Category Archives: IT Maturity

State of evolution over time in a company’s use of IT, first as a means of reducing cost, then as a means of adding value, then as a means of innovation and value creation

Driving Business-IT Convergence – The Evolving Role of the Business Relationship Manager (Part 2 of 2)


cloudIn Part 1 of this 2-part series I defined the BRM role – with the caveat that it is by no means standardized.  In fact, as far as IT Service Management standards such as ITIL® and ISO/IEC 20000 are formalizing the existence of the Business Relationship Manager (BRM) role and corresponding process as a new best practice, they are selling the role short in terms of its potential strategic impact to business.  I went on to describe the typical BRM in terms of their purposes, goals, responsibilities and accountabilities.  To the title of this post, I introduced the shift from business-IT Alignment to Convergence and why this is so important as every aspect of business strategy and operations is increasingly dependent upon information and IT.   Today, the BRM operates at the leading edge of the convergence movement – a movement being accelerated by the ‘consumerization of IT‘, digitization of everything, and by the “Internet of Things.”

In part 2 of this 2-part series, I’d like to discuss needed BRM competencies, how the BRM role changes over time with increasing maturity (of both the BRM and her business partner) and how the way that the BRM engages with the business partner shifts the nature of the relationship from one of order taker to that of strategic partner.

Typical Competencies Required of the BRM

Drives Value Realization

This might be the most important competency for a BRM.  It includes knowing how to surface, clarify and promote the best value-delivering opportunities for IT investments and assets, and how to ensure that these actually deliver on their promised value – delivered in ways that are felt and seen.  This requires skills in Program Management (with implied Project Management skills), Portfolio Management, influence, persuasion, communication, finance and organizational change.

Understands Business Environment

Driving value realization also requires a great understanding of the business, its ecosystem and its competitive landscape.  Successful BRMs have a keen sense of the top strategic business and IT issues – both short and long term, and how these issues relate to initiatives in their industry.  In short, they understand the “business of the business.”  They are viewed by business leaders as a proactive partner in finding the right solutions to business needs and not as a mere “order takers” for IT services.

Aligns IT with the Business

First, let me say that some readers will fume at the subheading.  “IT and the Business are one and the same!” they shout.  While this may reflect a laudable perspective (and one that will gradually materialize as IT-business convergence takes place) it is rarely, if ever, the case today.  Unless your business is information technology, then “business” is where profits are generated, and IT organizations work in support of that.

With that digression out of the way, alignment can be a tricky concept, and in some respects sounds inconsistent with my argument for business-IT convergence.  But alignment represents the necessary table stakes – business leaders and IT leaders need to be ‘on the same page’ in terms of mission, vision, values and goals for both IT and the business – and how these relate to each other.  Mismatches in any of these can spell disaster to the ability to build and sustain value-producing business-IT relationships, let alone converge business and IT capabilities.

Successful BRMs work closely with business leaders to predict demand for IT services and to manage that demand.  They take the lead in highlighting competing objectives.  They are effective at managing the flow of demand through negotiations and seek to iron out demand/supply disconnects between IT and business leaders.  Most important, they constantly seek ways to foster convergence – empowering business leaders – teaching them to fish, as it were, rather than always fish for them!

Manages Relationships

Any role with the word “relationship” in the title has to imply a high level of competence at creating, sustaining and developing strong relationships among stakeholders – especially between business units and the IT groups that support them.  Relationship skills do not come naturally, and are not easily developed in some people.  Effective BRMs are able to build and maintain relationships with senior IT and business leaders.  They are seen as a value-added participant in strategic business-level discussions (i.e., worthy of a “seat at the table”).  Successful BRMs are not shy in speaking up when the demand for IT services outpaces supply ability or capacity.

Manages Organizational Change

Another tough set of skills and behaviors to master!  This requires deep understanding of the organizational levers for making change (people, process, and technology) and how IT and business strategies translate into practical plans of action for change.

The successful facilitator of change engages in discussion with IT and business leaders on the intended and unintended consequences of change, and is willing to confront senior executive sponsors if they are not “walking the talk” and proactively leading the change themselves.  They understand the total cost – both technical and human – of end-to-end implementation.  They can surface the hidden costs and potential obstacles that could derail the change.

They have the ability to identify key stakeholders at the outset of a project, to assign decision-making roles, and ultimately hold leaders accountable for results.  They think and act in terms of outcomes, not deliverables.

Manages Projects and Programs

Successful BRMs typically have several years of project and, ideally, program management experience under their belts.  They have demonstrated competency in project management fundamentals and in the complexities of program management. They demonstrate the ability to get things done through others, even though they may lack ultimate authority.

Effective Communication

Successful BRMs are recognized for their ability to listen, speak, write and communicate clearly and effectively. They demonstrate the ability to negotiate win-win, or at least buy-in, in situations where there are opposing viewpoints.  They are effective at influencing those that they hold no real power over.  They have the ability to recognize and surface disconnects between IT and business leaders and are able to resolve problems through difficult confrontations.

Financial Savvy

Successful BRMs have good knowledge of finance and accounting – they know their ROIs from their NPVs and know how to build a business case that is compelling.  They understand Portfolio Management and have at least basic knowledge of Options theory.  They understand the financial drivers of the business and the drivers of the industry within which the company operates.

The BRM Maturity Journey

BRM Maturity - The Merlyn Group

The graphic above shows how the quality of the Business Partner experience grows and the BRMs maturity increases.

Ad Hoc Relationship

At the lowest maturity level, the BRM role has typically not been formalized.  As such it is being handled in an ad hoc way – the ‘squeaky wheel’ Business Partner gets the most attention.  Or, in some cases, the least demanding Business Partner, regardless of their potential to use IT for high value purposes get the most attention.

Order Taker Relationship

I see this most frequently. Typically, IT supply has been badly broken and the business-IT relationship is hostile, so the BRM role is introduced to “patch things up!”  The BRM, in her ignorance, believes the best way to improve the relationship is to say “yes” to any and all business demands.  This is nearly always a losing proposition.  IT can’t meet the demand, and if they did, there’s little to no business value to be gained.

Advisor

This is a more constructive and productive relationship, where the Business Partner sees the BRM as an advisor.  By this time, there has usually been some formalization of the BRM role and its rules of engagement.  There’s also been some level of training for the BRM – or at least some thought put into the selection of people for the role.

Strategic Partner

The ‘Holy Grail’ of BRM implementations.  This should be the clear ambition – one that is understood and shared by the BRM and her Business Partner – with the recognition that you aren’t a Strategic Partner because you say you are, or because you want to be.  You reach that elevated position because you’ve earned it – and because your Business Partner sees you that way.

