (as the case may be) to meet future IT requirements. By identifying capability gaps early, CIOs can prepare to train or develop current staff and minimize the need for severance payouts and hiring costs, while providing clear career paths to retain high performers.

¹CNBC & SurveyMonkey. ²Clutch. ³ADP.

Workforce planning matters more for small enterprises

You know that staffing mistakes can cost your department dearly. But did you know the costs are greater for small enterprises?

The price of losing an individual goes beyond the cost of hiring a replacement, which can range from 0.5 to 2 times that employee's salary (Gallup, 2019). Additional costs include loss of productivity, business knowledge, and team morale.

This is a major challenge for large organizations, but the threat is even greater for small enterprises, where a single individual accounts for a large proportion of IT's productivity. Losing one of a team of 10 means 10% of your total output. If that individual was solely responsible for a critical function, your department now faces a significant gap in its capabilities. And the effect on morale is much greater when everyone is on the same close-knit team.

And the threat continues when the staffing error causes you not to lose a valuable employee, but to hire the wrong one instead. When a single individual makes up a large percentage of your workforce, as happens on small teams, the effects of talent management errors are magnified.

Info-Tech Insight

One bad hire on a team of 100 is a problem. One bad hire on a team of 10 is a disaster.

Blueprint pre-step: Determine your starting point

People and Resource management is essential for any organization. But depending on your needs, you may want to start at different stages of the process. Use this slide as a quick reference for how the activities in this blueprint fit together, how they relate to other workforce management resources, and the best starting point for you.

Your IT strategy is an essential input to your workforce plan. It defines your destination, while your workforce is the vessel that carries you there. Ensure you have at least an informal strategy for your department before making major workforce changes, or review Info-Tech's guidance on IT strategy.

This blueprint covers the parts of workforce management that occur to some extent in every organization:

• Workforce planning
• Knowledge transfer
• Development planning

You may additionally want to seek guidance on contract and vendor management, if you outsource some part of your workload outside your core IT staff.

Track metrics

Consider these example metrics for tracking people and resource management success

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

A typical GI is between 4 to 6 calls over the course of 3 to 4 months.

Workshop Overview

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

Workshop Overview

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

Each onsite day is structured with group working sessions from 9-11 a.m. and 1:30-3:30 p.m. and includes Open Analyst Timeslots, where our facilitators are available to expand on scheduled activities, capture and compile workshop results, or review additional components from our comprehensive approach.

Phase 1

Workforce Planning

The Small Enterprise Guide to People and Resource Management

Phase Participants

• Leadership team
• Managers
• Human resource partner (if applicable)

Additional Resources

Workforce Planning Workbook for Small Enterprises

Phase pre-step: Gather resources and participants

1. Ensure you have an up-to-date IT strategy. If you don't have a formal strategy in place, ensure you are aware of the main organizational objectives for the next 3-5 years. Connect with executive stakeholders if necessary to confirm this information.
   If you are not sure of the organizational direction for this time frame, we recommend you consult Info-Tech's material on IT strategy first, to ensure your workforce plan is fully positioned to deliver value to the organization.
2. Consult with your IT team and gather any documentation pertaining to current roles and skills. Examples include an org chart, job descriptions, a list of current tasks performed/required, a list of company competencies, and a list of outsourced projects.
3. Gather the right participants. Most of the decisions in this section will be made by senior leadership, but you will also need input from front-line managers. Ensure they are available on an as-needed basis. If your organization has an HR partner, it can also be helpful to involve them in your workforce planning process.

Formal workforce planning benefits even small teams

Strategic workforce planning (SWP) is a systematic process designed to identify and address gaps in your workforce today and plan for the human capital needs of the future.

Your workforce plan is an extension of your IT strategy, ensuring that you have the right people in the right positions, in the right places, at the right time, with the knowledge, skills, and attributes to deliver on strategic business goals.

SWP helps you understand the makeup of your current workforce and how well prepared it is or isn't (as the case may be) to meet future IT requirements. By identifying capability gaps early, CIOs can prepare to train or develop current staff and minimize the need for severance payouts and hiring costs, while providing clear career paths to retain high performers.

The smaller the business, the more impact each individual's performance has on the overall success of the organization. When a given role is occupied by a single individual, the organization's performance in that function is determined wholly by one employee. Creating a workforce plan for a small team may seem excessive, but it ensures your organization is not unexpectedly hit with a critical competency gap.

Right-size your workforce planning process to the size of your enterprise

Small organizations are 2.2 times more likely to have effective workforce planning processes.¹ Be mindful of the opportunities and risks for organizations of your size as you execute the project. How you build your workforce plan will not change drastically based on the size of your organization; however, the scope of your initiative, the size of your team, and the tactics you employ may vary.

¹ McLean & Company Trends Report 2014

1.1 Set project outcomes and success metrics

1-3 hours

1. As a group, brainstorm key pain points that the IT department experiences due to the lack of a workforce plan. Ask them to consider turnover, retention, training, and talent acquisition.
2. Discuss any key themes that arise and brainstorm your desired project outcomes. Keep a record of these for future reference and to aid in stakeholder communication.
3. Break into smaller groups (or if too small, continue as a single group):
   1. For each desired outcome, consider what metrics you could use to track progress. Keep your initial list of pain points in mind as you brainstorm metrics.
   2. Write each of the metric suggestions on a whiteboard and agree to track 3-5 metrics. Set targets for each metric. Consider the effort required to obtain and track the metric, as well as its reliability.
   3. Assign one individual for tracking the selected metrics. Following the meeting, that individual will be responsible for identifying the baseline and targets, and reporting on metrics progress.

1.2 Identify key roles and competency gaps

1-3 hours

1. As a group, identify all strategic, core, and supporting roles by reviewing the organizational chart:
   1. Strategic: What are the roles that must be filled by top performers and cannot be left vacant in order to meet strategic objectives?
   2. Core: What roles are important to drive operational excellence?
   3. Supporting: What roles are required for day-to-day work, but are low risk if the role is vacant for a period of time?
2. Working individually or in small groups, have managers for each identified role define the level of competence required for the job. Consider factors such as:
   1. The difficulty or criticality of the tasks being performed
   2. The impact on job outcomes
   3. The impact on the performance of other employees
   4. The consequence of errors if the competency is not present
   5. How frequently the competency is used on the job
   6. Whether the competency is required when the job starts or can be learned or acquired on the job within the first six months
3. Continue working individually and rate the level of proficiency of the current incumbent.
4. As a group, review the assessment and make any adjustments.

Record this information in the Workforce Planning Workbook for Small Enterprises.

Download the Workforce Planning Workbook for Small Enterprises

1.2 Identify key roles and competency gaps

Conduct a risk-of-departure analysis

A risk-of-departure analysis helps you plan for future talent needs by identifying which employees are most likely to leave the organization (or their current role).

A risk analysis takes into account two factors: an employee's risk for departure and the impact of departure:

Employees are high risk for departure if they:

• Have specialized or in-demand skills (tenured employees are more likely to have this than recent hires)
• Are nearing retirement
• Have expressed career aspirations that extend outside your organization
• Have hit a career development ceiling at your organization
• Are disengaged
• Are actively job searching
• Are facing performance issues or dismissal OR promotion into a new role

Employees are low risk for departure if they:

• Are a new hire or new to their role
• Are highly engaged
• Have high potential
• Are 5-10 years out from retirement

If you are not sure where an employee stands with respect to leaving the organization, consider having a development conversation with them. In the meantime, consider them at medium risk for departure.

To estimate the impact of departure, consider:

• The effect of losing the employee in the near- and medium-term, including:
  • Impact on the organization, department, unit/team and projects
  • The cost (in time, resources, and productivity loss) to replace the individual
  • The readiness of internal successors for the role

1.3 Conduct a risk analysis to identify future needs

1-3 hours

Preparation: Your estimation of whether key employees are at risk of leaving the organization will depend on what you know of them objectively (skills, age), as well as what you learn from development conversations. Ensure you collect all relevant information prior to conducting this activity. You may need to speak with employees' direct managers beforehand or include them in the discussion.

• As a group, list all your current employees, and using the previous slide for guidance, rank them on two parameters: risk of departure and impact of departure, on a scale of low to high. Record your conclusions in a chart like the one on the right. (For a more in-depth risk assessment, use the "Risk Assessment Results" tab of the Key Roles Succession Planning Tool.)
• Employees that fall in the "Mitigate" quadrant represent key at-risk roles with at least moderate risk and moderate impact. These are your succession planning priorities. Add these roles to your list of key roles and competency gaps, and include them in your workforce planning analysis.
• Employees that fall in the "Manage" quadrants represent secondary priorities, which should be looked at if there is capacity after considering the "Mitigate" roles.

Record this information in the Workforce Planning Workbook for Small Enterprises.

Info-Tech Insight

Don't be afraid to rank most or all your staff as "high impact of departure." In a small enterprise, every player counts, and you must plan accordingly.

1.3 Conduct a risk analysis to identify future needs

Determine your skill sourcing route

The characteristics of need steer hiring managers to a preferred choice, while the marketplace analysis will tell you the feasibility of each option.

Sourcing Options		Preferred Options		Final Choice
	State of the Marketplace		State of the Marketplace
	Urgency: How soon do we need this skill? What is the required time-to-value? Criticality: How critical, i.e. core to business goals, are the services or systems that this skill will support? Novelty: Is this skill brand new to our workforce? Availability: How often, and at what hours, will the skill be needed? Durability: For how long will this skill be needed? Just once, or indefinitely for regular operations?		Scarcity: How popular or desirable is this skill? Do we have a large enough talent pool to draw from? What competition are we facing for top talent? Cost: How much will it cost to hire vs. contract vs. outsource vs. train this skill? Preparedness: Do we have internal resources available to cultivate this skill in house?

1.4 Determine your skill sourcing route

1-3 hours

1. Identify the preferred sourcing method as a group, starting with the most critical or urgent skill need on your list. Use the characteristics of need to guide your discussion. If more than one option seems adequate, carry several over to the next step.
2. Consider the marketplace factors applicable to the skill in question and use these to narrow down to one final sourcing decision.
   1. If it is not clear whether a suitable internal candidate is available or ready, refer to the next activity for a readiness assessment.
3. Be sure to document the rationale supporting your decision. This will ensure the decision can be clearly communicated to any stakeholders, and that you can review on your decision-making process down the line.

Record this information in the Workforce Planning Workbook for Small Enterprises.

Info-Tech Insight

Consider developing a pool of successors instead of pinning your hopes on just one person. A single pool of successors can be developed for either one key role that has specialized requirements or even multiple key roles that have generic requirements.

1.5 Determine readiness of internal successors

1-3 hours

1. As a group, and ensuring you include the candidates' direct managers, identify potential successors for the first role on your list.
2. Ask how effectively the potential successor would serve in the role today. Review the competencies for the key role in terms of:
   1. Relationship-building skills
   2. Business skills
   3. Technical skills
   4. Industry-specific skills or knowledge
3. Determine what competencies the succession candidate currently has and what must be learned. Be sure you know whether the candidate is open to a career change. Don't assume – if this is not clear, have a development conversation to ensure everyone is on the same page.
4. Finally, determine how difficult it will be for the successor to acquire missing skills or knowledge, whether the resources are available to provide the required development, and how long it will take to provide it.
5. As a group, decide whether training an internal successor is a viable option for the role in question, considering the successor's readiness and the characteristics of need for the role. If a clear successor is not readily apparent, consider:
   1. If the development of the successor can be fast-tracked, or if some requirements can be deprioritized and the successor provided with temporary support from other employees.
   2. If the role in question is being discussed because the current incumbent is preparing to leave, consider negotiating an arrangement that extends the incumbent's employment tenure.
6. Record the decision and repeat for the next role on your list.

Info-Tech Insight

A readiness assessment helps to define not just development needs, but also any risks around the organization's ability to fill a key role.

Use alternative work arrangements to gain time to prepare successors

Alternative work arrangements are critical tools that employers can use to achieve a mutually beneficial solution that mitigates the risk of loss associated with key roles.

Alternative work arrangements not only support employees who want to keep working, but more importantly, they allow the business to retain employees that are needed in key roles who are departure risks due to retirement.

Viewing retirement as a gradual process can help you slow down skill loss in your organization and ensure you have sufficient time to train successors. Retiring workers are becoming increasingly open to alternative work arrangements. Among employed workers aged 50-75, more than half planned to continue working part-time after retirement.
Source: Statistics Canada.

Flexible work options are the most used form of alternative work arrangement

Source: McLean & Company, N=44

Choose the alternative work arrangement that works best for you and the employee

Choose the alternative work arrangement that works best for you and the employee

Phase 2

Knowledge Transfer

The Small Enterprise Guide to People and Resource Management

Phase Participants

• Leadership/management team
• Incumbent & successor

Additional Resources

IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide Template

Knowledge Transfer Plan Template

Determine your skill sourcing route

Knowledge transfer plans have three key components that you need to complete for each knowledge source:

Don't miss tacit knowledge

There are two basic types of knowledge: "explicit" and "tacit." Ensure you capture both to get a well-rounded overview of the role.

Embed your knowledge transfer methods into day-to-day practice

Multiple methods should be used to transfer as much of a person's knowledge as possible, and mentoring should always be one of them. Select your method according to the following criteria:

Info-Tech Insight

The more integrated knowledge transfer is in day-to-day activities, the more likely it is to be successful, and the lower the time cost. This is because real learning is happening at the same time real work is being accomplished.

Type of Knowledge

• Tacit knowledge transfer methods are often informal and interactive:
  • Mentoring
  • Multi-generational work teams
  • Networks and communities
  • Job shadowing
• Explicit knowledge transfer methods tend to be more formal and one way:
  • Formal documentation of processes and best practices
  • Self-published knowledge bases
  • Formal training sessions
  • Formal interviews

Incumbent's Preference/Successor's Preference

Ensure you consult the employees, and their direct manager, on the way they are best prepared to teach and learn. Some examples of preferences include:

1. Prefer traditional classroom learning, augmented with participation, critical reflection, and feedback.
2. May get bored during formal training sessions and retain more during job shadowing.
3. Prefer to be self-directed or self-paced, and highly receptive to e-learning and media.
4. Prefer informal, incidental learning, tend to go immediately to technology or direct access to people. May have a short attention span and be motivated by instant results.
5. May be uncomfortable with blogs and wikis, but comfortable with SharePoint.

Cost

Consider costs beyond the monetary. Some methods require an investment in time (e.g. mentoring), while others require an investment in technology (e.g. knowledge bases).

The good news is that many supporting technologies may already exist in your organization or can be acquired for free.

Methods that cost time may be difficult to get underway since employees may feel they don't have the time or must change the way they work.

2.1 Create a knowledge transfer plan

1-3 hours

1. Working together with the current incumbent, brainstorm the key information pertaining to the role that you want to pass on to the successor. Use the IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide Template to ensure you don't miss anything.
   • Consider key knowledge areas, including:
     • Specialized technical knowledge.
     • Specialized research and development processes.
     • Unique design capabilities/methods/models.
     • Special formulas/algorithms/techniques.
     • Proprietary production processes.
     • Decision-making criteria.
     • Innovative sales methods.
     • Knowledge about key customers.
     • Relationships with key stakeholders.
     • Company history and values.
   • Ask questions of both sources and receivers of knowledge to help determine the best knowledge transfer methods to use.
   • What is the nature of the knowledge? Explicit or tacit?
   • Why is it important to transfer?
   • How will the knowledge be used?
   • What knowledge is critical for success?
   • How will the users find and access it?
   • How will it be maintained and remain relevant and usable?
   • What are the existing knowledge pathways or networks connecting sources to recipients?
2. Once the knowledge has been identified, use the information on the following slides to decide on the most appropriate methods. Be sure to consult the incumbent and successor on their preferences.
3. Prioritize your list of knowledge transfer activities. It's important not to try to do too much too quickly. Focus on some quick wins and leverage the success of these initiatives to drive the project forward. Follow these steps as a guide:
   1. Take an inventory of all the tactics and techniques which you plan to employ. Eliminate redundancies where possible.
   2. Start your implementation with your highest risk role or knowledge item, using explicit knowledge transfer tactics. Interviews, use cases, and process mapping will give you some quick wins and will help gain momentum for the project.
   3. Then move forward to other tactics, the majority of which will require training and process design. Pick 1-2 other key tactics you would like to employ and build those out. For tactics that require resources or monetary investment, start with those that can be reused for multiple roles.

