Information Management

An Information Strategic Plan is essential for moderate to complex organisations that are reliant on data and information to conduct their business.

What is it?

The IM Strategy will be based on what has been learnt through assessments, interviews with key stakeholders and blending that with what we know, and predict, will occur in the relevant business sector and what is happening with data and information management that would have relevance for the client. Effectus will present a drafted Strategy on a Page to the key stakeholders, in IM, in a challenge workshop like the examples below (at right):

The final IM Strategy on a Page will reflect the organisation’s values, vision and strategic plans. It will start with good Principles, as per the examples above at left, that establish what the goals should be and is completed with activity to achieve the goals. This sets up the necessary building blocks for the IM Roadmap that are augmented with actions from assessments like the IM Capability Assessment.

IM Governance

Together we will establish an IM Governance Group (IMGG) that will promote the IM Strategy and ensure IM Projects and initiatives are prioritised and realise value. Effectus will review the IM Governance in place and make recommendations. To help get Governance rolling a Senior member of the Effectus team could attend the first three or four IM Governance Group meetings to help with its establishment as it is never completely straight forward.

IM Roadmap and Programme of Work

One of the key elements to review at each IM Steering Group will be the progress of IM projects and initiatives using a high level view with a Roadmap and a more detailed approach with a Programme of Work as follows.

How can it help you?

There is no avoiding the technology and information-based business world we live in today. We are increasingly realising the benefits of using data and information, but we frequently find poor management of them. An Information Management Strategy and Roadmap addresses how important data and information are to the business and puts in place activity that ensures that the collection, management, maintenance, and integration with other data sets is optimal for the organisation.

Implementing the actions from the IM Roadmap will require good governance along with clear reasoning that will be in the IM Strategy. However, there is going to be contention with business as usual so keep a focus on business benefits that can be communicated with personalised stories to keep momentum rolling. An annual IM Capability Assessment is recommended to help with where to focus next.

Next steps?

Implementing the actions from the IM Roadmap will require good governance along with clear reasoning that will be in the IM Strategy. However, there is going to be contention with business as usual so keep a focus on business benefits that can be communicated with personalised stories to keep momentum rolling. An annual IM Capability Assessment is recommended to help with where to focus next.

An information Management Capability Assessment (IMCA) will help you to identify how well your organisation is in control of it’s data.

What is it?

An Effectus IMCA quantifies how well your organisation data and information is managed against recommended industry best practice. As per the following excerpt each of the 13 IMCA process areas are scored from 0-5 at a current state and what the desired future state is.

How can it help you?

An IMCA will give you a baseline of how well your organisation controls its data against standards of practice. This assessment will help you identify your risks and priorities for your data.

It will help:

• you focus on what data the business needs and to prioritise your data initiatives based on business priorities
• address your organisation’s data quality challenges and provide guidelines on how to manage the data so that the right information is available for those who need to access it; and
• to guide your organisation towards data standards so that the data is accurate, consistent, complete, current and relevant

Next steps?

Are you concerned about quality of your data? Do you have Data Governance in place and are you treating data like the precious asset it is? It could be time to consider having an effective IM Strategy.

What is it?

The Business Intelligence (BI) Strategy Planning framework is our reference point for our clients to define where progress has been already been made and to identify the critical components to address in this phase.

As the BI Strategy process progresses the Effectus team will create outcomes that can be used to communicate the strategy clearly to the business and to execute agreed BI initiatives and actions. A fit for purpose BI and analytics implementation is a journey initiated by a clearly articulated business context that will provide a starting point for formulating a BI strategy.

It is crucial to take the time to thoroughly assess the current state of the business intelligence landscape using a qualitative (user perception) and quantitative (usage statistics) approach. The insights and gaps identified in this step will serve as building blocks for strategy and roadmap development in later phases.  Effectus recommends conducting an Applications Portfolio Assessment which allows you to create a custom survey based on current applications, generate a custom report that will help to visualise user satisfaction levels, and pinpoint areas for improvement. This step is optional but highly recommended to ensure that a qualitative measure of user perception establishes the foundation for a fit for purpose BI Strategy.

BI success is not based solely on the technology it runs on and to be effective data management capabilities and related data practices must be strong. The best BI solution does not only provide a technology platform, but also addresses the elements that surround the platform. We will look beyond tools and holistically assess the maturity of the BI practice with input from both the BI consumer and provider perspectives.

The following outcomes will be achieved by conducting a BI Maturity assessment:

A comprehensive assessment of current BI practice maturity and capabilities. Articulation of your desired future state BI practice Improvement objectives and activities for developing your BI program.

In an environment where multiple BI tools are being used, discovering what works for users and what doesn’t is an important first step to rationalising the BI landscape. Creating a consolidated list of requirements for a BI platform, existing and desired, will direct the selection of a new BI solution. The closer the new BI platform is aligned to real business interests, the stronger the buy-in, realised value, and the more enthusiastic the adoption will be. Ultimately getting this phase right sets the stage to best realise a strong return on investment in the people, processes, and technology that will be the next generation BI platform.

Without paying the appropriate attention to the underlying data architecture and application integration, even the most sophisticated BI platforms will fall short of providing business users with a holistic view of company information. The BI Architecture design would form the baseline input for development of the BI strategy and implementation plan.

Once the BI strategy has been agreed with key stakeholders it is then worked into strategic roadmaps, which generally align either with delegated responsibilities or with core objectives within the business. Each initiative on the roadmap has a nominated owner and it is also important to synchronise strategic initiatives across multiple streams of activity. Once completed the Effectus team will “size” the initiatives and create indicative budgets for each, along with an overall budget for the roadmaps.

Next steps?

Dependent on the maturity of BI in your organisation there are some key steps that need to be done in consort particularly the improving of IM with a focus on data quality, architecture and integration, and data governance to get the most from BI. If IM is also in a mature state then there are industry specific BI actions that can be taken to provide better insight using like exploring Big Data or using predicative analytics and scenario building or applying BI across your entire eco-system.

Establishing Governance will provide clear steering to the organisation on how to get effective management of data and information.

How can it help you?

The primary goals of IM and Data Governance are ensuring there is alignment across the businesses to the IM Strategy and the principles of effective IM. In the initial phases it is primarily about establishing a good IM foundation in terms of data architecture, data management and implementing policies and standards.

Implementing IM and Data Governance with Effectus will:

• ensure your organisation manages your data as a corporate asset.
• include establishing an governance group and nominating and educating data stewards across the business.
• Will help you understand and prioritise data initiatives and understand what data really matters to your organisation.

Next steps

IM and Data Governance is best implemented in combination with an IM Strategy and Roadmap. If you have some or none of this, please contact Effectus to ask how best to set up effective Governance.