IT Matures as the BRM Role Matures

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, the BRM role does not act in isolation.  It is inextricably linked to IT supply.  If IT supply is broken, the BRM role will be limited, and might not even make it to Order Taker.  This, from my experience, is a common situation.  Things are bad, so the BRM role is introduced.  Unless supply improves, the BRM is doomed to failure – and may actually make things worse.  Promises are made and expectations set that cannot be kept.  On top of lousy supply, the BRM is seen by the business partner as ‘overhead’ – yet more evidence that the IT team is clueless, always adding cost without demonstrating value!

To reach the Holy Grail of Strategic Partner, IT supply has to be excellent – both with steady state services (networks, email, help desk, etc.) and with solution delivery (projects and programs).  The “strategic” BRM needs IT supply to work flawlessly.  IT supply needs the BRM to suppress low value demand while stimulating demand that delivers real business value.  That way, everyone is happy and a virtuous cycle is sustained.

Image courtesy of TradeArabia

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Driving Business-IT Convergence – The Evolving Role of the Business Relationship Manager (Part 1 of 2)


WhitePaperCoverI’m seeing a surge of interest in the emerging role of the Business Relationship Manager (BRM) as a key position that sits between a shared services organization (most frequently IT) and its business partner.  This is an internal role that should not be confused with the similarly titled externally-facing role common in banks and financial services organizations. I have referenced the BRM role many times over the last 6 years, and covered the topic at some length in January (see ITIL and the Business Relationship Manager: Avoiding the Performance Trap and Design Thinking and Emerging IT Roles.)  Recently, I’ve been getting an inbox full of questions about the role, so I decided to satisfy that interest with a new 2-part post looking at how the role is evolving.

Defining the BRM Role

The BRM role is by no means ‘standardized’, even as the IT Service Management movement tries to place it in its standards as a rather tactical position, mostly focused on steady-state IT services.  High quality steady-state services are certainly an important aspect for any IT organization – table stakes, if you will, for getting a “seat at the business table”.  (Please excuse the double table metaphor!)  But once the business partner experiences the BRM as negotiator for and arbiter of services, service levels and the like, they are unlikely to invite that BRM to the next strategy offsite to help figure out how the business strategy should address increasing business digitization, for example!

We see common variations in BRM:

  • Seniority – and the level of business executive with whom the BRM partners.
  • Scope – and the number of business unit executives and managers the BRM works with.
  • Purpose – especially in the balance of the BRM focus between supply and demand.
  • Title (e.g., Business Partner Director, Account Manager, Client Relationship Manager, IT Business Partner, Business IT Partner, etc.)
  • ‘Supply side’ focus (i.e, many BRMs represent the IT organization, some represent HR, Finance, and so on.  A small number represent multiple “shared services”.)
  • ‘Demand side’ focus (e.g., Line of Business, geographic region, major business process, corporate functions, etc.)
  • Size of the BRMs team – from sole practitioner to leader of a team of 8 or 9.

The Typical BRM

While typical, as with averages, can be misleading, the most common model for the BRM includes:

  • The BRM sits at the intersection of IT and its business partner – representing the business partner(s) to IT and IT to the business partner(s).
  • The BRM stimulates, surfaces and shapes business demand for IT projects, services, capabilities and investments in order to maximize their business value.  This means taking a proactive role in educating the business partner, suppressing demand for low value activities while stimulating demand for high value activities.
  • Ideally, the BRM is a member of both business and IT leadership teams, contributing to both business and strategy and planning, identifying how information and IT can support and advance business objectives, and helping translate demand into supply.
  • The BRM partners with appropriate supply resources to ensure supply-demand alignment.
  • The BRM helps create project and program charters.
  • The BRM oversees initiatives and helps manage business process change to ensure that the value predicted by a business case is actually realized.
  • The BRM monitors business partner satisfaction and facilitates continuous improvement in the business partner experience with IT (or HR, etc.)
  • To accomplish all the above, the BRM typically manages a small team comprising “junior BRMs”, business analysts and other specialized resources required to ensure an effective business-IT relationship.

If that sounds like a lot of responsibility, it is!  In fact, at their best, IT BRMs are thought of as “mini-CIOs” and are often on a succession path to the CIO position.

BRM Responsibilities

Common responsibilities include:

  • Active member of both the business partner and IT leadership teams.
  • Joint accountability (with the business partner) for business case development and value realization.
  • Accountable for development and execution of the business partner IT investment portfolio.
  • Partnering with the IT Solution Delivery Organizations to manage expectations and ensure efficient and effective delivery of all IT services.
  • Accountable for business partner awareness of systems security requirements and responsibilities.
  • Orchestrating key roles on behalf of their business partner (e.g., Project Manager, Enterprise Architect, Business Analyst).
  • The BRM acts as a broker for needed resources and capabilities (e.g., Vendor Management, Service Management, Organization Development).

From Alignment to Convergence

I’ve posted on this important concept before – with all due credit to Professor James Cash, Harvard Business School, with whom I helped design and deliver a relationship manager development program some years back.  He first helped me to the insight that alignment was no longer sufficient – CIOs needed to recognize that business and IT were converging as every aspect of business strategy and operations was increasingly dependent upon information and IT.  Today, it is largely the BRM who operates at the leading edge of the convergence movement – a movement being accelerated by the ‘consumerization of IT’.

Teaser for Part 2

I’ll pick up in Part 2 of this 2-part series with examples of needed BRM competencies, a discussion of how the BRM role changes over time with increasing maturity (of both the BRM and her business partner) and how the way that the BRM engages with the business partner shifts the relationship from one of order taker to that of strategic partner.

Graphic courtesy of Acre Resources Limited

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ITIL and the Business Relationship Manager: Avoiding the Performance Trap!


order-taker

I have good news, and I have bad news!

The Good News…

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) 2011 edition and the ISO/IEC 20000 standard for IT Service Management formalized the existence of the Business Relationship Manager (BRM) role and corresponding Business Relationship Management process as a new best practice and international IT Service Management standard requirement.  This is good – for professional BRMs around the world, for the IT profession in general, and for improving the business return on IT investments, as technology becomes ever more deeply embedded in business processes.