Record your plan in the IT Knowledge Transfer Plan Template.

Download the IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide Template

Download the Knowledge Transfer Plan Template

Info-Tech Insight

Wherever possible, ask employees about their personal learning styles. It's likely that a collaborative compromise will have to be struck for knowledge transfer to work well.

2.1 Create a knowledge transfer plan

Not every transfer method is effective for every type of knowledge

This table shows the relative strengths and weaknesses of each knowledge transfer tactic compared against four different knowledge types.

Not all techniques are effective for all types of knowledge; it is important to use a healthy mixture of techniques to optimize effectiveness.

Employees' engagement can impact knowledge transfer effectiveness

When considering which tactics to employ, it's important to consider the knowledge holder's level of engagement. Employees who you would identify as being disengaged may not make good candidates for job shadowing, mentoring, or other tactics where they are required to do additional work or are asked to influence others.

Knowledge transfer can be controversial for all employees as it can cause feelings of job insecurity. It's essential that motivations for knowledge transfer are communicated effectively.

Pay particular attention to your communication style with disengaged and indifferent employees, communicate frequently, and tie communication back to what's in it for them.

Putting disengaged employees in a position where they are mentoring others can be a risk, as their negativity could influence others not to participate, or it could negate the work you're doing to create a positive knowledge sharing culture.

Employees' engagement can impact knowledge transfer effectiveness

Phase 3

Development Planning

The Small Enterprise Guide to People and Resource Management

Phase Participants

• Leadership team
• Managers
• Employees

Additional Resources

• IT Competency Library
• Leadership Competencies Workbook
• IT Employee Career Development Workbook
• Individual Competency Development Plan
• Learning Methods Catalog

Effective development planning hinges on robust performance management

Your performance management framework is rooted in organizational goals and defines what it means to do any given role well.

Your organization's priority competencies are the knowledge, skills and attributes that enable an employee to do the job well.

Each individual's development goals are then aimed at building these priority competencies.

Info-Tech Insight

Without a performance management framework, your employees cannot align their development with the organization's goals. For detailed guidance, see Info-Tech's blueprint Setting Meaningful Employee Performance Measures.

What is a competency?

The term "competency" refers to the collection of knowledge, skills, and attributes an employee requires to do a job well.

Often organizations have competency frameworks that consist of core, leadership, and functional competencies.

Core competencies apply to every role in the organization. Typically, they are tied to organizational values and business mission and/or vision.

Functional competencies are at the department, work group, or job role levels. They are a direct reflection of the function or type of work carried out.

Leadership competencies generally apply only to people managers in the organization. Typically, they are tied to strategic goals in the short to medium term

Use the SMART model to make sure goals are reasonable and attainable

Example goal:

"Learn Excel this summer."

Problems:

Not specific enough, not measurable enough, nor time bound.

Alternate SMART goal:

"Consult with our Excel expert and take the lead on creating an Excel tool in August."

3.2 Identify target competencies & draft development goals

1 hour

Pre-work: Employees should come to the career conversation having done some self-reflection. Use Info-Tech's IT Employee Career Development Workbook to help employees identify their career goals.

1. Pre-work: Managers should gather any data they have on the employee's current proficiency at key competencies. Potential sources include task-based assessments, performance ratings, supervisor or peer feedback, and informal conversation.
   
   Prioritize competencies. Using your list of priority organizational competencies, work with your employees to help them identify two to four competencies to focus on developing now and in the future. Use the Individual Competency Development Plan template to document your assessment and prioritize competencies for development. Consider the following questions for guidance:
   1. Which competencies are needed in my current role that I do not have full proficiency in?
   2. Which competencies are related to both my career interests and the organization's priorities?
   3. Which competencies are related to each other and could be developed together or simultaneously?
2. Draft goals. Ask your employee to create a list of multiple simple goals to develop the competencies they have selected to work on developing over the next year. Identifying multiple goals helps to break development down into manageable chunks. Ensure goals are concrete, for example, if the competency is "communication skills," your development goals could be "presentation skills" and "business writing."
3. Review goals:
   1. Ask why these areas are important to the employee.
   2. Share your ideas and why it is important that the employee develop in the areas identified.
   3. Ensure that the goals are realistic. They should be stretch goals, but they must be achievable. Use the SMART framework on the previous slide for guidance.

Info-Tech Insight

Lack of career development is the top reason employees leave organizations. Development activities need to work for both the organization and the employee's own development, and clearly link to advancing employees' careers either at the organization or beyond.

Download the IT Employee Career Development Workbook

Download the Individual Competency Development Plan

3.2 Identify target competencies & draft development goals

Apply a blend of learning methods

• Info-Tech recommends the 70-20-10 principle for learning and development, which places the greatest emphasis on learning by doing. This experiential learning is then supported by feedback from mentoring, training, and self-reflection.
• Use the 70-20-10 principle as a guideline – the actual breakdown of your learning methods will need to be tailored to best suit your organization and the employee's goals.

Spend development time and effort wisely:

Internal initiatives are a cost-effective development aid

Incorporating a development objective into daily tasks

What do we mean by incorporating into daily tasks?

The next time you assign a project to an employee, you should also ask the employee to think about a development goal for the project. Try to link it back to their existing goals or have them document a new goal in their development plan.

For example: A team of employees always divides their work in the same way. Their goal for their next project could be to change up the division of responsibility so they can learn each other's roles.

Another example:

"I'd like you to develop your ability to explain technical terms to a non-technical audience. I'd like you to sit down with the new employee who starts tomorrow and explain how to use all our software, getting them up and running."

Info-Tech Insight

Employees often don't realize that they are being developed. They either think they are being recognized for good work or they are resentful of the additional workload.

You need to tell your employees that the activity you are asking them to do is intended to further their development.

However, be careful not to sell mundane tasks as development opportunities – this is offensive and detrimental to engagement.

Establish manager and employee accountability for following up

Ensure that the employee makes progress in developing prioritized competencies by defining accountabilities:

3.3 Select development activities and schedule check-ins

1-3 hours

Pre-work: Employees should research potential development activities and come prepared with a range of suggestions.

Pre-work: Managers should investigate options for employee development, such as internal training/practice opportunities for the employee's selected competencies and availability of training budget.

1. Communicate your findings about internal opportunities and external training allowance to the employee. This can also be done prior to the meeting, to help guide the employee's own research. Address any questions or concerns.
2. Review the employee's proposed list of activities, and identify priority ones based on:
   1. How effectively they support the development of priority competencies.
   2. How closely they match the employee's original goals.
   3. The learning methods they employ, and whether the chosen activities support a mix of different methods.
   4. The degree to which the employee will have a chance to practice new skills hands-on.
   5. The amount of time the activities require, balanced against the employee's work obligations.
3. Guide the employee in selecting activities for the short and medium term. Establish an understanding that this list is tentative and subject to ongoing revision during future check-ins.
   1. If in doubt about whether the employee is over-committing, err on the side of fewer activities to start.
4. Schedule a check-in for one month out to review progress and roadblocks, and to reaffirm priorities.
5. Check-ins should be repeated regularly, typically once a month.

Download the Learning Methods Catalog

Info-Tech Insight

Adopt a blended learning approach using a variety of techniques to effectively develop competencies. This will reinforce learning and accommodate different learning styles. See Info-Tech's Learning Methods Catalog for a description of popular experiential, relational, and formal learning methods.

3.3 Select development activities and schedule check-ins

Tips for tricky conversations about development

What to do if…

Employees aren't interested in development:

• They may have low aspiration for advancement.
• Remind them about the importance of staying current in their role given increasing job requirements.
• Explain that skill development will make their job easier and make them more successful at it; sell development as a quick and effective way to learn the skill.
• Indicate your support and respond to concerns.

Employees have greater aspiration than capability:

• Explain that there are a number of skills and capabilities that they need to improve in order to move to the next level. If the specific skills were not discussed during the performance appraisal, do not hesitate to explain the improvements that you require.
• Inform the employee that you want them to succeed and that by pushing too far and too fast they risk failure, which would not be beneficial to anyone.
• Reinforce that they need to do their current job well before they can be considered for promotion.

Employees are offended by your suggestions:

• Try to understand why they are offended. Before moving forward, clarify whether they disagree with the need for development or the method by which you are recommending they be developed.
• If it is because you told them they had development needs, then reiterate that this is about helping them to become better and that everyone has areas to develop.
• If it is about the development method, discuss the different options, including the pros and cons of each.

Coaching and feedback skills help managers guide employee development

Coaching and providing feedback are often confused. Managers often believe they are coaching when they are just giving feedback. Learn the difference and apply the right approach for the right situation.

What is coaching?

A conversation in which a manager asks questions to guide employees to solve problems themselves.

Coaching is:

• Future-focused
• Collaborative
• Geared toward growth and development

What is feedback?

Information conveyed from the manager to the employee about their performance.

Feedback is:

• Past-focused
• Prescriptive
• Geared toward behavior and performance

Info-Tech Insight

Don't forget to develop your managers! Ensure coaching, feedback, and management skills are part of your management team's development plan.

Apply the "4A" behavior-focused coaching model

Using a model allows every manager, even those with little experience, to apply coaching best practices effectively.

Use the following questions to have meaningful coaching conversations

Opening Questions

• What's on your mind?
• Do you feel you've had a good week/month?
• What is the ideal situation?
• What else?

Problem-Identifying Questions

• What is most important here?
• What is the challenge here for you?
• What is the real challenge here for you?
• What is getting in the way of you achieving your goal?

Problem-Solving Questions

• What are some of the options available?
• What have you already tried to solve this problem? What worked? What didn't work?
• Have you considered all the possibilities?
• How can I help?

Next-Steps Questions

• What do you need to do, and when, to achieve your goal?
• What resources are there to help you achieve your goal? This includes people, tools, or even resources outside our organization.
• How will you know when you have achieved your goal? What does success look like?

The purpose of asking questions is to guide the conversation and learn something you didn't already know. Choose the questions you ask based on the flow of the conversation and on what information you would like to uncover. Approach the answers you get with an open mind.

Info-Tech Insight

Avoid the trap of "hidden agenda" questions, whose real purpose is to offer your own advice.

Use the following approach to give effective feedback

Provide the feedback in a timely manner

• Plan the message you want to convey.
• Provide feedback "just-in-time."
• Ensure recipient is not preoccupied.
• Try to balance the feedback; refer to successful as well as unsuccessful behavior.

Communicate clearly, using specific examples and alternative behaviors

• Feedback must be honest and helpful.
• Be specific and give a recent example.
• Be descriptive, not evaluative.
• Relate feedback to behaviors that can be changed.
• Give an alternative positive behavior.

Confirm their agreement and understanding

• Solicit their thoughts on the feedback.
• Clarify if not understood; try another example.
• Confirm recipient understands and accepts the feedback.

Manager skill is crucial to employee development

Development is a two-way street. This means that while employees are responsible for putting in the work, managers must enable their development with support and guidance. The latter is a skill, which managers must consciously cultivate.

For more in-depth management skills development, see the Info-Tech "Build a Better Manager" training resources:

• Basic Management Skills: Time management, delegation, accountability.
• Manage Your People: Communication, coaching, and performance management.
• Personal Leadership: Manager's role in the organization, decision-making, and conflict management.

Bibliography

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Chung, Kai Li, and Norma D'Annunzio-Green. "Talent Management Practices of SMEs in the Hospitality Sector: An Entrepreneurial Owner-Manager Perspective." Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, vol. 10, no. 4, Jan. 2018.
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Exploring Workforce Planning. Accenture, 23 May 2017.
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How Smaller Organizations Can Use Talent Management to Accelerate Growth. Avilar. Accessed 25 June 2020.
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Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

In today’s competitive environment, optimizing Sales’ resources by giving them qualified leads is key to B2B marketing success.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Improve B2B seller win rates with a lead scoring methodology as part of your modern lead generation engine.

As B2B organizations emerge from the lowered demands brought on by COVID-19, they are eager to convert marketing contacts to sales-qualified leads with even the slightest signal of intent, but many sales cycles are wasted when sellers receive unqualified leads. Delivering highly qualified leads to sellers is still more art than science, and it is especially challenging without a way to score a contact profile and engagement. While most marketers capture some profile data from contacts, many will pass a contact over to Sales without any engagement data or schedule a demo with a contact without any qualifying profile data. Passing unqualified leads to Sales suboptimizes Sales’ resources, raises the costs per lead, and often results in lost opportunities. Marketers need to develop a lead scoring methodology that delivers better qualified leads to Field Sales scored against both the ideal customer profile (ICP) and engagement that signals lower-funnel buyer interest. To be successful in building a compelling lead scoring solution, marketers must work closely with key stakeholders to align the ICP asset/activity with the buyer journey. Additionally, working early in the design process with IT/Marketing Operations to implement lead management and analytical tools in support will drive results to maximize lead conversion rates and sales wins.

Jeff Golterman

Managing Director

SoftwareReviews Advisory

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

The affordability and ease of implementation of digital marketing tools have driven global adoption to record levels. While many marketers are fine-tuning the lead generation engine components of email, social media, and web-based advertising to increase lead volumes, just 32% of companies pass well-qualified leads over to outbound marketers or sales development reps (SDRs). At best, lead gen costs stay high, and marketing-influenced win rates remain suboptimized. At worst, marketing reputation suffers when poorly qualified leads are passed along to sellers.

Common Obstacles

Most marketers lack a methodology for lead scoring, and some lack alignment among Marketing, Product, and Sales on what defines a qualified lead. In their rush to drive lead generation, marketers often fail to “define and align” on the ICP with stakeholders, creating confusion and wasted time and resources. In the rush to adopt B2B marketing and sales automation tools, many marketers have also skipped the important steps to 1) define the buyer journey and map content types to support, and 2) invest in a consistent content creation and sourcing strategy. The wrong content can leave prospects unmotivated to engage further and cause them to seek alternatives.

Info-Tech’s Approach

To employ lead scoring effectively, marketers need to align Sales, Marketing, and Product teams on the definition of the ICP and what constitutes a Sales-accepted lead. The buyer journey needs to be mapped in order to identify the engagement that will move a lead through the marketing lead generation engine. Then the project team can score prospect engagement and the prospect profile attributes against the ICP to arrive at a lead score. The marketing tech stack needs to be validated to support lead scoring, and finally Sales needs to sign off on results.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Lead scoring is a must-have capability for high-tech marketers. Without lead scoring, marketers will see increased costs of lead gen, decreased SQL to opportunity conversion rates, decreased sales productivity, and longer sales cycles.

Who benefits from a lead scoring project?

This Research Is Designed for:

• Marketers and especially campaign managers who are:
• Looking for a more precise way to score leads and deploy outbound marketing resources to optimize contacts-to-MQL conversion rates.
• Looking for a more effective way to profile contacts raised by your lead gen engine.
• Looking to use their lead management software to optimize lead scoring.
• Starting anew to strengthen their lead generation engine and want examples of a typical engine, ways to identify buyer journey, and perform lead nurturing.

This Research Will Help You:

• Explain why having a lead scoring methodology is important.
• Identify a methodology that will call for identifying an ICP against which to score prospect profiles behind each contact that engages your lead generation engine.
• Create a process of applying weightings to score activities during contact engagement with your lead generation engine. Apply both scores to arrive at a contact/lead score.
• Compare your current lead gen engine to a best-in-class example in order to identify gaps and areas for improvement and exploration.

