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Lesson 6

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as Prentice Hall

Chapter 16

Virtual interaction is becoming the rule of today’s workplace.

Today, a large percentage of employees accomplish their daily work done through collaboration technologies (e.g., e-mail, instant messaging, video conferencing, Twitter, Facebook).

Business and IT managers still struggle to quantify the real value of collaboration technologies.

Collaborative software represents one-fifth of most organizations’ technology budgets, but business leaders are still uncertain of its business value.

Top-line value

Cost savings Effectiveness

Accessibility of people

Accessibility of

information Flexibility

Potential business value from collaboration

Top-line value

The collaboration across an organization and with customers, suppliers, and other third parties, that will strengthen the ability to identify new business opportunities.

Cost savings

Collaborative technologies facilitate the work of global and virtual teams by compressing work flows, reducing development costs, increasing communication and improving coordination.

Effectiveness

Collaborative technology is useful in integrating remote and mobile workers seamlessly into a team.

It enables them to more effectively juggle a variety of commitments.

Accessibility of people

Collaborative technology facilitates the access to a broader range of skills, capabilities, resources and services.

Accessibility of information

Collaboration and its associated technologies make information much more accessible than before (e.g., information repositories).

Flexibility

Flatter, more networked, and collaborative structures create a leadership environment that facilitates timely decision making and fluid workforces.

Who is Collaborating?

What are they Collaborating on?

How are they Collaborating?

Where are they Collaborating?

C O M P L E X I T Y

Individuals

Internal Teams

Communities of Interest

Organizations

Customers and others

Transactions

Routine Activities

Ad hoc, un- structured initiatives

Innovation

Dynamic, real time strategies

On-site

Virtual

Mobile

Global

Electronic communication

Electronic conferencing

Electronic content creation & management

Electronic management

People

• Strong communication skills are essential. Managers should create a collaborative environment, instead of solely monitoring productivity.

Program • Collaboration needs to be part of a coherent

program to create and capture value, not just a series of stand-alone efforts.

Processes • Processes that support innovations and

collaborative teams need to be developed.

Platforms • These are the tools, technologies, and standards

that enable people to share data and to work together.

Communication

-- Collaborative technology (i.e., from voice mail to video) enables communication.

-- A single technology spectrum should support communication rather than separate components.

-- Communication technology should be ubiquitous, reliable, secure, and integrated.

Information access and management

-- An improved information processing capability includes accurate and visible information, manipulability, exchangeability and ease of information transfer.

-- An optimal number of databases, data management platforms, and intranets support this access.

Security and risk

-- IT function should ensure the balance between the openness required by collaboration and the risks involved.

-- Security must become more granular and principles based (i.e., developing policy on how to use social networking).

Technology integration

-- The more IT can achieve integration of data, applications, hardware, and software, the easier it will be to provide the information and tools needed to facilitate collaboration.

1. Develop a coherent vision

2. Plan for adaptation

3. Start with specific fundamentals

4. Establish principles of behavior

5. Gradually move beyond the firewall

1. Develop a coherent vision

-- Includes what the business wants to accomplish with collaboration and what types of technology would best support it.

-- Includes a unified strategy and business models, tools and experiments.

2. Plan for adaptation

-- IT function needs to develop the “flexing skills” to cope with dynamic collaboration.

-- The management of collaboration needs to be multidisciplinary and responsive to change.

3. Start with specific fundamentals

-- The start point for collaboration often lies in two specific fundamentals, information management and access. The organization should assess the existing gaps that hinder these fundamentals (e.g., office spaces).

4. Establish principles of behavior

-- Includes the development of a code of conduct to govern electronic communication and collaboration (e.g., policies and practices to achieve an effective work-life balance).

5. Gradually move beyond the firewall

-- Includes the identification of what information can and cannot be shared outside the organization’s boundaries.

Collaboration is a complex concept with uncertain benefits and requires major organizational changes.

Effective collaboration does not depend solely on implementing more collaborative software, but it requires a proactive and holistic strategy that integrates business goals and technology potential.

Chapter 17

APM is the ongoing management process of categorization, assessment, and rationalization of the IT application portfolio.

