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Business Vision Diagnostic – Annual IT Improvement Program

Convert your Business Vision Diagnostic results into a focused IT program to enhance business satisfaction.

CIOs face difficulty in improving business satisfaction due to several challenges:

  • Feedback from business is ad hoc (e.g. water cooler conversations, firefighting emails) leading to partial information and a reactive improvement process.
  • Root causes to be addressed are difficult to unearth and organizational priorities are unclear.
  • Remedial actions do not get business support due to lack of trust between IT and business teams.
  • Remedial actions are not followed through to benefit realization due to lack of IT accountability.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Business satisfaction in today’s scenario is too important to be managed on an ad hoc basis by IT. A structured approach to first measuring business satisfaction and then converting it to an IT Services Improvement program is needed to elevate IT’s role from an order taker to a trusted business partner.

Impact and Result

By using Info-Tech’s tried and tested Business Vision (BV) Diagnostic and our unique data-driven approach, you can construct an annual IT services improvement program that will:

  • Measure business stakeholder satisfaction.
  • Highlight the impact of IT constraints on the business.
  • Prioritize key issues and create an Improvement Roadmap.
  • Build action plans to manage critical stakeholders.
  • Help position IT as a trusted business partner rather than as an order taker.

Business Vision Diagnostic – Annual IT Improvement Program Research & Tools

1. Business Vision Diagnostic – Annual IT Improvement Program: A blueprint to develop an IT Improvement program from your Business Vision Diagnostic survey results.

A step-by-step document that walks you through a step-by-step process to develop an annual IT improvement program to improve business satisfaction starting with the results of the Business Vision Diagnostic.

Business Vision Diagnostic – Annual IT Improvement Program Storyboard

2. Business Vision IT Program Workbook – An Excel workbook that will support you in executing the steps provided in the blueprint.

A workbook to capture your observations from the Business Vision Diagnostic survey, discovery discussions, root cause analysis results, initiative identification and prioritization, and a place to detail initiatives.

Business Vision IT Program Workbook

3. Business Vision Playbook – Communication Plan Template: A structured tool to help you manage your stakeholder communications.

A guide to manage stakeholder communications.

Business Vision Playbook – Communication Plan Template

4. 4. Business Vision Executive Communication Template: Helps communicate to your executive audience concisely and with the right amount of detail on the main aspects of your IT improvement program.

Summarize Business Vision Diagnostic results and prepare a roadmap for executive consumption.

Business Vision Executive Communication Template

Business Vision Diagnostic – Annual IT Improvement Program

Convert your Business Vision Diagnostic results into a focused IT program to enhance business satisfaction

Introduction: Business Vision Diagnostic

Understand your business stakeholders' satisfaction with IT services

Info-Tech's Business Vision program is a low-effort, high-impact program that will give you detailed report cards on the organization's satisfaction with IT's core services. You can use these insights to understand your key business stakeholders, find out what is important to them, and improve your interactions and related IT services.

Ask the Right Questions
Use Info-Tech's low-effort surveys to get the data you need from stakeholders across the organization.

Use Our Diagnostic Engine
Info-Tech's diagnostic engine does all the heavy lifting and analysis, turning your data into usable information.

Communicate & Take Action
Wow your executives with the incredible insights you've uncovered. Then, get to action to make IT better.

Better Understand Current Performance and Business Needs.

  • 28-question satisfaction survey
  • Completed by 85,000+ business leaders
  • Proven results

For more resources, refer to Info-Tech's Business Vision Diagnostic

Analyst Perspective

Improve business satisfaction with core IT services in an objective, data-driven manner.

CIOs face several challenges in improving business satisfaction and serving their organizational needs. The majority of IT organizations have no formal feedback mechanism, and IT receives feedback from the business in an ad hoc or reactive manner when there are already fires to be put out. Also, IT is considered an order taker by the business and there is a lack of business-IT alignment toward organizational goals.

Having hard data on business satisfaction and proactively building a data-driven IT services improvement program has proven to be an approach that helps breakdown the silos between business and IT and drives continuous improvements.

The Business Vision Diagnostic, Info-Tech's reference resources, and the steps in this blueprint, will act as an accelerator to your success, ensuring that you focus your energy and resources on topics most relevant to improving business satisfaction. This will also ensure that IT service improvement is not treated as a side-of-the-desk activity and IT team members are clear on their accountability.

Finally, measuring business satisfaction with IT services at least annually to review progress and re-align priorities will ensure ongoing success.

Anubhav Sharma, Research Director, CIO Advisory

Anubhav Sharma
Research Director, CIO Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your ChallengeCommon ObstaclesInfo-Tech's Approach
CIOs face difficulty in improving business satisfaction due to several challenges:
  • Feedback from the business is ad hoc (e.g. water cooler conversations, firefighting emails) leading to partial information and a reactive improvement processes.
  • Root causes to be addressed are difficult to unearth and organizational priorities are unclear.
  • Remedial actions do not get business support due to a lack of trust between IT and business teams.
  • Remedial actions are not followed through to benefit realization due to lack of IT accountability.
Historically, conventional measures to address these challenges have run into certain roadblocks:
  • IT and the business working in silos with limited collaboration.
  • Lack of time, capacity, and know-how to build a good feedback loop and proactive actioning.
  • Lack of readily available data to unearth and address the root issues.
  • IT not feeling responsible and incentivized to meet business goals.
By using Info-Tech's tried and tested Business Vision (BV) Diagnostic and our unique data-driven approach, you can construct an annual IT services program that will:
  • Measure business stakeholder satisfaction
  • Highlight the business impact of IT constraints
  • Prioritize key issues and create an improvement roadmap
  • Build action plans to manage critical stakeholders
  • Help position IT as a trusted business partner and not an order taker

Info-Tech Insight
Business satisfaction in today's scenario is too important to be managed on an ad hoc basis by IT. A structured approach to first measuring business satisfaction and then converting it to an IT services improvement program is needed to elevate IT's role from an order taker to a trusted business partner.