This Research Will Also Assist:

• CMOs, Marketing Operations leaders, heads of Product Marketing, and regional Marketing leads who are stakeholders in:
  • Finding alternatives to current lead scoring approaches.
  • Altering current or evaluating new marketing technologies to support a refreshed lead scoring approaches.

This Research Will Help Them:

• Align stakeholders on an overall program of identifying target customers, building common understanding of what constitutes a qualified lead, and determining when to use higher-cost outbound marketing resources.
• Deploy high-value applications that will improve core marketing metrics.

Insight summary

Continuous adjustment and improvement of your lead scoring methodology is critical for long-term lead generation engine success.

• Building a highly functioning lead generation engine is an ongoing process and one that requires continual testing of new asset types, asset design, and copy variations. Buyer profiles change over time as you launch new products and target new markets.
• Pass better qualified leads to Field Sales and improve sales win rates by taking these crucial steps to implement a better lead generation engine and a lead scoring methodology:
• Make the case for lead scoring in your organization.
• Establish trigger points that separate leads to ignore, nurture, qualify, or outreach/contact.
• Identify your buyer journey and ICP through collaboration among Sales, Marketing, and Product.
• Assess each asset and activity type across your lead generation engine and apply a weighting for each.
• Test lead scenarios within our supplied toolkit and with stakeholders. Adjust weightings and triggers that deliver lead scores that make sense.
• Work with IT/Marketing Operations to emulate your lead scoring methodology within your marketing automation/campaign management application.
• Explore advanced methods including nurturing.
• Use the Lead Scoring Workbook collaboratively with other stakeholders to design your own methodology, test lead scenarios, and build alignment across the team.

Leading marketers who successfully implement a lead scoring methodology develop it collaboratively with stakeholders across Marketing, Sales, and Product Management. Leaders will engage Marketing Operations, Sales Operations, and IT early to gain support for the evaluation and implementation of a supporting campaign management application and for analytics to track lead progress throughout the Marketing and Sales funnels. Leverage the Marketing Lead Scoring Toolkit to build out your version of the model and to test various scenarios. Use the slides contained within this storyboard and the accompanying toolkit as a means to align key stakeholders on the ICP and to weight assets and activities across your marketing lead generation engine.

What is lead scoring?

Lead scoring weighs the value of a prospect’s profile against the ICP and renders a profile score. The process then weighs the value of the prospects activities against the ideal call to action (CTA) and renders an activity score. Combining the profile and activity scores delivers an overall score for the value of the lead to drive the next step along the overall buyer journey.

EXAMPLE: SALES MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

• For a company that markets sales management software the ideal buyer is the head of Sales Operations. While the ICP is made up of many attributes, we’ll just score one – the buyer’s role.
• If the prospect/lead that we wish to score has an executive title, the lead’s profile scores “High.” Other roles will score lower based on your ICP. Alongside role, you will also score other profile attributes (e.g. company size, location).
• With engagement, if the prospect/lead clicked on our ideal CTA, which is “request a proposal,” our engagement would score high. Other CTAs would score lower.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

A significant obstacle to quality lead production is disagreement on or lack of a documented definition of the ideal customer profile. Marketers successful in lead scoring will align key stakeholders on a documented definition of the ICP as a first step in improving lead scoring.

Use of lead scoring is in the minority among marketers

The majority of businesses are not practicing lead scoring!

Up to 66% of businesses don’t practice any type of lead scoring.

Source: LeadSquared, 2014

“ With lead scoring, you don’t waste loads of time on unworthy prospects, and you don’t ignore people on the edge of buying.”

Source: BigCommerce

“The benefits of lead scoring number in the dozens. Having a deeper understanding of which leads meet the qualifications of your highest converters and then systematically communicating with them accordingly increases both ongoing engagement and saves your internal team time chasing down inopportune leads.”

– Joey Strawn, Integrated Marketing Director, in IndustrialMarketer.com

Key benefit: sales resource optimization

Many marketing organizations send Sales too many unqualified leads

• Leads – or, more accurately, contacts – are not all qualified. Some are actually nothing more than time-wasters for sellers.
• Leading marketers peel apart a contact into at least two dimensions – “who” and “how interested.”
• The “who” is compared to the ICP and given a score.
• The “how interested” measures contact activity – or engagement – within our lead gen engine and gives it a score.
• Scores are combined; a contact with a low score is ignored, medium is nurtured, and high is sent to sellers.
• A robust ICP, together with engagement scoring and when housed within your lead management software, prioritizes for marketers which contacts to nurture and gets hot leads to sellers more quickly.

Optimizing Sales Resources Using Lead Scoring

Lead scoring drives greater sales effectiveness

When contacts are scored as “qualified leads” and sent to sellers, sales win rates and ROI climb

• Contacts can be scored properly once marketers align with Sales on the ICP and work closely with colleagues in areas like product marketing and field marketing to assign weightings to lead gen activities.
• When more qualified leads get into the hands of the salesforce, their win rates improve.
• As win rates improve, and sellers are producing more wins from the same volume of leads, sales productivity improves and ROI on the marketing investment increases.

“On average, organizations that currently use lead scoring experience a 77% lift in lead generation ROI, over organizations that do not currently use lead scoring.”

– MarketingSherpa, 2012

Average Lead Generation ROI by Use of Lead Scoring

Source: 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey, MarketingSherpa

Methodology: Fielded June 2011, N=326 CMOs

SoftwareReviews’ Lead Scoring Approach

Key Deliverable: Lead Scoring Workbook

The workbook walks you through a step-by-step process to:

• Identify your team.
• Identify the lead scoring thresholds.
• Define your IPC.
• Weight the activities within your lead generation engine.
• Run tests using lead scenarios.

Tab 1: Team Composition

Consider core functions and form a cross-functional lead scoring team. Document the team’s details here.

Tab 2: Threshold Setting

Set your initial threshold weightings for profile and engagement scores.

Tab 3:

Establish Your Ideal Customer Profile

Identify major attributes and attribute values and the weightings of both. You’ll eventually score your leads against this ICP.

Record and Weight Lead Gen Engine Activities

Identify the major activities that compose prospect engagement with your lead gen engine. Weight them together as a team.

Test Lead Profile Scenarios

Test actual lead profiles to see how they score against where you believe they should score. Adjust threshold settings in Tab 2.

Test Activity Engagement Scores

Test scenarios of how contacts navigate your lead gen engine. See how they score against where you believe they should score. Adjust thresholds on Tab 2 as needed.

Review Combined Profile and Activity Score

Review the combined scores to see where on your lead scoring matrix the lead falls. Make any final adjustments to thresholds accordingly.

Several ways we help you build your lead scoring methodology

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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.

Workshop Overview

Accelerate your project with our facilitated SoftwareReviews Advisory workshops

Phase 1

Drive an Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Solidify your vision for lead scoring.
• Achieve stakeholder alignment.
• Assess your tech stack.

This phase involves the following stakeholders:

• Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
• CMO
• Product Marketing
• Product Management
• Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
• Inside Sales leadership
• Marketing Operations/IT
• Digital Platform leadership

Step 1.1

Establish a Cross-Functional Vision for Lead Scoring

Activities

1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

1.1.2 Outline the vision for lead scoring

1.1.3 Select your lead scoring team

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Discuss the reasons why lead scoring is important.
• Review program process.
• Identify stakeholders and team.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders
• Project sponsors and leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Stakeholder alignment on vision of lead scoring
• Stakeholders described and team members recorded
• A documented buyer journey and map of your current lead gen engine

1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

1 hour

1. Meet to identify the stakeholders that should be included in the project’s steering committee.
2. Finalize selection of steering committee members.
3. Contact members to ensure their willingness to participate.
4. Document the steering committee members and the milestone/presentation expectations for reporting project progress and results

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

B2B marketers that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, and lead management supporting staff of what constitutes a qualified lead will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer acquisition process.

1.1.2 Outline the vision for lead scoring

1 hour

1. Convene a meeting of the steering committee and initiative team members who will be involved in the lead scoring project.

• Using slides from this blueprint, understand the definition of lead scoring, the value of lead scoring to the organization, and the overall lead scoring process.
• Understand the teams’ roles and responsibilities and help your Marketing Operations/IT colleagues understand some of the technical requirements needed to support lead scoring.
• This is important because as the business members of the team are developing the lead scoring approach on paper, the technical team can begin to evaluate lead management apps within which your lead scoring model will be brought to life.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

While SMBs can implement some form of lead scoring when volume is very low and leads can be scored by hand, lead scoring and effective lead management cannot be performed without investment in digital platforms and lead management software and integration with customer relationship management (CRM) applications in the hands of inside and field sales staff. Marketers should plan and budget for the right combination of applications and tools to be in place for proper lead management.

Lead scoring stakeholders

Developing a common stakeholder understanding of the ICP, the way contact profiles are scored, and the way activities and asset engagement in your lead generation engine are scored will strengthen alignment between Marketing, Sales and Product Management.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Marketers managing the lead scoring initiative must include Product Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, and Product Management. And given that world-class B2B lead generation engines cannot run without technology enablement, Marketing Operations/IT – those that are charged with enabling marketing and sales – must also be part of the decision making and implementation process of lead scoring and lead generation.

1.1.3 Select your lead scoring team

30 minutes

1. The CMO and other key stakeholders should discuss and determine who will be involved in the lead scoring project.

• Business leaders in key areas – Product Marketing, Field Marketing, Digital Marketing, Inside Sales, Sales, Marketing Ops, Product Management, and IT – should be involved.

• The size of the team will vary depending on your initiative and size of your organization.

Download the Lead Scoring Workbook

Lead scoring team

Consider the core team functions when composing the lead scoring team. Form a cross-functional team (i.e. across IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations) to create a well-aligned lead management/scoring strategy. Don’t let your core team become too large when trying to include all relevant stakeholders. Carefully limit the size of the team to enable effective decision making while still including functional business units.

Step 1.2 (Optional)

Assess Your Tech Stack for Lead Scoring

Our model assumes you have:

1.2.1 A marketing application/campaign management application in place that accommodates lead scoring.

1.2.2 Lead management software integrated with the sales automation/CRM tool in the hands of Field Sales.

1.2.3 Reporting/analytics that spans the entire lead generation pipeline/funnel.

Refer to the following three slides if you need guidance in these areas.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Confirm that you have your tech stack in place.
• Set up an inquiry with an Info-Tech analyst should you require guidance on evaluating lead pipeline reporting, CRM, or analytics applications.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders
• Project sponsors and leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Understanding of what new application and technology support is required to support lead scoring.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Marketers that collaborate closely with Marketing Ops/IT early in the process of lead scoring design will be best able to assess whether current marketing applications and tools can support a full lead scoring capability.

1.2.1 Plan technology support for marketing management apps

Work with Marketing Ops and IT early to evaluate application enablement for lead management, including scoring

A thorough evaluation takes months – start early

• Work closely with Marketing Operations (or the team that manages the marketing apps and digital platforms) as early as possible to socialize your approach to lead scoring.
• Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting a marketing management suite or for changes to existing apps and tools to support your lead scoring approach that includes lead tracking and marketing funnel analytics.
• Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select a Marketing Management Suite, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews Marketing Management Data Quadrant during vendor evaluation and selection.

SoftwareReviews Marketing Management Data Quadrant

1.2.2 Plan technology support for sales opportunity management

Work with Marketing Ops and IT early to evaluate applications for sales opportunity management

A thorough evaluation takes months – start early

• Work closely with Sales Operations as early as possible to socialize your approach to lead scoring and how lead management must integrate with sales opportunity management to manage the entire marketing and sales funnel management process.
• Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting a sales opportunity management application that integrates with your marketing management suite or for changes to existing apps and tools to support your lead management and scoring approach that support the entire marketing and sales pipeline with analytics.

Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select and Implement a CRM Platform, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews CRM Data Quadrant during vendor evaluation and selection.

SoftwareReviews Customer Relationship Management Data Quadrant

1.2.3 Plan analytics support for marketing pipeline analysis

Work with Marketing Ops early to evaluate analytics tools to measure marketing and sales pipeline conversions

A thorough evaluation takes weeks – start early

• Work closely with Marketing and Sales Operations as early as possible to socialize your approach to measuring the lifecycle of contacts through to wins across the entire marketing and sales funnel management process.
• Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting tools that can support the measurement of conversion ratios from contact to MQL, SQL, and opportunity to wins. Having this data enables you to measure improvement in component parts to your lead generation engine.
• Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select and Implement a Reporting and Analytics Solution, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews Best Business intelligence & Analytics Software Data Quadrant as well during vendor evaluation and selection.

SoftwareReviews Business Intelligence Data Quadrant

Step 1.3

Catalog Your Buyer Journey and Lead Gen Engine Assets

Activities

1.3.1 Review marketing pipeline terminology

1.3.2 Describe your buyer journey

1.3.3 Describe your awareness and lead generation engine

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Discuss marketing funnel terminology.
• Describe your buyer journey.
• Catalog the elements of your lead generation engine.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders

Outcomes of this step

• Stakeholder alignment on terminology, your buyer journey, and elements of your lead generation engine

1.3.1 Review marketing pipeline terminology

30 minutes

1. We assume for this model the following:
1. Our primary objective is to deliver more, and more-highly qualified, sales-qualified leads (SQLs) to our salesforce. The salesforce will accept SQLs and after further qualification turn them into opportunities. Sellers work opportunities and turn them into wins. Wins that had first/last touch attribution within the lead gen engine are considered marketing-influenced wins.
2. This model assumes the existence of sales development reps (SDRs) whose mission it is to take marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) from the lead generation engine and further qualify them into SQLs.
3. The lead generation engine takes contacts – visitors to activities, website, etc. – and scores them based on their profile and engagement. If the contact scores at or above the designated threshold, the lead generation engine rates it as an MQL and passes it along to Inside Sales/SDRs. If the contact scores above a certain threshold and shows promise, it is further nurtured. If the contact score is low, it is ignored.
2. If an organization does not possess a team of SDRs or Inside Sales, you would adjust your version of the model to, for example, raise the threshold for MQLs, and when the threshold is reached the lead generation engine would pass the lead to Field Sales for further qualification.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Score leads in a way that makes it crystal clear whether they should be ignored, further nurtured, further qualified, or go right into a sellers’ hands as a super hot lead.

1.3.2 Describe your buyer journey

1. Understand the concept of the buyer journey:
1. Typically Product Marketing is charged with establishing deep understanding of the target buyer for each product or solution through a complete buyer persona and buyer journey map. The details of how to craft both are covered in the upcoming SoftwareReviews Advisory blueprint Craft a More Comprehensive Go-to-Market Strategy. However, we share our Buyer Journey Template here (on the next slide) to illustrate the connection between the buyer journey and the lead generation and scoring processes.
2. Marketers and campaigners developing the lead scoring methodology will work closely with Product Marketing, asking them to document the buyer journey.
3. The value of the buyer journey is to guide asset/content creation, nurturing strategy and therefore elements of the lead generation engine such as web experience, email, and social content and other elements of engagement.
4. The additional value of having a buyer persona is to also inform the ICP, which is an essential element of lead scoring.
5. For the purposes of lead scoring, use the template on the next slide to create a simple form of the buyer journey. This will guide lead generation engine design and the scoring of activities later in our blueprint.

2 hours

On the following slide:

1. Tailor this template to suit your buyer journey. Text in green is yours to modify. Text in black is instructional.
2. Your objective is to use the buyer journey to identify asset types and a delivery channel that once constructed/sourced and activated within your lead gen engine will support the buyer journey.
3. Keep your buyer journey updated based on actual journeys of sales wins.
4. Complete different buyer journeys for different product areas. Complete these collaboratively with stakeholders for alignment.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Establishing a buyer journey is one of the most valuable tools that, typically, Product Marketing produces. Its use helps campaigners, product managers, and Inside and Field Sales. Leading marketers keep journeys updated based on live deals and characteristics of wins.

