Your future-proof ITAM Program: monitoring & measuring success

In this latest series of articles we’ve been exploring the four elements essential to successfully transforming your ITAM function. In the first article we looked at the importance of defining outcomes so that your design matches your goals. In the second piece, we examined the critical role of stakeholders in launching this effort and how to earn their support. In the third, we put it into action through implementation.

The final stage of ITAM Program Transformation is creating a system for monitoring and measuring success. We will be focusing on the elements of this stage in this article.

Future-proofing your ITAM program

To future-proof your program and deliver continuity and success, you will need to leverage KPIs to run, manage, review and improve the process on an ongoing basis. Having focused KPIs will also help you develop key process areas based on industry standards and highlight program strengths, weaknesses, and areas of risk and opportunity. 

The key challenge in this area is to take the model you have designed and implemented and transform it into a dynamic ecosystem which is supported by the new community you have created.

In Anglepoint’s experience there are four key components to maintaining momentum and continually improving on a strategic ITAM program transformation:

1. Strategy and roadmap check point (annual)

Having an annual check-in will help you ensure your program is functioning and delivering what it’s designed to. You can use this opportunity to highlight any changes to the business and confirm that the right mix of stakeholders are involved. Some points to consider in your annual check-in:

• Goals and objectives – are they clear and still relevant?
• Success criteria – are they being met and how are we measuring them?
• Challenges - where is the system falling down/needs more focus? What key processes and workflows need to be in place?
• Roles and responsibilities - who is responsible for what? What other roles are needed?
• Review – examine and validate the current roadmap and your place in the Crawl/Walk/Run analogy

2. Process and governance alignment (annual)

Annually reviewing alignment of your ITAM process with current governance will ensure consistent alignment to outcomes, clear reinforcement and communication of departmental requirements to support outcomes.

Some points to consider in your annual alignment review:

• Process design – are roles, responsibilities, and processes clearly defined?
• Policies - Is there an overall policy, clearly articulated and consumable for all? Have policies been reviewed?
• KPI creation/review – how will we measure that we are getting all of the components for the program to be successful, and attribute ownership?
• Playbook creation – distill all of the responsibilities into a consumable playbook for all stakeholders to understand the bigger picture, and their roles

3. Trending analysis of data (biannual)

We recommend that every six months, you carry out a thorough analysis of available data to ensure the information you have is trustworthy, relevant and timely (ideally aligned to outcomes and KPI measurement).

Points to include in your analysis:

• Contract / ownership – clean repository of renewals and information to inform renewals and negotiations.  
• Inventory / data quality – trustworthy data, aligned to data points required from program and presented in clean format to stakeholders on an ongoing basis (feeding into the Steering Committee)
• Compliance benchmarking summaries – turn ELPs and compliance benchmarking into actionable tasks and offer a contextualized view of risk aligned to owners who can independently risk-assess and feed back into the process

4. Facilitated stakeholder steering committee (biannual)

Your steering committee is an absolutely critical force in implementing your program successfully. That’s why we recommend creating a high-level exec pack and a meeting every six months to discuss program progress.

This meeting provides a forum to validate value and explore how it might be improved. It also opens opportunities to escalate issues, prioritize tasks and address KPI/governance challenges so members take ownership for their areas.

Here are some agenda points for your meeting and to include in your information pack:

• In-flight activities – what is happening currently and what should the committee be aware of?
• Key observations – trends observed, ideally with suggested resolutions or positives to keep repeating
• Achievements – success, ideally monetized 
• Risks and roadblocks – challenges and recommendations for overcoming them
• Key actions – what 2-3 things will be the focus for the next period? Clarification and acceptance of ownership 

Anglepoint has developed a structured tried-and-tested methodology for implementing this as part of a four-step ITAM Transformation Program that has been designed for large and complex organizations looking to mature ITAM and deliver on executive requirements, and balance quick efficient access to the right technology for users, with optimized spend in challenging economic times.  We provide the expertise required to deliver this engagement model and translate your business requirements into ITAM activities.  In addition, you will learn how to ensure your ITAM tooling delivers the business critical outcomes.

Curious to learn more? Check out our ITAM Program Transformation e-book.