Your IT Governance Coach

Is Your Outsourcing SOW a Superhero?

Is the Statement of Work (SOW) for your outsourcing relationship a superhero? Superhero: "a hero, esp. in children's comic books and television cartoons, possessing extraordinary, often magical powers." That is how both buyers and service providers seem to see many SOWs. As if possessing extraordinary powers, SOWs in outsourcing relationships are supposed to guide both companies to win-win success, to transforming the effectiveness and efficiency of operations, to provide crystal clear understanding and tough accountability. In case things don't workout, it provides instructions on how to break-up civilly. So much of success is riding on one document! How are things working with this superhero?

Conservatively, half of all IT outsourcing deals fail and many fail to convincingly demonstrate business value. Service providers get beat up for not adding value and buyers get beat up by their business partners for not saving money or improving performance as promised in the business case. What's the problem? The SOW is actually been used as contracting tool to hold each company accountable and to protect the financial interests of both, should things go wrong. That's OK. Just don't give it superhero magical powers and pretend that it will become a force to guide, direct, and unite teams from the service provider and buyer, transforming them into a high performance team.

A successful outsourcing relationship needs:

• A common vision of success. Overarching strategic goals that when realized will ensure work impact the corporate strategy of both companies.
• Compelling and specific goals and objectives for each process outsourced.
• Clear definitions of performance measures.
• A breakdown of processes at least 3 levels down outlining accountabilities and indicators.

  All of this needs to be fully understood by the people charged with implementing and delivering the outsourced processes. Of course, solid governance will then need to be in place so that future decisions advance the common strategy. SOWs are necessary, but insufficient to guarantee outsourcing success. Developing and "living" a common vision is hard work. Dealing with the consequences of failure is worse.

Technorati Tags: IT Governance, IT Outsourcing

IIBA Central Indiana Chapter

On February 13, 2007 I will be speaking at the meeting of the central Indiana chapter of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), so I hope to see many of the local readers of this blog there. The topic of the presentation is "Becoming More Strategic as a Business Analyst."

About The Presentation
Much of the focus of business analysts is at the project level and rightly so. They add a lot of value helping elicit and document business needs and help develop solutions for those business needs. In the presentation I will challenge business analysts to think more strategically. The more they understand enterprise strategy, the better they will be able to connect the business needs of their "constituents" with those of the organization at large. Also, the solutions are more likely to be aligned with an enterprise architecture. Furthermore, the better business analysts understand frameworks for strategy and governance, the more likely they will be called to actually participate or even facilitate the enterprise and IT strategies that will eventually lead to the formation of various projects.

The authors of the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge recognized this need. In fact, after a chapter introducing the Body of Knowledge, the book begins with "Enterprise Analysis." During the presentation we will cover frameworks for strategy and governance, including CobiT, we will talk about how to link project business needs with strategic needs, and how to help an organization increase the maturity of their strategy.

About the IIBA Central Indiana Chapter
This chapter has been in existence for only a few months, but it is already adding value to its rapidly growing membership. It's chapter goals are:

Raise the visibility of the Business Analyst role in the Indianapolis area
Learn more about Business Analysis best practices
Opportunity to influence and contribute to the profession
Contribute to the Body of Knowledge
Networking opportunities

Please visit their website, IIBACIC, for more information. If you are interested in professionally growing as a Business Analyst, I encourage you to join.

Technorati Tags: CobiT, IT Strategy

YITGC New Year Resolutions and Corporate Goals

In this PodCast we explore successful techniques for creating effective new year resolutions and how the learning apply to the creation of annual goals and objectives at work.  Having finished the new budget and completed performance reviews, many now turn their attention to creating goals and objectives for their department and themselves.  This is often a dreaded, bothersome, and perhaps ineffective  process.  This however, is not that different from what people do in creating new year resolutions.

In this PodCast I'll share personal examples of how this is a successful process for me and my family, and I'll offer things to think about that may improve the goal setting process at work.  Please listen to this PodCast now by clicking this link.  If you are reading this in the blog, you may also subscribe to it and automatically get future releases for free by clicking the iTunes or RSS orange buttons on the left column.