Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach

Use Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework as a guide to gating your Agile projects using a “trust but verify” approach.

Table of Contents

Analyst Perspective

Executive Summary

Phase 1: Establish Your Gating and Governance Purpose

Phase 2: Understand and Adapt Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework

Phase 3: Complete Your Agile Gating Framework

Where Do I Go Next?

Bibliography

Facilitator Slides

Analyst Perspective

Make your gating and governance process Agile friendly by following a “trust but verify” approach

Most project gating and governance approaches are designed for traditional (Waterfall) delivery methods. However, Agile delivery methods call for a different way of working that doesn’t align well with these approaches.

Applying traditional project gating and governance to Agile projects is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Not only will it make Agile project delivery less efficient, but in the extreme, it can lead to outright project failure and even derail your organization’s Agile transformation.

If you want Agile to successfully take root in your organization, be prepared to rethink your current gating and governance practices. This document presents a framework that you can use to rework your approach to provide both effective oversight and support for your Agile projects.

Alex Ciraco Principal Research Director, Application Delivery and Management Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Imposing a traditional governance approach on an Agile project can eliminate the advantages that Agile delivery methods offer. Make sure to rework your project gating and governance approach to be Agile friendly.

Info-Tech’s methodology for Creating an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach

Key Deliverables

Agilometer Tool Create your customized Agilometer tool to determine project support and oversight needs.		Gates 3 and 3A Checklists Create your customized checklists for projects at Gates 3 and 3A.
Agile-Friendly Project Status Report Create your Agile-friendly project status report to monitor progress.		Artifact Mapping Tool Map your traditional gating artifacts to their Agile replacements.

Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach

Phase 1

Establish your gating and governance purpose

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Understand why gating and governance are so important to your organization.
• Compare and contrast traditional to Agile delivery.
• Identify what form traditional gating takes in your organization.

This phase involves the following participants:

• PMO/Gating Body
• Delivery Managers
• Delivery Teams
• Other Interested Parties

Agile gating–related facts and figures

Traditional gating approaches can undermine an Agile project

Embed Business Relationship Management in IT

Show that IT is worthy of Trusted Partner status.

Executive Brief

Analyst Perspective

Relationships are about trust.

As long as humans are involved in enabling technology, it will always remain important to ensure that business relationships support business needs. At the cornerstone of those relationships is trust and the establishment of business value. Without trust, you won’t be believed, and without value, you won’t be invited to the business table.

Business relationship management can be a role, a capability, or a practice – either way it’s essential to ensure it exists within your organization. Show that IT can be a trusted partner by showing the value that IT offers.

Allison Straker Research Director, CIO Practice Info-Tech Research Group

Your challenge: Why focus on business relationship management?

Is IT saying this about business partners? I don’t know what my business needs and so we can’t add as much value as we’d like. My partners don’t give us the opportunity to provide new ideas to solve business problems My partners listen to third parties before they listen to IT. We’re too busy and don’t have the capacity to help my partners.

Are business partners saying this about IT? IT does not create and deliver valuable services/solutions that resolve my business pain points. IT does not come to me with innovative solutions to my business problems/challenges/issues. IT blocks my efforts to drive the business forward using innovative technology solutions. IT does not advocate for my needs with the decision makers in the organization.

Common obstacles

While organizations realize they need to do better, they often don’t know how to improve.

Organizations want to:

• Understand and strategically align to business goals
• Ensure stakeholders are satisfied
• Show project value/success

… these are all things that a mature business relationship can do to improve your organization.

Key improvement areas identified by business leaders and IT leaders

Info-Tech’s approach

BRMs who focus on achieving business value can improve organizational results.

Business relationships can take a strategic, tactical, or operational perspective.

While all levels are needed, focus on a strategic perspective for optimal outcomes.

Create business value through:

• Applying your knowledge of the business so that conversations aren’t about what IT provides. Focus on what the overall business requires.
• Ensuring your knowledge includes what is going on internally at your organization and also what occurs externally within and outside the industry (e.g. vendors, technologies used in similar industries or with similar customer interactions).
• Discussing with the perspective of “what’s in it for [insert business partner here]” – don’t just present IT’s views.
• Building a trusted strategic relationship – don’t just do well at the basics but also focus on the strategy that can move the organization to where it needs to be.

Neither you nor your partners can view IT as separate from your overall business…

…your IT goals need to be aligned with those of the overall business

IT and other lines of business need to partner together – they are all part of the same overall business.

Why it’s important to establish a BRM program

	IT Benefits Provides IT with a view of the lines of business they empower Allows IT to be more proactive in providing solutions that help business partner teams Allows IT to better manage their workload, as new requests can be prioritized and understood	Business Benefits Provides business teams with a view of the services that IT can help them with Brings IT to the table with value-driven solutions Creates an overall roadmap aligning both partners
	Drive business value into the organization via innovative technology solutions. Improve ability to meet and exceed business goals and objectives, resulting in more satisfied stakeholders (C-suite, board of directors). Enhance ability to execute business activities to meet end-customer requirements and expectations, resulting in more satisfied customers. Increase your business benefits by moving up higher – from operational to tactical to strategic.

When IT understands the business, they provide better value

Understanding all parties – including the business needs and context – is critical to effective business relationships.

Establishing a focus on business relationship management is key to improving IT satisfaction.

When business partners are satisfied that IT understands their needs, they have a higher perception of the value of overall IT

The relationship between the perception of IT value and business satisfaction is strong (r=0.89). Can you afford not to increase your understanding of business needs?

(Source: Info-Tech Research Group diagnostic data/Business-Aligned IT Strategy blueprint (N=652 first-year organizations that completed the CIO Business Vision diagnostic))

BRM success is measurable

1) Survey your stakeholders to measure improvements in customer satisfaction		2) Measure BRM success against the goals for the practice
Business satisfaction survey Audience: Business leaders Frequency: Annual Metrics: Overall Satisfaction score Overall Value score Relationship Satisfaction: Understand needs Meet needs Communication

Maturing your BRM practice is a journey

Info-Tech has developed an approach that can be used by any organization to improve or successfully implement BRM.	Become a Trusted Partner and Advisor
	KNOWLEDGE OF INDUSTRY STRATEGIC	Value Creator and Innovator Strategic view of IT and the business with knowledge of the market and trends; a connector driving value-added services.
	KNOWLEDGE OF FUNCTIONS TACTICAL	Influencer and Advocate Two-way voice between IT and business, understanding business processes and activities including IT touchpoints and growing tactical and strategic view of services and value.
	TABLE STAKES: COMMUNICATION SERVICE DELIVERY PROJECT DELIVERY OPERATIONAL	Deliver Communication, service, and project delivery and fulfillment, initial engagement with and knowledge of the business.
Foundation: Define and communicate the meaning and vision of BRM

At each level, keep maturing your BRM practice

(Adapted from BRM Institute Maturity Model and Info-Tech’s own model)

The Info-Tech path to implement BRM

Use Info-Tech’s ASPIRe method to create a continuously improving BRM practice.

Insight summary

BRM is not just about communication, it’s about delivering on business value.

Business relationship management isn’t just about having a pleasant relationship with stakeholders, nor is it about just delivering things they want. It’s about driving business value in everything that IT does and leveraging relationships with the business and IT, both within and outside your organization.

Understand your current state to determine the best direction forward.

Every organization will apply the BRM practice differently. Understand what’s needed within your organization to create the best fit.

BRM is not just a communication conduit between IT and the business.

When implemented properly, a BRM is a value creator, advocate, innovator, and influencer.

The BRM role must be designed to match the maturity level of the IT organization and the business.

Before you can create incremental business value, you must master the fundamentals of service and project delivery.

Info-Tech Insight

Knowledge of your current situation is only half the battle; knowledge of the business/industry is key.

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Blueprint deliverables

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

Key deliverable: Executive Buy-In and Communication Presentation Template Explain the need for the BRM practice and obtain buy-in from leadership and staff across the organization.	BRM Workbook Capture the thinking behind your organization’s BRM program.		BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet Worksheet to capture how the BRM practice will engage with stakeholders across the organization.
	BRM Role Expectations Worksheet How business relationship management will be supported throughout the organization at a strategic, tactical, and operational level.

Guided Implementation

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

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

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

ASSESS

To assess BRM, clarify what it means to you

Who are BRM relationships with?		The BRM has multiple arms/legs to ensure they’re aligned with multiple parties – the partners within the lines of business, external partners, and technology partners.
What does a BRM do?	Engage the right stakeholders – orchestrate key roles, resources, and capabilities to help stimulate, shape, and harvest business value. Connect partners (IT and other business) with the resources needed. Help stakeholders navigate the organization and find the best path to business value.
What does a BRM focus on?		Demand Shaping – Surfacing and shaping business demand Value Harvesting – Identifying ways to increase business value and providing insights Exploring – Rationalizing demand and reviewing new business, technology, and industry insights Servicing – Managing expectations and facilitating business strategy; business capability road mapping

Determine what business relationship management is

Many organizations face business dissatisfaction because they do not understand what the role of a BRM should be.

1.1 What is BRM?

Input: Your preliminary thoughts and ideas on BRM

Output: Themes summarizing what BRM will be at your organization

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Each team member will take a colored sticky note to capture what BRM is and what it isn’t.
2. As a group, review and discuss the sticky notes.
3. Group them into themes summarizing what BRM will be at your organization.
4. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm the definition of BRM at your organization.
5. Create a refined summary statement and capture it in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

Download the BRM Workbook

Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

It’s important to understand what the business thinks; ask them the right questions

Leverage the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic to provide clarity on: The organization’s view on satisfaction and importance of core IT services Satisfaction across business priorities IT’s capacity to meet business needs Contact your Account Representative to get started

1.2 Use their responses to help guide your BRM program

1 hour

Input: CIO-Business Vision Diagnostic, Other business feedback

Output: Summary of your partners’ view of the IT relationship

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: CIO, IT management team

1. Complete the CIO Business Vision diagnostic.
2. Analyze the findings from the Business Vision diagnostic or other business relationship and satisfaction surveys. Key areas to look at include:
   • Overall IT Satisfaction
   • IT Value
   • Relationship (Understands Needs, Communicates Effectively, Executes Requests, Trains Effectively)
   • Shadow IT
   • Capacity Needs
   • Business Objectives
3. Capture the following on your analysis:
   • Success stories – what your business partners are satisfied with
   • Challenges – are the responses consistent across departments?
4. Leverage the workbook to capture your findings the goals. Key highlights should be documented in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

Use the BRM Workbook to capture ideas

Polish the goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

Perform a SWOT analysis to explore internal and external business factors

A SWOT analysis is a structured planning method organizations use to evaluate the effects of internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats on a project or business venture.

Why It Is Important

• Business SWOT reveals internal and external trends that affect the business. You may uncover relevant information about the business that the other analysis methods did not reveal.
• The organizational strengths or weaknesses will shed some light on implications that you might not have considered otherwise, such as brand perception or internal staff capability to change.

Key Tips/Information

• Although this activity is simple in theory, there is much value to be gained when performed effectively.
• Focus on weaknesses that can cause a competitive disadvantage and strengths that can cause a competitive advantage.
• Rank your opportunities and threats based on impact and probability.
• Info-Tech members who have derived the most insights from a business SWOT analysis usually involved business stakeholders in the analysis.

