This blog is a continuation of our previous post regarding ITFM & TBM Program Maturity and the People Element.
Maturity Factor #2: Process
The best laid plans fall to waste without rigorous discipline for execution. That’s why it’s so critical to cultivate clearly defined, repeatable processes to keep ITFM/TBM activities running smoothly.
Process maturity is measured using three markers:
• The type and number of core processes in place (service costing, benchmarking, showback/chargeback, etc.).
• The integrity and repeatability of all processes.
• The extent to which IT Finance insight is voluntarily leveraged by leaders and stakeholders for decision-making.
In the same way Rudimentary ITFM/TBM organizations start with no dedicated IT Finance staff, they’re also starting without any concrete processes. As a result, there’s a complete absence of transparency into technology spend and stakeholders have extremely limited understanding of cost vs. value.
That said, to achieve a Foundational level of Process maturity, organizations must: .
• Establish a standalone IT budget with visibility at the cost center level; ideally, the organization will begin applying a concrete taxonomy for spend that offers further transparency at the service tower/domain level as well.
• Deliver some form of routine IT Finance insight to the business, usually just high-level, “one size fits all” reporting at this stage (often ad-hoc or reactive still at this stage). Begin educating non-Finance IT staff on how the technology budget will be created and administered moving forward, empowering them to actively participate in the process during later stages of maturity.
To mature further, organizations will first need to start focusing their ITFM/TBM processes around clearly defined IT services. Furthermore, to achieve a Sustaining level of Process maturity, organizations must:
• Define at least a handful of business-facing IT services in a formal catalog, with accurate unit rates and consumption metrics for tracking.
• Move toward more granular, service-based budgeting and reporting.
• Increase reporting cadence to further socialize the ITFM/TBM program and its outputs with the business.
In order to traverse the final levels of maturity, organizations must continue building and refining processes to encompass the full IT service lifecycle with steps including:
• Finish building out a formal catalog of all business-facing IT services; few if any resources should be consumed outside a defined service.
• Begin delivering a monthly “bill of IT” showing consumers their costs and how/why those costs were incurred, typically using a lower-effort method like high-level allocation or % of use (not based on consumption).
• Deliver tailored, actionable reporting (ideally, self-service) on cost and consumption based on stakeholder needs.
Read more on other maturity factors including technology and data in this free guide.