IT's challenge

Business is increasingly looking at IT to be a strategic partner, yet few IT departments have been successful in satisfying their needs.

  • Since 2013, the Business Vision Diagnostic tool has been used by over 85,000 business leaders across 1000 organizations.
  • Only a quarter of IT departments are scoring above 8/10.
  • This suggests that there is a lot of room to improve how IT satisfies the business.

Chart showing business vision diagnostic survey

Source: Info-Tech's Business Vision Diagnostic Survey

Common obstacles

IT teams continue to operate in a silo, which limits business understanding and lowers business satisfaction with IT services.

  • CIOs have not formalized a business feedback process.
  • IT works in reactive or firefighting mode.
  • Business satisfaction data is not available to discover and address the core issues with IT services.
  • IT does not measure progress made toward initiatives designed to improve business satisfaction.
  • IT managers do not feel responsible for business goals, neither have the right incentives been set for them to become so.
  • IT employees do not have the skills to communicate effectively with one another and business users.

93% Of CIOs say IT's ability to maximize business value is hindered by challenges such as siloed business and IT teams.

40% Of CIOs say limited collaboration across business and IT teams disrupts IT's ability to respond quickly to sudden changes in business needs.

Source: Dynatrace Global CIO report , 2021

Info-Tech's approach for improving business satisfaction through a structured program

1. Gather & Analyze2. Synthesize & Prioritize3. Action, Communicate & Refresh
Phase Steps
  1. Review Business Vision Diagnostic data and capture themes that lower satisfaction
  2. Augment analysis with supplementary data
  3. Ascertain current state and future vision for IT department maturity
  1. Finalize root causes for lower business satisfaction and identify IT improvement initiatives
  2. Prioritize IT improvement initiatives
  3. Create a roadmap
  1. Manage IT performance
  2. Manage stakeholder communication
  3. Input to IT strategy
  4. Refresh annually
Phase Outcomes
  1. Identify directional vision for IT Maturity/ Improvement themes
  1. Define roadmap of IT improvement initiatives
  1. Clear accountability for execution
  2. Documented stakeholder communication plan
  3. Provide inputs to IT strategy
  4. Develop annual refresh cycle
Participants
  1. Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or delegate (who will lead this exercise)
  2. Relevant business stakeholders (who can provide deeper insights on emerging themes)
  3. Relevant IT team members (managing IT services related to emerging themes)
  1. Chief Information Officer (CIO) and / or delegate (who will lead this exercise)
  2. Relevant IT team members (managing identified IT services for root cause analysis)
  3. Relevant IT team leaders and members (for deciding on prioritization and roadmap)
  1. Chief Information Officer (CIO) and/or delegate (who will lead this exercise)
  2. Business stakeholders (who are most critical as per your stakeholder plan)
  3. Whole IT team (including those who will be responsible to execute the annual IT improvement program)

Business Vision Diagnostic - Annual IT Improvement Program

Insight summary

Have a structured approach to managing business satisfaction
Business satisfaction in today's scenario is too important to be managed on an ad hoc basis by IT. A structured approach to first measuring business satisfaction and then converting it to an IT services improvement program is needed to elevate IT's role from an order taker to a strategic business partner.

Conduct discovery sessions with your business stakeholders
As you analyze your Business Vision Diagnostic results, it is important to connect with your key business stakeholders and/or to perform further diagnostics to deep dive into root causes of lower business satisfaction and ensure that you prioritize solving the biggest pain points for the business.

Accelerate your initiative identification with Info-Tech's reference resources
Identifying initiatives to remedy clearly ascertained root causes and using Info-Tech's resources for reference will give you the best output for minimal time investment.

Communicate progress to your business stakeholders
Stakeholder management is very important as business will expect IT to action their feedback and keep them informed on progress, which is sometimes an ignored exercise, amid day-to-day activities.

Hard data on business satisfaction helps bolster budget requests
The Business Vision Diagnostic provide you with hard data on Business satisfaction with IT Services, which can help bolster your IT budget requests.

Utilize Info-Tech's template to right-size your communications to executives
Our executive communication template helps you talk to senior stakeholders in a clear and concise manner with just the right amount of details.

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Root Cause & Initiative Identification Template
Identify and document root causes and arrive at improvement initiatives based on Info-Tech's resources.

Roadmap/ Gantt Chart
Develop an initiative roadmap and input initiative level details.

Prioritization Template
Prioritize the IT improvement initiatives.

Stakeholder Communication Plan
Create a detailed plan to manage communications with key stakeholders.

Key deliverable:

Business Vision Executive Communication Template

Summarize your Business Vision Diagnostic results and roadmap arising out of this blueprint for executive consumption

Business Vision Diagnostic – Annual IT Improvement Program visualization

Convert your Business Vision Diagnostic results into a focused IT program to enhance business satisfaction.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

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Author

Anubhav Sharma

Contributors

  • Anubhav Sharma, Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Mike Tweedie, Practice Lead, CIO Research Development, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Geoff Nielson, SVP, Global Services & Delivery, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Gary Rietz, Executive Counselor, Info-Tech Research Group
  • William Wong, Senior Executive Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Don DeChamps, Executive Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Jack Hakimian, Senior Vice President, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead, CIO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Ari Glaizel, Practice Lead, Applications Delivery & Management, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Isabelle Hertanto, Practice Lead, Security & Privacy, Info-Tech Research Group
  • Steve Willis, Practice Lead, Data, Analytics, Enterprise Architecture, AI, Info-Tech Research Group

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