The Bad News…

(And I know I will get hate mail and lose readership for saying this, but…) As defined by ITIL, the BRM role comes off as somewhat tactical – not something to get business leaders salivating over their new partnership with IT, nor hungry to innovate business products and services!  Let me be clear – the ITIL vision of BRM is necessary – but from my experience, it is insufficient to drive real business value beyond a certain point.  It will help an IT organization with poor service quality get better.  But it will not help an IT organization with good service quality to excite and delight their customers with the new business capabilities that are enabled by information and information technology!

Business Relationship Manager Role

I’ve posted extensively on this role in the past – the BRM is a bridge between the IT organization and its business clients (just as a good CIO is a bridge between the IT organization and corporate leadership).  As such, it both represents the business clients to IT, and IT to the business clients.  This role has surfaced over the last 10 years or so and Gartner predicts that the fraction of IT personnel dedicated to Relationship Management and Change Leadership functions will reach as much as 15% by the end of 2013 and grow up to 20% by 2016.  LinkedIn hosts two groups dedicated to the BRM role.  One group – IT Business Relationship Management - currently boasts over 1,800 members.  The other group, Professional Business Relationship Managers currently has over 2,600 members!  (In the interests of full disclosure, I co-manage the latter group.)

I’ve conducted a significant amount of consulting, assessment and training in the BRM space, including designing and leading BRM training and development programs for global companies with over 100 BRMs (as well as for those with fewer than 5 BRMs).  From that experience, and from my ongoing activity on the LinkedIn groups, I’ve seen two distinct ‘flavors’ of BRM – “Tactical” and “Strategic.”

BRM and Business-IT Maturity

To help understand “tactical” and “strategic” BRMs and how they’ve come to be, I’ll use my Business-IT Maturity Model (BITMM).  I’ve posted at length about the BITMM.  In its simplest form (see graphic below) the model represents both business demand maturity (highlighted in red to the left of the learning curve) and IT supply maturity (highlighted in blue to the right of the curve. These never move completely in tandem – sometimes demand is slightly ahead of supply, other times it is slightly behind.  If demand and supply get too far out of whack, there’s usually a change of CIO (or a turnover of the IT organization to an outsourcer!)

Slide1

The number of maturity levels is arbritary, but for simplicity let’s use three – business efficiency, business effectiveness and business transformation.  Where a company is at any point in time is a function of factors such as:

  • the industry it’s in
  • current business leadership
  • competitive and regulatory forces
  • quality of IT leadership
  • quality of service delivery

For example, the financial services industry tends to be highly information-intense, so is generally demonstrated higher business demand and IT supply maturity than say, manufacturing companies, which have traditionally been less dependent on information.  All that is changing, of course, as businesses and governments everywhere become increasingly digitized.

The ITIL Connection

Improving service delivery quality is where ITIL focuses.  According to its current owners (The APM Group Limited) ITIL is “the most widely accepted approach to IT service management in the world.”  Originally developed under the auspices of the UK Office of Government Commerce (OGC), ITIL is becoming a popular approach to service management.  Often loosely, and occasionally rigorously followed, ITIL documents processes and practices for service management.  This focus on service management is crucially important in moving IT supply maturity up from low Level 1 to mid-Level 2.

The Tactical BRM

The graphic below crudely cuts the BITMM in half.  The lower half is what I refer to as the “tactical” BRM space – focused on business efficiency and effectiveness.  The conceptual dividing line between these spaces is important.  Around the mid-point of Level 2 maturity, the learning curve changes direction.  This is also a common “sticking point” (see my earlier posts on “sticking points”) where IT organizations often become trapped and their efforts at performance improvement taper off.  In some cases, they actually fall back in performance.

Slide2

So, in the pursuit of service management quality, the BRM has an important role, establishing a strong business relationship with the customer by understanding their business and customer outcomes.   But the focus is service management, as opposed to the strategic possibilities for IT capability to enable new or improved business products and services.  Service management applies most to ‘steady state’ IT services – not to transformational projects and programs on behalf of business units.

The Strategic BRM

The upper half of the BITMM is the “strategic” BRM space – focused on business effectiveness and transformation.  While an IT organization must be careful not to slip back on IT service quality and customer satisfaction, simply delivering ever-improving services will not transform IT into a respected, value-producing business partner. Sooner or later, IT service management efforts reach a point of diminishing returns. Something quite different is then needed to further improve the business return on IT assets and investments.  While the “Tactial BRM” tends to focus on IT supply management processes and activities, the “Strategic BRM” focuses on business demand management – stimulating, surfacing and shaping demand for services, activities and initiatives with the highest potential business value.  The “Strategic BRM” works closely with her business partner to ensure that IT investments and capabilities yield real business value.

Leverage the Standard Frameworks – But Don’t Get Stuck

The message here is that it’s ok to leverage standards and frameworks such as ITIL, COBIT and TOGAF – but essential to do so with intelligence!  They have their place – and a context for which they were intended – that often being UK government entities.  Nothing wrong with that, but it tends to be a context of control – not innovation.  Control can help you get from low Level 1 to mid-Level 2 – but not to Level 3.  What kind of IT capability does your business need – controlling or innovating?

Thoughts on a postcard, please!

Graphic courtesy of giffconstable.com

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Design Thinking and Emerging IT Roles


designthinking

This is the third and final part in a multi-part post inspired by Robert Pirsig’s masterwork, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  In Part 1 (titled “Reflections on ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ 38 Years Later “) I discussed the implications for IT professionals of Pirsig’s musings on ‘classic’ versus ‘romantic’ worldviews, and his struggle to resolve these.

In Part 2, (titled “Zen, Motorcycle Maintenance, Design Thinking and Information Technology”) I teed up my observation that this classic-romantic balanced approach is embodied in the “design thinking” movement, popularized by Tim Brown and Ideo and exemplified by companies as diverse as Apple, Proctor & Gamble, Herman Miller and GE.  I discussed why Design Thinking is becoming increasingly important to the IT profession.  Among the reasons for the rising importance of Design Thinking in IT:

  1. Thanks to the likes of SAP, Oracle, et al, and the growing base of cloud-based ‘applications as a service,’ most of the opportunities to improve or automate transactional business processes have been exploited.  Today, businesses are increasingly searching for product, service and business model innovation.
  2. As we accelerate the move from custom development to personal apps, reuse, and “mash-ups,” much more emphasis is placed on synthesis rather than analysis – leveraging widgets and components rather than coding solutions from scratch.

I will pick up in this final part where I closed Part 2, with a discussion of three roles that are key to instilling Design Thinking in an IT organization.

Key Roles for Design Thinking in IT

Achieving the classic-romantic balance in discovery and solutioning involves many IT roles, but there are three roles that I believe are key:

Roles – Not Necessarily Jobs!