Buyer Journey Template

Personas: [Title] e.g. “BI Director”

[Persona name] ([levels it includes from arrows above]) Buyer’s Journey for [solution type] Vendor Selection

1.3.3 Describe Your Awareness and Lead Gen Engine

1. Understand the workings of a typical awareness and lead generation engine. Reference the image of a lead gen engine on the following slide when reviewing our guidance below:
1. In our lead scoring example found in the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 3, “Weight and Test,” we use a software company selling a sales automation solution, and the engagement activities match with the Typical Awareness and Lead Gen Engine found on the following slide. Our goal is to match a visual representation of a lead gen and awareness engine with the activity scoring portion of lead scoring.
2. At the top of the Typical Awareness and Lead Generation Engine image, the activities are activated by a team of various roles: digital manager (new web pages), campaign manager (emails and paid media), social media marketer (organic and paid social), and events marketing manager (webinars).
3. “Awareness” – On the right, the slide shows additional awareness activities driven by the PR/Corporate Comms and Analyst Relations teams.*
4. The calls to action (CTAs) found in the outreach activities are illustrated below the timeline. The CTAs are grouped and are designed to 1) drive profile capture data via a main sales form fill, and 2) drive engagement that corresponds to the Education, Solution, and Selection buyer journey phases outlined on the prior slide. Ensure you have fast paths to get a hot lead – request a demo – directly to Field Sales when profiles score high.

* For guidance on best practices in engaging industry analysts, contact your engagement manager to schedule an inquiry with our expert in this area. during that inquiry, we will share best practices and recommended analyst engagement models.

Lead Scoring Workbook

2 hours

On the following slide:

1. Tailor the slide to describe your lead generation engine as you will use it when you get to latter steps to describe the activities in your lead gen engine and weight them for lead scoring.
2. Use the template to see what makes up a typical lead gen and awareness building engine. Record your current engine parts and see what you may be missing.
3. Note: The “Goal” image in the upper right of the slide is meant as a reminder that marketers should establish a goal for SQLs delivered to Field Sales for each campaign.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Marketing’s primary mission is to deliver marketing-influenced wins (MIWs) to the company. Building a compelling awareness and lead gen engine must be done with that goal in mind. Leaders are ruthless in testing – copy, email subjects, website navigation, etc. – to fine-tune the engine and staying highly collaborative with sellers to ensure high value lead delivery.

Typical Awareness and Lead Gen Engine

Understand how a typical lead generation engine works. Awareness activities are included as a reference. Use as a template for campaigns.

Phase 2

Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

1. Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and establish thresholds.
2. Collaborate with stakeholders on your ICP, apply weightings to profile attributes and values, and test.
3. Identify the key activities and assets of your lead gen engine, weight attributes, and run tests.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
• Product Marketing
• Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
• Inside Sales leadership
• Marketing Operations/IT
• Digital Platform leadership

Step 2.1

Start Building Your Lead Scoring Model

Activities

2.1.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid

2.1.2 Identify thresholds

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Discuss the concept of the thresholds for scoring leads in each of the various states – “ignore,” “nurture,” “qualify,” “send to sales.”
• Open the Lead Scoring Workbook and validate your own states to suit your organization.
• Arrive at an initial set of threshold scores.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders

Outcomes of this step

• Stakeholder alignment on stages
• Stakeholder alignment on initial set of thresholds

2.1.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid

30 minutes

1. Understand how lead scoring works and our grid is constructed.
2. Understand the two important areas of the grid and the concept of how the contact’s scores will increase as follows:
1. Profile – as the profile attributes of the contact approaches that of the ICP we want to score the contact/prospect higher. Note: Step 1.3 walks you through creating your ICP.
2. Engagement – as the contact/prospect engages with the activities (e.g. webinars, videos, events, emails) and assets (e.g. website, whitepapers, blogs, infographics) in our lead generation engine, we want to score the contact/prospect higher. Note: You will describe your engagement activities in this step.
3. Understand how thresholds work:
1. Threshold percentages, when reached, trigger movement of the contact from one state to the next – “ignore,” “nurture,” “qualify with Inside Sales,” and “send to sales.”

2.1.2 Identify thresholds

30 minutes

We have set up a model Lead Scoring Grid – see Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.”

Set your thresholds within the Lead Scoring Workbook:

• Set your threshold percentages for ”Profile” and “Engagement.”
• You will run test scenarios for each in later steps.
• We suggest you start with the example percentages given in the Lead Scoring Workbook and plan to adjust them during testing in later steps.
• Define the “Send to Sales,” “Qualify With Inside Sales,” “Nurture,” and “Ignore” zones.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Clarify that all-important threshold for when a lead passes to your expensive and time-starved outbound sellers.

Lead Scoring Workbook

Step 2.2

Identify and Verify Your Ideal Customer Profile and Weightings

Activities

2.2.1 Identify your ideal customer profile

2.2.2 Run tests to validate profile weightings

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Identify the attributes that compose the ICP.
• Identify the values of each attribute and their weightings.
• Test different contact profile scenarios against what actually makes sense.
• Adjust weightings if needed.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders

Outcomes of this step

• Stakeholder alignment on ICP
• Stakeholder alignment on weightings given to attributes
• Tested results to verify thresholds and cores

2.2.1 Identify your ideal customer profile

Collaborate with stakeholders to understand what attributes best describe your ICP. Assign weightings and subratings.

2 hours

1. Choose attributes such as job role, organization type, number of employees/potential seat holders, geographical location, interest area, etc., that describe the ideal profile of a target buyer. Best practice sees marketers choosing attributes based on real wins.
2. Some marketers compare the email domain of the contact to a target list of domains. In the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 3, “Weight and Test,” we provide an example profile for a “Sales Automation Software” ICP.
3. Use the workbook as a template, remove our example, and create your own ICP attributes. Then weight the attributes to add up to 100%. Add in the attribute values and weight them. In the next step you will test scenarios.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Marketers who align with colleagues in areas such as Product Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, Sales Training/Enablement, and Product Managers and document the ICP give their organizations a greater probability of lead generation success.

Lead Scoring Workbook

2.2.2 Run tests to validate profile weightings

Collaborate with stakeholders to run different profile scenarios. Validate your model including thresholds.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Keep your model simple in the interest of fast implementation and to drive early learnings. The goal is not to be perfect but to start iterating toward success. You will update your scoring model even after going into production.

2 hours

1. Choose scenarios of contact/lead profile attributes by placing a “1” in the “Attribute” box shown at left.
2. Place your estimate of how you believe the profile should score in the box to the right of “Estimated Profile State.” How does the calculated state, beneath, compare to the estimated state?
3. In cases where the calculated state differs from your estimated state, consider weighting the profile attribute differently to match.
4. If you find estimates and calculated states off dramatically, consider changing previously determined thresholds in tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.” Test multiple scenarios with your team.

Lead Scoring Workbook

Step 2.3

Establish Key Lead Generation Activities and Assets

Activities

2.3.1 Establish activities, attribute values, and weights

2.3.2 Run tests to evaluate activity ratings

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Identify the activities/asset types in your lead gen engine.
• Weight each attribute and define values to score for each one.
• Run tests to ensure your model makes sense.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders
• Project sponsors and leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Final stakeholder alignment on which assets compose your lead generation engine
• Scoring model tested

2.3.1 Establish activities, attribute values, and weights

2 hours

1. Catalog the assets and activities that compose your lead generation engine outlined in Activity 1.3.3. Identify their attribute values and weight them accordingly.
2. Consider weighting attributes and values according to how close that asset gets to conveying your ideal call to action. For example, if your ideal CTA is “schedule a demo” and the “click” was submitted in the last seven days, it scores 100%. Take time decay into consideration. If that same click was 60 days ago, it scores less – maybe 60%.
3. Different assets convey different intent and therefore command different weightings; a video comparing your offering against the competition, considered a down funnel asset, scores higher than the company video, considered a top-of-the-funnel activity and “awareness.”

Lead Scoring Workbook

2.3.2 Run tests to validate activity weightings

Collaborate with stakeholders to run different engagement scenarios. Validate your model including thresholds.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Use data from actual closed deals and the underlying activities to build your model – nothing like using facts to inform your key decisions. Use common sense and keep things simple. Then update further when data from new wins appears.

2 hours

1. Test scenarios of contact engagement by placing a “1” in the “Attribute” box shown at left.
2. Place your estimate of how you believe the engagement should score in the box to the right of “Estimated Engagement State.” How does the calculated state, beneath, compare to the estimated state?
3. In cases where the calculated state differs from your estimated state, consider weighting the activity attribute differently to match.
4. If you find that the estimates and calculated states are off dramatically, consider changing previously determined thresholds in tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.” Test multiple scenarios with your team.

Lead Scoring Workbook

Phase 3

Apply Your Model to Marketing Apps and Go Live With Better Qualified Leads

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

1. Apply model to your marketing management/campaign management software.
2. Get better qualified leads in the hands of sellers.
3. Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
• Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
• Inside Sales leadership
• Marketing Operations/IT
• Digital Platform leadership

Step 3.1

Apply Model to Your Marketing Management Software

Activities

3.1.1 Apply final model to your lead management software

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Apply the details of your scoring model to the lead management software.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders
• Project sponsors and leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Marketing management software or campaign management application is now set up/updated with your lead scoring approach.

3.1.1 Apply final model to your lead management software

Now that your model is complete and ready to go into production, input your lead scoring parameters into your lead management software.

3 hours

1. Go to the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 4, “Model Summary” for a formatted version of your lead scoring model. Double-check print formatting and print off a copy.
2. Use the copy of your model to show to prospective technology providers when asking them to demonstrate their lead scoring capabilities.
3. Once you have finalized your model, use the printed output from this tab to ease your process of transposing the corresponding model elements into your lead management software.

Lead Scoring Workbook

Step 3.2

Test the Quality of Sales-Accepted Leads

Activities

3.2.1 Achieve sales lead acceptance

3.2.2 Measure and optimize

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Suggest that the Inside Sales and Field Sales teams should assess whether to sign off on quality of leads received.
• Campaign managers and stakeholders should now be able to track lead status more effectively.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders
• Project sponsors and leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Sales leadership should be able to sign off that leads are better qualified.
• With marketing pipeline analytics in place, campaigners can start to measure lead flow and conversion rates.

3.2.1 Achieve sales lead acceptance

Collaborate with sellers to validate your lead scoring approach.

1 hour

1. Gather a set of SQLs – leads that have been qualified by Inside Sales and delivered to Field Sales. Have Field Sales team members convey whether these leads were properly qualified.
2. Where leads are deemed not properly qualified, determine if the issue was a) a lack of proper qualification by the Inside Sales team, or b) the lead generation engine, which should have further nurtured the lead or ignored it outright.
3. Work collaboratively with Inside Sales to update your lead scoring model and/or Inside Sales practice.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Marketers that collaborate with Sales – and in this case, a group of sellers as a sales advisory team – well in advance of sales acceptance to design lead scoring will save time during this stage, build trust with sellers, and make faster decisions related to lead management/scoring.

3.2.2 Measure and optimize

Leverage analytics that help you optimize your lead scoring methodology.

Ongoing

1. Work with Marketing Ops/IT team to design and implement analytics that enable you to:
2. Meet frequently with your stakeholder team to review results.
3. Learn from the wins: see how they actually scored and adjust thresholds and/or asset/activity weightings.
4. Learn from losses: fix ineffective scoring, activities, assets, form-fill strategies, and engagement paths.
5. Test from both wins and losses if demographic weightings are delivering accurate scores.
6. Analyze those high scoring leads that went right to sellers but did not close. This could point to a sales training or enablement challenge.

Analytics will also drive additional key insights across your lead gen engine:

• Are volumes increasing or decreasing? What percentage of leads are in what status (A1-D4)?
• What nurturing will re-engage stalled leads that score high in profile but low in engagement (A3, B3)?
• Will additional profile data capture further qualify leads with high engagement (C1, C2)?
• And beyond all of the above, what leads move to Inside Sales and convert to SQLs, opportunities, and eventually marketing-influenced wins?

Step 3.3

Apply Advanced Methods

Activities

3.3.1 Employ lead nurturing strategies

3.3.2 Adjust your model over time to accommodate more advanced methods

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Apply lead nurturing to your lead gen engine.
• Adjust your engine over time with more advanced methods.

This step involves the following participants:

• Stakeholders
• Project sponsors and leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Marketers can begin to test lead nurturing strategies and other advanced methods.

3.3.1 Employ lead nurturing strategies

A robust content marketing competence with compelling assets and the capture of additional profile data for qualification are key elements of your nurturing strategy.

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

Nurturing success combines the art of crafting engaging copy/experiences and the science of knowing just where a prospect is within your lead gen engine. Great B2B marketers demonstrate the discipline of knowing when to drive engagement and/or additional profile attribute capture using intent while not losing the prospect to over-profiling.

Ongoing

1. The goal of lead nurturing is to move the collection of contacts/leads that are scoring, for example, in the A3, B3, C1, C2, and C3 cells into A2, B2, and B1 cells.
2. How is this best done? To nurture leads that are A3 and B3, entice the prospect with engagement that leads to the bottom of funnel – e.g. “schedule a demo” or “schedule a consultation” via a compelling asset. See the example on the following slide.
3. To nurture C1 and C2, we need to qualify them further, so entice with an asset that leads to deeper profile knowledge.
4. For C3 leads, we need both profile and activity nurturing.

Lead nurturing example

SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

When nurturing, choose/design content as to what “intent” it satisfies. For example, a head-to-head comparison with a key competitor signals “Selection” phase of the buyer journey. Content that helps determine what app-type to buy signals “Solution”. A company video, or a webinar replay, may mean your buyer is “educating themselves.

3.3.2 Adjust your model over time to accommodate more advanced methods

When getting started or within a smaller marketing team, focus on the basics outlined thus far in this blueprint. Larger and/or more experienced teams are able to employ more advanced methods.

Ongoing

Advanced Methods

• Invest in technologies that interpret lead scores and trigger next-step actions, especially outreach by Inside and/or Field Sales.
• Use the above to route into nurturing environments where additional engagement will raise scores and trigger action.
• Recognize that lead value decays with time to time additional outreach/activities and to reduce lead scores over time.
• Always be testing different engagement, copy, and subsequent activities to optimize lead velocity through your lead gen engine.
• Build intent sensitivity into engagement activities; e.g. test if longer demo video engagement times imply ”contact me for a demo” via a qualification outreach. Update scores manually to drive learnings.
• Vary engagement paths by demographics to deliver unique digital experiences. Use firmographics/email domain to drive leads through a more tailored account-based marketing (ABM) experience.
• Reapply learnings from closed opportunities/wins to drive updates to buyer journey mapping and your ICP.

Frequently used acronyms

Works cited

Arora, Rajat. “Mining the Real Gems from you Data – Lead Scoring and Engagement Scoring.” LeadSquared, 27 Sept. 2014. Web.

Doyle, Jen. “2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report: Research and insights on attracting and converting the modern B2B buyer.” MarketingSherpa, 2012. Web.

Doyle, Jen, and Sergio Balegno. “2011 MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey: Research and Insights on Elevating Marketing Effectiveness from Lead Generation to Sales Conversion.” MarketingSherpa, 2011.

Kirkpatrick, David. “Lead Scoring: CMOs realize a 138% lead gen ROI … and so can you.” marketingsherpa blog, 26 Jan 2012. Web.

Moser, Jeremy. “Lead Scoring Is Important for Your Business: Here’s How to Create Scoring Model and Hand-Off Strategy.” BigCommerce, 25 Feb. 2019. Web.

Strawn, Joey. “Why Lead Scoring Is Important for B2Bs (and How You Can Implement It for Your Company.” IndustrialMarketer.com, 17 Aug. 2016. Web.