Review these questions to help you conduct your SWOT analysis on the business

1.3 Analyze internal and external business factors using a SWOT analysis

1 hour

Input: IT and business stakeholder expertise

Output: Analysis of internal and external factors impacting the IT organization

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: CIO, IT management team

1. Break the group into two teams:
   • Assign team A internal strengths and weaknesses.
   • Assign team B external opportunities and threats.
2. Think about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as they pertain to the IT-business relationship. Consider people, process, and technology elements.
3. Have the teams brainstorm items that fit in their assigned grids. Use the prompt questions on the previous slide as guidance.
4. Pick someone from each group to fill in the SWOT grid.
5. Conduct a group discussion about the items on the list; identify implications for the BRM/IT.

Capture in the BRM Workbook

SITUATE

Your strategy informs your BRM program

Your strategy is a critical input into your program. Extract critical components of your strategy and convert them into a set of actionable principles that will guide the selection of your operating model.

Vision, Mission & Principles Leverage your vision and mission statements that communicate aspirations and purpose for key information that can be turned into design principles. Business Goal Implications Implications are derived from your business goals and will provide important context about the way BRM needs to change to meet its overarching objectives. Understand how those implications will change the way that work needs to be done – new capabilities, new roles, new modes of delivery, etc. Target-State Maturity Determine your target-state relationship maturity for your organization using the BRM goals that have been uncovered.

Outline your mission and vision for your BRM practice

If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, how do you know if you’ve arrived?

Establish the vision of what your BRM practice will achieve.

Your vision will paint a picture for your stakeholders, letting them know where you want to go with your BRM practice.

The vision will also help motivate and inspire your team members so they understand how they contribute to the organization. Your strategy must align with and support your organization’s strategy.

Good Visions Attainable – Aspirational but still within reach Communicable – Easy to comprehend Memorable – Not easily forgotten Practical – Solid, realistic Shared – Create a culture of shared ownership across the team/company

When Visions Fail Not Shared: Lack of buy-in, no alignment with stakeholders Impractical: No plan or strategy to deliver on the vision Unattainable: Set too far in the future Forgettable: Not championed, not kept in mind (Source: UX Magazine, 2011)

Derive the BRM vision statement

Begin the process of deriving the business relationship management vision statement by examining your business and user concerns. These are the problems your organization is trying to solve. Problem Statements First, ask what problems your organization hopes to solve. Analysis Second, ask what success would look like when those problems were solved. Vision Statement Third, polish the answer into a short but meaningful phrase. Paint the picture for your team and stakeholders so that they align on what BRM will achieve.

Vision statements demonstrate what your practice “aspires to be”

Your vision statement communicates a desired future state of the BRM organization. The statement is expressed in the present tense. It seeks to articulate the desired role of business relationship management and how it will be perceived.

Sample vision statements:

• To be a trusted advisor and partner in enabling business innovation and growth through an engaged design practice.
• The group will strive to become a world-class value center that is a catalyst for innovation.
• Apple: “We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing.” (Mission Statement Academy, May 2019.)
• Coca-Cola: “To refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions, and to create value and make a difference.” (Mission Statement Academy, August 2019.)

2.1 Vision generation

1 hour

Input: IT and business strategies

Output: Vision statement

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Review the goals and the sample vision statements provided on the previous slide.
2. Brainstorm possible vision statements that can apply to your practice. Refer to the guidance provided on the previous page – ensure that it paints a picture for the reader to show the desired target state.
3. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm the vision. Capture the refined statement in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

Use the BRM Workbook to capture ideas

Polish the goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

Create the mission statement from the problems and the vision statement

Your mission demonstrates your current intent and the purpose driving you to achieve your vision.

It reflects what the organization does for users/customers.

Make sure the practice’s mission statement reflects answers to the questions below: The questions: What does the organization do? How does the organization do it? For whom does the organization do it? What value is the organization bringing?

“A mission statement illustrates the purpose of the organization, what it does, and what it intends on achieving. Its main function is to provide direction to the organization and highlight what it needs to do to achieve its vision.” (Joel Klein, BizTank (in Hull, “Answer 4 questions to get a great mission statement.”))

2.2 Develop your own mission statement

1 hour

Input: IT and business strategies, Vision

Output: Mission statement

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Review the goals and the vision statement generated in the previous activities.
2. Brainstorm possible mission statements that can apply to your BRM practice. Capture this in your BRM workbook.
3. Refine your mission statement. Refer to the guidance provided on the previous page – ensure that the mission provides “the why”. Document the refined mission statement in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

“People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe.” (Sinek, Transcript of “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.”)

Download the BRM Workbook

Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

Areas that BRMs focus on include:

Establish how much of these your practice will focus on.

VALUE HARVESTING Tracks and reviews performance Identifies ways to increase business value Provides insights on the results of business change/initiatives		DEMAND SHAPING Isn’t just demand/intake management Surfaces and shapes business demand Is influenced by knowledge of the overall business and external entities
SERVICING Coordinates resources Manages expectations Facilitates business strategy, business capability road-mapping, and portfolio and program management		EXPLORING Identifies and rationalizes demand Reviews new business, technology, and industry insights Identifies business value initiatives

Establish what success means for your focus areas

Brainstorm objectives and success areas for your BRM practice.

	VALUE HARVESTING Success may mean that you: Understand the drivers and what the business needs to attain Demonstrate focus on value in discussions Ensure value is achieved, tracking it during and beyond deployment	DEMAND SHAPING Success may mean that you: Understand the business Are engaged at business meetings (invited to the table) Understand IT; communicate clarity around IT to the business Help IT prioritize needs
	SERVICING Success may mean that you: Understand IT services and service levels that are required Provide clarity around services and communicate costs and risks	EXPLORING Success may mean that you: Surface new opportunities based on understanding of pain points and growth needs Research and partner with others to further the business Engage resources with a focus on the value to be delivered

2.3 Establish BRM goals

1 hour

Input: Mission and vision statements

Output: List of goals

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: CIO, IT management team, BRM team

1. Use the previous slides as a starting point – review the focus areas and sample associated objectives.
2. Determine if all apply to your role.
3. Brainstorm the objectives for your BRM practice.
4. Discuss and refine the objectives and goals until the team agrees on your starting set.
5. Leverage the workbook to establish the goals. Capture refined goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

Download the BRM Workbook

Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

PLAN

Guiding principles help you focus the development of your practice

3.1 Establish guiding principles (optional activity)

Input: Mission and vision statements

Output: BRM guiding principles

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Think about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as well as the overarching goals, mission, and vision.
2. Identify a set of principles that the BRM practice should have. Guiding principles are shared, long-lasting beliefs that guide the use of business relationship management in your organization.

Download the BRM Workbook

Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

Establish the BRM partner model and alignment

Having the right model and support is just as important as having the right people.

Don’t boil the ocean: Start small

It may be useful to pilot the BRM practice with a small group within the organization – this gives you the opportunity to learn from the pilot and share best practices as you expand your BRM practice. You can leverage the pilot business unit’s feedback to help obtain buy-in from additional groups. Evaluate the approaches for your pilot:	Work With an Engaged Business Unit This approach can allow you to find a champion group and establish quick wins.	Target Underperforming Area(s) This approach can allow you to establish significant wins, providing new opportunities for value.
	Target the Area(s) Driving the Most Business Value Provide the largest positive impact on your portfolio’s ability to drive business value; for large strategic or transformative goals.	Work Across a Single Business Process This approach addresses a single business process or operation that exists across business units, departments, or locations. This, again, will allow you to limit the number of stakeholders.

Leverage BRM goals to determine where the role fits within the organization

Strategic BRMs are considered IT leaders, often reporting to the CIO.

In product-aligned organizations, the product owners will own the strategic business relationship from a product perspective (often across LOB), while BRMs will own the strategic role for the line(s) of businesses (often across products) that they hold a relationship with. The BRM role may be played by a product family leader.

BRMs may take on a more operational function when they are embedded within another group, such as the PMO. This manifests in:

• Accountability for projects and programs
• BRM conversations around projects and programs rather than overall needs
• Often, there is less focus on stimulating need, more about managing demand
• This structure may be useful for smaller organizations or where organizations are piloting the relationship capability

Use the IT structure and the business structure to determine how to align BRM and business partners. Many organizations ensure that each LOB has a designated BRM, but each BRM may work with multiple LOBs. Ensure your alignment provides an even and manageable distribution of work.

Don’t be intimidated by those who play a significant role in relationship management

	Business Relationship Manager: Portfolio View Ongoing with broader organization-wide objectives A BRM’s strategic perspective is focused across projects and products	The BRM will look holistically across a portfolio, rather than on specific projects or products. Their focus is ensuring value is delivered that impacts the overall organization. Multiple BRMs may be responsible for lines of businesses and ensure that products and project enable LOBs effectively.
	Business Analyst: Product or Project View Works within a project or product Accomplishes specific objectives within the project/product	The BA tends to be involved in project work – to that end, they are often brought in a bit before a project begins to better understand the context. They also often remain after the project is complete to ensure project value is delivered. However, their main focus is on delivering the objectives within the project.
	Product Owner: Product View Ongoing and strategic view of entire product, with product-specific objectives	The Product Owner bridges the gap between the business and delivery to ensure their product continuously delivers value. Their focus is on the product.

3.2 Establish the BRM’s place in the organizational structure

Input: BRM goals, IT organizational structure, Business organizational structure

Output: BRM operating model

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Review the current organizational structure – both IT and overall business.
2. Think about the maturity of the IT organization and what you and your partners will be able to support at this stage in the relationship or journey. Establish whether it is necessary to start with a pilot.
3. Consider the reporting relationship that is required to support the desired maturity of your practice – who will your BRM function report into?
4. Consider the distribution of work from your business partners. Establish which BRM is responsible for which partners.
5. Document where the BRM fits in the organization in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

Download the BRM Workbook

Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

Align your titles to your business partners and ensure it demonstrates your strategic goals

Determine the expectations for your BRM role(s)

Below are standard expectations from BRM job descriptions. Establish whether there are changes required for your organization.

Determine role expectations (slide 2 of 3)

Determine role expectations (slide 3 of 3)

3.3 Establish BRM expectations

Input: BRM goals

Output: BRM expectations

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Review the BRM expectations on the previous slides.
2. Customize them – are they the appropriate set of expectations needed for your organization? What needs to be edited in or out?
3. Add relevant expectations – what are the things that need to be done in the BRM practice at your organization?
4. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm BRM expectations. Make sure you update them in the BRM Role Expectation Spreadsheet.

Download the BRM Workbook

Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

3.4 Identify roles with BRM responsibilities

Input: BRM goals

Output: BRM-aligned roles

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Various roles can play a part in the BRM practice, managing business relationships. Which ones make sense in your organization, given the BRM goals?
2. Identify the roles and capture in the BRM Role Expectation Spreadsheet. Use the Role Expectation Alignment tab, row 1.