Before we examine these roles and how they work together, I want to emphasize I am talking about roles, as opposed to jobs.   The distinction is important in that the notion of organizing around roles imparts flexibility and variety for a workforce, whereas jobs tend to constrain people in boundaries defined in job descriptions.  An individual typically will hold only one job, but may fill multiple roles.  For example, my job is Principal in a consulting firm.  In some engagements, I am the Engagement Lead.  In others, I might be a Subject Matter Expert.  In still others, I am the Client Relationship Officer.  Beyond engagements, I might be a Research Program Leader or a Research Associate.

Also, these roles are typically instantiated with all sorts of labels – rarely the label I’m using here.  For example, I’ve worked with Business Relationship Managers (BRM’s) who were called Business Partner Director, Account Manager, Client Relationship Manager, IT Business Partner, Business IT Partner, IT Demand and Account Manager, Client Engagement Director, and so on!  And the specific missions, visions and implementations of the BRM role has been as varied as their titles!

Nevertheless, let’s drill into these roles and how they relate to each other and to moving IT to more of a Design Thinking philosophy.

Business Relationship Manager

I’ve posted extensively on this role in the past – it’s the role that sits between the IT organization and its business clients.  As such, it both represents the business clients to IT, and IT to the business clients.  This role has surfaced over the last 10 years or so.  I don’t know what percentage of IT organizations have this role today, but as an indication, LinkedIn hosts 2 groups dedicated to the role.  One group – IT Business Relationship Management - currently boasts over 1,800 members.  The other group, Professional Business Relationship Managers currently has over 2,600 members!  (In the interests of full disclosure, I co-manage the latter group.)

As the bridge between the business and the IT organization(s), the BRM plays a key role in moving above and beyond the traditional “requirements analysis” to an approach to discovery and solutioning that is more:

  • collaborative
  • abductive
  • experimental
  • integrative
  • outside-in
  • human-centric
  • innovation-biased approach

As such, the BRM has to understand Design Thinking, and ensure that the qualities listed above are brought to the table and play together effectively and efficiently.  The BRM herself does not have to be expert in these qualities, but must be an effective “broker” ensuring that people with the needed competencies and incentives are at the table.  These competencies will often be found in the other two emerging roles – those of Enterprise Architect and Product Manager.

Enterprise Architect

As with BRM’s, Enterprise Architects (EA’s) come in all sorts of flavors with a variety of titles.  The major distinction I would make is with what are generally called IT Architects.  Enterprise Architects are clearly focused on the business, business models, major business processes, business-IT platforms and the ecosystem within which the business operates.  IT Architects, by contrast, are focused on the technologies, their standards and how they inter-operate.

Wikipedia defines Enterprise architecture (EA) as:

… the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating and improving the key requirements, principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution.

Practitioners of EA call themselves enterprise architects. An enterprise architect is a person responsible for performing this complex analysis of business structure and processes and is often called upon to draw conclusions from the information collected. By producing this understanding, architects are attempting to address the goals of Enterprise Architecture: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Agility, and Durability.

As with BRM’s, the EA role has been growing in prominence over the last 10 years or so.  Typically, it is complementary to the more technical roles of IT Architect, Information Architect, and so on.  Also, as with BRM’s there is little that is ‘standardized’ about the EA role, and by many measures it is something of a stretch to use the term “profession” when talking about EA’s, in spite of the efforts of bodies such as The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF®), and my old friend, John Zachman and his Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architectures.

Again, as with BRM’s, LinkedIn is home to an Enterprise Architecture Network, with an astounding 85,000+ members!  As an example of the passion exhibited by this group, a recent comment that stated, “EA is often left in IT because it can only handle tame problems” garnered 572 comments!

At its best, the EA helps bring to the business-IT discovery and solutioning table some of the competencies from my bulleted list above.

Product Manager

The third role in the triad that can help IT organizations introduce more Design Thinking into their activities is that of Product Manager.  This role is far more scarce in IT organizations than either BRM or EA.  It is, however, universal in product companies, including information technology product companies.  Wikipedia defines Product Management as:

…an organizational lifecycle function within a company dealing with the planning, forecasting, or marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle.

The role consists of product development and product marketing, which are different (yet complementary) efforts, with the objective of maximizing sales revenues, market share, and profit margins. The product manager is often responsible for analyzing market conditions and defining features or functions of a product. The role of product management spans many activities from strategic to tactical and varies based on the organizational structure of the company.

While involved with the entire product lifecycle, the product management’s main focus is on driving new product development. According to the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), superior and differentiated new products — ones that deliver unique benefits and superior value to the customer — is the number one driver of success and product profitability.

Of particular note, Wikipedia goes on to note that:

Product management often serves an inter-disciplinary role, bridging gaps within the company between teams of different expertise, most notably between engineering-oriented teams and commercially oriented teams. For example, product managers often translate business objectives set for a product by Marketing or Sales into engineering requirements. Conversely they may work to explain the capabilities and limitations of the finished product back to Marketing and Sales. (Emphasis added.)

The Design Thinking Triumvirate

So, the keys to getting more Design Thinking into Business-IT solutions lies in the triumvirate of Business Relationship Manager, Enterprise Architect and Product Manager, with the BRM as the broker and orchestrator of these roles.  There are, of course, other roles played – e.g., business analyst, project manager, program manager, and so on, but I wanted here to focus on those roles which are less common but in the ascendancy.

Graphic courtesy of Green Hat Group

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What’s Really Meant By Business-IT Engagement and How Do You Achieve It?


This is another post triggered by a reader’s question emailed to me.  Here’s his question (some details have been omitted to preserve anonymity).

I was searching for information around Business-IT engagement but have yet to really come across anything with substance.  I’m looking to better connect with the business unit managers to formulate an IT strategy. The unit managers have a track record of operating in their own silos, often making IT decisions without talking to IT which has ultimately cost the company money.  I was thinking about putting a plan together to engage. Structured via, face-to-face, email, social media, newsletter and even survey. Ultimately, from start to finish, I build the picture and connect and portray the message that IT is an enabler and there is benefit in engaging.  I wondered if you knew of anything which may help me?”

This is an interesting question and a common challenge.

What Do We Mean by Business-IT Engagement?

A little research into the term “Business-IT engagement” found a reference to “Employee Engagement“, which Wikipedia defines as:

An ‘engaged employee’ is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests. According to Scarlett Surveys, ‘Employee Engagement is a measurable degree of an employee’s positive or negative emotional attachment to their job, colleagues and organization that profoundly influences their willingness to learn and perform at work’. Thus engagement is distinctively different from employee satisfaction, motivation and organisational culture.”

