it assessment
TRANSCRIPT
IT is a Service to the
Business
Is the Tail wagging the
Dog?
The Challenge
Business
“Our IT is a black box we spend millions
a year on…”
Executives
Howard Halligan
COO of Reader’s Digest Association
This is a challenge
with IT, but it is
really a business
strategy problem for
IT to be properly
managed.
Executive IT Right™
You are smart and accomplished in your discipline…
You have the right to understand how technology
helps and impacts your business.
Understanding does
not mean knowing
how to do it.
If you “Own” IT: You or the
senior team member you
designate has the
responsibility to understand.
Illuminating the
Current State is a
crucial point in the creation of a Plan.
Govern
Plan
Assessment Strategy
4 Step Solution
IT
IT’s Clients
• C-Suite
• Department Leaders
IT Staff
• Organizational Framework
• Talent Assessment
• Core Competencies
Systems
• Architecture
• Infrastructure
• Major Tools
Processes
• Major Project
• Day-to-Day Tickets
• Support
Intellectual Property
• Code
• Content
• Core Knowledge
Financials
• Where is IT budget being spent
Step 1: Assessment
Primary Assessment Tool:
One-on-One Interview
Warning: Resist any DIYInterview Urges – even if youare a skilled interviewer.Relationship dynamics formanagement, peers and staffmake getting the true detailsdifficult for someone in themix…
Step 2: Strategy
“strat·e·gy
/ˈstradəjē/
noun
“the skill of making or carrying out
plans to achieve a goal”Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Web page
Technology alone does not a
Strategy make!
• Articulate what the organization needs in non-technical terms in the form of requirements
• Define a win(s):• Improve customer interaction, retention, etc.
• Reduce cost
• Increase efficiency
• Use facts wherever possible – invest time to unearth them if necessary
IT is most effective when efforts are
aligned with business strategy.
“The great thing about fact-
based decisions is that they
can overrule the hierarch.”
Jeff Bezos
CEO of Amazon
Requirements
To learn more on Business Strategy and
Requirements click to this Presentation
• Know where you are… (Current State)
• Know where you want to be… (Strategy as Future State Driver)
• Illuminate the terrain over which you must travel… (Current and Best Practice processes and talent)
• Make a Plan to get from here to there
Step 3: Plan
Leverage primary navigation principles
to create a Plan
– IT Collaboration
• Correct View: • Collaborative Communication
• Iteration
• Wrong View: • IT: “The business tells us what
to build.”
• Business: “We tell IT what we want (and never get it)
• Both are a recipe for failure
Make sure to write down the
Strategy and Plan
Collaboration
Step 4: Govern
“What gets measured gets improved.”Peter Drucker
“gov·ern
/ˈgə-vərn/
verb
“to control, direct, or strongly influence
the actions and conduct of”Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Web page
The organization must have a Business
process to ensure it can govern IT
Projects
Key Points to IT Governance
• Process to ensure:• Trust between Business and IT• A culture of mutual accountability• Common nomenclature• Transparency
• Requirements become Business Case
• Plan divided into phases/steps/milestones
• Decision making authority for start and toll-gate go/no-go is established
• Periodic check-in on
• Oversight on the Portfolio of Projects in the enterprise.
To learn more on best practices in IT
Governance click to this Presentation
Rent It: If the function is a pure commodity and there is
no differentiation (eCommerce, Payroll, Workflow
Management) should be 100% SaaS (Software as a
Service).
Buy It: Solutions that are self-hosted either on PCs
(WinX and Mac), Servers or Devices. Heavy use, most
current not always critical.
Build It: Only if there is nothing in the market and
functionality is required that only you can do; an
opportunity to uniquely differentiate a product. The bar
for this should be very, very high.
Few organizations face an
original IT problem
• Executive Summary• What is going on
• Where the organization wants/needs to be
• Based on facts verified by multiple sources
• Detailed notes from all interviews
• Detailed state of resources, systems and processes
“In the presentation of our IT Assessment
results, there is always at least one ‘ah-ha’
moment for the client…”Scott Lubeck
President of Bert Davis Consulting Services
Assessment Results
Jewels
Data (not the systems) is the
IT Crown Jewel of the
company
Data Migration is almost always half
the cost and effort of a new system
deployment – plan on it.
Have data backed up in structures
outside the SaaS/Main system so if
anything goes out of business or
stops working, its accessible.
Craig A. Miller
224-374-1808
Email or call for a free consultation on illuminating and
solving the IT challenges for your
organization.
More from Craig A. Miller