Integrate IT Risk Into Enterprise Risk

Don’t fear IT risks, integrate them.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Having siloed risks is risky business for any enterprise.

Valence Howden Principal Research Director, CIO Practice

Petar Hristov Research Director, Security, Privacy, Risk & Compliance

Ian Mulholland Research Director, Security, Risk & Compliance

Brittany Lutes Senior Research Analyst, CIO Practice

Ibrahim Abdel-Kader Research Analyst, CIO Practice

Every organization has a threshold for risk that should not be exceeded, whether that threshold is defined or not.

In the age of digital, information and technology will undoubtedly continue to expand beyond the confines of the IT department. As such, different areas of the organization cannot address these risks in silos. A siloed approach will produce different ways of identifying, assessing, responding to, and reporting on risk events. Integrated risk management is about embedding IT uncertainty to inform good decision making across the organization.

When risk is integrated into the organization's enterprise risk management program, it enables a single view of all risks and the potential impact of each risk event. More importantly, it provides a consistent view of the risk event in relation to uncertainty that might have once been seemingly unrelated to IT.

And all this can be achieved while remaining within the enterprise’s clearly defined risk appetite.

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Most organizations fail to integrate IT risks into enterprise risks:

• IT risks, when considered, are identified and classified separately from the enterprise-wide perspective.
• IT is expected to own risks over which they have no authority or oversight.
• Poor behaviors, such as only considering IT risks when conducting compliance or project due diligence, have been normalized.

Common Obstacles

IT leaders have to overcome these obstacles when it comes to integrating risk:

• Making business leaders aware of, involved in, and able to respond to all enterprise risks.
• A lack of data or information being used to support a holistic risk management process.
• A low level of enterprise risk maturity.
• A lack of risk management capabilities.

Info-Tech’s Approach

By leveraging the Info-Tech Integrated Risk approach, your business can better address and embed risk by:

• Understanding gaps in the organization’s current approach to risk management practices.
• Establishing a standardized approach for how IT risks impact the enterprise as a whole.
• Driving a risk-aware organization toward innovation and considering alternative options for how to move forward.
• Helping integrate IT risks into the foundational risk practice.

Info-Tech Insight

Stop avoiding risk – integrate it. This provides a holistic view of uncertainty for the organization to drive innovative new approaches to optimize its ability to respond to risk.

What is integrated risk management?

• Integrated risk management is the process of ensuring all forms of risk information, including information and technology, are considered and included in the enterprise’s risk management strategy.
• It removes the siloed approach to classifying risks related to specific departments or areas of the organization, recognizing that each of those risks is a threat to the overarching enterprise.
• Aggregating the different threats or uncertainty that might exist within an organization allows for informed decisions to be made that align to strategic goals and continue to drive value back to the business.
• By holistically considering the different risks, the organization can make informed decisions on the best course of action that will reduce any negative impacts associated with the uncertainty and increase the overall value.

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)

• IT
• Security
• Digital
• Vendor/Third Party
• Other

Enterprise risk management is the practice of identifying and addressing risks to your organization and using risk information to drive better decisions and better opportunities.

IT risk is enterprise risk

IT risks have a direct and often aggregated impact on enterprise risks and opportunities in the same way other business risks can. This relationship must be understood and addressed through integrated risk management to ensure a consistent approach to risk.

Your challenge

Embedding IT risks into the enterprise risk management program is challenging because:

• Most organizations classify risks based on the departments or areas of the business where the uncertainty is likely to happen.
• Unnecessary expectations are placed on the IT department to own risks over which they have no authority or oversight.
• Risks are often only identified when conducting due diligence for a project or ensuring compliance with regulations and standards.

Risk-mature organizations have a unique benefit in that they often have established an overarching governance framework and embedded risk awareness into the culture.

35% — Only 35% of organizations had embraced ERM in 2020. (Source: AICPA and NC State Poole College of Management)

12% — Only 12% of organizations are leveraging risk as a tool to their strategic advantage. (Source: AICPA and NC State Poole College of Management)

Common obstacles

These barriers make integrating IT risks difficult to address for many organizations:

• IT risks are not seen as enterprise risks.
• The organization’s culture toward risk is not defined.
• The organization’s appetite and threshold for risk are not defined.
• Each area of the organization has a different method of identifying, assessing, and responding to risk events.
• Access to reliable and informative data to support risk management is difficult to obtain.
• Leadership does not see the business value of integrating risk into a single management program.
• The organization’s attitudes and behaviors toward risk contradict the desired and defined risk culture.
• Skills, training, and resources to support risk management are lacking, let alone those to support integrated risk management.

Integrating risks has its challenges

62% — Accessing and disseminating information is the main challenge for 62% of organizations maturing their organizational risk management. (Source: OECD)

20-28% — Organizations with access to machine learning and analytics to address future risk events have 20 to 28% more satisfaction. (Source: Accenture)

Integrate Risk and Use It to Your Advantage

Accelerate and optimize your organization by leveraging meaningful risk data to make intelligent enterprise risk decisions.

Risk management is more than checking an audit box or demonstrating project due diligence.

Risk Drivers Audit & compliance Preserve value & avoid loss Previous risk impact driver Major transformation Strategic opportunities		Only 7% of organizations are in a “leading” or “aspirational” level of risk maturity. (OECD, 2021)	63% of organizations struggle when it comes to defining their appetite toward strategy related risks. (“Global Risk Management Survey,” Deloitte, 2021)	Late adopters of risk management were 70% more likely to use instinct over data or facts to inform an efficient process. (Clear Risk, 2020)	55% of organizations have little to no training on ERM to properly implement such practices. (AICPA, NC State Poole College of Management, 2021)
		1. Assess Enterprise Risk Maturity	3. Build a Risk Management Program Plan	4. Establish Risk Management Processes	5. Implement a Risk Management Program
		2. Determine Authority with Governance Unfortunately, less than 50% of those in risk focused roles are also in a governance role where they have the authority to provide risk oversight. (Governance Institute of Australia, 2020)
IT can improve the maturity of the organization’s risk governance and help identify risk owners who have authority and accountability. Governance and related decision making is optimized with integrated and aligned risk data.			ERM incorporates the different types of risk, including IT, security, digital, vendor, and other risk types. The program plan is meant to consider all the major risk types in a unified approach.		Implementation of an integrated risk management program requires ongoing access to risk data by those with decision making authority who can take action.

Integrated Risk Mapping — Downside Risk Focus

Integrated Risk Mapping — Downside and Upside Risk

Third-Party Risk Example

Insight Summary

Overarching insight

Stop fearing risk – integrate it. Integration leads to opportunities for organizations to embrace innovation and new digital technologies as well as reducing operational costs and simplifying reporting.

Govern risk strategically

Governance of risk management for information- and technology-related events is often misplaced. Just because it's classified as an IT risk does not mean it shouldn’t be owned by the board or business executive.

Assess risk maturity

Integrating risk requires a baseline of risk maturity at the enterprise level. IT can push integrating risks, but only if the enterprise is willing to adopt the attitudes and behaviors that will drive the integrated risk approach.

Manage risk

It is not a strategic decision to have different areas of the organization manage the risks perceived to be in their department. It’s the easy choice, but not the strategic one.

Implement risk management

Different areas of an enterprise apply risk management processes differently. Determining a single method for identification, assessment, response, and monitoring can ensure successful implementation of enterprise risk management.

Tactical insight

Good risk management will consider both the positives and negatives associated with a risk management program by recognizing both the upside and downside of risk event impact and likelihood.

Integrated risk benefits

Measure the value of integrating risk

• Reduce Operating Costs

  • Organizations can reduce their risk operating costs by 20 to 30% by adopting enterprise-wide digital risk initiatives (McKinsey & Company).

• Increase Cybersecurity Threat Preparedness

  • Increase the organization’s preparedness for cybersecurity threats. 79% of organizations that were impacted by email threats in 2020 were not prepared for the hit (Diligent)

• Increase Risk Management’s Impact to Drive Strategic Value

  • Currently, only 3% of organizations are extensively using risk management to drive their unique competitive advantage, compared to 35% of companies who do not use it at all (AICPA & NC State Poole College of Management).

• Reduce Lost Productivity for the Enterprise

  • Among small businesses, 76% are still not considering purchasing cyberinsurance in 2021, despite the fact that ransomware attacks alone cost Canadian businesses $5.1 billion in productivity in 2020 (Insurance Bureau of Canada, 2021).

“31% of CIO’s expected their role to expand and include risk management responsibilities.” (IDG “2021 State of the CIO,” 2021)

Make integrated risk management sustainable

Assessment

Assess your organization’s method of addressing risk management to determine if integrated risk is possible

Assessing the organization’s risk maturity

Mature or not, integrated risk management should be a consideration for all organizations The first step to integrating risk management within the enterprise is to understand the organization’s readiness to adopt practices that will enable it to successfully integrate information. In 2021, we saw enterprise risk management assessments become one of the most common trends, particularly as a method by which the organization can consolidate the potential impacts of uncertainties or threats (Lawton, 2021). A major driver for this initiative was the recognition that information and technology not only have enterprise-wide impacts on the organization’s risk management but that IT has a critical role in supporting processes that enable effective access to data/information. A maturity assessment has several benefits for an organization: It ensures there is alignment throughout the organization on why integrated risk is the right approach to take, it recognizes the organization’s current risk maturity, and it supports the organization in defining where it would like to go.

Maturity should inform your approach to risk management

The outcome of the risk maturity assessment should inform how risk management is approached within the organization.

For organizations with a low maturity, remaining superficial with risk will offer more benefits and align to the enterprise’s risk tolerance and appetite. This might mean no integrated risk is taking place.

However, organizations that have higher risk maturity should begin to integrate risk information. These organizations can identify the nuances that would affect the severity and impact of risk events.

Integrated Risk Maturity Assessment

The purpose of the Integrated Risk Maturity Assessment is to assess the organization's current maturity and readiness for integrated risk management (IRM).

Frequently and continually assessing your organization’s maturity toward integrated risk ensures the right risk management program can be adopted by your organization.

Integrated Risk Maturity Assessment A simple tool to understand if your organization is ready to embrace integrated risk management by measuring maturity across four key categories: Context & Strategic Direction, Risk Culture & Authority, Risk Management Process, and Risk Program Optimization

Use the results from this integrated risk maturity assessment to determine the type of risk management program that can and should be adopted by your organization.

Some organizations will need to remain siloed and focused on IT risk management only, while others will be able to integrate risk-related information to start enabling automatic controls that respond to this data.

Take Advantage of Big Tech Layoffs

Simple tactics to secure the right talent in times of economic uncertainty.

Why are the layoffs making the news?

After three years of record low unemployment rates in IT and organizations struggling to hire IT talent into their organization, the window appears to be opening with tens of thousands layoffs from Big Tech employers.

Big brand organizations such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, and Meta have been hitting major newswires, but these layoffs aren't exclusive to the big names. We've also seen smaller high-growth tech organizations following suit. In fact, in 2022, it's estimated that there were more than 160,997 layoffs across over 1,045 tech organizations. This trend has continued into 2023. By mid-February 2023, there were already 108,754 employees laid off at 385 tech companies (Layoffs.fyi).(1)

While some of these layoffs have been openly connected to economic slowdown, others are pointing to the layoffs being a correction for over-hiring during the pandemic. It is also important to note that many of these workers were not IT employees, as these organizations also saw cuts across other areas of the business such as sales, marketing, recruitment, and operations.

(1)This global database is constantly being updated, and these numbers are changing on an ongoing basis. For up-to-date statistics, see https://layoffs.fyi

While tech layoffs have been making the news, so far many of these layoffs have been a correction to over-hiring, with most employees laid off finding work, if they want it, within three months.

IT leaders need to determine their response – wait and see the impact of the recession on budgets and candidate expectations or dive in and secure great talent to execute today on strategic needs.

This research is designed to help IT leaders understand the talent market and provide winning strategies to those looking to take advantage of the layoffs to fill their hiring needs.

Three key drivers for Big Tech layoffs

Economic uncertainty

Globally, economists are predicting an economic slowdown, though there is not a consistent prediction on the impact. We have seen an increase in interest rates and inflation, as well as reduced investment budgets.

Over-hiring during the pandemic

High growth and demand for digital technologies and services during the early pandemic led to over-hiring in the tech industry. Many organizations overestimated the future demand and had to rebalance staffing as a result.

New automation investments

Many tech organizations that have conducted layoffs are still in a growth mindset. This is demonstrated though new tech investments by these companies in products like chatbots and RPA to semi-automate processes to reduce the need for certain roles.

Despite layoffs, the labor market remains competitive

There were at least 160,997 layoffs from more than 1,045 tech companies last year (2022). (Layoffs.fyi reported as of Feb 21/2023)

But just because Big Tech is laying people off doesn't mean the IT job market has cooled.

Between January and October 2022 technology- focused job postings rose 25% compared to the same period in 2021, and there were more than 375,000 tech jobs posted in October of 2022.
(Dice: Tech Jobs Report.)

Info-Tech Insight

The "where has the talent gone?" puzzle has been solved. Many tech firms over-hired and were able to outcompete everyone, but it wasn't sustainable. This correction won't impact unemployment numbers in the short term – the job force is just in flux right now.

So far, many of the layoffs have been a market correction

Tech Layoffs Since COVID-19

Source: Layoffs.fyi - Tech Layoff Tracker and Startup Layoff Lists

Tech Companies Layoffs vs. Early Pandemic Hiring # of People

Source: Yahoo Finance. Q4 '19 to Q3 '22

Tech Layoffs between 2020 Q3- 2022 Q1 remained very low across the sector. In fact, outside of the initial increase at the start of the pandemic, layoffs have remained at historic low levels of around 1% (HBR, 2023). While the layoffs look significant in isolation, when you compare these numbers to pandemic hiring and growth for these organizations, the figures are relatively small.

The first question IT leaders need to ask is whether now is the time to act

The big gamble many CIOs face is whether to strike now to secure talent or to wait to better understand the impact of the recession. While two-thirds of IT professionals are still expecting their budgets to increase in 2023, CIOs must account for the impact of inflation and the recession on their IT budgets and staffing decisions (see Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program).

Ultimately, while unemployment is low today, it's common to see unemployment numbers drop right before a recession. If that is the case, then we will see more talent entering the market, possibly at more competitive salaries. But organizations that wait to hire risk not having the staff they need to execute on their strategy and finding themselves in a hiring freeze. CIOs need to decide on how to approach the economic uncertainty and where to place their bets.

Looking ahead to 2023, how do you anticipate your IT spending will change compared to spending in 2022?

Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program

Organizations ready to take advantage will need to act fast when layoffs happen

Organizations looking to fill hiring needs or grow their IT/digital organization will need to be strategic and efficient when it comes to recruitment. Regardless of the number of layoffs, it continues to be an employee market when it comes to IT roles.

While it is likely that the recession will impact unemployment rates, so far, the market remains hot, and the number of open roles continues to grow. This means that organizations that want to take advantage need to act quickly when news hits.

Leaders not only need to compete with other organizations for talent, but the other challenge hiring organizations will need to compete with is that many in tech received generous severance packages and will be considering taking time off. To take advantage, leaders need to establish a plan and a clear employee value proposition to entice these highly skilled workers to get off the bench.

Why you need to act fast:

• Unemployment rates remain low:
  • Tech unemployment's rates in the US dropped to 1.5% in January 2023 (CompTIA), compared to overall unemployment which is at 3.4% in the US as of January 2023 (Yahoo Finance). While the layoffs look significant, we can see that many workers have been rehired into the labor market.
• Long time-to-hire results in lost candidates:
  • According to Info-Tech's IT Talent Trend Report, 58% of IT leaders report time-to-hire is longer than two months. This timing increases for tech roles which require unique skills or higher seniority. IT leaders who can increase the timeline for their requirement process are much more likely to be able to take advantage of tech layoffs.

