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Overcoming the Inhibitors to Alignment

Overcoming the Inhibitors to Alignment. Rich Bentley ITSM Director, Compuware. “Alignment was a perennial top ten IS management issue in a series of surveys (1980, 1983, 1986, and 1990).” – MIS Quarterly. 1980s.

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Overcoming the Inhibitors to Alignment

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  1. Overcoming the Inhibitors to Alignment Rich Bentley ITSM Director, Compuware

  2. “Alignment was a perennial top ten IS management issue in a series of surveys (1980, 1983, 1986, and 1990).” – MIS Quarterly 1980s “Alignment has consistently been rated as a key management issue by IS executives.” – MIS Quarterly 1996 “Nearly 300 senior IT management officials, including CEOs and CIOs, once again listed alignment as their top priority in a survey commissioned by the Chicago-based Society for Information Management.” – MIS Quarterly 2003 “The sad fact is that few CIOs are aligned. Only one out of five CIOs said he’s aligned with his business’s strategic goals, according to ‘The State of the CIO 2007’ survey.” – CIO Magazine 2007 Are We Aligned Yet?

  3. 6% higher EBITD 4% higher return on equity 8% higher return on assets 14% higher return on investments Why is Alignment Important? Growth Return 36% Aligned organizations Industry group 12% 7% 4% EPS Growth (annual) Revenue Growth (annual) Source: BTM Institute, June 2007

  4. Competitive Advantage Innovation Agility Proactive IT Why is Alignment Important? “More aligned CIOs said they had used IT to create a competitive advantage for the company than unaligned CIOs.” – CIO Magazine “The convergence of the business and technology sides of an organization into an integrated, ‘whole-brained’ enterprise provides the connections among innovation, resilience and agility.” – BTM Institute “IT organizations that meet the business alignment challenge recognize their value is intrinsically linked to business success and agility.” - Gartner “Misalignment with the business strategy typically results in a reactive stance for IT, where IT is seen as a cost center and not as a strategic business partner.” – David Nickels, University of Memphis

  5. Key Points • Alignment perspectives • Alignment inhibitors • Business-Driven Service Delivery • Visibility of true service quality • Unification across management tools • Prioritization according to business impact • Efficient problem resolution • Continual service improvement • Evaluating alignment maturity

  6. Service Level Expectations Service Level Reporting Management Control Management Visibility Seamless Execution Service Delivery Perspective of Alignment IT Management Business IT Operations

  7. Alignment InhibitorsAccording to Research • IT/Business lack close relationships • IT does not prioritize well • IT fails to meet its commitments • IT does not understand the business • Senior executives don’t support IT • IT management lacks leadership Source: Association for Information Systems, December 2000

  8. No foundation for dialog Mismatched expectations Technology-focused metrics IT in reactive mode The Real Inhibitors

  9. Business-Driven Service Delivery Service Level Expectations Business Service Management Business Service-level Reporting Business Service Views Application & Infrastructure Metrics Other Service Metrics End-user Experience Application Analytics

  10. Business-Driven Service Delivery Service Level Expectations Business Service Management Business Service-level Reporting Business Service Views Application & Infrastructure Metrics Other Service Metrics End-user Experience Application Analytics

  11. Business Services are: Revenue generating or impacting Business critical Supported by IT infrastructure Comprised of one or more business processes Provided by internal or external service organization Business Service ManagementWhat is a Business Service? Above the water line: Services the business units need, expressed in business terms Below the water line: Technical means and mechanisms for achieving those services

  12. Key steps that result in revenue to the business Each step is dependent on IT services Top-down service decomposition Which IT systems does it depend upon? Can revenue from the service be quantified? Example metrics How many loan applications? Success / failure ratio? What is the service status? Business Service ManagementExample Business Service 1 BusinessService Loan Request 4 End-user TransactionsExperiences Enter Request Assess Risk Preset Terms Loan Accept. 20 Client and Server Interactions HTTP Get DB Query HTTP Get SOAP Request 200 Data Packets

  13. Business Service ManagementTurning Data into Information • Real-time, business-oriented service views • Maps critical business processes to IT infrastructure • Correlates data from any source through adaptors, standard technologies (web services, enterprise messaging..) and scripts • Leverages Six Sigma techniques and ITIL for continuous improvement

  14. Business-Driven Service Delivery Service Level Expectations Business Service Management Business Service-level Reporting Business Service Views Application & Infrastructure Metrics Other Service Metrics End-user Experience Application Analytics

  15. Business-Relevant Metrics

  16. How are service problems discovered? Gartner found only 2% of dissatisfied online customers who experience poor performance complain. Other 7% Mgmt Tools 27% End Users 66% Source: Forrester study commissioned by Compuware Two Facts to Consider

  17. Business-Relevant MetricsEnd User Experience is Key App server Web server Mainframe Firewall Clients Clients Web Web server App server Database

  18. End User Experience Monitoring • True end user performance response times and availability for business-critical apps • Characterize by time & activity at client, network and server tiers • Compare to expected transaction behavior and service levels • Understand user impact • Two approaches: • 24x7 monitoring of all actual user transactions • Synthetic monitoring for proactive problem identification

  19. Business-Driven Service Delivery Service Level Expectations Business Service Management Business Service-level Reporting Business Service Views Application & Infrastructure Metrics Other Service Metrics End-user Experience Application Analytics

  20. Problem Resolution is Hard On average, how many people in the IT organization are involved in identifying and resolving performance issues? What are the reasons for involving multiple team members? Don’t know 1% Just one person 4% Isolating the source 85% Ten or more people 24% Determining scope & severity 63% Assigning responsibility 60% Resolving the problem once source identified Two to five people 57% 60% Six to nine people 14% Lack of understanding of interdependencies 44% Source: Forrester study commissioned by Compuware

  21. Proactive discovery of issues Fast isolation of fault domain Drill-down from service level to technology component level Detailed, multi-tier analysis & troubleshooting tools J2EE and .NET Database, middleware, Citrix Application, client, network, & server Collaboration between apps and ops Guided troubleshooting process “What if” analysis to understand impact of alternative changes Keys to Efficient Resolution

  22. Visibility Prioritization Resolution Improvement Unification Business-Driven Service Delivery Benefits True picture of service delivery Leverage existing management investment Aligned with business impact and strategy Efficient resolution enables strategic focus Continual service improvement

  23. Next StepsAssessing Alignment Maturity Competency/ Value Measure Communications Partnership Level 4 Extended to external partners IT-business co-adaptive Informal, pervasive Value Cost effective, some partner value; Dashboard managed Level 3 IT enables/drives business strategy Bonding, unified Service Good understanding; Emerging relaxed Some cost effectiveness; Dashboard established Level 2 IT seen as an asset; Process driver Proactive IT emerging as an asset; Process enabler Level 1 Limited business/ IT understanding Functional cost efficiency Reactive Some technical measurements Level 0 Business/IT lack understanding Conflict; IT a cost of doing business Chaotic Source: Association for Information Systems, December 2000

  24. Next StepsWhere do you go from here? Business Service Management Service-level Management End-user Experience Application Analytics Infrastructure Metrics Level 0 Chaotic Level 1 Reactive Level 2 Proactive Level 3 Service Level 4 Value

  25. SummaryOvercoming the Inhibitors Establish a foundation for dialog Develop shared expectations Adopt business-relevant metrics Detect and resolve problems proactively

  26. “The business doesn't care about 99.9 percent uptime unless you're talking about the uptime of a business process or an end-to-end capability." - Peter Weill Director, Center for Information Systems Research MIT Sloan School of Management

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