APM allows organizations to identify which applications to maintain, invest in, replace, or retire (i.e., avoid maintaining applications quagmire).

Built-over-time application systems that support the key operations of the organization.

They are often obsolete and unsupported by any vendor; host to countless “workarounds”; remain poorly undocumented; are often duplicated.

More than 80% of IT spending is used in these applications.

Line-of-business managers are reluctant to change these applications to avoid the agony of change.

They restrict the enterprise vision of IT.

This perspective evaluates the existing applications (i.e., the applications portfolio) against a set of potential applications that can be used across business units (i.e., the project portfolio).

Investment Portfolio Management Application Portfolio Management

Professional management but the client owns the portfolio

Professional management but the business owns the portfolio.

Personal financial portfolio balanced across investments in: equities, fixed income, cash.

Application portfolio balanced across investments in: new applications, currency (maintenance, enhancements, upgrades), retiring/decommissioning.

Client directs investment where needed (e.g., 50% equities, 40% fixed, 10% cash).

Business directs investments where needed (e.g., 40% new applications, 30% currency, 30% decommissioning).

Client provides direction on diversity across investments (e.g., investment in one fund would exclude/augment investment in other funds).

Business provides direction on diversity of investment (e.g., investment in one business capability might exclude/augment investment in another).

Client receives quarterly updates on its portfolio health and an annual report.

Business receives quarterly updates on application portfolio health and an annual report.

New investments are evaluated on their impact on the overall portfolio as well as on their own merits.

New applications are evaluated on their impact on the overall portfolio as well as on their own merits.

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Application portfolio – identifying the value of existing applications against corporate profitability, stability, usability, and technical obsolescence.

Project portfolio – identifying the value of future spending on applications, attempting to balance IT cost-reduction efforts and investments to develop new IT capabilities.

Visibility into where money is being spent, which provides the baseline to measure value creation.

Prioritization of applications across multiple dimensions – value to the business, urgency, and financial return.

A mechanism to ensure that applications map directly to business objectives.

To deliver value with APM, three interrelated capabilities are needed:

Capability 1: Strategy and governance.

Capability 2: Inventory management.

Capability 3: Reporting and rationalization.

“If strategy is the destination, then governance is the map”

Application portfolio governance answers this:

What decisions need to be made?

Who should make these decisions?

How are these decisions made?

Positioning APM within an enterprise IT governance framework

Common barriers during initial phases of APM:

Lack of accountability in the governance process (i.e., what governance practices should be applied). Application assessments are not taken seriously. Business managers lack awareness and accountability.

Identification of applications to be included in the portfolio to be managed (e.g., limiting the portfolio to business-critical applications).

The inventory is determined by the strategy and governance outlined in capability #1.

The identification can start by gathering the following information about applications:

General application information (i.e., functionality).

Application categorization (e.g., business capability provided, life cycle status)

Technical condition (e.g., development language, operating system, architecture).

Business value (e.g., business criticality, user base, effectiveness).

Support cost (i.e., maintenance and upgrades).

A set of standard parameter-driven reports should complement the application inventory.

Reports help to monitor the status of all existing applications so that management can ascertain the health of the portfolio applications.

Reports should compare applications on the basis of business value, technical condition, and cost.

The reports should provide information to meet the needs of various stakeholders.

IT organization

• Mapping and assessing business functionality against applications

Risk, audit, and security teams

• Assessing regulatory compliance and risk management

Business teams

• Assessing the costs and business value of the applications used

Balance demand and supply – regulate enhancements and releases for APM reporting.

Look for quick wins – identify immediate and visible wins that impact the bottom line.

Capture data at key life stages – capture data in the approval, testing, production, modification and retirement of applications.

Tie APM to TCO initiatives together.

The information captured by the APM initiative should support the total cost of ownership (TCO).

Provide an application “end-state” view.

Current and future information about applications are key for business planning.

Communicate APM benefits.

Communicating the goal of the APM initiative, the results, and the next stages are essential for the effectiveness of the APM.

APM promises significant benefits to adopting organizations.

The benefits require the development of three mutually reinforcing capabilities:  Development of a strategy but reinforced with

governance procedures.

 Creation of an application inventory.

 Reporting capability built to align the application portfolio with the strategy.