improve it business alignment with an infrastructure roadmap

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Info-Tech Research Group 1 Info-Tech Research Group 1 Info-Tech Research Group, Inc. is a global leader in providing IT research and advice. Info-Tech’s products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns. © 1997-2016 Info-Tech Research Group Inc. Improve IT-Business Alignment with an Infrastructure Roadmap Let the roadmap be your Rosetta Stone. Info-Tech's products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.© 1997 - 2016 Info-Tech Research Group

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Info-Tech Research Group 1Info-Tech Research Group 1

Info-Tech Research Group, Inc. is a global leader in providing IT research and advice.

Info-Tech’s products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with

ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.

© 1997-2016 Info-Tech Research Group Inc.

Improve IT-Business Alignment with an Infrastructure RoadmapLet the roadmap be your Rosetta Stone.

Info-Tech's products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools

and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.© 1997 - 2016 Info-Tech Research Group

Info-Tech Research Group 2Info-Tech Research Group 2

IT departments are failing and may not even realize it. Their failure is not in the daunting task of keeping core services up and running, but in demonstrating an understanding of business needs and requirements. An infrastructure roadmap corrects this problem of perception and clearly communicates how IT enables the business and prepares it for the future.

Business stakeholders look elsewhere for IT services. Is this fair? No – well, maybe. But the business has to be accountable for its previous actions. Being informed by the past enables better decision making in the future. In a rapidly changing technical and business environment it is equally unfair for IT to appear rigid and backward-facing. Stability must be balanced with agility.

Infrastructure must reach out and engage with the stakeholders to logically coordinate activity and timing. More important though is their responsibility to contextualize all activities, past, present, and future, directly linking them to the goals of the business and explicitly demonstrating their value.

An infrastructure roadmap is an essential planning activity and communications tool. A forward-looking roadmap provides the what, why, how, and when of IT plans. No action in infrastructure, from adopting a new technology to refreshing or maintaining a current technology, can be in isolation.

John Annand,

Senior Manager, Infrastructure

Info-Tech Research Group

IT is failing and business stakeholders are looking elsewhere.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Info-Tech Research Group 3Info-Tech Research Group 3

This Research is Designed For: This Research Will Help You:

This Research Will Assist: This Research Will Help You:

This Research Is Designed For: This Research Will Help You:

This Research Will Also Assist: This Research Will Help Them:

Our understanding of the problem

Infrastructure Directors

CIOs

Operations Manager or VP

Departmental Managers or VPs

Create a shared understanding of the value

infrastructure delivers to the business.

Establish priorities for Infrastructure initiatives.

Demonstrate how IT investments support

business goals.

Deliver value from emerging technologies

successfully and at the right time.

Server, Network, and Storage Managers

Project Managers

End-User Compute and Device Managers

Integrate planning and hardware replacement

cycles with overall business goals.

Suggest projects or initiatives to enable

business goals.

Allocate resources correctly for the timely

delivery of milestone events on the roadmap.

Info-Tech Research Group 4Info-Tech Research Group 4

Resolution

Situation

Complication

Info-Tech Insight

Executive summary

• Business executives have a perception that by focusing on maximizing

infrastructure reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS), IT is

ignoring contextual business goals.

• Communication between infrastructure management and executives is

inadequate and unpersuasive.

• Data required to manage capacity and evaluate risk is of poor quality.

• Sub-optimal investment in technology results in corporate infrastructure

lacking the capacity and agility of third-party providers.

• Business units bypass corporate IT and the associated governance and

control, for their technology needs

• Infrastructure practices are dismissed as cost centers at best, inhibitors

at worst, and are not embraced as business enablers.

• Open a channel to communicate stakeholder goals directly to the infrastructure practice and infrastructure capabilities to

the business stakeholder.

• Develop a methodology for project creation and prioritization that reflects current business goals.

• Design a tool that can produce output meaningful to various audiences using the same data set.

• Make data-driven decisions regarding asset refresh and maintenance, and evaluate their impact on the roadmap initiatives.

