Sometimes your Information Technology (IT) Department needs some love and attention
IF YOU FIND YOUR technology team IS NOT WORKING as you need, BECOMING TOO EXPENSIVE OR SLOW, IS OVERLY COMPLEX, OR JUST DOES NOT SEEM RIGHT…
…ENKI can Provide any and all IT resources to get the team back on track.
An IT department turnaround, when facing challenges including but not limited to: cross-functional business agility, quality, budget, engagement, and employee development, requires a multi-faceted approach.
It's not a quick fix but a strategic transformation
The goals should include increasing revenue through enhanced sales team and customer engagement while increasing enterprise net margin with engaged IT enablers. Here's a breakdown of what such a turnaround could consist of:
Assessment and Diagnosis (The "Why" Stage):
Honest Evaluation: A thorough and unbiased assessment of the current IT landscape. This involves gathering information from various sources through interviews, observations, data mining, and business archeology work:
Business stakeholders: Understand their pain points and unmet needs.
IT staff: Identify their challenges, frustrations, and improvement suggestions.
System analysis: Evaluate the performance, stability, and security of existing systems.
Process review: Analyze IT processes for bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
Review internal and external past communications.
Interview customers and competitors if you can.
Provide an honest Voice of the Organization and Voice of the Customer.
Root Cause Analysis: Don't just treat the symptoms. Dig deep to identify the root causes of the problems. Examples include but are not limited to: Leadership, Skills gaps, Inadequate tools, Poor communication, Lack of clear strategy, and Organizational structure.
Prioritization: Based on the assessment, prioritize the areas that need immediate attention. Focus on the issues with the biggest impact on the business.
Strategic Planning (The "What" Stage):
Vision and Goals: Define a clear vision for the future of the IT department. Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.
Create an IT strategy that aligns with Business Strategy: Ensure that the IT strategy is fully aligned with the overall business strategy. Leverage ENKI’s 14-step IT Strategy Methodology to insure that IT is an enabler of business objectives, not a roadblock.
Roadmap: Develop a detailed roadmap outlining the steps needed to achieve the goals. This should include timelines, resource allocation, and key milestones.
Year one of the roadmap is a details plan with clearly defined projects. These are what get budgeted (see below) and executed.
Year two has a list of anticipated projects, each with a 1-page charter. These are in the turnaround project portfolio but have not yet been budgeted and will likely change based on year one project outcomes.
Years three - seven lay out business and IT target projects on a “map” showing timing due to dependancies.
Budget Planning: Develop a realistic annual budget and estimates for years one - three (see above) that supports the turnaround plan. Identify areas where costs can be reduced and investments can be made. Expect changes as the team learns and the organization adopts to the changes. Consider unknown unknowns such as future M&A, new competition changing the plan, unforeseen regulations, or black swan events.
Execution and Implementation (The "How" Stage):
1. Leadership Changes (if necessary): Sometimes, leadership changes are required to drive the transformation. New leaders should have the experience and vision to lead the turnaround. However, these leaders are not likely the longer term operational leaders, and this is where ENKI comes in. We know turnarounds and we are former executives who have successful track records. We can help you write the job description and find our own replacements when the shift to operational leadership is required.
2. Team Restructuring (if necessary): The organizational structure may need to be adjusted to improve communication, collaboration, focus, coordination, and decision rights.
3. Process Improvement: Implement cross industry best practices and streamline IT processes to improve efficiency and quality. This might involve adopting Agile and/or DevOps methodologies. ENKI has cross industry experience and IT leaders with over 25 years of Agile methodology leadership and transformation experience.
4. Technology Upgrades: Strategically invest in modern tools and technologies while executing on value added projects that support business needs and improve IT efficiency. Strategically leveraging the cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS) might be a components.
5. Skills Development: Embracing ENKI’s Learning Architecture, built on the art and science of adult learning, to provide opportunities for learning new tools, processes, methods, and communications while on business projects but within a safe learning environment to upskill the the business and IT staff to address any skills gaps across functions.
6. Communication and Collaboration: Foster open communication and collaboration between the IT team and business stakeholders. Build a culture to learn from failure and embrace innovations.
7. Production Change Management: Implement a robust change management process to ensure smooth transitions and minimize disruption. This is crucial for user adoption of new systems and processes.
Monitoring and Evaluation (The "Are We There Yet?" Stage):
1. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs): Define and track KPIs and/or OKRs to measure the success of the turnaround. These might include:
Project delivery time
System uptime
Customer Impact Minutes (CIM) - number of minutes something is impacting a single customer multiplied by the total number of customers
Customer satisfaction
Employee engagement
Budget adherence
2. Regular Reviews: Conduct regular reviews of the turnaround plan and make adjustments as needed.
3. Continuous Improvement: The turnaround should not be a one-time event. Foster a culture of continuous improvement within the IT department.
Addressing the Specific Challenges:
1. Business Agility: Implement Agile methodologies, empower teams, and foster a culture of rapid iteration using ENKI’s Innovation Hub as an example to the organization.
2. Quality: shift testing processes to the left of the process (earlier), automate testing in the pipeline where possible, and focus on continuous improvement.
3. Budget: Control investments, optimize resource allocation, plan on turnaround investment beyond operational investments, and demonstrate the value of IT investments throughout the enterprise.
4. Engagement: Improve communication, collaboration on strategic purpose and intent, recognize and reward contributions, and create a positive work environment with safe spaces to learn..
5. Employee Development: Provide the foundation of all successful turnarounds is the act of Organizational Change Management (OCM). This includes the art and science of adult learning so training team members on the “Why” and “How” of the business strategy and letting them learn how best to support the strategy, mentoring and coaching to individual needs, and career development opportunities to attract and retain top talent.
A successful IT department turnaround requires strong leadership, a clear vision, a well-defined plan, and a commitment to execution. It's a challenging but necessary process to ensure that IT is a valuable partner to the business. Agility will be necessary as nobody can predict the future, so stay flexible as you learn more.
