Assessment and Planning

Senior ISM management consultants aid IT executives in improving their IT governance and service management processes by first defining an overall, high-level initiative plan. Then, as with all of our business practices, ISM consultants assess the maturity level of several of the key IT “core processes” to establish a baseline for existing controls in IT.

The Service Portfolio Management (SPM) Architecure and Implementation Roadmap is then developed, within an overall SPM strategy, customized to the culture of the organization. Generally, the implementation approach focuses on developing the management system infrastructure framework and establishing enterprise alignment in the early phases. Followed by building formalized processes on top of that foundation, providing the platform for continuous performance improvement.

Assessment and planning services are available at two levels, depending on the size and needs of the client:

• Summary Level – Designed for single-site organizations, this effort requires two to three days of preparation and data gathering, plus one week on site for analysis, planning, and management presentations.
  
  
• Detailed Level – Designed for more complex and distributed organizations, this effort typically requires three to four days of preparation, two weeks on site (weeks 2 and 5) for data gathering, analysis, planning sessions, and management presentations, and two weeks of off-site staff work, including documention and project plan preparation (weeks 3 and 4).

The resulting Service Portfolio Management Architecture and Implementation Roadmap includes:

• Initiative background
• Overview of the business process
• Business case and mission statement
• Management framework
• Business drivers, critical success factors (CSF’s) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
• Desired target business process architecture
• A discussion of the objectives, critical success factors, risks, assumptions, and constraints associated with the initiative
• Initiative strategy, phases and implementation roadmap
• Process definition including process/procedural flow
• Sample and proposed metrics
• A discussion of those external elements required to support this business process
• Functional Responsibility Matrix showing the roles and responsibilities of the key team members
• Worksheets for gathering detailed process requirements in the following stage

In other words, following our core Performance Improvement Methodology and Framework for IT Success^SM Implementation Methodology, we selectively define, implement, and deploy the appropriate components of the framework for your business based on the needs of your business.

Plan the work. Work the plan.

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