Download the Role Expectations Worksheet

Determine the focus for each role that may manage business relationships

	STRATEGIC	Sets Direction: Focus of the activities is at the holistic, enterprise business level	“relating to the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests and the means of achieving them”	e.g. builds overarching relationships to enable and support the organization’s strategy; has strategic conversations
	TACTICAL	Figures Out the How: Focuses on the tactics required to achieve the strategic focus	“skillful in devising means to ends”	e.g. builds relationships specific to tactics (projects, products, etc.)
	OPERATIONAL	Executes on the Direction: Day-to-day operations; how things get done	“relating to the routine functioning and activities of a business or organization”	e.g. builds and leverages relationships to accomplish specific goals (within a project or product)

3.5 Align BRM capabilities to roles

Input: Current-state model, Business value matrix, Objectives and goals

Output: BRM-aligned roles

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Review each group of role expectations – Act as a Relationship Manager, Communicate with Business Stakeholders, etc. For each group, determine the focus each role can apply to it – strategic, tactical, or operational. Refer to the previous slide for examples.
2. Capture on the spreadsheet:
   • S – This role is required to have a strategic view of the capabilities. They are accountable and set direction for this aspect of relationship management.
   • T – Indicate if the role is required to have a tactical view of the capabilities. This would include whether the role is required to figure out how the capabilities will be done; for example, is the role responsible for carrying out service management or are they just involved to ensure that that set of expectations are being performed?
   • O – Indicate if the role will have an operational view – are they the ones responsible for doing the work?
   • Note: In some organizations, a role may have more than one of these.
3. The spreadsheet will highlight the cells in green if the role plays more of the strategic role, yellow for tactical, and brown for operational. This provides an overall visual of each role’s part in relationship management.
4. (Optional) Review each detailed expectation within the group. Evaluate whether specific roles will have a different focus on the unique role expectations.

Leverage the Role Expectations Worksheet

Sample role expectation alignment

IMPLEMENT

Speak the same language as your partners: Business Value

Business value represents the desired outcome from achieving business priorities.

Value is not only about revenue or reduced expenses. Use this internal-external and capability-financial business value matrix to more holistically consider what is valuable to stakeholders.

Improved Capabilities Enhance Services Products and services that enable business capabilities and improve an organization’s ability to perform its internal operations. Increase Customer Satisfaction Products and services that enable and improve the interaction with customers or produce practical market information and insights. Inward Outward Save Money Products and services that reduce overhead. They typically are less related to broad strategic vision or goals and more simply limit expenses that would occur had the product or service not put in place. Make money (Return on Investment) Products and services that are specifically related to the impact on an organization’s ability to create a return on investment. Financial Benefits

Business Value Matrix Axes: Financial Benefits vs. Improved Capabilities Improved capabilities refers to the enhancement of business capabilities and skill sets. Financial Benefits refers to the degree in which the value source can be measured through monetary metrics and is often highly tangible. Inward vs. Outward Orientation Inward refers to value sources that have an internal impact an organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in performing its operations. Outward refers to value sources that come from interactions with external factors, such as the market or your customers.

4.1 Activity: Brainstorm sources of business value

Input: Product and service knowledge, Business process knowledge

Output: Understanding of different sources of business value

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Identify your key stakeholders. These individuals are the critical business strategic partners in the organization’s governing bodies.
2. Brainstorm the different types of business value that the BRM practice can produce.
3. Is the item more focused on improving capabilities or generating financial benefits?
4. Is the item focused on the customers you serve or the IT team?
5. Enter your value item into a cell on the Business Value Matrix based on where it falls on these axes.
6. Start to think about metrics you can use to measure how effective the product or service is at generating the value source.

Use the BRM Workbook to capture sources of business value

Brainstorm the different sources of business value (continued)

See appendix for more information on value drivers:

Example: Enhance Services Dashboards/IT Situational Awareness Improve measurement of services for data-driven analytics that can improve services Collaborate to support Enterprise Architecture Approval for and support of new applications per customer demand Provide consultation for IT issues Reach Customers Provide technology roadmaps for IT services and devices Improved "PR" presence: websites, service catalog, etc. Enhance customer experience Faster Time-to-market delivering innovative technologies and current services Reduce Costs Achieve better pricing through enterprise agreements for IT services that are duplicated across several orgs Prioritization/ development of roadmap Portfolio management / reduce duplication of services Evolve resourcing strategies to integrate teams (e.g. do more with less) Return on Investment Customer -focused dashboards Encourage use of centralized services through external collaboration capabilities that fit multiple use cases Devise strategies for measured/supported migration from older IT systems/software

Implications of ineffective stakeholder management

Cheat Sheet: Identify stakeholders

Ask stakeholders “who else should I be talking to?” to discover additional stakeholders and ensure you don’t miss anyone.

List the people who are identified through the following questions:		Take a 360-degree view of potential internal and external stakeholders who might be impacted by the initiative.
Who will be adversely affected by potential environmental and social impacts in areas of influence that are affected by what you are doing? At which stage will stakeholders be most affected (e.g. procurement, implementation, operations, decommissioning)? Will other stakeholders emerge as the phases are started and completed? Who is sponsoring the initiative?	Who benefits from the initiative? Who loses from the initiative? Who can make approvals? Who controls resources? Who has specialist skills? Who implements the changes? Who are the owners, governors, customers, and suppliers to impacted capabilities or functions?	Executives Peers Direct reports Partners Customers		Subcontractors Suppliers Contractors Lobby groups Regulatory agencies

Establish your stakeholder network “map”

Follow the trail of breadcrumbs from your direct stakeholders to their influencers to uncover hidden stakeholders.

Your stakeholder map defines the influence landscape your BRM team operates in. It is every bit as important as the teams who enhance, support, and operate your products directly.

Notes on the network map

• Pay special attention to influencers who have many arrows; they are called “connectors,” and due to their diverse reach of influence, should themselves be treated as significant stakeholders.
• Don’t forget to consider the through-lines from one influencer through intermediate stakeholders or influencers to the final stakeholder – a single influencer may have additional influence via multiple, possibly indirect paths to a single stakeholder.

4.2 Visualize interrelationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

Input: List of stakeholders

Output: Relationships among stakeholders and influencers

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. List direct stakeholders for your area. Ensure it includes stakeholders across the organization (both IT and business units).
2. Determine the stakeholders of your stakeholders. Consider adding each of them to the stakeholder list: assess who has either formal or informal influence over your stakeholders; add these influencers to your stakeholder list.
3. Create a stakeholder network map to visualize relationships.
   • (Optional) Use black arrows to indicate the direction of professional influence.
   • (Optional) Use dashed green arrows to indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships.
4. Capture the list or diagram of your stakeholders in your workbook.

Categorize your stakeholders with a stakeholder prioritization map

A stakeholder prioritization map help teams categorize their stakeholders by their level or influence and ownership.

There are four areas in the map and the stakeholders within each area should be treated differently.

• Players – players have a high interest in the initiative and the influence to effect change over the initiative. Their support is critical and a lack of support can cause significant impediment to the objectives.
• Mediators – mediators have a low interest but significant influence over the initiative. They can help to provide balance and objective opinions to issues that arise.
• Noisemakers – noisemakers have low influence but high interest. They tend to be very vocal and engaged, either positively or negatively, but have little ability to enact their wishes.
• Spectators – generally, spectators are apathetic and have little influence over or interest in the initiative.

4.3 Group your stakeholders into categories

Input: Stakeholder Map

Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

Use the BRM Workbook to map your stakeholders

Define strategies for engaging stakeholders by type

Each group of stakeholders draws attention and resources away from critical tasks.

By properly identifying your stakeholder groups, you can develop corresponding actions to manage stakeholders in each group. This can dramatically reduce wasted effort trying to satisfy Spectators and Noisemakers while ensuring the needs of the Mediators and Players are met.

Prioritize your stakeholders

There may be too many stakeholders to be able to manage them all. Focus your attention on the stakeholders that matter most.

Apply a third dimension for stakeholder prioritization: support.

Support, in addition to interest and influence, is used to prioritize which stakeholders are should receive the focus of your attention. This table indicates how stakeholders are ranked:

Support can be determined by rating the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would recommend IT at your organization/your group? Our four categories of support:

• Blocker – beware of the blocker. These stakeholders do not support your cause and have the necessary drive to impede the achievement of your objectives.
• Semi-Supporter – while these stakeholders are committed to your objectives, they are somewhat apathetic to advocate on your behalf. They will support you so long as it does not require much effort from them to do so.
• Neutral – neutrals do not have much commitment to your objectives and are not willing to expend much energy to either support or detract from them.
• Supporter – these stakeholders are committed to your initiative and are willing to whole-heartedly provide you with support.

4.4 Update your stakeholder quadrant to include the three dimensions

Input: Stakeholder Map

Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Identify the level of support of each stakeholder by answering the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would support your initiative/endeavor?
2. Map your results to the model in your workbook to determine each stakeholder’s category.

Use the BRM Workbook to map your stakeholders

Leverage your map to think about how to engage with your stakeholders

4.5 Create your engagement plan

Input: Stakeholder Map/list of stakeholders

Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Leverage the BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan spreadsheet. List your key stakeholders.
2. Consider: how do you show value at your current maturity level so that you can gain trust and your relationship can mature? Establish where your relationship lacks maturity, and consider whether you need to engage with them on a more strategic, tactical, or even operational manner.
   • At lower levels of maturity (Table Stakes), focus on service delivery, project delivery, and communication.
   • At mid-level maturity (Influencer/Advocate), focus on business pain points and a deeper knowledge of the business.
   • At higher maturity levels (Value Creator/Innovator), focus on creating value by leading innovative initiatives that drive the business forward.
3. Review the stakeholder quadrant. Update the frequency of your communication accordingly.
4. Capture the agenda for your engagements with them.

Your agenda should vary with the maturity of your relationship

Lower Maturity – Focus on service delivery, project delivery, and communication

Mid-Level Maturity – Focus on business pain points and a deeper knowledge of the business

Higher Maturity – Focus on creating value by leading innovative initiatives that drive the business forward

Stakeholder – Include both IT and business stakeholders at appropriate levels

Agenda – Manage stakeholders expectations, and clarify how your agenda will progress as the partnership matures

REASSESS & EMBED

Determine whether your business is satisfied with IT

	1	Survey your stakeholders to measure improvements in customer satisfaction.		Leverage the CIO Business Vision on a regular interval – most find that annual assessments drive success. Evaluate whether the addition or increased maturity of your BRM practice has improved satisfaction with IT.
	Business satisfaction survey Audience: Business leaders Frequency: Annual Metrics: Overall Satisfaction score Overall Value score Relationship Satisfaction: Understand needs Meet needs Communication

Check if you’ve met the BRM goals you set out to achieve

	2	Measure BRM success against the goals for the practice.		Evaluate whether the BRM practice has helped IT to meet the goals that you’ve established. For each of your goals, create metrics to establish how you will know if you’ve been successful. This might be how many or what type of interactions you have with your stakeholders, and/or it could be new connections with internal or external partners. Ensure you have established metrics to measure success at your goals.

5.1 Create metrics

Input: Goals, The attributes which can align to goal success

Output: Measurements of success

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Start with a consideration of your goals and objectives.
2. Identify key aspects that can support confirming if the goal was successful.
3. For each aspect, develop a method to measure success with a specific measurement.
4. When creating the KPI consider:
   • How you know if you are achieving your objective (performance)?
   • How frequently will you be measuring this?
   • Are you looking for an increase, decrease, or maintenance of the metric?