• Maintain the roadmap as an iterative document capable of adjusting to changes according to a standard procedure.

1. Think of the roadmap as a service, not

a product. Its value is inversely

proportional to the time since its last

update.

2. In recognizing technical debt, the

roadmap addresses the legacy of past

decisions.

3. As a broker of services, Infrastructure

must evaluate new technologies and

trends for business relevance,

acceptable risk, and appropriate fit.

4. Shadow IT can provide business-ready

initiatives that need only to be tweaked

to align with Infrastructure’s internal

goals.

Info-Tech Research Group 5Info-Tech Research Group 5

Infrastructure directors and their departments are failing to

meet business stakeholder needs

Seventy percent of business stakeholders “somewhat

consistently” look externally to purchase IT services.

46.0%

60.0%62.0%

54.0%

40.0%38.0%

0.0%

10.0%

20.0%

30.0%

40.0%

50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

Overall SatisfactionWith IT Core Services

IT's Ability to DeliverSolutions That Meet

Business Needs

IT's Understanding ofBusiness Needs and

Requirements

Business Stakeholders’ Satisfaction With IT

Dissatisfied Satisfied

Source: Info-Tech CIO Business Vision Diagnostic; N=2,369

According to Info-Tech’s

Business Vision survey:

• Only 53.8% of business

leaders are satisfied with IT

core services.

• Less than 40% are satisfied

with IT’s ability to deliver

solutions that satisfy business

capability needs.

Some of these findings can be

attributed to the CIO’s inability

to:

• Effectively manage

stakeholder relationships.

• Understand the capability

needs of business partners.

• Enable innovation to help

business stakeholders

capitalize on technology

opportunities.

Info-Tech Research Group 6Info-Tech Research Group 6

Situation Result Insight

• NASA develops technology

across 15 distinct areas,

representing the efforts of its

18,000 staff and nearly

250,000 external workers.1

• Technologies developed had

the potential to overlap; while

they delivered value, they did

not necessarily contribute to

the core NASA mission.2

• During a visit in 2010, the

President instructed NASA to

align its technology portfolio to

its mission.3

• The goals were to reduce

costs and duplication, and

increase efficiency and

effectiveness.4

• The Office of the Chief

Technologist (OCT) provides

agency-wide technology

coordination to align

investments, fill gaps to meet

mission requirements,

anticipate future needs, and

minimize duplication of effort.5

• NASA’s 2010 roadmaps listed

140 challenges and 320

technology candidates.6

• The 2015 iteration added 44

technology areas, was 2,100

pages in length, and had 340

authors. It is fed by a real-time

database that tracks investment

and project status, and

responds to changing priorities.7

NASA focuses its efforts in response to President Obama’s challenge

CASE STUDY

• Roadmaps require

considerable effort to produce

and executive support in order

to be successful.

• An initiative may have value,

but does not necessarily align

to the business goals.

• Different departments can

have similar needs and a

roadmap easily identifies

duplication of efforts.

• Stakeholders want to see that

all possibilities have been

considered and the roadmap

can serve that purpose.

Part 1/4

Source: nasa.gov

See endnotes

Info-Tech Research Group 7Info-Tech Research Group 7

Ante up in order to stay in the game; keeping the lights on is

just table stakes

Innovator – Transforms the BusinessReliable Technology Innovation

Business Partner – Expands the BusinessEffective Execution on Business Projects, Strategic

Use of Analytics and Customer Technology

Trusted Operator – Optimizes the BusinessEffective Fulfillment of Work Orders, Functional

Business Applications, and Reliable Data Quality

Firefighter – Supports the BusinessReliable Infrastructure and IT Service Desk

Unstable – Struggles to SupportInability to Provide Reliable Business Services

Transform your infrastructure practice from a firefighter

to a business partner or an innovator.

Mitigating risk is no longer sufficient, all departments are under increasing

pressure to deliver more and more direct value to the business

Ask not what your business has done for IT infrastructure lately, ask what IT

infrastructure is doing to enable your business for tomorrow!

