[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1527175757502{background-color: #ffffff !important;}"]

A technology roadmap can help the CIO act more in line with the strategy of the organization. It benefits both technology leaders and functional leaders and encourages collaboration that results in true executive alignment on existing and new investments.

What is a technology roadmap?

A roadmap is the governing document that dictates specifically how technology will support the business strategy and help drive businesses priorities over the next 3-5 years. From what I have seen, the best roadmaps contain the following:

1. A strategy statement with the list of the strategic priorities for the business (not IT-specific).

2. A timeline of the initiatives and projects that will occur over the next several years with approximate start and end dates, durations, and sizes.

3. A prioritized list of improvement opportunities. This is generated jointly by the business and IT and should be refreshed periodically.

4. High-level justifications for each project. These should be robust for projects over the next 12 months and simpler statements for projects past the 12 month horizon.

5. The estimated cost and duration for each project. This is specific and reasonably accurate for projects occurring over the next 12 months and can be vaguer for projects that go out farther than that.

6. An owner for each project. This is the sponsoring executive or delegate directly overseeing the project. For projects in the next 12 months it should be the specific person and for projects beyond that it can be the owning executive.

To support the roadmap (but keep separately), I recommend technology departments keep up-to-date versions of:

• Systems architecture diagrams of the whole enterprise including interfaces, manual data movements, and platforms (this is not an infrastructure diagram – this is just systems specific).

• A systems inventory that is periodically updated and contains at least end-of-life dates, basic statement on usage, number of users, and system owner.

• A running list of emerging problems the IT support staff is seeing. Good help desk software should be able to track this for you

How will you use it?

The roadmap has three primary functions:

1. The IT leader will use it to facilitate investment discussions with the rest of leadership. The IT leader will use the roadmap as a baseline when discussing new projects or priorities with functional executives. It will help leadership understand how to balance investment and project priorities and provide a way to visualize tradeoffs.

2. The IT department will use it to improve planning for projects and resources. The roadmap will help them anticipate resourcing needs, plan assignments, software and vendor selection, and costs ahead of time, and make it possible to start visioning and planning with the functional owners well in advance.

3. Functional leaders will use it to understand what is required of and will be delivered to their departments. It helps them clearly understand how they should balance existing roadmap initiatives with new requests. The roadmap will keep functional leaders aligned on strategic technology priorities across the enterprise. Active management of the roadmap will result in much better executive alignment and stakeholder buy-in before projects even begin.

Who benefits from it?

Technology Leadership

The roadmap is designed to structure the communication between the technology department and the functional executives in a manner that allows the IT department to:

• Act strategically when making investment decisions and managing projects.

• Make securing buy-in from business leadership a more structured processes which, in turn, makes it easier to earn buy-in from business users.

• Negotiate more effectively with leaders or staff who request new projects or initiatives that require significant, non-operating effort.

Functional Leadership

The roadmap allows functional executives to be strategic when they request new or improved technology. They can use their functional strategies to begin working with IT leadership to determine which types of technology projects will be required to achieve their goals.

The roadmap provides transparent resourcing needs for when business staff will need to be assigned to IT projects, clear traceability to costs, and the detail for why those resources and dollars are required.

Most importantly, it provides a strategic, structured manner of governing changes to business needs as they arise. It makes sure there is a technology voice at the table when decisions are made that require IT support, and it encourages balancing priorities across the business, diffusing conflict before it arises.

Staff and Project Teams

The roadmap clearly spells out why the projects they are working on are important and, as things on the roadmap move or are re-prioritized, it forces the leaders to explain why and how those priorities are shifting. The roadmap encourages a clear and regular line of communication between leadership and staff.

The Bottom Line

The business needs to fully participate in the development process. In fact, if the CIO reports to anyone other than the CEO, I recommend the sponsoring executive sit outside of IT. Because of the strategic nature of the document and how critical leadership buy-in will be, it will need support at the highest levels of the enterprise.

If you are a technology leader: you need to push the executives to support the development of an IT roadmap to help you invest strategically and have structured conversations around investment with the other executives.