Use the BRM Workbook

Don’t wait all year to find out if you’re on track

Leverage the below questions to quickly poll your business partners on a more frequent basis.

Partner instructions: Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. Use a scale of 1-5, where 1 is low agreement and 5 indicates strong agreement: Demand Shaping: My BRM is at the table and seeks to understand my business. They help me understand IT and helps IT prioritize my needs. Exploring: My BRM surfaces new opportunities based on their understanding of my pain points and growth needs. They engage resources with a focus on the value to be delivered. Servicing: The BRM obtains an understanding of the services and service levels that are required, clarifies them, and communicates costs and risks. Value Harvesting: Focus on value is evident in discussions – the BRM supports IT in ensuring value realization is achieved and tracks value during and beyond deployment.

Embedding the BRM practice also includes acknowledging the BRM’s part in balancing the IT portfolio

IT needs to juggle “keeping the lights on” initiatives with those required to add value to the organization. Partner with the appropriate resources (Project Management Office, Product Owners, System Owners, and/or others as appropriate within your organization) to ensure that all initiatives focus on value. Info-Tech Insight Not every organization will balance their portfolio in the same way. Some organizations have higher risk tolerance and so their higher priority goals may require that they accept more risk to potentially reap more returns.

80% of organizations feel their portfolios are dominated by low-value initiatives that do not deliver value to the business. (Source: Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute, March/April 2009)

5.2 Prioritize your investments/ projects (optional activity)

Input: Value criteria

Output: Prioritized project listing

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Review and edit (if necessary) the criteria on tab 2 the Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.
   
2. Score initiatives and investments on tab 3 using your criteria.
   

5.3 Create a portfolio investment map (optional activity)

Input: Business capability map

Output: Portfolio investment map

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Build a capability map, outlining the value streams that support your organization’s goals and the high-level capabilities (level 1) that support the value stream (and goals).
   For more support in establishing the capability map, see Document Your Business Architecture.
   
2. Identify high-value capabilities for the organization.
3. What are the projects and initiatives that will address the critical capabilities? Add these under the high-value capabilities.
4. This process will help you demonstrate how projects align to business goals. Enter your capabilities and projects in Info-Tech’s Initiative Portfolio Map Template.

Establish your annual BRM plan

To support the BRM capability at your organization, you’ll want to communicate your plan. This will include: Business Feedback and Engagement Engaging with your partners includes meeting with them on a regular basis. Establish this frequency and capture it in your plan. This engagement must include an understanding of their goals and challenges. As Bill Gates said, “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve” (Inc.com, 2013). There are various points in the year which will provide you with the opportunity to understand your business partners’ views of IT or the BRM role. List the opportunities to reflect on this feedback in your plan. Business-IT Alignment Bring together the views and perspectives of IT and the business. List the activities that will be required to reflect business goals in IT. These include IT goals, budget, and planning. BRM Improvement The practices put in place to support the BRM practice need to continuously evolve to support a maturing organization. The feedback from stakeholders throughout the organization will provide input into this. Ensure there are activities and time put aside to evaluate the improvements required.

5.4 Establish your year-in-the-life plan

Input: Engagement plan, BRM goals

Output: Annual BRM plan

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Start with your business planning activities – what will you as a BRM be doing as your business establishes their plans and strategies? These could include:
   • Listening and feedback sessions
   • Third-party explorations
2. Then look at your activities required to integrate within IT – what activities are required to align business directives within your IT groups? Examples can include:
   • Business strategy review
   • Capability map creation
   • Input into the Business-aligned IT strategy
   • IT budget input
3. What activities are required to continuously improve the BRM role? This may consist of:
   • Feedback discussions with business partners
   • Roadshow with colleagues to communicate and refine the practice
4. Map these on your annual calendar that can be shared with your colleagues.

Capture in the BRM Workbook Communicate using the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

Sample BRM annual cycle

5.5 Build your transformation roadmap

Input: SWOT analysis

Output: Transformation roadmap

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. Brainstorm and discuss the key enablers that are needed to help promote and ease your BRM program.
2. Brainstorm and discuss the key blockers (or risks) that may interrupt or derail your BRM program.
3. Brainstorm mitigation activities for each blocker.
4. Enablers and mitigation activities can be listed on your transformation roadmap.

Example:

Capture in the BRM Workbook

5.5 Build your transformation roadmap (cont’d)

5. Roadmap Elements:
   • List the artifacts, changes, or actions needed to implement the new BRM program.
   • For each item, identify how long it will take to implement or change by moving it into the appropriate swim lane. Use timing that makes sense for your organization: Quick Wins, Short Term, and Long Term; Now, Next, and Later; or Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4.

Communicate the BRM changes to set your practice up for success

Leaders of successful change spend considerable time developing a powerful change message, i.e. a compelling narrative that articulates the desired end state, and that makes the change concrete and meaningful to staff. The change message should: Explain why the change is needed. Summarize what will stay the same. Highlight what will be left behind. Emphasize what is being changed. Explain how change will be implemented. Address how change will affect various roles in the organization. Discuss the staff’s role in making the change successful.

Five elements of communicating change (Source: The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change)

Apply the following communication principles to make your BRM changes relevant to stakeholders

“We tend to use a lot of jargon in our discussions, and that is a sure fire way to turn people away. We realized the message wasn’t getting out because the audience wasn’t speaking the same language. You have to take it down to the next level and help them understand where the needs are.” (Jeremy Clement, Director of Finance, College of Charleston, Info-Tech Interview, 2018)

5.6 Create a communications plan tailored to each of your stakeholders

Input: Prioritized list of stakeholders

Output: Communication Plan

Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

Participants: Team

1. List stakeholders in order of importance in the first column.
2. Identify the frequency with which you will communicate to each group.
3. Determine the scope of the communication:
   • What key information needs to be included in the message to ensure they are informed and on board?
   • Which medium(s) will you use to communicate to that specific group?
4. Develop a concrete timeline that will be followed to ensure that support is maintained from the key stakeholders.

Related Blueprints

Business Value Measure IT Project Value Establish a process for effectively articulating and forecasting business value in projects. Maximize Business Value From IT through Benefits Realization Integrate a consistent view of value into the enterprise through governance. Service Catalog Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog Provide business users with a view of IT services in a language that they can understand. Intake Management Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization Create an intake process aligned to project value.

Selected Bibliography

“Apple Mission and Vision Analysis.” Mission Statement Academy, 23 May 2019. Accessed 5 November 2020.

Barnes, Aaron. “Business Relationship Manager and Plan Build Run.” BRM Institute, 8 April 2014.

Barnes, Aaron. “Starting a BRM Team - Business Relationship Management Institute.” BRM Institute, 5 June 2013. Web.

BRM Institute. “Business Partner Maturity Model.” Member Templates and Examples, Online Campus, n.d. Accessed 3 December 2021.

BRM Institute. “BRM Assessment Templates and Examples.” Member Templates and Examples, Online Campus, n.d. Accessed 24 November 2021.

Brusnahan, Jim, et al. “A Perfect Union: BRM and Agile Development and Delivery.” BRM Institute, 8 December 2020. Web.

Business Relationship Management: The BRMP Guide to the BRM Body of Knowledge. Second printing ed., BRM Institute, 2014.

Chapman, Chuck. “Building a Culture of Trust - Remote Leadership Institute.” Remote Leadership Institute, 10 August 2021. Accessed 27 January 2022.

“Coca Cola Mission and Vision Analysis.” Mission Statement Academy, 4 August 2019. Accessed 5 November 2020.

Colville, Alan. “Shared Vision.” UX Magazine, 31 October 2011. Web.

Cooper, Robert, G. “Effective Gating: Make product innovation more productive by using gates with teeth.” Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute, March/April 2009. Web.

Heller, Martha. “How CIOs Can Make Business Relationship Management (BRM) Work.” CIO, 1 November 2016. Accessed 27 January 2022.

“How Many Business Relationship Managers Should You Have.” BRM Institute, 20 March 2013. Web.

Hull, Patrick. “Answer 4 Questions to Get a Great Mission Statement.” Forbes, 10 January 2013. Web.

Kasperkevic, Jana. “Bill Gates: Good Feedback Is the Key to Improvement.” Inc.com, 17 May 2013. Web.

Merlyn, Vaughan. “Relationships That Matter to the BRM.” BRM Institute, 19 October 2016. Web.

“Modernizing IT’s Business Relationship Manager Role.” The Hackett Group, 22 November 2019. Web.

Monroe, Aaron. “BRMs in a SAFe World...That Is, a Scaled Agile Framework Model.” BRM Institute, 5 January 2021. Web.

Selected Bibliography

“Operational, adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2021. Accessed 29 January 2022.

Sinek, Simon. “Transcript of ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action.’” TEDxPuget Sound, September 2009. Accessed 7 November 2020.

“Strategic, Adj. and n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2016. Accessed 27 January 2022.

“Tactical, Adj.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2018. Accessed 27 January 2022.

“The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change.” Cornelius & Associates, 23 September 2013. Web.

“Twice the Business Value in Half the Time: When Agile Methods Meet the Business Relationship Management Role.” BRM Institute, 10 April 2015. Web.

“Value Streams.” Scaled Agile Framework, 30 June 2020. Web.

Ward, John. “Delivering Value from Information Systems and Technology Investments: Learning from Success.” Information Systems Research Centre, August 2006. Web.

Appendix

• Business Value Drivers
• Service Blueprint
• Stakeholder Communications
• Job Descriptions

Understand business value drivers for ROI and cost

Understand Business Value Drivers that Enhance Your Services

Understand Business Value Drivers that Connect the Business to Your Customers

Service Blueprint

Service design involves an examination of the people, process and technology involved in delivering a service to your customers.

Service blueprinting provides a visual of how these are connected together. It enables you to identify and collaborate on improvements to an existing service.

The main components of a service blueprint are:

Customer actions – this anchors the service in the experiences of the customer

Front-stage – this shows the parts of the service that are visible to the customer

Back-stage – this is the behind-the-scenes actions necessary to deliver the experience to the customer

Support processes – this is what’s necessary to deliver the back-stage (and front-stage/customer experience), but is not aligned from a timing perspective (e.g. it doesn’t matter if the fridge is stocked when the order is put in, as long as the supplies are available for the chef to use)

Physical Evidence and Time are blueprint components can be added in to provide additional context & support

Stakeholder Communications

BRM Job Descriptions

Download the Job Descriptions:

• Business Relationship Manager – Level 1
• Business Relationship Manager – Level 2
• Business Relationship Manager – Level 3
• IT Business Relationship Manager

Contents

Create a Data Management Roadmap

Ensure the right capabilities to support your data strategy.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Establish a data management program to realize the data strategy vision and data-driven organization.

Data is one of the most valuable organizational assets, and data management is the foundation – made up of plans, programs, and practices – that delivers, secures, and enhances the value of those assets.

Digital transformation in how we do business and innovations like artificial intelligence and automation that deliver exciting experiences for our customers are all powered by readily available, trusted data. And there’s so much more of it.

A data management roadmap designed for where you are in your business journey and what’s important to you provides tangible answers to “Where do we start?” and “What do we do?”

