Major change initiatives often fail for reasons other than a poor quality platform, they fail because targets and objectives are not clear and aligned at the start of the project. This can result in miscommunication and misunderstanding of priorities for stakeholders and key project participants.
Axxiome’s Clarity Method involves a series of workshops that focus on the strategic direction, business capabilities, technology capabilities, and determination of the project or program roadmap. From these workshops, a Business Target Operating Model (BTOM) is created, which helps to align business and IT viewpoints and lock down the sequence of project investments that will lead to specific business outcomes. By striving for stakeholder alignment early in the cycle, the Clarity Method’s greatest value is the avoidance of major project missteps.
There are four workshops involved in the Clarity Method that are conducted to achieve clarity in the following distinct areas: strategic, business, technology, and portfolio clarity.
- In the strategic clarity workshop, the focus area or context is determined, strategic objectives are identified and strategic outcomes are selected. These provide the foundation for all following work on the initiative.
- In the business clarity workshop, the current business capabilities are identified and the target business capabilities that provide support for the strategic imperative are determined, along with realistic and measurable key performance indicators.
- In the technology clarity workshop, the current foundational technology capabilities are discussed, and target technology capabilities are determined. This workshop is initially focused on current technology and identifies and documents areas of gaps or complexity in meeting the envisioned future state of the business.
- In the portfolio clarity workshop, horizons of activities are set to define short term, mid-term and long-term goals and activities, the governance and delivery of the program is planned, the key projects are identified and sequenced, and cost estimates are made.
A compilation is made of all workshop proceedings and output, which is condensed in a one page depiction of the BTOM.