If you are not a technology executive: you should be pushing your organization to develop a roadmap so you can act more strategically in your area and benefit the business holistically with new investments.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Contact Managed Solution to schedule a Network & System Assessment to build the most strategic architecture around your systems and networks. 858-429-3084

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Starting as purely a creative outlet, Jennifer Sarkilahti made handcrafted jewelry. However, as she was inspired by the city's entrepreneurial spirit, she created Odette New York. Along the way, Sarkilahti's real challenge wasn’t finding a market for her jewelry, it was to stay connected to the creative process even as the business grew. Office 365 played a key role in Odette New York's needs, catering to their specific artistic needs as a business.

Staying small as a growth strategy

Sarkilahti was adamant about not getting too big, too fast. Keeping things local allowed her to stay in tune with the creative process as well as her manufacturing partners. “As a business, we value that we are able to make our product locally and take a slower, more thoughtful approach to manufacturing. Although the costs are higher to produce domestically, we can maintain a connection to the jewelry and the people that have a hand in making it throughout the entire process,” says Sarkilahti.

An intuitive software solution

Sarkilahti admits that technology doesn’t come as naturally to her as the artistic process, however, she credits Office 365 for helping her through this. With that help, she is able to focus on her creativity, Sarkilahti states, “I’ve found the Office 365 products to be intuitive and easy to learn, as well as capable of adapting to whatever our needs of the moment might be. We use Excel and Outlook to help us create an efficient workflow process within our studio and communicate with people outside our studio, including vendors, retailers and customers. And on the creative side, we use PowerPoint to create mood boards for new collections, photoshoots and look books.”

Their slower approach to growth is certainly paying off. Odette New York currently has over 70 accounts, including both domestic and international retailers, and has been featured in major publications such as Vogue and Elle. Perhaps more importantly, Sarkilahti spends her days doing what she loves most—creating beautiful, handcrafted jewelry in her stunning Brooklyn studio.

Plug in to success—7 steps for a strategic technology lifecycle

Take a minute to think about the applications you use, the programs you depend on and the technologies you’ve integrated into your business. Now ask yourself these questions: If a specific application supported my company in the past, how is it benefiting me now? Are our programs performing in line with our desired standard? What, if anything, am I doing to ensure my technology is not outdated? Is my vendor providing me with resources to manage my applications? Am I really getting the maximum business value from these solutions?

To answer these questions, many enterprise scale organizations use established processes to manage their technology. A technology lifecycle—or TLC—offers a systematic approach for assessing the state of your technologies. Thankfully, this indispensable method applies to both enterprise scale organizations and small and midsize businesses. So whether you’re an experienced IT professional or a technological tenderfoot, considering your TLC will yield promising, practical results.

TLC, defined.

Start:

Introduce yourself to the product’s benefits, programs, services and content. What’s new with the product? Who else is using it? How does it benefit them? From training resources to accessibility tools, analyzing your products’ perks in the early stages of implementation will drastically influence your business practices later on.

Decide:

Select the best product for your business. Evaluate the product to confirm its alignment with your business’s goals. Think about both your current and future needs. Is the product secure and compliant? Will the product scale with future growth? Can you connect with current product users? Is there ongoing support and training for the product? What does the future product roadmap look like? If you choose a product that is cost-effective, yet lacks specific market advantages, you may find yourself trailing behind your competitors.

Deploy:

Connect with the product’s customer services, including any deployment assistance programs, step-by-step setup guidance or visual assets. These documents will serve as a roadmap for the successful implementation of your product. Consider your strategies for product-integration. How do you plan for successful deployment and adoption? Can you find demos and guidance? What are the considerations for the businesses most like yours in similar industries, at similar size and with similar business objectives?

Manage:

Discover best practices for a successful product launch using an integrated admin console or alternative resources. How do you configure the product? How do you manage or administrate it? Are management and administration tools provided? How should you prepare for change and incidents? How can you assure your data is secure and company policies are being met? Researching practical ways for communicating the new product to employees will result in informed, confident and empowered users.

Develop:

Configure and customize the product and integrate it within your company. Develop new and extend existing features and functionalities. Connect the product with line of business applications. Is development guidance provided? Are there opportunities to learn about best practices and see how the product is being modified to solve real business goals? Budget time for aligning your company’s goals and interests with the product, choosing internal applications that further the interest of your organization.