This blueprint helps you build and enhance data management capabilities as well as identify the next steps for evaluating, strengthening, harmonizing, and optimizing these capabilities, aligned precisely with business objectives and data strategy.

Frame the problem

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Use value streams and business capabilities to develop a prioritized and practical data management plan that provides the highest business satisfaction in the shortest time.

Data Management Capabilities

Data is a business asset and needs to be treated like one

Data management is an enabler of the business and therefore needs to be driven by business goals and objectives. For data to be a strategic asset of the business, the business and IT processes that support its delivery and management must be mature and clearly executed.

Industry spotlight: Risk management in the financial services sector

Industry spotlight: Operational excellence in the public sector

Industry spotlight: Operational excellence and client intimacy in major league sports

Industry spotlight: Operational excellence and service delivery within manufacturing and supply chain services

Industry spotlight: Intelligent product innovation and strong product portfolios differentiate consumer retailers and CPGs

Changes in business and technology are changing how organizations use and manage data

To differentiate and remain competitive in today’s marketplace, organizations are becoming more data-driven

	Analytic Competitor “Given the unforgiving competitive landscape, organizations have to transform now, and correctly. Winning requires an outcome-focused analytics strategy.” (Ramya Srinivasan, Forbes, 2021)
Data and the use of data analytics has become a centerpiece to effective modern business. Top-performing organizations across a variety of industries have been cited as using analytics five times more than lower performers (MIT Sloan).

The strategic value of data

Power intelligent and transformative organizational performance through leveraging data.

Despite investments in data initiatives, organizations are carrying high levels of data debt

Data debt is the accumulated cost that is associated with the suboptimal governance of data assets in an enterprise, like technical debt.

(Source: Experian, 2020)

Build a right-sized roadmap

Formulate an actionable roadmap that is right-sized to deliver value in your organization.

• When building your data management roadmap, ensure you do so through an enterprise lens. Be cognizant of other initiatives that might be coming down the pipeline that may require you to align your data governance milestones accordingly.
• Apart from doing your planning with consideration for other big projects or launches that might be in-flight and require the time and attention of your data management partners, also be mindful of the more routine yet still demanding initiatives.
• When doing your roadmapping, consider factors like the organization’s fiscal cycle, typical or potential year-end demands, and monthly/quarterly reporting periods and audits. Initiatives such as these are likely to monopolize the time and focus of personnel key to delivering on your data management milestones

Insight summary

Overarching insight

Tactical insight

Data management is the program and environment we build once we have direction, i.e. a data strategy, and we have formed an ongoing channel with the guiding voice of the business via data governance. Without an ultimate goal in a strategy or the real requirements of the business, what are we building data systems and processes for? We are used to tech buzz words and placing our hope in promising innovations like artificial intelligence. There are no shortcuts, but there are basic proven actions we can take to meet the digital revolution head on and let our data boost our journey.

Measure the value of this blueprint

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

Create a Data Management Roadmap project overview

Guided Implementation

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

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

What is the current situation?

Info-Tech’s Data Management Framework

What Is Data Management?

“Data management is the development, execution, and supervision of plans, policies, programs and practices that deliver, control, protect and enhance the value of data and information assets throughout their lifecycles.” (DAMA International, 2017)

Adapted from DAMA-DMBOK and Advanced Knowledge Innovations Global Solutions

Info-Tech’s Approach

Info-Tech’s Data Management Framework is designed to show how an organization’s business model sits as the foundation of its data management practice. Drawing from the requirements of the underpinning model, a practice is designed and maintained through the creation and application of the enablers and dimensions of data management.

Build a data management practice that is centered on supporting the business and its use of key data assets

Business Resources Data subject areas provide high-level views of the data assets that are used in business processes and enable an organization to perform its business functions. Classified by specific subjects, these groups reflect data elements that, when used effectively, are able to support analytical and operational use cases of data. This layer is representative of the delivery of the data assets and the business’ consumption of the data. Data is an integral business asset that exists across all areas of an organization

For a data management practice to be effective it ultimately must show how its capabilities and operations better support the business in accessing and leveraging its key data assets.* *This project focuses on building capabilities for data management. Leverage our data quality management research to support you in assessing the performance of this model.

Information dimensions support the different types of data present within an organization’s environment

Information Dimensions Components at the Information Dimensions layer manage the different types of data and information present with an environment. At this layer, data is managed based on its type and how the business is looking to use and access the data. Custom capabilities are developed at this level to support: Structured data Semi-structured data Unstructured data The types, formats, and structure of the data are managed at this level using the data management enablers to support their successful execution and performance.

Build a data management practice with strong process capabilities

Use Info-Tech’s assessment framework to support your organization’s data management planning

Create a Data Management Roadmap

Phase 1

Build Business Context and Drivers for the Data Management Program

Step 1.1

Review the Data Management Framework

Activities

1.1.1 Walk through the main parts of the best-practice Data Management Framework

Data Management Capabilities

Build a Robust & Comprehensive Data Strategy

Info-Tech’s Data Governance Framework

Info-Tech’s Reporting and Analytics Framework

Formulating an enterprise reporting and analytics strategy requires the business vision and strategies to first be substantiated. Any optimization to the data warehouse, integration, and source layers is in turn driven by the enterprise reporting and analytics strategy. The current states of your integration and warehouse platforms determine what data can be used for BI and analytics.

Your enterprise reporting and analytics strategy is driven by your organization’s vision and corporate strategy.

Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Framework

Info-Tech’s methodology: Prioritize your core business objectives and identify your business driver. Learn how business drivers apply to specific tiers of Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture model. Determine the appropriate tactical pattern that addresses your most important requirements.
Select the areas of the five-tier architecture to focus on. Measure your current state. Set the targets of your desired optimized state.
Roadmap your tactics. Manage and communicate change.

Info-Tech’s Enterprise Content Management Framework

Metadata management/Data cataloging

Info-Tech’s Data Integration Framework

On one hand… Data has massive potential to bring insight to an organization when combined and analyzed in creative ways. On the other hand… It is difficult to bring data together from different sources to generate insights and prevent stale data. How can these two ideas be reconciled? Answer: Info-Tech’s Data Integration Onion Framework summarizes an organization’s data environment at a conceptual level and is used to design a common data-centric integration environment.

Info-Tech’s Data Integration Onion Framework

Data-centric integration is the solution you need to bring data together to break down data silos.

Info-Tech’s Master Data Management Framework

Master data management (MDM) “entails control over Master Data values and identifiers that enable consistent use, across systems, of the most accurate and timely data about essential business entities” (DAMA, 2017). Fundamental objective of MDM: Enable the business to see one view of critical data elements across the organization.

Data architecture and modeling processes

Info-Tech Insight

The Conceptual data model adds relationships to your business data glossary terms and is the first step of the modeling journey.

Data operations

Objectives of Data Operations Management Implement and follow policies and procedures to manage data at each stage of its lifecycle. Maintain the technology supporting the flow and delivery of data (applications, databases, systems, etc.). Control the delivery of data within the system environment. Indicators of Successful Data Operations Management Effective delivery of data assets to end users. Successful maintenance and performance of the technical environment that collects, stores, delivers, and purges organizational data.

Step 1.2

Understand and Align to Business Drivers

Activities

1.2.1 Define your value streams

1.2.2 Identify your business capabilities

1.2.3 Categorize your organization’s key business capabilities

1.2.4 Develop a strategy map tied to data management

Build Business Context and Drivers

Identifying value streams

1.2.1 Define value streams

Input: Business strategy/goals, Financial statements, Info-Tech’s industry-specific business architecture

Output: List of organization-specific value streams, Detailed value stream definition(s)

Materials: Whiteboard/kanban board, Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template – contact your Account Representative for details, Other industry standard reference architecture models: BIZBOK, APQC, etc., Info-Tech’s Archimate models

Participants: Enterprise/Business Architect, Business Analysts, Business Unit Leads, CIO, Departmental Executive & Senior managers

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

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

Contact your Account Representative for access to Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template

Define or validate the organization’s value streams

Example of value streams – Retail Banking

Example value stream descriptions for: Retail Banking

Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Retail Banking.

Example of value streams – Higher Education

Example value stream descriptions for: Higher Education

Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Higher Education.

Example of value streams – Local Government

Example value stream descriptions for: Local Government

Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Local Government.

Example of value streams – Manufacturing

Example value stream descriptions for: Manufacturing

Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Manufacturing.

Define the organization’s business capabilities in a business capability map

1.2.2 Identify your business capabilities

Input: List of confirmed value streams and their related business capabilities

Output: Business capability map with value streams for your organization

Materials: Your existing business capability map, Business Alignment worksheet provided in the Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool, Info-Tech’s Document Your Business Architecture blueprint

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data leads and administrators

Confirm your organization's existing business capability map or initiate the formulation of a business capability map:

• If you have an existing business capability map, meet with the relevant business owners/stakeholders to confirm that the content is accurate and up to date. Confirm the value streams (how your organization creates and captures value) and their business capabilities reflect the organization’s current business environment.
• If you do not have an existing business capability map, complete this activity to initiate the formulation of a map (value streams and related business capabilities):
  1. Define the organization’s value streams. Meet with senior leadership and other key business stakeholders to define how your organization creates and captures value.
  2. Define the relevant business capabilities. Meet with senior leadership and other key business stakeholders to define the business capabilities.

Note: A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation. Business capabilities are business terms defined using nouns such as “Marketing” or “Research and Development.” They represent stable business functions, are unique and independent of one another, and typically will have a defined business outcome.

1.2.3 Categorize your organization’s key capabilities

Input: Strategic insight from senior business stakeholders on the business capabilities that drive value for the organization

Output: Business capabilities categorized and prioritized (e.g. cost advantage creators, competitive advantage differentiators, high value/high risk) See next slide for an example

Materials: Your existing business capability map or the business capability map derived in Activity 1.2.2

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data governance working group

Determine which capabilities are considered high priority in your organization.

1. Categorize or heatmap the organization’s key capabilities. Consult with senior and other key business stakeholders to categorize and prioritize the business’ capabilities. This will aid in ensuring your data governance future-state planning is aligned with the mandate of the business. One approach to prioritizing capabilities with business stakeholders is to examine them through the lens of cost advantage creators, competitive advantage differentiators, and/or by high value/high risk.
2. Identify cost advantage creators. Focus on capabilities that drive a cost advantage for your organization. Highlight these capabilities and prioritize programs that support them.
3. Identify competitive advantage differentiators. Focus on capabilities that give your organization an edge over rivals or other players in your industry.

This categorization/prioritization exercise helps highlight prime areas of opportunity for building use cases, determining prioritization, and the overall optimization of data and data governance.

For more information, refer to Info-Tech’s Document Your Business Architecture.

1.2.4 Develop a strategy map tied to data management

Input: Strategic objectives as outlined by the organization’s business strategy and confirmed by senior leaders

Output: A strategy map that maps your organizational strategic objectives to value streams, business capabilities, and ultimately data programs

Materials: Your existing business capability map or the one created in Activity 1.2.2, Business strategy (see next slide for an example)

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data governance working group

Identify the strategic objectives for the business. Knowing the key strategic objectives will drive business–data governance alignment. It’s important to make sure the right strategic objectives of the organization have been identified and are well understood.