I don’t think it’s an unreasonable stretch to derive from this a definition of business-IT engagement:

Business-IT Engagement exists when business unit leaders are fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their IT capabilities, and thus will act in a way that furthers the business value of those capabilities.  Business-IT Engagement is a measurable degree of a business executive’s positive or negative emotional attachment to their IT capabilities, IT colleagues and IT organization that profoundly influences their willingness to participate in the use of IT for business value.”

IT Engagement Model

I also found an IT Engagement Model from our friends at the Center for Information Systems Research:

The IT engagement model is defined as the system of governance mechanisms that brings together key stakeholders to ensure that projects achieve both local and company-wide objectives. The model consists of three general components:

  • Company-wide IT Governance – decision rights and accountability of company level and business unit level stakeholders to define company-wide objectives and encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT
  • Project management – a formalized project management process, with clear deliverables and regular well-defined checkpoints, that encourages disciplined, predicatable behaviour for project teams.
  • Linking mechanisms – processes and decision-making bodies that connect project-level activities to the overall IT governance.

The Linking Mechanisms are further explained in the following graphic:

I find this to be a pretty comprehensive and easily understood way to define some of the major aspects of Business-IT engagement.

Key Business-IT Engagement Factors

The other key factors I pointed my reader to include:

  • The experience your unit managers have with IT – do they trust IT? Has IT served them reliably? Is there transparency into how IT charges?  Is the business value of IT recognized and celebrated?
  • How engaged are business and IT leadership with each other? Does the CIO sit on the Management Committee? Is there an effective business-IT governance board and related processes and structures?
  • The skills of those in the business-IT interface role (Business Relationship Managers, or BRM’s) – how well do they understand the business? Do they have good relationship skills? Are they co-located with the business unit leaders and sit in on business management meetings? Do they perform a business management role, or are they simply seen as technical people taking care of IT?  Are they primarily responsible for Demand Management?

To the balance of his question, I asked:

  • Are you really trying to formulate an IT strategy? Or is it going to be a business-IT strategy. (If I’m a business unit leader, why should I care about or want to be involved in an IT strategy – it sounds rather internal to IT to me, so I’d probably want to stay out of it – I’m busy enough as it is!)
  • Do you really understand the business problems and how IT can contribute to solving them? If you do, what’s the best way to “market” those ideas, and to whom should you be marketing them?
  • What are the cultural norms in the business – do ideas drift down from the top, or do they percolate up from the edges – the ‘front lines’?

Outside-in Versus Inside-out Thinking and Acting

Finally, I was troubled by an aspect of the language my reader used in his question:

I build the picture and connect and portray the message that IT is an enabler and there is benefit in engaging”

This is what I call Inside-out thinking – “We (IT) are good and can help you so you should engage with us!”  I think my reader might be on a better path to engagement if he can identify the specific business issues and needs and communicate how IT might contribute to addressing those issues and needs.

Don’t Engage – Empower!

Just as I was finalizing this post, Zemanta did its usual thing of suggesting links and related articles.  (I really like Zemanta – it’s been one of my little blogging secrets for a while!)  Among its suggestions for articles was Don’t Engage Employees, Empower Them!  I think that is an important dimension to Business-IT engagement – especially in this age of IT consumerization.   Too many IT leaders see there role as ‘protecting the business from the perils of IT.’  Empowering them – for example, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) can be a powerful way of bringing the business into the business-IT dialog and engaging them in strategic and tactical dialog and decision making.

Graphic courtesy of The Social Workplace

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Is IT Organizational Confusion Exacerbated by the Role of Business Relationship Manager?


I received a question from a reader about the role of a Business Relationship Manager (BRM).  I decided to bring the question and my response to this blog.

His question, and the context for it was:

When the BRM role was introduced at our organization, the Head of IT did not convey a clear vision or direction for how the new role would fit into the existing IT organization structure.  We did not have clarity on how to deal with the issues that are brought to surface by the BRM, or how the BRM should work with Business Analysts, Project Managers and other key roles.  Please share practical examples of how a typical BRM should operate on a day-to-day basis.  What impact should a BRM expect to have made in 3, 6, 12 months and who should see/feel the impact- is it for the IT department and its behavior or how business begins to engage with BRM?”

His email went on to say:

I feel that a lack of clarity and appropriate structure and governance of how a BRM is to operate within an existing IT organizational structure will result in a muddle and confusion for IT colleagues and ultimately fractured relations with the business/customers.”

New Organizational Roles Disrupt the Status Quo

My first observation is that you could substitute any major new role for the specific BRM issue above and have the same potential for organizational confusion.  I’ve seen this with the introduction of Business and IT architects, Program Managers, Service Managers, Product Managers, and so on.  Sometimes the new role gets introduced with limited clarity as to its purpose – rather it feels like “the thing to do”.  Often, the catalyst for the new role is something like:

  • Someone in an influential position has read about or came from an organization where this role reputedly worked miracles – “We should try this here!”
  • There are recurring pain points (e.g., a ‘noisy’ or dissatisfied business customer) – “Let’s put Jill into a role to face off with this customer and see if she can reduce the noise!”
  • Something doesn’t feel right about the current organization structure – “Let’s introduce a new role and see if that improves things!”  This is akin to the proverbial moving of deck chairs aboard the Titanic!

Implications of New Roles

Whatever the catalyst, there are a couple of important contextual characteristics to note here:

  1. Lack of clarity about the rationale for the new role – what problem(s) are we trying to solve and how will the new role solve them?
  2. Unclear expectations about what the outcomes of the new role should be (for example, picking up my readers question, “impact to have made in 3, 6, 12 months and who should see/feel the impact?”)
  3. Failure to fully consider changes that must be made to the IT operating model.  Presumably, the new role is taking over some Responsibility and/or Accountability from other roles, and that other roles need to be Consulted or Informed by the new role.  Note, the initials I’ve capitalized – RACI – the (hopefully) familiar tool for clarifying and assigning roles and responsibilities.

Unclear New Role + Unclear IT Operating Model = Total Confusion!

So, what we have here is a new role being introduced with a lack of clarity as to why, or how, into an organization that already has an unclear Operating Model.  In the past, we somehow managed to ‘get by’ with the unclear Operating Model because:

  1. We have bright, hard-working people who work at ‘smoothing out the bumps’ caused by lack of Operating Model clarity.
  2. They’ve been at this for a while, so unless there’s an unusual disruption to the status quo (such as a new role being introduced), we manage to limp along ok.