Info-Tech Research Group 8Info-Tech Research Group 8

Spend time developing relationships and see pay-off in

improved satisfaction across all IT services

Relationships are 24% stronger

among Innovators than Operators.

Operators score a 71% average in

relationship satisfaction.

Relationships are 22% weaker among

Firefighters than Operators.

Ove

rall

sa

tis

facti

on

wit

h IT

Perceived Value of IT

Firefighters Operators Innovators

Info-Tech Insight

The most successful relationships have a

common vocabulary.

A proper infrastructure roadmap translates IT

activities into the language of business

strategy, goals, and initiatives.

Source: Info-Tech Benchmarking and Diagnostic

Programs; N=21,367

Communication is paramount. You have to put in the work and the time to hear what the business is saying in order to deliver and meet its expectations.

– John Hansknecht, Director of Technology

University of Detroit Jesuit High School & Academy

Info-Tech Research Group 9Info-Tech Research Group 9

0

As organizations grow in size and complexity so should the number of participants and stakeholders involved in

these activities. IT leaders must formalize the infrastructure roadmap to ensure mutual understanding and support

of next steps.

Contextualize goals and actions for all business units with the

connective tissue of an infrastructure roadmap

These processes vary widely but are broadly

represented here by:

1. Strategy to enable objectives.

2. Asset management to control the lifecycle of

the asset portfolio.

3. Project management to allocate resources

& deliver projects on time and budget.

4. Architecture or enterprise planning.

A roadmap connects the dots to show how

various decisions and investments relate to

each other.

A roadmap is the overlay that keeps planning

processes unified while maintaining flexibility.

StrategyAsset

Management

Project

ManagementArchitecture

Infrastructure Roadmap

“Our roadmap” often refers to an implied understanding of direction. Explicit

understanding of destination allows steps to emerge from a combination of core

planning processes.

Info-Tech Research Group 10Info-Tech Research Group 10

Actively manage the perception of competing business and

infrastructure demands

Business has objectives of growth, change, and

continuous improvement. A roadmap will fail to

serve its purpose if not designed for agility.

Stability alone is NOT a sufficient purpose

of IT infrastructure.

IT is increasingly expected to be more responsive

and agile. This increases the need for reliability,

availability, and stability.

Infrastructure managers are fundamentally

responsible for ensuring stability.

Agility Stability

IT leaders are being forced to think more like product

developers: defining the future rather than simply accepting it.

• Technology-enabled business models are emerging in

industries where IT was previously a back-office function.

• Disruptive technologies are emerging from more

directions.

Roadmaps are simple, adaptable, ‘strategic lenses’ through which the evolution of complex systems can be viewed, [and which support] dialogue and communication.

The roadmap is a fulcrum that strikes a balance between expected stability

and required agility.

Source: Robert Phaal and David Probert,

“Technology Roadmapping”

Info-Tech Research Group 11Info-Tech Research Group 11

Plot a path early on that gives real meaning for future and

near-future initiatives

Manage the lifecycle of aging equipment in order to meet capacity demands.

Initiate a schedule of infrastructure projects required to achieve business goals.

Communicate to the executive how Infrastructure is supporting enterprise objectives.

Realign IT resources quickly when faced with disruption.

The short-term (1 year) roadmap

is definite. Your destination is

precise and you know the steps

along the way.

The medium-term (3 years)

roadmap is semi-solid. Your

destination is more of a region

plus or minus a few stops.

The long-term (3-5+ years)

roadmap is fluid. Goals must be

foundational in order to withstand

the uncertainty of the long term.

Info-Tech Insight

The roadmap is a service, not a product.

You update your GPS in real time, why not your roadmap? A series of three

medium-term roadmaps is more valuable than a single exercise every five

years. The best roadmap is an iterative process rather than specific document.

1

2

3

4

Info-Tech Research Group ‹#›

Info-Tech Research Group Helps IT Professionals To:

Quickly get up to speed

with new technologies

Make the right technology

purchasing decisions – fast

Deliver critical IT

projects, on time and

within budget

Manage business expectations

Justify IT spending and

prove the value of IT

Train IT staff and effectively

manage an IT department