by Mark Smith |
4/1/2008 | Article ID: V08-13 | Article Type: VentanaView
Summary
The IT Performance Management (ITPM) Practice at Ventana Research is dedicated to providing to our clients assistance with the effective management of IT-centric business activities, initiatives and processes. While the primary focus of this research practice is on the needs and concerns of IT management, Ventana Research has consistently maintained that business management must be a key partner. With that partnership in place, ITPM can enable organizations to derive more business value from IT assets, projects, resources and services. ITPM requires insight drawn from data; thus, the ITPM practice shares areas of interest with Ventana Research’s practices in Business Intelligence and Information Management. In most organizations today, IT management must work closely with the finance function; in this regard, the ITPM practice shares areas of interest with our Financial Performance Management Practice. Finally, because IT processes and services must connect with those in operations, this practice shares interests with the practices in Operational Performance Management and Sales and Supply Chain Performance.
In 2008, the ITPM agenda will address business and technology issues and best practices involved in maximizing the potential of IT performance; maximizing the value of the IT portfolio by using software for project, resource and service management; and establishing information management analytics through which IT can deliver business value.
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Most organizations have invested sizable resources in IT to enable it to develop, deploy and maintain critical applications, databases, networks and other systems. However, traditionally it has been difficult for IT management to gain a holistic view of all systems, since most tools and utilities address the performance only of specific technology platforms or applications. Without broadly useful management tools and relevant practices, projects to develop new systems or make significant changes to existing systems proceed inefficiently, in large measure because they cannot be monitored to ensure the projects are still aligned with business goals. In today’s typically dynamic corporate environment, one that includes discontinuous events such as mergers, acquisitions and other significant changes to the organization’s operations, projects and systems can become redundant, ineffective or irrelevant and thus fail to deliver the required return on investment. Ventana Research believes that performance management can help IT address these problems.
IT performance management (ITPM) is the practice of aligning management of IT projects and systems with the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. ITPM tools provide analytics, reporting and metrics that business, finance and IT management can use in collaboration to align system and project performance with strategic objectives. To use these tools most effectively, managers need access to an integrated information resource that is similar to the data warehouses used by other business functions. Our ITPM Research Practice views the development of a configuration management database (CMDB) as potentially the system that could serve as this information resource. IT organizations frequently develop a CMDB as part of their adoption of best practices frameworks based two emerging industry standards, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT). This shared information resource can help managers more effectively use ITPM to align best practices framework implementations with strategic goals and objectives. ITPM practices also can use information resources established through implementation of other related practices, methods and technologies including business service management (BSM), project and portfolio management (PPM), IT asset management, change management and IT governance.
Benchmark research in the ITPM practice during 2008 will focus on how leaders from business and IT can work together to align the IT function’s people, technology, processes and practices with the organization’s overall expectations and objectives. In our research, we will cover three main topics:
Maximizing IT Performance
To bring projects to successful conclusions, business and IT leaders must be able to share information and collaborate on project planning, forecasting and implementation. We will examine the role of project and portfolio management (PPM) tools in informing business and IT managers about spending decisions and in connecting IT costs to goals and activities of business user communities or departments. We will look at how PPM, asset management and appropriate metrics can enable organizations to set expectations, develop formal processes for upgrading or eliminating projects and mitigate risk in developing new systems and services. We will explore how steering or advisory committees composed of business and IT leaders are applying BSM and PPM to realize business potential and satisfy regulatory compliance.
Maximizing the Value of the IT Portfolio
ITPM can contribute not only to better alignment and more effective IT projects; through PPM and resource and service management tools, it can enable IT to extend its management leadership into processes managed by other business operations. Organizations can apply ITPM practices and technology to bridge functional silos and reduce redundancy of systems, applications and projects – conditions that add costs and produce inefficiency. We will examine best practices and technology, including CMDBs, for creating a more integrated approach to managing IT portfolios, assessing change requests and deploying new technology. We will provide research insight into the role of ITPM in organizations that are implementing service-oriented architecture (SOA) and plan to transform IT from a cost center to a service provider and potentially a revenue generator.
Establishing Information Management Analytics for IT
To deliver business value, IT management needs information and analytics that can guide decisions about projects and systems to ensure that they align with performance objectives. Vendors increasingly are incorporating ITPM analytics into their tools for BSM, IT asset management, change management and software development management. Analytics are also important to managing service level agreements and implementing ITIL and COBIT best practices. Our research will generate recommendations on how to utilize information management and event processing technology to improve the consistency, timeliness and accuracy of analytics, perhaps through implementation of a CMDB. We will provide insight into how IT can employ dashboards to consolidate and upgrade the delivery of tools for alerting, reporting, analysis and activity monitoring in IT processes.
Assessment
Ventana Research believes that IT organizations must shift from a reactive to a proactive stance with respect to management. In a reactive mode, IT technicians attempt to monitor thresholds across sometimes hundreds of systems; unable to respond to all problems, the technicians focus only on the “squeakiest wheels” in their user communities. In a proactive mode, IT employs information, analytics and performance metrics to evaluate the importance of projects and systems from a business perspective and then uses these insights to manage performance of services and systems across the enterprise. Our ITPM research agenda and benchmarks will focus on how organizations can leverage BSM, IT asset management, change management and analytics to improve alignment with business objectives and support the implementation of ITIL and COBIT best practices frameworks. As IT’s responsibilities grow in size and complexity, we advise clients to devote resources and attention to ITPM to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their IT function and through it the business.
Related Research Notes
IT Effectiveness at Stake
To improve alignment, IT performance management is required (November 9, 2007)
Planview and BMC Will Integrate Tools
Combining software to manage business planning and IT systems, vendors tighten alignment of IT with strategy (QuickTake - July 27, 2007)
Does Hardware Innovation Matter?
When it comes to System p, IBM believes it does (May 11, 2007)
Planview Takes Two Steps Forward
Company releases new software and acquires key technology (April 18, 2007)
Program Management Facilitates Performance Management
Tracking activities associated with initiatives can improve performance (November 6, 2006)
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