Answering the Tough Questions

My reader asked for “practical examples of how a typical BRM should operate on a day-to-day basis.”  With due respect to my reader, it’s the wrong question.  You can’t solve the problem by defining how a BRM operates.  The real question is, “How should the IT organization operate on a day-to-day basis with the introduction of this new role (the BRM)?” i.e., “What is our next-state IT Operating Model?”  I’ve posted many times on the components of an IT operating model, how to define one, how to implement one, and so on.  Enter IT Operating Model in the search box at the top – you’ll get about 40 posts on this topic representing 30 years of IT management consulting wisdom shared over 5 years of blogging!

My reader also asked, “What impact should a BRM expect to have made in 3, 6, 12 months and who should see/feel the impact- is it for the IT department and its behavior or how business begins to engage with BRM?”  The first part of this is totally dependent upon the organizational context – and especially on business and IT maturity.  But it is the right question, and the BRM should be working with the IT leadership team defining the hoped-for impact and how to track it.

It is also important to consider possible unintended consequences of a new role’s introduction.  For example, I worked with a global multi-billion dollar company who carefully introduced the BRM role.  They picked their “best and brightest” to fill the BRM position, and we developed a robust training program and toolkit for the BRMs.  Unfortunately, they were so effective at surfacing, stimulating and shaping business demand for IT, that they quickly exceeded supply capacity.  The BRM’s found themselves saying “no” to the same business executives they’d worked with to surface that demand.  If the expression “getting egg on your face” has any meaning, this was getting an entire chicken farm all over yourself, with lashings of excreted waste!

To the second part – who should see/feel the impact – I’d say that if there’s no positive impact to the business customer, then why bother with the BRM (or any new) role?  And inevitably, the IT department will feel impact – disruption initially, but over time, greater efficiency (“doing things right”) and effectiveness (“doing the right things”).

So, What To Do?

Again, this is a topic I’ve visited many times over the years on this blog – click on Organizational Change Management on the tag cloud to the right of this post for a collection of posts that more or less deal with this issue.

There’s no easy formula here – it’s about motivating change.  This is highly contingent on organizational context, relationships, and other factors specific to a given environment, but there are some common elements:

  1. Find ways to surface the pain of the status quo to those with the organizational power and authority to initiate the change – what the quality movement calls “the cost of quality”.  Use the process of surfacing this pain to build a guiding coalition of stakeholders who want and will benefit from the change.
  2. Find ways to clarify and sharpen the vision of the future state – the remedy to the pain of the status quo.  How will the introduction of a BRM role improve things?  What will this look like – after 3, 6, 12 months?  What will the implications be for our IT operating model?  Again, leverage the coalition – get their input and ensure their buy-in to the future state.  Help them understand what they must do to help the change happen and the future state become real.
  3. Find ways to clarify the transition from the status quo to the future state – what’s the transition plan?  Should we start with one BRM and conduct a pilot?  Should we pull together an “IT Operating Model Improvement Team” to do a fast cycle (no more than 60 days) analysis and provide recommendations to the IT leadership team?

Image courtesy of Awakening Business Solutions

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To Whom Should Business Relationship Managers Report?


I recently received this question from a reader:

We are evaluating a strategy to centralize IT and implement Business Relationship Management (BRM) roles as part of the centralization. Where do you typically see the BRM’s reporting into in a centralized IT organization? Should they report directly in to the CIO, or can they be effective a level or two below the CIO?”

Rule #1 – Reporting Lines Are Weak Determinants of Success for the BRM Role

I have found reporting relationships to be a very weak determinant of success for the Business Relationship Manager (BRM) role. Far more important are the competencies (especially business knowledge and relationship skills) of the BRM and the maturity of the business executives they partner with.

Rule #2 – Heft Matters!

Notwithstanding Rule #1, the “heft” of the BRM role – the weight and implied authority it carries does matter.  There’s a couple of reasons for this:

  1. BRM’s are often on a CIO succession path (either explicitly or implicitly) – i.e., have the skills and wherewithal to be a CIO down the road, and the BRM role may be seen as a developmental step.  This has implications for who you chose to fill BRM roles, and for their career paths.
  2. The story a CIO tells the business executives when establishing the BRM role is along the lines of, “I am giving you one of my senior staff members to help surface, shape and manage IT demand so that you get the highest possible value from IT investments and assets. In return for this ‘gift’ I expect you to treat this BRM as a member of your management team.”

As a result, the most common reporting relationship for successful BRM’s is directly to the CIO.  In some cases, the BRM has a dotted line relationship to the senior business executive for the unit they represent.  In other cases, the BRM role is solid line to the senior business executive and dotted line to the CIO.

Rule #3 – Context Matters!

There are many other contextual factors to consider here, including:

  • What is the scope of the BRM role – is it primarily demand management (shaping, surfacing and managing business demand for IT)?  Or does the role include supply management, service management or other responsibilities?
  • Do the BRM’s act as Project or Program Managers for major initiatives?
  • Do the BRM’s sit on any governance bodies, such as Portfolio Management or Service Management?
  • How do BRM’s engage with the supply side?  How do they engage with Enterprise Architects?
  • How mature is IT supply?
  • Howe mature is business demand?

BRM’s Can Be ‘Game Changers’!

The BRM role is a tough one to get right, but from my experience, well worth the effort!  An effective BRM can:

  1. Elevate business maturity
  2. Ensure that IT resources are being focused on the highest potential value activities and initiatives
  3. Ensure that those initiatives capture the highest possible value

 

Graphic courtesy of Linda Galindo

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How Good are your IT Capabilities and How Good do they Need to Be? – Part 3


This is the 3rd in a series on assessing IT Capabilities.  (See Part 1 and Part 2)

A Quick Recap

Part 1 introduced some assessment principles I’ve found to be important.  Part 2 defined the term IT Capability, presented a potential landscape, or normative model, if you will, for IT Capabilities, and discussed ways to determine what IT Capabilities are needed.

In this part we will examine assessment dimensions, options and ratings.

Assessment Dimensions

Figure 1 – Capability Assessment Dimensions

Figure 1 shows a capability assessment approach that uses 4 top-level dimensions – Purpose, Commitment, Ability and Accountability. Each dimension is decomposed into lower (leaf) level dimensions.  Purpose, for example, is a function of how clearly and effectively the service(s) produced by a capability are defined, and how clearly the goals for that capability and principles by which the capability operates are defined.