IT must take a leading role in IT recruitment to take advantage of layoffs

A personal connection is the differentiator when it comes to talent acquisition

There is a statistically significant relationship between IT leadership involvement in talent acquisition and the effectiveness of this process in the IT department. The more involved they are, the higher the effectiveness.(1)

More IT leadership involvement

Higher recruitment effectiveness

Involved leaders see shorter times to hire

There is a statistically significant relationship between IT leadership involvement in the talent acquisition process and time to fill vacant positions. The more involved they are, the shorter the time to hire.(2)

Involved leaders are an integral part of effective IT departments

There is a statistically significant relationship between IT leadership involvement in talent acquisition and overall IT department effectiveness. Those that are more involved have higher levels of effectiveness.(3)

Increased IT Leadership in Recruitment Is Directly Correlated to Recruitment Effectiveness.

Focus your layoff recruitment strategy on critical and strategic roles

If you are ready to take advantage of tech layoffs, focus hiring on critical and strategic roles, rather than your operational backfills. Roles related to security, cloud migration, data and analytics, and digital transformation are more likely to be shielded from budget cuts and are logical areas to focus on when looking to recruit from Big Tech organizations.

Additionally, within the IT talent market, scarcity is focused in areas with specialized skill sets, such as security and architecture, which are dynamic and evolving faster than other skill sets. When looking to recruit in these areas, it's critical that you have a targeted recruitment approach; this is why tech layoffs represent a strong opportunity to secure talent in these specialized areas.

ROLES DIFFICULT TO FILL

Info-Tech Talent Trends 2022 Survey

Four quick tactics to take advantage of Big Tech layoffs

TALENT ACQUISITION PROCESS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LAYOFFS

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.

Tactics to take advantage of tech layoffs

Activities

1.1 Spot check your employee value proposition
1.2 Update job advertisements
1.3 Document your talent acquisition process
1.4 Refine your talent acquisition process

This step involves the following participants:

• IT executive leadership
• IT hiring manager
• Human resources
• Marketing/public relations

Outcomes of this step

Streamlined talent acquisition process tailored to take advantage of tech layoffs.

Requisition: update job ads and secure approval to hire

Critical steps:

1. Ensure you have secured budget and hiring approval.
2. Identify an IT recruitment partner within the IT organization who will be accountable for working with HR throughout the process and who will actively track and scan for recruitment opportunities.
3. Update your IT job descriptions.
4. Spot check your employee value proposition (EVP) to appeal to targeted candidates (Exercise 1.1).
5. Write employee job ads for relevant skills and minimum viable experience (Exercise 1.2).
6. Work with HR to develop your candidate outreach messages – ensure that your outreach is empathetic, aligns with your EVP, and focuses on welcoming them to apply to a role.

The approval process to activate a requisition can be one of the longest stages in the talent acquisition process. Ensure all your roles are up to date and approved so you can trigger outreach as soon as news hits; otherwise, you'll be late before you've even begun.

Your employee value proposition (EVP) is a key tool for attracting and retaining talent

Any updates to your EVP need to be a genuine reflection of the employee experience at your organization – and should resonate internally and externally.

Internal (retention) perspective: These characteristics help to retain new and existing talent by ensuring that new hires' expectations are met and that the EVP is experienced throughout the organization.

External (attraction) perspective: These characteristics help to attract talent and are targeted so the right candidates are motivated to join, while those who aren't a good fit will self-select out.

McLean & Company's Employee Value Proposition Framework

Source: McLean & Company

1.1 Spot check your EVP

1-3 hours

1. Review your existing IT employee value proposition. If you do not have an EVP, see Info-Tech's comprehensive research Improve the IT Recruitment Process to draft a new EVP.
2. Invite a representative group of employees to participate in a working group to improve your employee value proposition. Ask each participant to brainstorm the top five things they value most about working at the organization.
3. Consider the following categories: work environment, career advancement, benefits, and ESG and diversity impact. Brainstorm as a group if there is anything unique your organization offers with regard to these categories.
4. Compare your notes to your existing EVP, identify up to four key statements to focus on for the EVP, ensuring that your EVP speaks to at least one of the categories above. Remove any statements that no longer speak to who you are as an organization or what you offer.

Input

• Existing employee value proposition
• Employee Engagement Surveys (If Available)

Output

• Updated employee value proposition

Materials

• Whiteboard/flip charts
• Job ad template

Participants

• Representative group of internal employees.
• HR
• Marketing/PR (if possible)

Four critical factors considered by today's job seeker

1. Be specific about remote work policies: Include verbiage about whether there is an option to work hybrid or remote. 81% of job seekers stated that whether a job is remote, hybrid, or in-person was a top factor in whether they'd accept an offer (Benefits Canada, 2022).
2. Career advancement and stability: "37% of Gen Z employees and 25% of millennial employees are currently looking for a job that offers career progression transparency — or, in other words, a job with clear opportunities for growth. This is significantly higher than our findings for older generations Gen X (18%) and baby boomers (7%)," (Lattice, 2021).
3. Unique benefits: Consider your unique benefits – it's not the Big Tech "fun perks" like slides and ping pong that drive interest. Employees are increasingly looking for roles with long-term benefits programs. 90% of job seekers consider higher pension contributions to be a key factor, and 85% are considering bonuses/profit sharing" (Benefits Canada, 2022). Candidates may accept lower total compensation in exchange for flexibility, culture, work/life balance that was lacking in the start-up scene or the mega-vendors' fast-paced world.
4. ESG and diversity impact: Include details of how the candidate will make a societal impact through their role, and how the company is acting on climate and sustainability. "Nearly two in five [Gen Z's and millennials] say they have rejected a job or assignment because it did not align with their values," (Deloitte Global, 2022).

Update or establish job ads for candidate outreach

Take the time up front to update your IT job descriptions and to write effective job advertisements. A job advertisement is an external-facing document that advertises a position with the intent of attracting job applicants. It contains key elements from the job description as well as information on the organization and its EVP. A job description informs a job ad, it doesn't replace it.
When updating job descriptions and job ads, it's critical that your requirements are an accurate representation of what you need in the position. For the job ads especially, focus on the minimum requirements for the role, highlight your employee value proposition, and ensure that they are using inclusive language.
Don't be lulled into using a job description as a posting when there's a time crunch to fill a position – use your preparation time to complete this key step.

Three tips to consider when building a job ad

Include the minimum desired requirements

Include the required skills, responsibilities, and certifications required. Instead of looking for a unicorn, look for what you need and a demonstrated ability to learn. 70% of business executives say they are getting creative about sourcing for skills rather than just considering job experience (Deloitte Insights, 2022).

Strategically include certifications

When including certifications, ensure you have validated the process to be certified – i.e. if you are hiring for a role with 3-5 years' experience, ensure that the certification does not take 5-10 years of experience be eligible.

Use inclusive language

Consider having a review group within your IT organization to ensure the language is inclusive, that the responsibilities don't read as overly complex, and that it is an accurate representation of the organization's culture.

1.2 Update or build job ads

1-3 hours

1. Begin with a copy of the job ad you are looking to fill, if you haven't begun to draft the role, start with Info-Tech's Job Description Library and Info-Tech's Job Ad Template.
2. Review the job accountabilities, rank each responsibility based on its importance and volume of work. Determine if there are any responsibilities that are uncommon to be executed by the role and remove unnecessary responsibilities.
3. For each of the job accountabilities, identify if there is a level of experience, knowledge or competency that would be the minimum bar for a candidate. Remove technical skills, specific technologies, and competencies that aren't directly relevant to the role, responsibilities or values.
4. Review the education and requirements, and ensure that any certification or educational background is truly needed or suggested.
5. Use the checklist on the following tab to review and update your job ad.

Input

• Job description
• Employee value proposition
• Job ad template

Output

• Completed job ad

Materials

• Whiteboard/flip charts
• Web share

Participants

• Representative group of internal employees.
• HR
• Marketing/PR (if possible)

1.2 Job ad checklist:

A job ad needs to be two things: effective and inclusive.

Sourcing: Set up news trackers and review layoff source lists

• Set up news and social media trackers to track layoff updates, and ensure you have an IT staff member on standby to complete a more detailed opportunity analysis when layoffs happen.
• Use layoff source lists such as Layoffs.fyi to actively track organizations that have laid people off, noting the industry, location, and numbers in order to identify potential candidates. Limit your future analysis to locations that would be geographically possible to hire from.
• Review open-source lists of laid-off employees to quickly identify potential candidates for your organization.
• Many organizations that have completed layoffs have established outplacement programs to help laid-off staff find new roles. Set a plan in motion with HR to reach out to organizations once a layoff has occurred to understand their layoff support program.

The key to successful sourcing is for IT to take an active role in identifying which organizations impacted by layoffs would be a good fit, and to quickly respond by searching open-source lists and LinkedIn to reach out potential candidates.

Consider leveraging open-source lists

Layoffs.fyi has been tracking and reporting on layoffs since the start of COVID-19. While they are not an official source of information, the site has more than a million views per month and is a strong starting point for IT leaders looking to source candidates from tech layoffs beyond the big organizations that are making the news.

The site offers a view of companies with layoffs by location, industry, and the source of the info. Additionally, it often lists the names and contact information of laid-off employees, which you can leverage to start your deeper LinkedIn outreach or candidate screening.

Screenshots from Layoffs.fyi.

Screening: Prioritize by considering salary benchmarks and keywords

• Determine a set of consistent pre-screening questions to leverage while screening candidates, which every candidate must answer, including knockout questions.
• Prioritize by going for salary ranges you can afford: It is important to be aware of what companies are paying within the tech arena, so you know if your salary bands are within a competitive range.
• Pre-screen resumes using appropriate keywords that are critical for the role, and widen the terms if you do not have enough candidates. Given the pool you are looking to recruit from, consider removing criteria specifically related to education or certifications; instead, prioritize skills and on-the-job experience.

Screening is one of the most time-consuming stages of the TA process. For each open position, it can take 23 hours to screen resumes (Toolbox, 2021). In fact, 52% of TA leaders believe that screening candidates from a large pool of applicants is the hardest part of recruitment (Ideal, 2021).

Compensation comparison reports

Keep in mind that the market may be shifting rapidly as layoffs proliferate, so what the data shows, particularly on free-to-use sites with little data-checking, may not be current and may be overstated. Info-Tech does not provide salary analysis; however, there are publicly available reports and online websites with self-reported data.

This list contains several market data sources for the tech industry, which may be a good starting point for comparison. Info-Tech is not affiliated with or endorsing any of these market data sources.

Work with your HR partner to streamline your talent acquisition process

A slow talent acquisition process presents multiple risks to your ability to recruit. Candidates are likely having multiple hiring conversations, and you could lose a good candidate just by being slower than another organization. Additionally, long hiring processes are also an indicator of a high level of bureaucracy in an organization, which may turn off tech candidates who are used to faster-paced decision making.

Reducing your time-to-hire needs to be a strategic priority, and companies that manage to do this are reaping the benefits: There is a statistically significant relationship between time to fill vacant positions and overall IT department effectiveness. The shorter the time to fill a position, the higher the effectiveness (Bika, 2019).

Key Considerations for Optimizing your Talent Acquisition Process

Time to hire: Identify solutions to drive efficient hiring

1. Document all steps between screening and hiring and remove any unnecessary steps.
2. Create clearly defined interview guides to ensure consistent questioning by interviewers.
3. Enable hiring managers to schedule their own interviews.
4. Determine who needs to approve an offer. Streamline the number of approvals, if possible.
5. Eliminate unnecessary background checks. Many companies have eliminated reference checks, for example, after determining that it was it was not adding value to their decision.
6. Identify and track key metrics across your talent acquisition process.

It is critical to partner with your HR department on optimizing this process, as they are typically the process owners and will have deep knowledge of the rationale for decisions. Together, you can identify some opportunities to streamline the process and improve the time to hire.

4.1 Document your TA process

1-3 hours

1. If you have a documented talent acquisition process, begin with that; if not, open the IT Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool and map the stages of the talent acquisition process with your HR leader. Stages are the top level in the process (e.g. requisition, sourcing, screening).
2. Identify all the stakeholders involved in IT talent acquisition and document these in the tool.
3. Next, identify the steps required for each stage. These are more detailed actions that together will complete the stage (e.g. enter requisition into ATS, intake meeting). Ask subject matter experts to add steps to their portion of the process and document these in the cells.
4. For each step in the stage, record the time required and the number of people who are involved.

Input

• Existing talent acquisition (TA) process document
• Any TA process metrics
• Info-Tech's Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool

Output

• Documented TA process

Materials

• Info-Tech's Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool
• Whiteboard/flip charts
• Sticky notes

Participants

• HR
• IT leaders
• Hiring manager

Download the IT Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool

Example of steps in each stage of the TA process

4.2 Refine your TA process

1-3 hours

1. Collectively identify any:
1. Inconsistent applications: Activities that are done differently by different participants.
2. Bottlenecks: A place in the process where activity is constrained and holds up next steps.
3. Errors: When a mistake occurs requiring extra time, resources, or rework.
4. Lack of value: An activity that adds little to no value (often a legacy activity).
2. Work with HR to identify any proposed solutions to improve consistency, reduce bottlenecks, errors, or eliminate steps that lack value. Document your proposed solutions in tab 3 of the IT Talent Acquisition Optimization Tool.
3. Identify any new steps needed that would drive greater efficiency, including the tactics suggested in this research. Document any proposed solutions in tab 3.
4. For each proposed solution, evaluate the general level of effort and impact required to move forward with that solution and select the appropriate classification from the drop-down.
5. Determine if you will move forward with the proposed solution at this time. Update the TA workflow with your decisions.

Input

• Existing talent acquisition (TA) process document
• Any TA process metrics
• Info-Tech's Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool

Output

• Documented TA process

Materials

• Info-Tech's Talent Acquisition Process Optimization Tool
• Whiteboard/flip charts
• Sticky notes

Participants

• HR
• IT leaders
• Hiring manager

Use Info-Tech's IT Talent Acquisition Optimization Tool to document current challenges & target solutions.

Map your process and identify opportunities to streamline

Brainstorm and select solutions to improve your process

Key considerations when optimizing your process

• Put yourself in each stakeholder's shoes (candidate, HR, hiring manager). Think through what they need from the process.
• Challenge assumptions and norms. It can be tempting to get caught up in "how we do it today." Think beyond how it is today.
• Question timing of activities and events. Identify if they are occurring when they need to.
• Rebalance work to align with priorities. Identify if work can be redistributed or condensed to use time more efficiently.
• Distinguish when consistency will add value and when there should be process flexibility.
• Question the value. For each activity, ask "What value does this activity add?"