1. Meet with senior business leaders and other relevant stakeholders to help identify and document the key strategic objectives for the business.
2. Leverage their knowledge of the organization’s business strategy and strategic priorities to visually represent how these map to value streams, business capabilities, and ultimately data and data governance needs and initiatives. Tip: Your map is one way to visually communicate and link the business strategy to other levels of the organization.
3. Confirm the strategy mapping with other relevant stakeholders.

Step 1.3

Build High-Value Use Cases for Data Management

Activities

1.3.1 Build high-value use cases

Build Business Context and Drivers

1.3.1 Build high-value use cases

Input: Value streams and business capabilities as defined by business leaders, Business stakeholders’ subject area expertise, Data custodian systems, integration, and data knowledge

Output: Use cases that articulate data-related challenges, needs, or opportunities that are tied to defined business capabilities and hence, if addressed, will deliver measurable value to the organization

Materials: Your business capability map from Activity 1.2.2, Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template, Whiteboard or flip charts (or shared screen if working remotely), Markers/pens

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards and business SMEs, Data custodians, Data leads and administrators

This business needs gathering activity will highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities that are clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owner, stewards, SMEs) from a particular line of business as well the relevant data custodian(s) to build cases for their units. Leverage the business capability map you created for facilitating this act.
2. Leverage Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template as seen on the next slide.
3. Have the stakeholders move through each breakout session outlined in the use case worksheet. Use flip charts or a whiteboard to brainstorm and document their thoughts.
4. Debrief and document results in the Data Use Case Framework Template.
5. Repeat this exercise with as many lines of the business as possible, leveraging your business capability map to guide your progress and align with business value.

Tip: Don’t conclude these use case discussions without substantiating what measures of success will be used to demonstrate the business value of the effort to produce the desired future state, as relevant to each particular use case.

Download Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template

The following is the list of use cases as articulated by key stakeholders at [Organization Name].

The stakeholders see these as areas that are relevant and highly valuable for delivering strategic value to [Organization Name].

Use Case 1: Customer/Student/Patient/Resident 360 View

Use Case 2: Project/Department Financial Performance

Use Case 3: Vendor Lifecycle Management

Use Case 4: Project Risk Management

Prioritization of use cases

Problem statement:

• We are not realizing our full growth potential because we do not have a unified 360 view of our customers/clients/[name of external stakeholder].
• This impacts: our cross-selling; upselling; talent acquisition and retention; quality of delivery; ability to identify and deliver the right products, markets, and services...

If we could solve this:

• We would be able to better prioritize and position ourselves to meet evolving customer needs.
• We would be able to optimize the use of our limited resources.

1. What is the number one risk you need to alleviate?
   • Loss of potential revenue, whether from existing or net new customers.
     • How?
       • By not maximizing opportunities with customers or even by losing customers; by not understanding or addressing their greatest needs
       • By not being able to win potential new customers because we don’t understand their needs
2. What is the number one opportunity you wish to see happen?
   • The ability to better understand and anticipate the needs of both existing and potential customers.
3. What is the number one pain point you have when working with data?
   • I can’t do my job with confidence because it’s not based on comprehensive, sound, reliable data. My group spends significant time reconciling data sets with little time left for data use and analysis.
4. What are your challenges in performing the activity today?
   • I cannot pull together customer data in a timely manner due to having a high level of dependence on specific individuals with institutional knowledge rather than having easy access to information.
   • It takes too much time and effort to pull together what we know about a customer.
   • The necessary data is not consolidated or readily/systematically available for consumption.
   • These challenges are heightened when dealing with customers across markets.

5. What does “amazing” look like if we solve this perfectly?
   • Employees have immediate, self-service access to necessary information, leading to better and more timely decisions. This results in stronger business and financial growth.
6. What other business unit activities/processes will be impacted/improved if we solve this?
   • Marketing/bid and proposal, staffing, procurement, and contracting strategy
7. What compliance/regulatory/policy concerns do we need to consider in any solution?
   • PII, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, etc.
8. What measures of success/change should we use to prove the value of the effort (KPIs/ROI)?
   • Win rate, number of services per customer, gross profit, customer retention, customer satisfaction scores, brand awareness, and net promoter score
9. What are the steps in the process/activity today?
   • Manual aggregation (i.e. pull data from systems into Excel), reliance on unwritten knowledge, seeking IT support, canned reports

10. What are the applications/systems used at each step?
    • Salesforce CRM, Excel, personal MS Access databases, SharePoint
11. What data elements (domains) are involved, created, used, or transformed at each step?
    • Bid and proposal information, customer satisfaction, forecast data, list of products, corporate entity hierarchy, vendor information, key staffing, recent and relevant news, and competitor intelligence

Use case worksheet

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Step 1.4

Create a Vision and Guiding Principles for Data Management

Activities

1.4.1 Craft a vision

1.4.2 Create guiding principles

Build Business Context and Drivers

1.4.1 Craft a vision

Input: Organizational vision and mission statements, Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data capability map

Output: Vision and mission statements

Materials: Markers and pens, Whiteboard, Online whiteboard, Vision samples and templates

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data managers, Data owners, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor

Complete the vision statement to set the direction, the “why,” for the changes we’re making. The vision is a reference point that should galvanize everyone in the organization and set guardrails for technical and process decisions to follow.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (content owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to craft a data management vision statement.
2. Start by brainstorming keywords, such as customer-focused, empower the business, service excellence, findable and manageable, protected, accessible, paperless.
3. Highlight the keywords that resonate most with the group. Refer to example vision statements for ideas.

Create compelling vision and mission statements for the organization’s future data management practice

Data Management Vision and Mission Statements: Draft

Information management framework

The information management framework is a way to organize all the ECM program’s guidelines and artifacts

The vision is a statement about the organization’s goals and provides a basis to guide decisions and rally employees toward a shared goal. The principles or themes communicate the organization’s priorities for its information management program. Policies are a set of official guidelines that determine a course of action. For example: Company is committed to safety for its employees. Procedures are a set of actions for doing something. For example: Company employees will wear protective gear while on the production floor.

Craft your vision

Use the insights you gathered from users and stakeholders to develop a vision statement The beginning of a data management practice is a clear set of goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). A good set of goals takes time and input from senior leadership and stakeholders. The data management program lead is selling a compelling vision of what is possible. The vision also helps set the scope and expectations about what the data management program lead is and is not doing. Be realistic about what you can do and how long it will take to see a difference. Example vision statements: The organization is dedicated to creating an enabling structure that helps the organization get the right information to the right people at the right time. The organization is dedicated to creating a program that recognizes data as an asset, establishing a data-centric culture, and ensuring data quality and accessibility to achieve service excellence.

The vision should be short, memorable, inspirational and draw a clear picture of what that future-state data management experience looks like. Is it modern and high end, with digital self-service? Is it a trusted and transparent steward of customer assets?

1.4.2 Create guiding principles

Input: Sample data management guiding principles, Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data capability map

Output: Data management guiding principles

Materials: Markers and pens, Whiteboard, Online whiteboard, Guiding principles samples and templates

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data managers, Data owners, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor

Draft a set of guiding principles that express your program’s values as a framework for decisions and actions and keep the data strategy alive.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to craft a set of data management guiding principles.
2. Refer to industry sample guiding principles for data management.
3. Discuss what’s important to stakeholders and owners, e.g. security, transparency, integrity. Good guiding principles address real challenges.
4. A helpful tip: Craft principles as “We will…” statements for the problems you’ve identified.

Create a Data Management Roadmap

Phase 2

Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

Step 2.1

Assess Your Data Management Capabilities

Activities

2.1.1 Define current state of data management capabilities

2.1.2 Set target state and identify gaps

Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

2.1.1 Define current state

Input: Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data management capability map

Output: Current-state data management capabilities

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Assign a maturity level value from 1 to 5 for each question in the assessment tool, organized into capabilities, e.g. Data Governance, Data Quality, Risk.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to assign current-state maturity levels in each question of the worksheet.
2. Remember that there is more distance between levels 4 and 5 than there is between 1 and 2 – the distance between levels is not even throughout.
3. To help assign values, think of the higher levels as representing cross-enterprise standardization, monitored for continuous improvement, formalized and standardized, while the lower levels mean applied within individual units, not formalized or tracked for performance.
4. In tab 4, “Current State Assessment,” populate a current-state value for each item in the Data Management Capabilities worksheet.
5. Once you’ve entered values in tab 4, a visual and summary report of the results will be generated on tab 5, “Current State Results.”

2.1.2 Set target state and identify gaps

Input: Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data management capability map to identify priorities

Output: Target-state data management capabilities, Gaps identification and analysis

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Assign a maturity level value from 1 to 5 for each question in the assessment tool, organized into capabilities, e.g., Data Governance, Data Quality, Risk.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to assign target-state maturity levels in each question of the worksheet.
2. Remember that there is more distance between levels 4 and 5 than there is between 1 and 2 – the distance between levels is not even throughout.
3. To help assign values, think of the higher levels as representing cross-enterprise standardization, monitored for continuous improvement, formalized and standardized, while the lower levels mean applied within individual units, not formalized or tracked for performance.
4. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” enter maturity values in each item of the Capabilities worksheet in the Target State column.
5. Once you’ve assigned both target-state and current-state values, the tool will generate a gap analysis chart on tab 7, “Gap Analysis Results,” where you can start to decide first- and second-line priorities.

Step 2.2

Build Your Data Management Roadmap

Activities

2.2.1 Describe gaps

2.2.2 Define gap initiatives

2.2.2 Build a data management roadmap

Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

2.2.1 Describe gaps

Input: Target-state maturity level

Output: Detail and context about gaps to lead planners to specific initiatives

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Based on the gaps result, describe the nature of the gap, which will lead to specific initiatives for the data management plan:

1. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” the same tab where you entered your target-state maturity level, enter additional context about the nature and extent of each gap in the Gap Description column.
2. Based on the best-practices framework we walked through in Phase 1, note the specific areas that are not fully developed in your organization; for example, we don’t have a model of our environment and its integrations, or there isn’t an established data quality practice with proactive monitoring and intervention.

2.2.2 Define gap initiatives

Input: Gaps analysis, Gaps descriptions

Output: Data management initiatives

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Based on the gap analysis, start to define the data management initiatives that will close the gaps and help the organization achieve its target state.

1. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” the same tab where you entered your target-state maturity level, note in the Gap Initiative column what actions you can take to address the gap for each item. For example, if we found through diagnostics and use cases that users didn’t understand the meaning of their data or reports, an initiative might be, “Build a standard enterprise business data catalog.”
2. It’s an opportunity to brainstorm, to be creative, and think about possibilities. We’ll use the roadmap step to select initiatives from this list.
3. There are things we can do right away to make a difference. Acknowledge the resources, talent, and leadership momentum you already have in your organization and leverage those to find activities that will work in your culture. For example, one company held a successful Data Day to socialize the roadmap and engage users.

2.2.3 Build a data management roadmap

Input: Gap initiatives, Target state and current-state assessment

Output: Data management initiatives and roadmap

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Start to list tangible actions you will take to address gaps and achieve data objectives and business goals along with timelines and responsibility:

1. With an understanding of your priority areas and specific gaps, and referring back to your use cases, draw up specific initiatives that you can track, measure, and align with your original goals.
2. For example, in data governance, initiatives might include:
   • Assign data owners and stewards for all data assets.
   • Consolidate disparate business data catalogs.
   • Create a data governance charter or terms of reference.
3. Alongside the initiatives, fill in other detail, especially who is responsible and timing (start and end dates). Assigning responsibility and some time markers will help to keep momentum alive and make the work projects real.