Note, there is a hierarchy implied among the top-level dimensions.  It is unreasonable to expect management commitment to a given capability if the purpose and goals for that capability are unclear or inappropriate.  It is unlikely that appropriate ability is in place without the necessary management commitment.  It is unreasonable to expect clarity of accountability for a given capability if ability is lacking.   In practice, I don’t usually disclose this hierarchical relationship until the assessment is underway, when I do use it as a validation mechanism.  For example, if the assessment team is scoring Accountability as fully in place, when they’ve scored Purpose or Commitment or Ability as not in place or only partially in place, then I know I need to challenge the team, and probe for the inconsistency.

Assessment Options

The multi-level assessment dimensions provide several options for the assessment method:

  1. Assess a capability at the top-level, but use the leaf levels to clarify what is meant by the top-level.  For example, I can assess the degree to which the Purpose of a given capability is in place by thinking about the effectiveness and clarity of the Service Definition for that capability, and the quality of the Goals and Guiding Principles for that capability.
  2. Assess a capability at the leaf level dimensions.
  3. Mix and match between top-level and leaf level dimension based upon the needs (purpose and goals of the assessment) and feasibility (available time, available knowledge) of the assessment situation.

Assessment Ratings

For any capability, for each dimension, a rating can be assessed as follows – the capability dimension is:

  • Fully in place – this is our universal practice and will be found to be used consistently, with few, if any, exceptions.
  • Mostly in place – this is common practice, though is not universal or not consistent, or there are frequent exceptions.  We know how to do this well – but we need to get better in practice.
  • Partially in place – this is not common practice, though we have many of the necessary characteristics, but not all of them.  We have some work to do to strengthen the capability as it exists as common practice.
  • Not in place – we have few, if any, of the necessary characteristics.  We have a great deal of work to do to develop this capability.

Note, there is clearly room for interpretation in these ratings.  This is more art than science, and for most IT capabilities, we are not dealing with highly mature processes and statistical process control!  From my experience, that is ok, and is why in Part 1 of this series that I said that my preference is to use a facilitated self-assessment approach – pull together a team of practitioners, customers and subject matter experts and facilitate them through the assessment.  It is usually the dialog this generates that has the most value, and leads to the insight and commitment from the team to initiate and sustain improvement efforts.  More on this in Part 4.

Assessment Dimension Descriptions

Below are brief descriptions for each top-level and leaf level assessment dimension.

Purpose

Are purposes and goals for the capability clearly defined and well understood?

  • Service/Product Definition
    • Is there a clear definition of the business purpose served by the capability and how this service/product integrates or links with other services and products?
    • Is there a clear definition of business outcomes for the service?
    • Have the service providers been identified? (e.g., dedicated internal service providers, external service providers, project team responsibility)
  • Goals and Guiding Principles
    • Are the appropriate opportunities to use the capability defined?
    • Are the goals established for use of the capability and/or its service providers?

Commitment

Has organizational commitment been demonstrated in terms of senior sponsorship and management responsibilities?

  • Sponsorship
    • Is there adequate understanding, support and management commitment to sustain the use of the capabilities and/or services?
    • Is there commitment by example?
  • Delivery Management
    • Is qualified management in place to provide oversight and direction for delivering the capability or service?
    • Are mechanisms in place to ensure that service delivery will improve over time?
  • Change Management
    • Is a change management strategy and plan in place to overcome issues of organizational resistance?

Ability

Have the baseline processes, role requirements, enabling technologies and deployment capabilities been established?

  • Process Definition
    • Has a documented process been implemented to guide work activities?
  • Roles and Competencies
    • Are required competencies and specific areas of specialization defined?
    • Are appropriate service providers identified and trained?
    • Are training/skill development processes defined and provided?
  • Tools and Technologies
    • Are tools and technologies in place to enable effective execution of the work processes?
  • Deployment
    • Are the service providers organized, ready, and able to provide service?
    • Are charging and cost allocation mechanisms in place?

Accountability

Have criteria for success and related consequences been defined?

  • Performance Management
    • Have measurable criteria for individual and group performance been defined?
    • Have measurable criteria for evaluating business results been defined?
    • Have necessary measurement/assessment approaches been instituted?
  • Consequence Management
    • Has a program to ensure usage been established?
    • Are the rewards for success and penalties for failure defined, communicated and implemented?
    • Have individual roles been defined including their inter-dependencies and how performance contributes to overall success?

 

Please join me for the 4th and final part in this series!  And please do weigh in with your own experiences, observations or questions!

 

Graphic courtesy of Tarun Trikha.com

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How Good are your IT Capabilities and How Good do they Need to Be? – Part 2


This is the 2nd in a multi-part post on assessing IT Capabilities.  (See Part 1)

A Quick Recap

Part 1 introduced some assessment principles I’ve found to be important.

  1. The Process is more important than the results.  I’ve found facilitated self-assessments to be the most effective.
  2. The results must be actionable. An assessment must give you insight into what needs to be improved, with what urgency and in what sequence.
  3. The results must be multi-dimensional. For example, address performance, value delivered and health of a given capability.
  4. Process-based assessments only go so far – and may in fact be misleading! Not all IT Capabilities are process-based.  Some depend more on standardization of deliverables or the outputs produced by a capability, and some depend more on special skills and training. Concluding that a given Capability might be highly mature or highly immature might have nothing to do with its ability to deliver excellent results!

Capability Defined

There are several aspects to defining Capabilities:

  1. What is meant by “IT Capability”?
  2. What is the potential landscape of IT Capabilities?
  3. How do you know what IT Capabilities you need?

Let’s examine these in turn.

What is Meant by “Capability”?

Wikipedia defines Capability as:

The ability to perform actions. As it applies to human capital, capability is the sum of expertise and capacity.”

A couple of things to note about IT Capabilities:

  1. While Capability Maturity Models such as CMMI put processes as the central construct of a capability (and the key to capability maturity assessment), in practice not all IT Capabilities are inherently process-centric.  Some depend more on people’s skills and competencies (think Business Relationship Manager, for example) while others depend more on deliverables than they do on specific processes.  (For a more detailed treatment of this distinction, see Part 1 in this series or my earlier posts on Henry Mintzberg‘s seminal work on organizational constructs.)
  2. You don’t need to “own” any given IT Capability – you can “rent” it as in outsourcing or contracting, for example.
  3. Not all IT Capabilities exist in an IT (or IS) organization.  Some are embedded in business units or other organizations.  For example, the capability to chose, procure and maintain personal computing devices may belong to the business – think “Bring Your Own Device” or “BYOD” as this rapidly growing movement is often referred to.