Support:

Retain critical support contacts and information to resolve issues with your deployment and management of the product. Consider live support options including in-person, phone or chat. These options should be balanced by online troubleshooting and guidance. Is there a broad set of support options to help me address a range of potential issues? Do you get appropriate and timely notifications? Can you plan for known issues and quickly get unanticipated issues addressed?

Use:

Secure the best possible experience with your new technology for you and your end users. Invest in a product with training and adoption options designed specifically to encourage you and your company to further your understanding as you advance with your new technology. Learning how to manage and sustain the product is important for anyone in an IT or administrator role. Similarly, learning is critical for ensuring your end users get the most from your technology investments. Effective product usage can positively impact your business.

Untangle your business, simplify your mind

When assessing technology’s impact, Microsoft has committed to the TLC. In fact, Microsoft’s whole Office Suite is TLC–compatible, offering services, check-ins and pertinent information that might otherwise be unavailable to businesses. Though a technology lifecycle may be just one of the many factors a business-owner or IT professional considers when implementing new technologies in the workplace, the importance of securing quality products with strong business and support services that match your business’s needs cannot be stressed enough.

Rest assured by investing in your business, and thrive on your future success.

Implementing New Technology: 3 Tips for the Non-Technical Small Business

By Steve Schlosser, BSB/PM, PMP, Project Manager Managed Solution

Recently I had the opportunity to work with a small business client seeking a technical solution to an overwhelming amount of email and storage issues. Managed Solution created a solution, implemented the change, and overall the project was a success. Yet, I still couldn't shake the feeling that the client was left feeling stranded, even after we conducted over six hours of administration and user support training. So as a small business owner, one must ask themselves “What can I do to mitigate post-change stress”? Luckily, there are several solutions!

Set Your Expectations

As a small business owner, finances and budgetary constraints are a daily thought. It is excruciatingly important when partnering with a solutions associate to understand what is provided in the project for support time. Many times we at Managed Solution end up partnering with our clients with service agreements to provide them 24-hour support – which is by far most cost effective – but it is important to understand what is, and what is not included in the solution contract. Project Managers like myself want to act in the business’s best interest and control the project to stay within the budgetary constraints, and if the business owner does not adequately demonstrate their desire for extended support after the project completes, we cannot budget for that accordingly in the initial solution offering.

Consider a Dual-Agreement

As a small business, opportunity cost is always a consideration – that is cost of an untaken opportunity. Evaluate your business’s needs when seeking a technical solution. Often when a business has grown large enough to require a technical change to increase efficiency, it is time to also continue a long-term change. With a simple inquiry of a dual-agreement (a service agreement combined with a project contract), the door leading to discounts and bundle rates swings wide open and leaves room for negotiation. The best part? You end up with a brand new solution working at highest efficiency and on-call support forever on out with any issues that arise; which ends up increasing productivity and not wasting valuable man-hours and increased stressed levels of non-technical employees trying to solve problems.

Communicate your Constraints

Often times as Project Managers, once handed a new client project we immediately begin planning and identifying resources for the endeavor. One of the biggest hurdles we run into is a lack of communication of client constraints. Businesses often have crucial operating activities that cannot be interrupted during specific time frames as well as other constraints. From a planning aspect, this is easy to mitigate. With a little bit of foresight from the client side, a project manager can simply schedule the use of time around this; as long as its communicated up front!

In conclusion, communicate the expectations and constraints to your solution consultant and consider a long-term strategy in congruence with a new IT solution. It will forever simplify your life, reduce stress levels, and surely will satisfy the overall goal of assisting your business in growing, expanding, and succeeding.

About the author:
Steve Schlosser is a PMP Certified Project Manager and Veteran with a background working in the information technology field for the U.S. Navy as well as with L-3 Communications. As a project manager for Managed Solution, Steve oversees System Integration and Solution projects to assist large and small businesses with the ever expanding challenge of staying ahead of technology to enable an effective working environment. His diverse background, excellent communications skills, and problem solving abilities enable him to perform his functions to the greatest extent; always leaving satisfied clientele.