Step 2.3

Organize Business Data Domains

Activities

2.3.1 Define business data domains and assign owners

Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

2.3.1 Define business data domains

Input: Target-state maturity level

Output: Detail and context about gaps to lead planners to specific initiatives

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Identify the key data domains for each line of business, where the data resides, and the main contact or owner.

1. We have an understanding of what the business wants to achieve, e.g. build customer loyalty or comply with privacy laws. But where is the data that can help us achieve that? What systems is that data moving and living in and who, if anyone, owns it?
2. Define the main business data domains apart from what system it may be spread over. Use the worksheet on the next slide as an example.
3. Examples of business data domains: Customer, Product, Vendor.
4. Each domain should have owners and associated business processes. Assign data domain owners, application owners, and business process owners.

Related Info-Tech Research

	Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy Key to building and fostering a data-driven culture.
	Understand the Data and Analytics Landscape Optimize your data and analytics environment.
	Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics Data architecture best practices to prepare data for reporting and analytics.

Research Contributors

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Create a Service Management Roadmap

Implement service management in an order that makes sense.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

"More than 80% of the larger enterprises we’ve worked with start out wanting to develop advanced service management practices without having the cultural and organizational basics or foundational practices fully in place. Although you wouldn’t think this would be the case in large enterprises, again and again IT leaders are underestimating the importance of cultural and foundational aspects such as governance, management practices, and understanding business value. You must have these fundamentals right before moving on."

Tony Denford,

Research Director – CIO

Info-Tech Research Group

Our understanding of the problem

This Research Is Designed For:

• CIO
• Senior IT Management

This Research Will Help You:

• Create or maintain service management (SM) practices to ensure user-facing services are delivered seamlessly to business users with minimum interruption.
• Increase the level of reliability and availability of the services provided to the business and improve the relationship and communication between IT and the business.

This Research Will Also Assist

• Service Management Process Owners

This Research Will Help Them:

• Formalize, standardize, and improve the maturity of service management practices.
• Identify new service management initiatives to move IT to the next level of service management maturity.

Executive summary

Situation

• Inconsistent adoption of holistic practices has led to a chaotic service delivery model that results in poor customer satisfaction.
• There is little structure, formalization, or standardization in the way IT services are designed and managed, leading to diminishing service quality and low business satisfaction.

Complication

• IT organizations want to be seen as strategic partners, but they fail to address the cultural and organizational constraints.
• Without alignment with the business goals, services often fail to provide the expected value.
• Traditional service management approaches are not adaptable for new ways of working.

Resolution

• Follow Info-Tech’s methodology to create a service management roadmap that will help guide the optimization of your IT services and improve IT’s value to the business.
• The blueprint will help you right-size your roadmap to best suit your specific needs and goals and will provide structure, ownership, and direction for service management.
• This blueprint allows you to accurately identify the current state of service management at your organization. Customize the roadmap and create a plan to achieve your target service management state.

Info-Tech Insight

Having effective service management practices in place will allow you to pursue activities such as innovation and drive the business forward. Addressing foundational elements like business alignment and management practices will enable you to build effective core practices that deliver business value. Consistent leadership support and engagement is essential to allow practitioners to focus on delivering expected outcomes.

Poor service management manifests in many different pains across the organization

Immaturity in service management will not result in one pain – rather, it will create a chaotic environment for the entire organization, crippling IT’s ability to deliver and perform.

Low Service Management Maturity

These are some of the pains that can be attributed to poor service management practices.

• Frequent service-impacting incidents
• Low satisfaction with the service desk
• High % of failed deployments
• Frequent change-related incidents
• Frequent recurring incidents
• Inability to find root cause
• No communication with the business
• Frequent capacity-related incidents

And there are many more…

Mature service management practices are a necessity, not a nice-to-have

Immature service management practices are one of the biggest hurdles preventing IT from reaching its true potential.

In 2004, PwC published a report titled “IT Moves from Cost Center to Business Contributor.” However, the 2014-2015 CSC Global CIO Survey showed that a high percentage of IT is still considered a cost center.

And low maturity of service management practices is inhibiting activities such as agility, DevOps, digitalization, and innovation.

Source: CSC Global CIO Survey: 2014-2015 “CIOs Emerge as Disruptive Innovators”

39%: Resources are primarily focused on managing existing IT workloads and keeping the lights on.

31%: Too much time and too many resources are used to handle urgent incidents and problems.

There are many misconceptions about what service management is

Misconception #1: “Service management is a process”

Effective service management is a journey that encompasses a series of initiatives that improves the value of services delivered.

Misconception #2: “Service Management = Service Desk”

Service desk is the foundation, since it is the main end-user touch point, but service management is a set of people and processes required to deliver business-facing services.

Misconception #3: “Service management is about the ITSM tool”

The tool is part of the overall service management program, but the people and processes must be in place before implementing.

Misconception #4: “Service management development is one big initiative”

Service management development is a series of initiatives that takes into account an organization’s current state, maturity, capacities, and objectives.

Misconception #5: “Service management processes can be deployed in any order, assuming good planning and design”

A successful service management program takes into account the dependencies of processes.

Misconception #6: “Service management is resolving incidents and deploying changes”

Service management is about delivering high-value and high-quality services.

Misconception #7: “Service management is not the key determinant of success”

As an organization progresses on the service management journey, its ability to deliver high-value and high-quality services increases.

Misconception #8: “Resolving Incidents = Success”

Preventing incidents is the name of the game.

Misconception #9: “Service Management = Good Firefighter”

Service management is about understanding what’s going on with user-facing services and proactively improving service quality.

Misconception #10: “Service management is about IT and technical services (e.g. servers, network, database)”

Service management is about business/user-facing services and the value the services provide to the business.

Service management projects often don’t succeed because they are focused on process rather than outcomes

Service management projects tend to focus on implementing process without ensuring foundational elements of culture and management practices are strong enough to support the change.

1. Aligning your service management goals with your organizational objectives leads to better understanding of the expected outcomes.

Understand your customers and what they value, and design your practices to deliver this value.

2. IT does not know what order is best when implementing new practices or process improvements.

Don't run before you can walk. Fundamental practices must reach the maturity threshold before developing advanced practices. Implement continuous improvement on your existing processes so they continue to support new practices.

3. IT does not follow best practices when implementing a practice.

Our best-practice research is based on extensive experience working with clients through advisory calls and workshops.

Info-Tech can help you create a customized, low-effort, and high-value service management roadmap that will shore up any gaps, prove IT’s value, and achieve business satisfaction.

Info-Tech’s methodology will help you customize your roadmap so the journey is right for you

With Info-Tech, you will find out where you are, where you want to go, and how you will get there.

With our methodology, you can expect the following:

• Eliminate or reduce rework due to poor execution.
• Identify dependencies/prerequisites and ensure practices are deployed in the correct order, at the correct time, and by the right people.
• Engage all necessary resources to design and implement required processes.
• Assess current maturity and capabilities and design the roadmap with these factors in mind.

Doing it right the first time around

You will see these benefits at the end

✓ Increase the quality of services IT provides to the business.

✓ Increase business satisfaction through higher alignment of IT services.

✓ Lower cost to design, implement, and manage services.

✓ Better resource utilization, including staff, tools, and budget.

Focus on a strong foundation to build higher value service management practices

Info-Tech Insight

Focus on behaviors and expected outcomes before processes.

Foundational elements

• Operating model facilitates service management goals
• Culture of service delivery
• Governance discipline to evaluate, direct, and monitor
• Management discipline to deliver

Stabilize

• Deliver stable, reliable IT services to the business
• Respond to user requests quickly and efficiently
• Resolve user issues in a timely manner
• Deploy changes smoothly and successfully

Proactive

• Avoid/prevent service disruptions
• Improve quality of service (performance, availability, reliability)

Service Provider

• Understand business needs
• Ensure services are available
• Measure service performance, based on business-oriented metrics

Strategic Partner

• Fully aligned with business
• Drive innovation
• Drive measurable value

Info-Tech Insight

Continued leadership support of the foundational elements will allow delivery teams to provide value to the business. Set the expectation of the desired maturity level and allow teams to innovate.

Follow our model and get to your target state

Before moving to advanced service management practices, you must ensure that the foundational and core elements are robust enough to support them. Leadership must nurture these practices to ensure they are sustainable and can support higher value, more mature practices.

Each step along the way, Info-Tech has the tools to help you

Phase 1: Launch the Project

Assemble a team with the right talent and vision to increase the chances of project success.

Phase 2: Assess Current State

Understand where you are currently on the service management journey using the maturity assessment tool.

Phase 3: Build Roadmap

Based on the assessments, build a roadmap to address areas for improvement.

Phase 4: Build Communication slide

Based on the roadmap, define the current state, short- and long-term visions for each major improvement area.

Info-Tech Deliverables:

• Project Charter
• Assessment Tools
• Roadmap Template
• Communication Template

CIO call to action

Improving the maturity of the organization’s service management practice is a big commitment, and the project can only succeed with active support from senior leadership.

Ideally, the CIO should be the project sponsor, even the project leader. At a minimum, the CIO needs to perform the following activities:

1. Walk the talk – demonstrate personal commitment to the project and communicate the benefits of the service management journey to IT and the steering committee.

Improving or adopting any new practice is difficult, especially for a project of this size. Thus, the CIO needs to show visible support for this project through internal communication and dedicated resources to help complete this project.

2. Select a senior, capable, and results-driven project leader.

Most likely, the implementation of this project will be lengthy and technical in some nature. Therefore, the project leader must have a good understanding of the current IT structure, senior standing within the organization, and the relationship and power in place to propel people into action.

3. Help to define the target future state of IT’s service management.

Determine a realistic target state for the organization based on current capability and resource/budget restraints.

4. Conduct periodic follow-up meetings to keep track of progress.

Reinforce or re-emphasize the importance of this project to the organization through various communication channels if needed.

Stabilizing your environment is a must before establishing any more-mature processes

CASE STUDY

Industry: Manufacturing

Source: Engagement

Challenge

• The business landscape was rapidly changing for this manufacturer and they wanted to leverage potential cost savings from cloud-first initiatives and consolidate multiple, self-run service delivery teams that were geographically dispersed.

Solution

Original Plan

• Consolidate multiple service delivery teams worldwide and implement service portfolio management.

Revised Plan with Service Management Roadmap:

• Markets around the world had very different needs and there was little understanding of what customers value.
• There was also no understanding of what services were currently being offered within each geography.

Results

• Plan was adjusted to understand customer value and services offered.
• Services were then stabilized and standardized before consolidation.
• Team also focused on problem maturity and drove a continuous improvement culture and increasing transparency.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Understanding the value of each service allowed the organization to focus effort on high-return activities rather than continuous fire fighting.

Understand the processes involved in the proactive phase

CASE STUDY

Industry: Manufacturing

Source: Engagement

Challenge

• Services were fairly stable, but there were significant recurring issues for certain services.
• The business was not satisfied with the service quality for certain services, due to periodic availability and reliability issues.
• Customer feedback for the service desk was generally good.

