MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

IT transformation is not limited to a single department or a single business function. It usually involves and impacts several areas of business. People from multiple departments of the organization come together in teams to help with the digital transformation. Since This transformation has such a wide scope, there are generally several projects ongoing simultaneously covering different areas. Program management is the process of managing several such related projects with an aim to improve the efficiency of the digital transformation process. In IT transformation, there will always be certain projects that are interrelated or interdependent. Such related projects can be grouped into a single program. Say, one project deals with the design of the company website, and another team is working on creating content for the company’s online portal. Both of these projects would be closely related. So they can be clubbed into a program. Programs deliver ongoing outcomes, unlike projects that usually deliver a specific output. Program management is the management of all the related projects that make up the program. There are four key aspects of program management. To start with, it oversees complete governance of the projects such as defining the roles and responsibilities, processes, and metrics related to the projects. Next, it is supposed to manage the entire program monitoring the progress, conducting regular reviews, and ensuring stakeholders’ engagement. The third key aspect is cost management that tracks and controls the spending on a project. Lastly, it ensures that the available infrastructure supports the specific projects and the overall program.

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Objectives

01. Establish Baseline: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Supporting Infrastructure: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Stakeholder Engagement: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Cost Management: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Resource Allocation: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Monitoring Progress & Defining Metrics: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Roles & Responsibilities: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Project Prioritization: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Quality Management: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Benefits Management: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Risk Management: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Issue Management: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month

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Strategies

01. Establish Baseline: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Supporting Infrastructure: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Stakeholder Engagement: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Cost Management: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Resource Allocation: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Monitoring Progress & Defining Metrics: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Roles & Responsibilities: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. Project Prioritization: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. Quality Management: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Benefits Management: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Risk Management: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Issue Management: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.

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Tasks

01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Establish Baseline.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Supporting Infrastructure.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Stakeholder Engagement.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Cost Management.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Resource Allocation.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Monitoring Progress & Defining Metrics.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Roles & Responsibilities.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Project Prioritization.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Quality Management.
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Benefits Management.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Risk Management.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Issue Management.

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Introduction

Leading IT Transformation initiatives transform how businesses utilize people, processes, technology, and physical infrastructure to generate capabilities that help them achieve their goals. These initiatives are motivated by a sense of urgency, have a broad scope and influence, and are usually carried out in tandem with continuing operations. IT transformations necessitate customizing typical project and program management methodologies to address the unique problems of managing the human side of change and fostering ownership among key program stakeholders. This workshop highlights key success elements for implementing successful program management that yields long-term effects. This workshop also demonstrates how management processes and structures may aid in the achievement of these crucial success characteristics.

Leading IT transformation programs, as you may know, are often developed to produce a step function rise in organizational performance and to develop new capabilities that did not exist previously in the firm. These projects usually have a strong feeling of urgency and a compelling case for action. They usually cover a large part of the company and have a substantial influence. Major organizational reorganization, considerable changes in business processes, major technology or application installations, and consolidation or streamlining of facility infrastructure are all examples of transformative endeavors. All of these efforts may be addressed by IT Transformation programs.

The majority of transformation projects are categorized as programs because they necessitate centralized, coordinated administration in order to accomplish the strategic advantages and objectives. To achieve the desired results, transformation programs often include many efforts that require priority, sequencing, and coordination.

Special Challenges

Effective program management is made more difficult by the nature of IT transformation programs. The first challenge is frequently referred to as “rebuilding the airplane while flying it.” Transformation efforts run concurrently with continuing operations, which invariably take precedence in terms of staffing and resource allocation. Understanding and managing the impact of the transformation on the organization’s personnel, many of whom will be participants in the transformation process, is a second difficulty. Changes to the organization’s structure, human capital system, workforce, business processes, technology used, or workplace location or approach are all possible outcomes of IT transformations. Humans have a natural aversion to change, particularly when it is viewed as frightening. Addressing the human side of change is critical to assuring the transformation’s long-term success. The scale and magnitude of transformation programs is a third barrier. They are bound to have a variety of stakeholders, both within and external to the company, who have varying and occasionally conflicting interests.