What is the Potential Landscape of IT Capabilities?

I’ve covered this topic in some depth previously in my posts on IT Organizational Clarity, but as a quick recap, below is a normative, high-level IT Capability Model.

Normative IT Capability Model

One can debate the specific labels for each of these capabilities, but essentially, any enterprise that depends upon Information Technology to any degree needs each of these IT Capabilities.  Of course, the devil, as they say, is in the detail, and the detail exists in the drill-down decompositions for each of these high-level IT Capabilities.  We will get more into this in Part 3 of this series.

How do You Know What IT Capabilities You Need?

There must be a clear and explicit linkage from Business Strategy to needed IT Capabilities.  There are many methods for achieving and expressing this linkage, and this is the realm of strategy formulation.  At its simplest, a given Business Strategy will require a set of Business Capabilities.  In turn, most, if not all Business Capabilities will depend upon one or more IT Capabilities.  Common techniques for achieving this linkage include:

But, IT Must Not Only Satisfy Business Demand – It Must Stimulate and Shape Demand!

The big danger with most strategic alignment methods are that they are inherently reactive.  i.e., To enable “x” business capability or strategy, we need “y” IT capability.  But how do you know that the business strategy is properly informed by IT possibilities?  This is where the first in the Value Chain Capabilities (see graphic above) comes into play – Discovering Business-IT Potential – and where the role of the Business Relationship Manager is so key.  So, you don’t just need the IT Capabilities the business thinks it needs – you also need IT Capabilities that create IT “savvy” and equip the business to understand and fully exploit IT potential.

Coming Up Next…

In Part 3 of this series we will examine assessment dimensions and methods.

Graphic courtesy of LipheLongLurnERrdok

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How Good are your IT Capabilities and How Good do they Need to Be?


This will be the first in a series of posts about assessing the “goodness” of IT capabilities, both in terms of your current state (how good your IT capabilities are) and ‘desired’ state (how good they need to be).  We will get into the dimensions of ‘goodness’ as well as assessment methods.

I’ve been designing and facilitating IT capability assessments for over 20 years, and have conducted hundreds of them – both as part of multi-company research projects that generated a substantial base of assessment data, and through individual assessments as part of consulting engagements. Over that time, I’ve developed a number of assessment principles I’ve found to be important.

The Process Is More Important Than The Results

There are several aspects to this.

  1. People don’t like being assessed, but they love being part of an assessment process!  By and large, people like to know how they are doing, especially from an organizational perspective.  But they are mistrustful (rightly so!) of consultants or other ‘agencies’ that come in and assess them or their organizations.  So, I’ve always taken an approach where I am a facilitator of a self-assessment process.  I bring the process (which the client and I may agree to modify to accommodate specific contingencies), experience to help them through the process, and act as an impartial ‘judge‘ to resolve differences of perspective, opinion or interpretation.
  2. The process must be transparent.  If people don’t understand or buy into the process, they will never buy into the results!
  3. The process should be repeatable.  Like a meaningful scientific experiment, the process should lend itself to repetition with consistent results.  In fact, repetition over time may well be important to sustained investment in capability improvement activities.  Too many assessments are conducted, discussed and then swept under the table.  This is a travesty!  Not only is the assessment wasted effort, but it may also be that much harder, or even impossible, to get people to participate in future assessments.  “Why should I bother – the last time we did this it went nowhere!” is a fairly common refrain.

The Results Must Be Actionable

The results should let you know:

  1. What needs to be done to improve capability performance.
  2. Where the greatest urgency lies for capability improvement.
  3. What it will take for a given IT capability to be improved, and to what benefit.

The Results Must Be Multi-Dimensional

This actually gets to the question of “goodness.”  I believe there are three important aspects of “goodness” as it relates to IT capability:

  1. Performance – this gets to efficiency – what resources it takes to achieve a given result.
  2. Value – this gets to the effectiveness of an IT capability – what benefits are being derived from the capability.
  3. Health – the ability to perform and deliver value over time.  We’ve all seen heroics, where, for example, a project team moves mountains in the final weeks of a project by working 20 hour days, 7 days a week.  It’s a wonderful thing to behold, and sometimes is necessary and may even promote ‘good health’ for the organization as people pull together and participate in a ‘miracle’.  But it’s not sustainable.  Expecting people to perform at a sprint when the course is a marathon is both dangerous and demotivating.

Process-based Assessments Only Go So Far!

We are all familiar with the SEI CMMI type maturity assessment.  These typically assess a capability’s maturity as somewhere along 5 levels:

  1. Initial
  2. Managed
  3. Defined
  4. Quantitatively Managed
  5. Optimizing

I believe maturity assessments such as this are appropriate for capabilities that are heavily process-dependent.  These include IT operational processes – highly predictable, repeatable processes.  But, drawing from Henry Mintzberg‘s discussion of standardization many years back, (see Mintzberg’s “Structure in Fives: Designing Effective Organizations”) not everything demands standardization of work processes.  If the goal is to make work consistent, repeatable, predictable and of high quality, there are three approaches:

  1. Standardize the work processes
  2. Standardize the outputs – i.e., the deliverables from the process
  3. Standardize the skills – i.e., focus on the people and their training

Typically, all three types of standardization apply to varying degrees – the mix being a function of the nature and complexity of the work you are doing.  For highly complex work (think brain surgery) the emphasis is on the people, which is why surgeons go through years of training, board certification, residencies, and so forth.  It’s no use handing them a detailed process to follow and expecting an untrained person to achieve a quality result.  For work such as bridge building, the emphasis will be on the deliverables – various types of blueprint, work breakdown structures and so on.  For routine, sequential work, the emphasis will be on defining the tasks to be followed and the sequence in which to follow them.  Ideally, the work can be so ‘routinized’ that it can be automated.  (Think data center operations and the shift over the years to ‘lights out’ data centers.)

The graphic below illustrates this concept.  Detailed processes are great at helping manage work that is routine and sequential in nature (which is one of the reasons why ITIL has gained so much traction in the last few years.)  For work that is inherently collaborative, and may require more visual enablement, standardizing on deliverables may be more apparent (think discovery and solution delivery).  For work that is more complex and exploratory, training and performance support systems are more appropriate.

For more on the different approaches to standardization, see my post, “Are Your Processes Setting You Free?  Or Holding You Back?“

Please join me for the next post in this series where we will drill further into assessment dimensions and processes.

 

Graphic courtesy of Take On Torah

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