Solution

Original Plan

• Review all service desk and incident management processes to ensure that service issues were handled in an effective manner.

Revised Plan with Service Management Roadmap:

• Design and deploy a rigorous problem management process to determine the root cause of recurring issues.
• Monitor key services for events that may lead to a service outage.

Results

• Root cause of recurring issues was determined and fixes were deployed to resolve the underlying cause of the issues.
• Service quality improved dramatically, resulting in high customer satisfaction.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Make sure that you understand which processes need to be reviewed in order to determine the cause for service instability. Focusing on the proactive processes was the right answer for this company.

Have the right culture and structure in place before you become a service provider

CASE STUDY

Industry: Healthcare

Source:Journal of American Medical Informatics Association

Challenge

• The IT organization wanted to build a service catalog to demonstrate the value of IT to the business.
• IT was organized in technology silos and focused on applications, not business services.
• IT services were not aligned with business activities.
• Relationships with the business were not well established.

Solution

Original Plan

• Create and publish a service catalog.

Revised Plan: with Service Management Roadmap:

• Establish relationships with key stakeholders in the business units.
• Understand how business activities interface with IT services.
• Lay the groundwork for the service catalog by defining services from the business perspective.

Results

• Strong relationships with the business units.
• Deep understanding of how business activities map to IT services.
• Service definitions that reflect how the business uses IT services.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Before you build and publish a service catalog, make sure that you understand how the business is using the IT services that you provide.

Calculate the benefits of using Info-Tech’s methodology

To measure the value of developing your roadmap using the Info-Tech tools and methodology, you must calculate the effort saved by not having to develop the methods.

A. How much time will it take to develop an industry-best roadmap using Info-Tech methodology and tools?

Using Info-Tech’s tools and methodology you can accurately estimate the effort to develop a roadmap using industry-leading research into best practice.

B. What would be the effort to develop the insight, assess your team, and develop the roadmap?

This metric represents the time your team would take to be able to effectively assess themselves and develop a roadmap that will lead to service management excellence.

C. Cost & time saving through Info-Tech’s methodology

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 keeps us on track."

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Create a Service Management Roadmap – project overview

Workshop overview

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

PHASE 1

Launch the Project

Launch the project

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Create a powerful, succinct mission statement based on your organization’s goals and objectives.
• Assemble a project team with representatives from all major IT teams.
• Determine project stakeholders and create a plan to convey the benefits of this project.
• Establish metrics to track the success of the project.

Step Insights

• The project leader should have a strong relationship with IT and business leaders to maximize the benefit of each initiative in the service management journey.
• The service management roadmap initiative will touch almost every part of the organization; therefore, it is important to have representation from all impacted stakeholders.
• The communication slide needs to include the organizational change impact of the roadmap initiatives.

Phase 1 outline

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

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

Use Info-Tech’s project charter to begin your initiative

1.1 Service Management Roadmap Project Charter

The Service Management Roadmap Project Charter is used to govern the initiative throughout the project. It provides the foundation for project communication and monitoring.

The template has been pre-populated with sample information appropriate for this project. Please review this sample text and change, add, or delete information as required.

The charter includes the following sections:

• Mission Statement
• Goals & Objectives
• Project Team
• Project Stakeholders
• Current State (from phases 2 & 3)
• Target State (from phases 2 & 3)
• Target State
• Metrics
• Sponsorship Signature

Use Info-Tech’s ready-to-use deliverable to customize your mission statement

Adapt and personalize Info-Tech’s Service Management Roadmap Mission Statement and Goals & Objectives below to suit your organization’s needs.

Goals & Objectives

• Create a plan for implementing service management initiatives that align with the overall goals/objectives for service management.
• Identify service management initiatives that must be implemented/improved in the short term before deploying more advanced initiatives.
• Determine the target state for each initiative based on current maturity and level of investment available.
• Identify service management initiatives and understand dependencies, prerequisites, and level of effort required to implement.
• Determine the sequence in which initiatives should be deployed.
• Create a detailed rollout plan that specifies initiatives, time frames, and owners.
• Engage the right teams and obtain their commitment throughout both the planning and assessment of roadmap initiatives.
• both the planning and assessment of roadmap initiatives. Obtain support for the completed roadmap from executive stakeholders.

Example Mission Statement

To help [Organization Name] develop a set of service management practices that will better address the overarching goals of the IT department.

To create a roadmap that sequences initiatives in a way that incorporates best practices and takes into consideration dependencies and prerequisites between service management practices.

To garner support from the right people and obtain executive buy-in for the roadmap.

Create a well-balanced project team

The project leader should be a member of your IT department’s senior executive team with goals and objectives that will be impacted by service management implementation. The project leader should possess the following characteristics:

Leader

• Influence and impact
• Comprehensive knowledge of IT and the organization
• Relationship with senior IT management
• Ability to get things done

Team Members

Identify

The project team members are the IT managers and directors whose day-to-day lives will be impacted by the service management roadmap and its implementation. The service management initiative will touch almost every IT staff member in the organization; therefore, it is important to have representatives from every single group, including those that are not mentioned. Some examples of individuals you should consider for your team:

• Service Delivery Managers
• Director/Manager of Applications
• Director/Manager of Infrastructure
• Director/Manager of Service Desk
• Business Relationship Managers
• Project Management Office

Engage & Communicate

You want to engage your project participants in the planning process as much as possible. They should be involved in the current-state assessment, the establishment of goals and objectives, and the development of your target state.

To sell this project, identify and articulate how this project and/or process will improve the quality of their job. For example, a formal incident management process will benefit people working at the service desk or on the applications or infrastructure teams. Helping them understand the gains will help to secure their support throughout the long implementation process by giving them a sense of ownership.

The project stakeholders should also be project team members

When managing stakeholders, it is important to help them understand their stake in the project as well as their own personal gain that will come out of this project.

For many of the stakeholders, they also play a critical role in the development of this project.

Role & Benefits

• CIO

The CIO should be actively involved in the planning stage to help determine current and target stage.

The CIO also needs to promote and sell the project to the IT team so they can understand that higher maturity of service management practices will allow IT to be seen as a partner to the business, giving IT a seat at the table during decision making.

• Service Delivery Managers/Process Owners

Service Delivery Managers are directly responsible for the quality and value of services provided to the business owners. Thus, the Service Delivery Managers have a very high stake in the project and should be considered for the role of project leader.

Service Delivery Managers need to work closely with the process owners of each service management process to ensure clear objectives are established and there is a common understanding of what needs to be achieved.

• IT Steering Committee

The Committee should be informed and periodically updated about the progress of the project.

• Manager/Director – Service Desk

The Manager of the Service Desk should participate closely in the development of fundamental service management processes, such as service desk, incident management, and problem management.

Having a more established process in place will create structure, governance, and reduce service desk staff headaches so they can handle requests or incidents more efficiently.

• Manager/Director –Applications & Infrastructure

The Manager of Applications and Infrastructure should be heavily relied on for their knowledge of how technology ties into the organization. They should be consulted regularly for each of the processes.

This project will also benefit them directly, such as improving the process to deploy a fix into the environment or manage the capacity of the infrastructure.

• Business Relationship Manager

As the IT organization moves up the maturity ladder, the Business Relationship Manager will play a fundamental role in the more advanced processes, such as business relationship management, demand management, and portfolio management.

This project will be an great opportunity for the Business Relationship Manager to demonstrate their value and their knowledge of how to align IT objectives with business vision.

Ensure you get the entire IT organization on board for the project with a well-practiced change message

Getting the IT team on board will greatly maximize the project’s chance of success.

One of the top challenges for organizations embarking on a service management journey is to manage the magnitude of the project. To ensure the message is not lost, communicate this roadmap in two steps.

1. Communicate the roadmap initiative

The most important message to send to the IT organization is that this project will benefit them directly. Articulate the pains that IT is currently experiencing and explain that through more mature service management, these pains can be greatly reduced and IT can start to earn a place at the table with the business.

2. Communicate the implementation of each process separately

The communication of process implementation should be done separately and at the beginning of each implementation. This is to ensure that IT staff do not feel overwhelmed or overloaded. It also helps to keep the project more manageable for the project team.

Continuously monitor feedback and address concerns throughout the entire process

• Host lunch and learns to provide updates on the service management initiative to the entire IT team.
• Understand if there are any major roadblocks and facilitate discussions on how to overcome them.

Articulate the service management initiative to the IT organization

Spread the word and bring attention to your change message through effective mediums and organizational changes.

Key aspects of a communication plan

The methods of communication (e.g. newsletters, email broadcast, news of the day, automated messages) notify users of implementation.

In addition, it is important to know who will deliver the message (delivery strategy). You need IT executives to deliver the message – work hard on obtaining their support as they are the ones communicating to their staff and should be your project champions.

Anticipate organizational changes

The implementation of the service management roadmap will most likely lead to organizational changes in terms of structure, roles, and responsibilities. Therefore, the team should be prepared to communicate the value that these changes will bring.

Communicating Change

• What is the change?
• Why are we doing it?
• How are we going to go about it?
• What are we trying to achieve?
• How often will we be updated?

The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change

Create a project communication plan for your stakeholders

This project cannot be successfully completed without the support of senior IT management.

1. After the CIO has introduced this project through management meetings or informal conversation, find out how each IT leader feels about this project. You need to make sure the directors and managers of each IT team, especially the directors of application and infrastructure, are on board.
2. After the meeting, the project leader should seek out the major stakeholders (particularly the heads of applications and infrastructure) and validate their level of support through formal or informal meetings. Create a list documenting the major stakeholders, their level of support, and how the project team will work to gain their approval.
3. For each identified stakeholder, create a custom communication plan based on their role. For example, if the director of infrastructure is not a supporter, demonstrate how this project will enable them to better understand how to improve service quality. Provide periodic reporting or meetings to update the director on project progress.

INPUT

• A collaborative discussion between team members

OUTPUT

• Thorough briefing for project launch
• A committed team

Materials

• Communication message and plan
• Metric tracking

Participants

• Project leader
• Core project team

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

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

• To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
• Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
• Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

1.1

Create a powerful, succinct mission statement

Using Info-Tech’s sample mission statement as a guide, build your mission statement based on the objectives of this project and the benefits that this project will achieve. Keep the mission statement short and clear.

1.2

Assemble the project team

Create a project team with representatives from all major IT teams. Engage and communicate to the project team early and proactively.

1.3

Identify project stakeholders and create a communication plan

Info-Tech will help you identify key stakeholders who have a vested interest in the success of the project. Determine the communication message that will best gain their support.

1.4

Use metrics to track the success of the project

The onsite analyst will help the project team determine the appropriate metrics to measure the success of this project.

PHASE 2

Assess Your Current Service Management State

Assess your current state

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Use Info-Tech’s Service Management Maturity Assessment Tool to determine your overall practice maturity level.
• Understand your level of completeness for each individual practice.
• Understand the three major phases involved in the service management journey; know the symptoms of each phase and how they affect your target state selection.

Step Insights

• To determine the real maturity of your service management practices, you should focus on the results and output of the practice, rather than the activities performed for each process.
• Focus on phase-level maturity as opposed to the level of completeness for each individual process.

Phase 2 outline

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

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