Essential Playbook – Play 6

Play 6 – Bring In Standards For Technology, Anchored Around Applications

  • Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
  • Target time: 6-12 weeks
  • Maturity: 0 to 2
  • Project implementing applications with no oversight, duplicate applications being built/acquired Cost rationalisation wanted
  • Concerns that people are choosing inappropriate technologies
  • Technology list available, in Excel or a CMDB
  • Technology not mapped to applications
  • No/Few standards defined
  • Communication to relevant IT teams from senior leader
  • Clarity on who the application owners within IT are
  • Engagement with infrastructure team(s)
  • Work with the infrastructure teams, tidy up the technology list and define standards for the technologies, leave the ones that are off strategy
  • Identify the technology components the organisation needs – work back from the products if needed
  • Map the products to the technology components
  • Prioritise the application list based on risk or importance, and identify the technologies utilised by those applications
  • Create the technology architecture for the applications
  • Provide the Technology Product Selector as a tool for projects and change
  • Highlight application/technology risk
  • Projects engage and use the technology selector as a starting point
  • The CIO sees risk across the estate and can engage the business om mitigation
  • Technologies become controlled
  • Build out of technology costs of unnecessary technology and plans to mitigate risk emerge
  • Technology Alignment
  • CIO – key areas of concern
  • Infrastructure Teams – technologies and standards
  • Application Owners – application information
  • Engage and regular updates with the CIO on risk and non-strategic technology
  • Engage the PMO and Change in the use of the Product Selector to speed projects – don’t impose, suggest usage initially
  • Engage Infrastructure to identify technology risks and mitigation options
  • Engagement between IT – infrastructure and Projects
  • IT projects engage EA, leveraging the enterprise architecture artefacts to speed project delivery
  • EA adding clear, demonstrable value

Steps

A1.1

T1.1

T1.2

S1.4

A1.3

What

Capture the applications with basic details and services

Capture the technology products against the technology reference model

Create the technology reference model

Define standards for your technologies and define lifecycle status for your technologies

Map the technologies to the applications using them

Usage

Have a list of applications used that can be the anchor for the rest of the work. Define strategic applications in line with your target state

Identify duplicate and high risk technologies

Anchor for technology products created

Anchor for Design Authority discussions, for projects to leverage in technical designs.

Provides a view on application alignment to standards and also can be used to highlight technology risk

Interested Parties and expected response

Business & IT
Interested but not excited

CIO
Initiates activities based on duplicate technology or risk

CIO
Interested but not excited

CIO
Keen on convergence on the standards, will want a plan
Projects
Keen as it reduces design time – may push back if want non standard technologies

CIO
Very interested as risk can be seen. Will want plans for ‘at risk’ applications or those using non-standard technology

Approach

By Business Unit/Area

Overall Enterprise

Overall Enterprise

Overall Enterprise

By Business Area

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