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Recently greenCore was engaged in penetration testing of a financial services institution.  During the course of this engagement we received some postive feedback on our taxonomy of IT security incidents model.  The model is helpful in dissecting the elements of an attack, examples of each component and aspects of business control. The illustration also highlights the importance of organisations identifying and removing recognised vulnerabilities to ensure business/service continuity, data integrity, sovereignty and control. Please feel free to use the diagram for non-commercial uses in it’s current form. ©

We have found that the following essential elements of effective change are often overlooked or not performed adequately by the majority of projects that fail due to strategic reasons (as opposed to poor management or delivery).

Problem/Opportunity Definition,
Business/Technology Alignment and
Business Justification (initial and/or continual)

At greenCore we focus on ensuring that projects are “set up for success”, and as such, have developed and employ a number processes, models and approaches to define, validate and justify the outcome, benefit and outputs. We have posted a number of articles previously regarding some of these tools/methods and have received amazing feedback. We are currently working on releasing some incredible models shortly that I hope the project delivery community will find extremely useful.

In the meantime, I wanted to present our approach to Value Definition that constitutes part of the “Problem/Opportunity Definition” change capability we utilise. Too often change drivers are associated with fixing problems however this is not always true and often it is the Opportunity aspects of change that can deliver the most influential change.

Our philosophy is to follow our Problem/Opportunity Definition change cycle:

Problem/Opportunity Definition → Recognise
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Assess (Options) → Value Definition
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Define (Action)
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Prepare (Change)
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Resolve/Realise
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Sustain
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Review

A portion of this method is to identify the value proposition of the intended change being implemented to resolve the problem or exploit the opportunity (under the Assess stage). greenCore developed the Strategic v Financial Value Model to assist in communicating to stakeholders, sponsors, interested and involved parties the value quadrant the change is introducing.

greenCore has found this method extremely beneficial in qualifying the change value as well as aiding in defining the business benefit, assisting in continual Business Justification and ensuring technology and business align to deliver the right outcomes for the organisation. As such, we would encourage everyone to use this method when establishing a new initiative.

An Investment Logic Map (ILM) is a method for describing the rationale of a potential initiative on a single page, in a simple manner such that a person with no historical insight can understand the drivers, activities, resources, benefits and calibration to strategic objectives.

The concept was first developed by the Department of Treasury & Finance (State Government of Victoria, Australia) and have been maturing the method since 2004.

The template is very useful for outlining the following vital elements:

• Driver Problems
• Drivers Opportunities
• Activities required
• Resources required to support the prescribed activities
• Benefits/Outcomes expected
• Alignment to strategic (Enterprise/IT) objectives

greenCore has over time also been utilising and developing the model to better serve its customers and engagements.  The updated template, we believe, represents a more serial and understandable flow that enables stakeholders to determine why something needs to occur, what it takes to perform it, the benefits and outputs and how the activities align to considered and defined business and technology goals.

The greenCore ILM template (free for non-commercial use) can be accessed HERE.  Please note that the percentage charts can be modified on the second tab.

The standard DTF ILM template (along with a number of other useful tools, templates and tips – Check out the Benefit Map which is also very constructive) can be accessed HERE.

One of our consultants was recently engaged to assist in the development of a presentation pack for a national logistics organisation. The pack was to be presented at an IT seminar on infrastructure hosting, however this particular slide also contains some quite important aspects around the services a customer aware organisation needs to take into consideration in the divergent and disruptive age we now live in.

Change values vary and are quite often unique across sectors, geographic locations, market demographics and are quite often time sensitive.  IT change values need to align to support business objectives and leverage the technologies available to deliver the services the customer needs or wants.

Digital Darwinism has usually been associated with businesses not being able to keep up with evolving technologies.  Obvious examples of this are Blockbuster, Borders bookstores and Polaroid, however unless companies engage in disruptive innovation that there will be many more that will join this list.

However, with an escalating rate of technology change, an increasingly demanding customer base, competing companies and the additional complexity of global trade, Digital Darwinism is not just confined to the adoption of evolving technologies – in a highly competitive environment you may need to be an early adopter or even the first adopter to survive.

Brian Solis said it well, when he stated that “No Business is Too Big to Fail or Too Small to Succeed”.

However, although not a direct quote of Charles Darwin himself, we believe the following two summations of his work are something to always keep in mind in life as well as business:

1. It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
2. In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.

Since publishing our approach to developing requirements for IT Projects and Programs last year, we have had a number of inquiries regarding the REAP & SMART criteria model.  Specifically, people have inquired as to how the:

Align to Strategic Objective criteria can be easily identified.

Previously we have used the model below, to assist business and IT stakeholders understand what strategic objectives are and how they can relate to forthcoming projects.  The model allows businesses, business units and divisions to clearly articulate the different planning hierarchies necessary to align projects to assist the organisation meet its IT vision: greenCore Initiative alignment model

Please feel free to use this method to assist you and your organisation to plan for success and clearly document the value proposition of the initiative.

Remember if a project does not expect to assist in delivering a strategic objective, then it must fulfill at least one of the other REAP criteria:

Resolve a Problem
Align to Strategic Objective
Produce a Business Benefit

Most project professionals would be familiar with SMART criteria requirements.  The SMART term is a mnemonic acronym that defines that every requirement should comply with each of the Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Timely attributes.

This philosophy is very effective at ensuring that project requirements are suitable, attainable and practicable, however the approach does little to define why the requirement should be included (drivers), how the requirement supports an objective or goal (calibration) and what the benefit of the requirement delivers (outcome).

At greenCore we developed an additional acronym that we believe everyone should adopt that further defines each requirement as appropriate by confirming that each requirement fulfils at least one of the following qualities:

Resolve a Problem
Exploit an Opportunity
Align to Strategic Objective
Produce a Business Benefit

At greenCore, we believe that all requirements (Business/Technical, Functional/Non-Functional) should satisfy at least one of the REAP elements.  If they don’t then they should not qualify as a suitable requirement.

As you may notice, these qualities comply with the Investment Logic Layer previously published under “The greenCore Anatomy of Project Change” (Drivers, Calibration & Outcome).

Feel free to use this approach for your project initiation phase in your next project.  We at greenCore are keen to hear of your experiences in using this model and of course would love to hear your views and comments.  Please share this if you believe our method is sound or may benefit others.

Over the coming weeks we will be posting a number of digests in the hopes of fostering some healthy discussion on this topic and others within our service domains.

This first ‘brief’ article is specifically around Project Change and the major elements, greenCore believes, are essential to effectively understand and validate why resources (people, funding and goods) should be consumed before commencing the delivery/execution phase of a project.

greenCore is passionate about supporting our customers through deliberate, informed and planned IT project change.  We believe that the “Investment Logic” layer contains the core elements that initiate, define and justify IT Project Change.  We are of the opinion that the starting/initiating phase of a project is the most critical, as this stage identifies the reason why you are about to expend resources, what the outcome should be and how that outcome aligns to an organisational, department or business unit goal or vision.

Whereas, the Delivery layer (although vitally important to achieve the desired outcome) contains the components necessary for producing the expected business benefit or product.

At greenCore we use this model as a method of confirming business expectations as well as rationales for originating change and the constraints around how and what the solution should adhere to.

Our next post will look at leveraging the Investment Logic Layer in more detail when gathering business and technical requirements during Project Initiation.