1. Practical IT Research that Drives Measurable Results Make IT More Responsive & Agile

2. Rapid business change challenges IT leaders Business expectations of IT services are placing greater demand on IT for increased responsiveness & agility. Info-Tech research shows that over 50% of IT Leaders aren’t getting the improvements they need from traditional best practices and are looking for other ways to make IT more responsive. Adapt agile principles to all IT functions to get out of the doldrums. Meet business needs sooner, deliver benefits earlier, and provide access to better and timelier information. This solution set provides practical advice to IT leaders in mid-sized organizations who are challenged with meeting business needs due to rapid change or growth, while effectively maintaining and improving essential IT services. From this research, you will take away: Proven tactics that improve IT responsiveness in Applications & Infrastructure. Recognize the pitfalls and risks of implementing the strategy. Templates & tools to assist with implementing IT agility.  Our advice is based on a case study of an actual organization whose IT team was overwhelmed by the pace of business change and growth.  Apply their tactics for improving responsiveness in their software development and infrastructure support functions, reduce request backlog, and realize project benefits sooner.

3. Executive Summary  IT leaders are finding it harder to keep pace with the business demand for responsive IT services that deliver what they want, when they need it.  Failure to meet that demand, will result in the business creating or outsourcing their own IT competency making your IT department redundant.  Agile development methods will improve your responsiveness in software delivery to meet customer demands. Adapt the same concepts to infrastructure support to improve responsiveness and the customer experience across the board and ensure your future in the organization.  Optimizing the help desk and re-architecting the technical environment to take advantage of technologies like cloud computing and server virtualization will provide a framework for enabling responsive and agile IT.  This solution set, based on one organization’s actual experience, provides the tactical advice you need to adapt agile principles into the entire IT organization, and drastically improve your IT department’s responsiveness to business driven change.

4. Responsive IT reacts quickly & effectively to changing business expectations to maximize business value Swift response to changing business priorities. Getting it right the first time. Access to the right resources at the right time. Easy access to timely information. Rapid resolution of problems. Flexible, adaptable solutions. User collaboration for planning & prioritization. Rapid delivery of value deliverables. Fast & frequent client feedback. Support architecture to enable rapid deployment. Solutions that are lightweight & adaptable. Working on the right things at the right time. Business Expects IT Provides

5. Demands of the business are forcing IT leaders to solve problems in new ways. Don’t miss the boat. Determine your objectives then use agile principles to improve responsiveness. Drivers for responsiveness come disguised as other symptoms; correct these for better responsiveness IT solutions meet current business needs. Our infrastructure is efficient and stable. Management has real time access to quality information. We are keeping up with changing business demands. IT has a reputation for adapting quickly. IT provides increased value and improved business worth. IT can make and achieve long term strategic plans. Is this you? …we don’t have time…it’s like trying to change the tires while the car is still rolling down the highway. Head, IT Process Development, Financial Institution

6. Companies that are responsive to their IT-related problems sail ahead of those that are not Go from this… Procurement cycle lag time is 3-4 weeks to acquire and install new hardware and, if it doesn’t fit the bill, there is additional time & cost to make changes. Development project takes 4 months for delivery of a solution to the business. When priorities change, development has to be restarted from the beginning. Our client Website experiences outages 5-7 times a week. 80% of IT projects receive ratings of “Unsatisfactory” from business stakeholders.” To this… Response times for implementing changes for new infrastructure is 1-2 hours. Systems come up very quickly, with very little overhead & no procurement cycle. Business value is delivered every 2 weeks during project. Short sprints and daily updates mean that changing business needs are quickly accommodated into solutions. Our client Website has close to 100% availability. 100% IT projects receive “Satisfactory” ratings from business stakeholders. Experience from an actual Info-Tech client. Read on to find out how they did it!

7. A modest improvement in IT responsiveness results in a significant increase in user satisfaction and a decrease (20%) in pressuring behaviors. Make small increases in IT responsiveness for big increases in end-user satisfaction, and reduce user upheaval -20% N = 200, Source: Info-Tech Research Group There is a point of diminishing returns that occurs as end users become accustomed to the new “normal” of IT responsiveness and begin looking for further improvements. End User Upheaval Overall IT Responsiveness Low MediumHigh Establish their own IT competencies. Outsources IT services on their own. Make their own IT purchases. Make it difficult for IT to get funding. Advocate to outsource all of IT Circumvent IT best practices and policies. Rating of Responsiveness End-users dissatisfied with IT responsiveness will take matters into their own hands:

8. Improve IT practices in: help desk Infrastructure planning project management software development …to gain improvements of up to 25% in users perception of IT responsiveness Improve practices that boost quality & shorten timelines for requests & projects to increase user perception of IT response Maximum impact on success Request Triage Infrastructure Planning Project Management Agile Software Development Hardware Inventory Standard Images N = 200 Impact of Best Practice on overall IT Responsiveness IT responsiveness is defined as:  Decreased Infrastructure deployment defects.  Reduced software defect counts.  Shorter project milestone delivery times.  Lower internal IT costs.  Reduced internal IT staff levels.  Help desk response times improved.

9. Make improvements in more than one IT practice area to improve responsiveness High impact on improving need specific IT responsiveness Low impact on improving need specific IT responsiveness Ticket Resolution System Mods Infrastructure Ad-hoc requests New Software User Equipment App Dev Help Desk reporting and Release Methodology are both important factors to Users who rely on timely information related to the deployment of system modification requests. Agile development methods can be adapted to ad-hoc infrastructure and software requests improving responsiveness in these areas. IT service categories listed in ascending order of need for better IT response.

10. Meet a real organization, struggling with meeting the demands of the business, who found a way to improve IT responsiveness across IT with the adoption of Agile software development principles. We will bring their experience to you throughout the sections of this research, followed by specific questions and Info-Tech advice to help you implement their tactics for improving responsiveness. Finally, each section will end with an Advice Summary wrapping up the messages from that section. Meet a real organization, struggling with meeting the demands of the business, who found a way to improve IT responsiveness across IT with the adoption of Agile software development principles. We will bring their experience to you throughout the sections of this research, followed by specific questions and Info-Tech advice to help you implement their tactics for improving responsiveness. Finally, each section will end with an Advice Summary wrapping up the messages from that section. Next Section in Brief Achieving Responsiveness through Agility Put it All Together Improve Software Delivery Responsiveness Boost Infrastructure Responsiveness Case Study Case Study Introduction 1

11.  System outages were too frequent, and caused too much damage to the company in terms of lost revenue, customer dissatisfaction, and employee morale.  Stakeholder communications around small problems and large projects were either inadequate or didn’t exist.  Shifting business priorities and unstable requirements caused project delays, overrun budgets, and incorrect functionality.  Huge backlogs of issues and initiatives that we didn’t have time to work on. The Situation Learn from an actual IT department that struggled with responding to a rapidly changing business Mr. Big, CIO The Top 4 Issues The Players Note: Player names have been changed A. Reader Sue, Apps Manager Joe, Infra Manager Generico Corp. – A mid-sized publishing company with Web-based product delivery channels. Mr. Big – Chief Information Officer Average Joe – Infrastructure Manager Sue Wotsit – Applications Manager Allison Reader – CIO of a peer organization Due to rapid changes to the business, and unplanned growth of the infrastructure, Mr. Big and the IT department are struggling to keep the lights on and deliver project initiatives. Under Big’s sponsorship, Joe and Sue have been tasked to develop a strategy to transform the IT department into a responsive, agile team, able to react quickly to the frequent and sometimes revolutionary changes in the business.

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