The structures and methods used to manage the transformation program, as well as the approach utilized to carry out the change, can help to solve these issues. The benefits management, program stakeholder management, and program governance topics of the Project Management Institute (PMI®) Standard for Program Management are employed as a framework for presenting and comprehending the important success elements for successful transformations.

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Benefits Management

Benefits management is defined as “activities and techniques for defining, creating, maximizing, and sustaining the benefits provided by programs”, (PMI, 2006). Establishing a burning platform for change, articulating a clear end-state vision, addressing all aspects that build an organization’s capabilities, and developing a change roadmap utilizing a life cycle approach are all critical success factors for IT transformation efforts.

Establish the Burning Platform

Understanding, validating, and conveying the “burning platform” for change must be developed early in the transformation program to lay the groundwork for benefits management. The term “burning platform” (Conner, 1995) conjures up the sense of urgency associated with most transformation efforts, much like a person caught on a burning oil platform at sea must decide whether or not to risk diving into the water. The nature of the burning platform will differ from company to company, and it may contain both external (consumer happiness, market share) and internal criteria (needing to reduce costs, technology obsolescence, and employee satisfaction). The events of September 11th, 2001, and the ensuing anthrax attacks, for example, presented a fertile ground for the development of new national capabilities (i.e. the forming of the Department of Homeland Security). The presence of a compelling burning platform should be considered a pre-requisite for starting a transformation effort. If there isn’t a compelling justification for action, a transformation program is unlikely to be necessary; instead, a succession of less intrusive (and less expensive) improvement projects may be the better option. Once the burning platform has been defined and validated, it should be incorporated into the program charter and used as a constant theme in stakeholder communications.

Set a Clear End-State Vision

Early in the program, a clear end-state vision for the total IT transformation endeavor should be defined. This end-state vision should include a high-level description of the end-state organization’s capabilities as well as the predicted overall advantages of the transformation process. This end-state vision will be used to inform program governance and decision-making (e.g., which of the numerous design alternatives will best achieve the end-state vision?), as well as to communicate program advantages to stakeholders. Once defined, the end-state vision should be incorporated into the overall program charter and used to create a work breakdown structure for the program.

Address People, Processes, Technology, and Physical Infrastructure Concurrently

The transformation program’s advantages, vision, and overall scope should be developed to address all important variables that enable the organization’s capabilities. Because the scope of the transformation program was set too narrowly to focus on a single dimension of change, such as technology upgrades or process modifications, the expected advantages from transformation initiatives are frequently not realized. Too often, the human side of change is either ignored or inadequately addressed. The transformation program’s scope should include the set of changes that need to be made in the organization’s people, process, technology, and physical infrastructure dimensions, as well as the relationships between these dimensions. People, process, technology, and infrastructure changes should all be assessed and matured at the same time, so that trade-off decisions may be made as the transformation program develops, avoiding costly rework (for example, if a technology solution is implemented without adequate consideration of changes to staff roles and responsibilities). The overall program charter, as well as the work breakdown structure, and the design and scoping of specific projects, should reflect the requirement for multi-dimensional thinking in transformation programs.

Use a Life Cycle Approach to Develop a Roadmap

A roadmap should be prepared to indicate how the organization will move from its “as is” state to the desired end-state vision once the clear end-state vision has been established and the scope of the transformation program has been outlined. The broad life cycle phases that will be utilized to structure the overall transformation effort (e.g., imagine, define, design, develop, deploy) as well as the sequencing of the various initiatives or projects that make up the program should be included in this roadmap. Because individual roadmap tasks are likely to have an impact on one another, and each has its own requirements and timeframe, the life cycle approach is essential to time-phase benefits realization. Early creation of benefits should be given special consideration when developing the roadmap in order to build support and ownership for continued program implementation. The roadmap should be written in such a way that program stakeholders can understand the overarching strategy. It should guide and inform the development of the program’s overall Integrated Master Schedule, as well as detailed work package schedules, as the program progresses through the phases.

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