Select metrics to measure Talent Acquisition process improvement

Bibliography

"81% of Employees Factoring Hybrid Work Into Job Search: Survey." BenefitsCanada.com, 16 June 2022.
Andre, Louie. "40 Notable Candidate Experience Statistics: 2023 Job Application Trends & Challenges." Financesonline.Com, 15 Mar. 2023.
Bika, Nikoletta. "Key Hiring Metrics: Useful Benchmarks for Tech Roles." Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better, 10 Jan. 2019.
"Bureau of Labor Statistics Labor Market Revisions Contribute to Conflicting Signals in Latest Tech Employment Data, CompTIA Analysis Finds." CompTIA, 3 Feb. 2023. Press release.
Byrnes, Amy. "ICIMS Insights Workforce Report: Time to Press the Reset Button?" ICIMS | The Leading Cloud Recruiting Software, 1 Dec. 2022.
Cantrell, Sue, et al. "The Skills-Based Organization: A New Operating Model for Work and the Workforce." Deloitte Insights, 8 Sept. 2022.
deBara, Deanna. "Top Findings from Lattice's Career Progression Survey." Lattice, 13 Sept. 2021. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
Duszyński, Maciej. "Candidate Experience Statistics (Survey of 1,000+ Americans)." Zety, 14 Oct. 2019.
Duszyński, Maciej. "Candidate Experience Statistics." Zety, 2021.
Echevarria, Desiree. "2020 Candidate Experience Report." Career Plug, 17 Mar. 2021.
Ghosh, Prarthana. "Candidate Screening and Selection Process: The Complete Guide for 2021." Spiceworks, 26 Feb. 2021. Accessed 22 Jun. 2021
"Introduction - Dice Tech Job Report: Tech Hiring Trends by Location, Industry, Role and Skill." Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
Lee, Roger. "Tech Layoff Tracker and Startup Layoff Lists." Layoffs.fyi. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
Miller, Kandace. "Candidate Experience And Engagement Metrics You Should Be Tracking." ConveyIQ, n.d. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
Min, Ji-A. "Resume Screening: A How-To Guide for Recruiters." Ideal, 15 Mar. 2021. Web.
Palmeri, Shelby. "2023 Candidate Experience Research: Strategies for Recruiting." CareerPlug, 6 Feb. 2023.
Semenova, Alexandra. "Jobs Report: U.S. Economy Adds 517,000 Jobs in January, Unemployment Rate Falls to 3.4% as Labor Market Stuns." Yahoo!Finance, 3 Feb. 2023.
Sozzi, Brian. "Big Tech Layoffs: What Companies Such as Amazon and Meta Have in Common." Yahoo!News, 6 Feb. 2023.
Tarki, Atta. "Despite Layoffs, It's Still a Workers' Labor Market." Harvard Business Review, 30 Jan. 2023.
The Deloitte Global 2022 Gen Z and Millennial Survey. Deloitte Global, 2022. Accessed 16 Feb. 2023.
"Uncover the Employee Value Proposition." McLean & Company, 21 Jun. 2022. Accessed 22 Feb. 2023.

Drive Ongoing Adoption With an M365 Center of Excellence

Accelerate business processes change and get more value from your subscription by building and sharing thanks to an effective Centre of Excellence.

CLIENT ADVISORY DECK

Drive Ongoing Adoption With an M365 Centre of Excellence

Accelerate business processes change and get more value from your subscription by building and sharing thanks to an effective Centre of Excellence

Research Team:
John Donovan
John Annand
Principal Research Directors I&O Practice

41 builds released in 2021!
IT can no longer be expected to provide training to all users on all features

• Traditional classroom training (online and self-paced) is time consuming and overly generic
• Users tend to hold onto old familiar tools even as new ones roll out
• Citizen Programming comes with a lot of promise but also the spectre of reliving the era of Access ‘97 databases
• Seemingly small decisions around configuration have outsized impacts
• Every enterprises’ journey through adoption is unique

▲20% $ spent in 2021

148% more meetings
66% more users collaborating on documents
40.6B more emails

2021 vs. 2022 Source: Microsoft The Work Trend Index

• Who needs to be in a CoE? What daily tasks do they undertake?
• How do you turn artifacts like best practice documents into actual behavioral change?
• How does CoE differ from governance? And why is it going to be any more successful?
• How does the CoE evolve over time as enterprises become more mature?

CoE Competencies, Membership and Roles
Communication, Standards Templates
Adoption, and Business Success Metrics

Using these deliverables, Info-Tech will help you drive consistency in your enterprise collaboration, increase end-user satisfaction in the tools they are provided, optimize your license spending, fill the gaps between implementation of a technology and realization of business value, and empower end-users to innovate in ways that senior leadership had not imagined.

Executive Summary

Insight

User adoption is the primary focus of the efforts in the CoE

User adoption and setting up guardrails in governance are the focuses of the CoE in its early stages. Purging obsolete data from legacy share servers, and exchange, and rationalize legacy applications that are comparable to Microsoft offerings. The primary goal is M365 excellence, but that needs to be primed with a Roadmap, and laying down clear milestones to show progress, along with setting up quick wins to get buy in from the organization.

Breakdown your CoE into distinct areas for improvement

Due to the size and complexity of Microsoft 365, breaking it into clearly defined divisions makes sense. The parts that need to be fragmented into are, Collaboration, Power Apps, Office tools, Learning, Professional Training and Certifications, Governance and Support. Subject Matter experts needs to keep pace with the ever-changing M365 environment with enhancements continuously being rolled out. (There were 41 build releases in 2021 alone! )

Set up your M365 CoE in a decentralized design

Define how your CoE will be set up. It will either be centralized, distributed, or a combination of both. They all have their strengths and weaknesses; however a distributed CoE can ensure there is buy-in from the various departments across the CoE, as they participate in the decision making and therefore the direction the CoE goes. Additionally, it ensures that each segment of the CoE is accountable for the success of the M365 adoption, its usage, and delivering value to the organization.

Summary

Your Challenge

You have purchased Microsoft 365 for your business, and you have determined that you are not realizing the full value and potential of the product, neither adoption nor usage – for example, you have legacy applications that the user base is reluctant to move away from, whether it be Skype, Jabber, or other collaboration tools available to them. You have released Teams to the organization but may have not shown how useful it is and you have not communicated to the business that it is your new collaboration tool, along with SharePoint Online and OneDrive. How do you fix this problem?

Common Obstacles

There are roadblocks common to all CoEs: lack of in-house expertise, lack of resources (time, budget, etc.) and employee perception of just another burdensome administrative layer. These are exacerbated when building an M365 CoE.

• Constant vendor-initiated change in M365 means expertise always needs updating
• The self-service architecture of M365 is at odds with centralized limits and controls
• M365 is a multitude of services, adopted across a huge swath of the organization compared to the specific capabilities and limited audience of traditional CoEs

Info-Tech’s Approach

Having a clear vision of what business outcomes you want your Microsoft 365 CoE to accomplish is key. This vision helps select the core competencies and deliverables of the CoE.

1. Ongoing measurement and reporting of business value generated from M365 adoption
2. Servant leadership allows the CoE to work closely and deeply with end-users, which builds them up to share knowledge with others
3. Focus and clear lines of accountability ensure that everyone involved feels part of the compromise when decisions are to be made

Info-Tech Insight

The M365 CoE should be somewhat decentralized to avoid an “us versus them” mentality. Having clear KPIs at the center of the program makes it easier to demonstrate improvements and competencies. COMMUNICATE these early successes! They are vital in gaining widespread credibility and momentum.

Charter Mandate Authority to Operate

Mission : To accelerate the value that M365 brings to the organization by using the M365 CoE to increase adoption, build competency through training and best practices, and deliver on end user innovation throughout the business.

Vision Statement: To transform the organization’s efficiencies and performance through an optimized world-class M365 CoE by meeting all KPIs set out in the Charter.

Info-Tech Insights

A mission and vision for your M365 CoE are a necessary step to kick the program off. Not aving clear goals and a roadmap to get there will hinder your progress. It may even stall the whole objective if you cannot agree or measure what you are trying to accomplish

• The scope of the M365 CoE is to build the adoption rate that can meet milestone goals to advance user competency, as well as the maturation of the SMEs in each segment of the CoE leadership and contributors.
• Maturity will be measured through 100% adoption, specifically around collaboration tools and Office apps across the organization that use M365. Strategic value will be measured by core competencies within the CoE.
• SMEs are developed and educated with certifications and other training throughout the course of the CoE development to bring “bench strength” to the vision of optimizing a world-class M365 CoE.
• SMEs will all be certified Microsoft professionals. They will set the standard to be met within the CoE. The SMEs can either be internal candidates or external hires, depending on the current IT department competency.
• Additional resources required will be tech savvy department leads that understand and can help in the training of staff, who also are willing to spend a certain amount of their work time in coaching colleagues.
• They will be assisted by the training through the SMEs providing relevant material and various M365 courses both in class and self-paced online learning using M365 VIVA tools.

Charter Metrics

Areas in Scope:

• Ensure Mission is aligned to the business objectives.
• Form core team for M365 CoE, including steering committee.
• Create document for signoff from business sponsors.
• Build training plans for users, engineers, and admins.
• Document best practices and build standard templates for organizational uniformity.
• Build governance charter and priorities, setting up guardrails early to ensure compliance and security.
• Transition away and retire all legacy on-Prem apps to M365 Cloud apps.
• Build a RACI model for roles and responsibility.

Info-Tech Insights

If meaningful metrics are set up correctly, the CoE can produce results early in the one- or two-year process, demonstrating business value and increasing production amongst staff and demonstrating SME development.

CoE

What are the reason to build an M365 CoE, and what is it expected to deliver?

What It IS NOT

It does not design or build applications, migrate applications, or create migration plans. It does not deploy applications nor does it operate and monitor applications. While a steering committee is a key part of the M365 CoE, its real function is to set the standards to be achieved though metrics that can measure a successful, efficient, and best-in-class M365 operation. It does not set business goals but does align M365 goals to the business drivers. SMEs in the CoE give guidance on M365 best practices and assist in its adoption and users’ competency.

What It IS

M365 CoE means investing in and developing usage growth and adoption while maintaining governance and control. A CoE is designed to drive innovation and improvement, and as a business-wide functional unit, it can break down geographical and organizational silos that utilize their own tools and collaboration platforms. It builds a training and artifacts database of relevant and up-to-date materials.

Why Build It

Benefits that can be realized are:

• Building efficiencies, delivering quality training and knowledge transfer, and reducing risk from an organized and effective governance.
• Consistency in document and information management.
• Reusable templates and blueprints that standardize the business processes.
• Standardized and communicated business policies around security and best practices.
• Overcoming the challenges that comes with the titan of a platform that is M365.

Expected Goals and Benefits With Risk

Demonstrated impact for sustainability
Ensuring value is delivered
Ability to escalate to executive branch

The What?

What does the M365 CoE solve?

• M365 Adoption
• M365 tools templates
• SME in tools deployment and delivery
• Training and education – create artifacts and organize training sessions and certifications
• Empower users into super users
• Build analytics around usage, adoption, and ROI from license optimization

And the How?

How does the M365 CoE do it?

• By defining clear adoption goals and best practices
• By building a dedicated team with the confidence to improve the user experience
• By creating a collection of reusable artifacts.
• By establishing a stable, tested environment ensures users are not hindered in execution of the tools
• By continuously improving M365 processes

What are the Risks?

• All goals must be achievable
• Timeline phases are based on core SME competency of the IT department and the training quality of end users
• Current state of SMEs in house or hired to execute the mandate of the M365 CoE
• Business success – if business is struggling to make profits and grow, its usually the CoE that will get chopped – mainly due to layoffs
• Inability to find SMEs or train SMEs
• Turnover in CoE due to job function changes or attrition
• Overload of day-to-day responsibilities preventing SMEs from executing work for the CoE – Need to align SMEs and CoE steering chair to establish and enable shared responsibilities.

Who needs to be in a CoE for M365

Design the CoE – What model to be used?

What are their daily tasks? Is the CoE centralized, decentralized, or a combination?

Info-Tech Insights

Due to the size and complexity of Microsoft 365, a decentralized model works best. Each segment of the group could in themselves be a CoE, as in governance, training, or collaboration CoE. Maintaining SME in each group will drive the success of the M365 CoE.

Key Competencies for CoE

• Build a team of experts in M365 with sub teams in Products.
• Manage the business processes around M365.
• Train and optimize technical teams.
• Share best practices and create a knowledge base.
• Build processes that are repeatable and self-provisioned.

CoE for M365

What is the Structure? Is it centralized, decentralized, or combination? What are the pros and cons?

Thought Model

How does the CoE differ from governance?

Why is it going to be any more successful?

“These problems already exist and haven't been successfully addressed by governance – how is the CoE going to be any different?”

• Leadership
• Empower end users
• Automation of processes
• Retention policies
• Governance priorities
• Risk management
• Standard procedures
• Set metrics
• Self service
• Training
• SMEs
• Automation
• Innovation

CoE

While M365 governance is an integral part of the M365 CoE, the CoE is a more strategic program aimed at providing guidance, experienced leadership, and training.

The CoE is designed to drive innovation and improvements throughout the organization’s M365 deployment. It will build best practices, create artifacts, and mentor members to become SMEs.

Governance

CoE is a form of collaborative governance. Those responsible for making the rules are the same ones who are working through how the rules are implemented in practice.

The word most associated with CoE is "nurture." The word most associated with governance is "prevent."

The CoE is experimental and innovative and constantly revising its guidance compared to governance, which is opaque and static.

RACI chart for CoE define activities and ownership

The Work

Build artifacts

Templates

Scripts

Reference architecture

Policies definition

Blueprints

Version control

Measure usage and ROI

Quality assurance

Baseline creation and integrity

Steering Committee

Roles and Responsibilities

• Set the goals and metrics for the CoE charter
• Ensure the CoE is aligned to the business objectives
• Clear any roadblocks that may hinder progress for the team leads
• Provide guidance on best practices
• Set expectations for training and certifications
• Build SME strength through mentoring
• Promote and facilitate research into M365 developments and releases
• Ensure knowledge transfer is documented
• Create roadmap to ensure phase KPIs are met and drive toward excellence

Info-Tech Insight

Executive sponsorship is an element of the CoE that cannot be overlooked. If this occurs, the funding and longevity of the CoE will be limited. Additionally, ensure you determine if the CoE will have an end of life and what that looks like.

M365 Governance CoE Team

Governance and Management

After you’ve developed and implemented your data classification framework, ongoing governance and maintenance will be critical to your success. In addition to tracking how sensitivity labels are used in practice, you’ll need to update your control requirements based on changes in regulations, cybersecurity leading practices, and the nature of the content you manage. Governance and maintenance efforts can include:

• Establishing a governance body dedicated to data classification or adding a data classification responsibility to the charter of an existing information security body.
• Defining roles and responsibilities for those overseeing Data Classification
• Establishing KPIs to monitor and measure progress
• Tracking cybersecurity leading practices and regulatory changes
• Developing Standard Operating Procedures that support and enforce a data classification framework

Governance CoE

Tools Used in the Governance CoE Identity – MFA, SSO, Identity Manager, Conditional Access, AD , Microsoft Defender, Compliance Assessments Templates

Security and Compliance - Azure Purview, Microsoft Defender Threat Analytics, Rules-Based Classification (AIP Client & Scanner), Endpoint DLP, Insider Risk Management

Information Management – Audit Log Retention, Information Protection and Governance, Trainable Classifiers

Licenses – Entitlement Management, Risk-Based Conditional Access.

M365 Tools CoE Team

• Collaboration tools are at the center of the product portfolio for M365.
• Need to get users empowered to manage and operate Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint Online and promote uniform communications and collaborate with document building, sharing, and storing.

Collaboration SME – Teams admin, Exchange admin, SharePoint, One Drive admin, Viva Learning (Premium), and Viva Insights (Premium)

Application SME – Covers all updates and new features related to Office programs

Power BI SME – Covers Power Automate for Office 365, Power Apps for Office 365, and Power BI Pro

Voice and Video – Tools-Calling Plan, Audio Conference (Full), Teams Phone, Mobility

PMO – Manages all M365 products online and in production. Also coordinates enhancements, writes up documentation for updates, and releases them to the training CoE for publication.

Microsoft 365 tools used to support business

• Appointments – Booking
• Blog – Sway
• Browser – Edge
• Cloud Storage – OneDrive
• Collaboration – Teams
• Email and Calendar – Outlook
• Notebook – OneNote
• Planner – Planner
• Presentation – PowerPoint
• Spreadsheet - Excel
• Surveys/Quizzes/Polls - Forms
• Whiteboard - Whiteboard
• Word Processor – Word
• Voice – Teams Phone

M365 Training CoE Team

Training and certifications for both end users and technical staff managing the M365 platform. Ensure that you set goals and objectives with your training schedule.

Training for SMEs can be broken into two categories:

First line training is internal training for users, in the collaboration space. Teams, One Drive, SharePoint Online, Exchange, and specialty training on Office tools – Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Microsoft Forms.

Second line training is professional development for the SMEs including certifications in M365 admin, Global admin, Teams admin, and SharePoint administrator.

Additional training and certification can be obtained in governance, information management, and in the admin center for licencing optimization and compliance.

Tools used

• Viva topics – Integrated knowledge and expert discovery
• Viva Insight
• Viva Learning
• Viva Connections
• Dynamics 365
• Voice of the customer surveys

Support M365 CoE Team

Support CoE:

In charge of creating a knowledge base for M365. Manages incidents with access, usage, and administering apps to desktop. Manages change issues related to updates in patching.

Help Desk Admin:

Resets passwords when self service fails, force sign out, manages service requests.

Works with learning CoE to populate knowledge base with articles and templates.

Manages end user issues with changes and enhancements for M365.

Supporting Metrics

• Number of calls for M365 support
• Recurring M365 incidents
• Number of unresolved Platform issues
• First call resolution
• Knowledge sharing of M365
• Customer satisfaction
• Turnaround time of tickets created

Roadmap

How does the CoE evolve over time as enterprises become more mature?

• Depending on the complexity and regulatory requirements of the business, baseline governance and rules around external partners sharing internal documents will need to be set up.
• Identifying your SMEs in the organization is a perquisite at the beginning stages of setting up the M365 working group.

• Build a roadmap to get to maturity and competency that brings strategic business value.
• Meet milestone goals through a two-year, three-phase process. Begin with setting up governance guardrails.
• Set up foundational baselines against which metrics will be measured.
• Set up the M365 CoE, at first with target easy wins through group training and policy communications throughout the organization.

How do you turn artifacts like best practice documents into actual behavior change?

Info-Tech Insights

Building Blocks
The building blocks for a change in end user behavior are based on four criteria which must be clearly communicated. Knowledge transfer from SMEs to the training team is key. That in turn leads to effective knowledge transfer, allowing end users to develop skills quickly that can be shared with their teams. Sharing practices leads to best practices and maintaining these in a repository that can be quickly accessed will build on the efficiencies and effectiveness of the employees.

How Do You Empower End Users to Innovate?

Info-Tech Insights

Understand the Vision

Empowering End users starts with understanding the business vision that is embedded into the M365 CoE charter.

Ensure that the business innovation goals are aligned to the organizational strategies.

The innovative strategies need to be clearly communicated to the employees and the tools to achieve this needs to be mapped out and trained. Clearly lay out the goals, outcomes, and expectations.

End users need to understand how the M365 CoE will assist them in their day-to-day operations, whether in the collaboration space with their colleagues, or with power BI that assists them in their decision making though analytics.

The Right Resources

Arm your team with the resources they need to be successful. Building use cases as part of the training program will give the employees insight into how the M365 tools can be used in their daily work environment. It will also address the pervasive use of nonstandard tools as is seen throughout organizations that are operated in a vacuum.

Empowering your user base though the knowledge transfer borne through the building of artifacts that deal with real life examples that join the dots for employees.

By painting a picture of how the innovative use of the M365 platform can be achieved, users will feel empowered and use those use cases to build out their own innovative ideas.

Hybrid Work

Digital fabric

Collaboration – Communication – Creation

Cloud Services – Innovative Apps – Security

Productivity anywhere any place

Shared working documents in secure cloud

Mesh for Microsoft Teams/Viva

Power apps and dataverse for Teams

Self Service M365

My Apps

My Sign-Ins

My Groups

My Staff

My Access

My Account

Password reset

Sample Best Practices
Tools and Standards Templates

Then communicate them

Collaboration Best Practices

Sharing documents

Real time co-authoring

Comment

Meet

Mobile

Version History

Security Best Practices

Default Security Settings

Microsoft Security Score

Enable Alert Policies

Assign RBAC for Admins

Enable Continuous Access Evaluation

Admin Roles Best Practices in M365

• Two or three global admins in tenant/limit usage of secondary admin roles
• See Admin Portal
• •Screen shots: Best Practices Securing M365

Business Success Metrics for M365 CoE

What does success look like?

• Are you aligning the M365 metrics to business goals?
• Are your decisions data driven?
• Are you able to determine opportunities to improve with your metrics – continuous process improvement?
• Are you seeing productivity gains, and are they being measured?

Activity Output

Start building your M365 CoE and considering the steps for the Phase 1 checklist

BUILD A FOUNDATIONAL BASELINE

Step 1

1. Select Resources to create a CoE working group
2. Define your goals and objectives
3. Identify SMEs within the business and do a gap analysis
4. Build the M365 charter, mission, and vision
5. Build consensus and sponsorship from C suite
6. Create an organizational M365 framework that provides best coverage for all touch points to the platform, from support to training to controls.
7. Determine the type of CoE you want to create that fits your business (centralized, distributed, or a combination).

Step 2

1. Build training plans for SMEs and M365 teams
2. Populate company intranet with artifacts, knowledge articles, and user training portal with all things M365
3. Build out best practice workbooks, tools, and templates that encompass all departments
4. Create roles and responsibilities matrix
5. Identify “super users” in departments to assist with promoting learning and knowledge sharing.
6. Develop Metrics scorecards on success criteria ensuring they align to business goals

Step 3

1. Rational M365 licensing
2. Create communication plan promoting CoE and M365 advantages
3. Align your governance posture and building guardrails
4. Identify legacy apps that can be retired and replaced
5. Train support team and analysts with metrics supporting M365 CoE goals
6. Create baseline metrics with clear alignment to business KPIs

Related Blueprints

Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era

• Take control of your Microsoft licensing and optimize spend

Govern Office 365

• Office 365 is as difficult to wrangle as it is valuable. Leverage best practices to produce governance outcomes aligned with your goals

Migrate to Office 365 Now

• One small step to cloud, one big leap to Office 365. The key is to look before you leap

Build a Data Classification MVP for M365

• Kickstart your governance with data classification users will actually use!

Bibliography

“Five Guiding Principles of a successful Center of Excellence” Perficient, n.d. Web.

“Self Service in Microsoft 365.” Janbakker.tech, n.d. Web.

“My Apps portal overview.” Microsoft, June 2, 2022. Web.

“Collaboration Best Practices Microsoft365.” Microsoft, n.d. Web.

“Security Best Practices Microsoft 365” Microsoft, July 1, 2022. Web.

Collaborate Effectively in Microsoft Teams

Empower your users to explore Teams collaboration beyond the basics.

Analyst Perspective

Life after Teams implementation

You have adopted Teams, implemented it, and painted an early picture for your users on the basics. However, your organization is not yet maximizing its use of Teams' collaboration capabilities. Although web conferencing, channel-based collaboration, and chat are the most obvious ways Teams supports collaboration, users must explore Teams' functionality further to harness the application's full potential.

You should enable your users to expand their collaboration use cases in Teams, but not at the risk of being flooded with app requests, nor user confusion or dissatisfaction. Instead, develop a process to evaluate and integrate new apps that will benefit the organization. Encourage your users to request new apps that will benefit them, while proactively planning for app integration that users should be alerted to.

Emily Sugerman Research Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Your organization has adopted Microsoft Teams, but users are not getting the maximum benefit.

• IT needs to support the business to get the best value out of Microsoft Teams: managing Teams effectively while enabling end-user creativity.
• IT must follow best practices for evaluating new functionality when integrating Microsoft and third-party apps, while communicating changes to end users.
• Due partly to the frequent addition of new features and lack of communication and training, many organizations don't know which apps would benefit their users.

Common Obstacles

• Users are unenthusiastic about exploring Teams further due to negative past experiences, preference for other applications, or indifference.
• End users are unaware of the available range of features. When they become aware and try to add unapproved or unlicensed apps, they experience the frustration of being declined.
• Users seek support from IT who are unfamiliar with new Teams features an apps, or with supporting Teams beyond the basics.
• IT teams have no process to raise end-user awareness of these apps and functionality.

Info-Tech's Approach

Use Info-Tech's Collaborate Effectively in Microsoft Teams to help collaboration flourish:

• Collate key organizational collaboration use cases
• Prioritize the most important Teams apps and features to support use cases
• Implement request process for new Teams apps
• Communicate new Teams collaboration functionality

Info-Tech Insight

Collaboration is as much an art as a science. IT can help users collaborate more effectively in Teams by removing friction – while still maintaining guardrails – for users attempting to build out and experiment with features and capabilities.

Are your users in a Teams rut?

Are users failing to maximize their use of Teams to collaborate and get work done?

Teams can do much more than chat, video conferencing, and document sharing. A fully-deployed Teams also lets users leverage apps and advanced collaboration features.

However, IT must create a process for evaluating and approving Microsoft and third-party apps, and for communicating changes to end users.

In the end, IT needs to support the business to get the best value out of Microsoft Teams: managing Teams effectively while also enabling end-user creativity.

Third-party app use in Teams is rising:

“Within Teams, the third-party apps with 10,000 users and above rose nearly 40% year-over-year.”
Source: UC Today, 2023.

Collaborate effectively in Microsoft Teams

Set up your users for Teams collaboration success. Create a process that improves their ability to access, understand, and maximize their use of your chosen collaboration software solution.

Challenges with Teams collaboration

• Lack of motivation to explore available features
• Scattered information
• Lack of comfort using Teams beyond the basics
• Blocked apps
• Overlapping features
• Confusing permissions

Empowering Collaboration in Microsoft Teams

1. Identify current collaboration challenges and use cases in Teams
2. Create Teams app request workflows
3. Set up communication hubs in Teams
4. Empower end users to customize their Teams for effective collaboration

Solution

• Collate key organizational collaboration use cases
• Prioritize the most important Teams apps and features to support use cases
• Implement request process for new Teams apps
• Communicate new Teams collaboration functionality

Project deliverables

Use these tools to develop your plan to enable effective collaboration in Microsoft Teams.

Key deliverable:

Microsoft Teams Planning Tool

An Excel tool for documenting the organization's key collaboration use cases and prioritizing which Teams apps to implement and encourage adoption of.

Additional support:

Microsoft Teams End-User Satisfaction Survey

Use or adapt this survey to capture user perception of how effectively Teams supports collaboration needs.

Insight Summary

Key Insight:

Collaboration is as much an art as a science. IT can help users collaborate more effectively in Teams by removing friction – while still maintaining guardrails – for users attempting to build out and experiment with features and capabilities.

Additional insights:

Insight 1

Users can browse the Teams app store and attempt to add unapproved apps, but they may not be able to distinguish between available and blocked apps. To avoid a bad user experience, communicate which apps they can add without additional approval and which they will need to send through an approval process.

Insight 2

Teams lets you customize the message users see when they request unapproved apps and/or redirect their request to your own URL. Review this step in the request process to ensure users are seeing the instructions that they need to see.

Insight 3

A Teams hub is where users can access a service catalog of approved Teams apps and submit service requests for new ones via the Make a Request button.

Section 1: Collaborating Effectively in Teams for IT

Stop: Do you need the Teams Cookbook?

If you:

• are at the Teams implementation stage,
• require IT best practices for initial governance of Teams creation, or
• require end-user best practices for basic Teams functionality …

Consult the Microsoft Teams Cookbook first.

Understand the Microsoft vision of Teams collaboration

Does it work for you?

Microsoft's vision for Teams collaboration is to enable end-user freedom. For example, out of the box, users can create their own teams and channels unless IT restricts this ability.

Teams is meant to be more than just chats and meetings. Microsoft is pushing Teams app integration so that Teams becomes, essentially, a landing page from which users can centralize their work and org updates.

In partnership with the business, IT must determine which guardrails are necessary to balance end-user collaboration and creativity with the need for governance and control.

Why is it difficult to increase the caliber of collaboration in Teams?

Because collaboration is inherently messy, complex, and creative

Schubert & Glitsch find that enterprise collaboration systems (such as Teams) have characteristics that reflect the unstructured and creative nature of collaboration. These systems “are designed to support joint work among people in the workplace. . . [They] contain, for the most part, unstructured content such as documents, blogs, or news posts,” and their implementations “are often reported to follow a ‘bottom up' and rather experimental introduction approach.” The open-endedness of the tool requires users to be able to creatively and voluntarily apply it, which in turn requires more enterprise effort to help increase adoption over time through trial and error.

Source: Procedia Computer Science, 2015

Info-Tech Insight

Collaboration is as much an art as a science. IT can help users collaborate more effectively in Teams by removing friction – while still maintaining guardrails – for users attempting to build out and experiment with features and capabilities.

Activity 1: Identify current challenges

Input: Team input, Survey results
Output: List of Teams challenges experienced by the organization
Materials: Whiteboard (digital or physical)
Participants: Teams collaboration working group

First, identify what works and what doesn't for your users in Teams

• Have users reported any challenges with Teams as their primary means of channel-based collaboration? Run a short survey to capture end-user sentiment on how Teams works for them. This survey can be set up and distributed through Microsoft Forms. Distribute either to the whole organization or a specific focus group. Gather feedback from users on the following: What are the major ways they need to collaborate to do their jobs? What IT-supported tools do they need to support this collaboration? What specific aspects of Teams do they want to better exploit?
• If you send out transactional surveys on service desk tickets, run a report on Teams-related tickets to identify common complaints.
• Brainstorm Teams challenges IT has experienced personally or have seen reported – especially difficulties with collaboration.
• Once you have the data, group the challenges into themes. Are the challenges specifically related to collaboration? Data issues? Support issues? Access issues? Technical issues? Document them in tab 2 of the Microsoft Teams Planning Tool.

Download the Microsoft Teams End-User Satisfaction Survey template

Define your organization's key collaboration scenarios

Next, identify what users need to do in Teams

The term collaboration scenarios has been proposed to describe the types of collaboration behavior your software – in this case, Teams – must support (Schubert & Glitsch, 2015). A successful implementation of this kind of tool requires that you “identif[y] use cases and collaboration scenarios that best suit a specific company and the people working in it” (Schubert & Glitsch, 2016).

Teams tends to support the following kinds of collaboration and productivity goals (see list).

What types of collaboration scenarios arise in the user feedback in the previous activity? What do users most need to do?

Be proactive: Configure Microsoft Teams to match collaboration scenarios/use cases your users must engage in. This will help prevent an increase in shadow IT, where users attempt to bring in unapproved/unreviewed software that might duplicate your existing service catalog and/or circumvent the proper review and procurement process.

MS Teams Use Cases

1. Gather feedback
2. Collaboratively create content
3. Improve project & task management
4. Add media content
5. Conduct knowledge management
6. Increase meeting effectiveness
7. Increase employee engagement
8. Enhance professional development
9. Provide or access support
10. Add third-party apps

Activity 2: Match your collaboration scenarios to Teams capabilities

Input: Collaboration scenarios, Teams use cases
Output: Ranked list of Teams features to implement and/or promote
Materials: Microsoft Teams Planning Tool
Participants: Teams collaboration working group

Which features support the key collaboration use cases?

1. Using the Microsoft Teams Planning Tool, list your organization's key collaboration scenarios. Draw on the data returned in the previous activity. List them in Tab 2.
2. See the following slide for the types of collaboration use cases Teams is designed to support. In the planning tool, select use cases that best match your organizational collaboration scenarios.
3. Dive into more specific features on Tab 3, which are categorized by collaboration use case. Where do users' collaboration needs align with Teams' inherent capabilities? Add lines in Tab C for the third-party apps that you are considering adding to Teams.
4. In columns B and C of Tab 3, decide and prioritize the candidates for implementation. Review the list of prioritized features on tab 4.

NB: Microsoft has introduced a Teams Premium offering, with additional capabilities for meetings and webinars (including customized banding, meeting watermarks, and virtual webinar green rooms) and will paywall some features previously available without Premium (live caption translations, meeting data on attendee departure/arrival times) (“What is Microsoft Teams Premium?”, n.d.)

Download the Microsoft Teams Planning Tool