Downloaded 20 times
Uploaded byScott Millett
Technology Strategy: What is it and why do we need it? DDDEU Jan 2019
The document discusses the importance of IT strategy in contributing to business success, emphasizing clarity, direction, and alignment with business outcomes. It details elements such as business context, goals, capabilities, and IT initiatives, while advocating for a collaborative approach between IT and business to enhance decision-making and agility. Furthermore, it cautions against common pitfalls in developing IT strategies and stresses the necessity of clear communication focused on outcomes rather than technical specifics.
More Related Content
Similar to Technology Strategy: What is it and why do we need it? DDDEU Jan 2019
Technology Strategy: What is it and why do we need it? DDDEU Jan 2019
- 1. IT Strategy. What isit and why you should care about it. By Scott
- 2. DDD is aboutcontext, this is mine…. Developer Developer That understands the power of DDD IT Leader That understands the power of IT Strategy
- 3. During my careerI have come across recurring problems that are a result of a lack of clear focus and direction
- 4. Demand management ishard without direction ● Priority is often given to who shouts loudest, writes the best case or asks first ● Opportunity costs for focusing on the wrong things ● Success is the elimination of ambiguity on what to focus on
- 5. Effort can bewasted on things that aren’t important ● Success is measured by outcomes not tech output ● We are trying to solve business problems, not use tech for tech sake ● Technology is a means to the end, not the end itself ● Success is when you are aligned to the desired outcomes
- 6. “Technology can bringbenefits if, and only if, it diminishes a limitation.”, Eli Goldratt
- 7. Over the topgovernance kills innovation ● IT are capable of understanding business constraints and opportunities. IT have the tools at their disposal to act on them ● How often have you suggested something to your business partners and heard them say “Oh really, I didn’t know you could do that?” Why do we have to wait for a project sponsor when we know what to do?
- 8. XML, blockchain, microservices,IT Strategy can solve these things… ……. honestly, it really can! And it’s deceptively easy …... Luckily for you….
- 9. Strategy is about doingthe right things. Operations is about doing them right. ● Going back to first principles ● Setting out the Direction and Focus of Effort ● The Choice of what you will do and importantly what you will not do ● It's the What, not the How What is Strategy?
- 10. What is ITStrategy? IT Strategy sets out what IT will do to contribute to business success. ● It's about clarity and direction of IT effort ● It’s IT’s focus on what to do - not a decision on how it will achieve it ● It’s not upfront design or architecture, its upfront focus
- 11. Why should youcare about IT Strategy?
- 12. ● Agility requiresalignment which is gained through shared focus ● Simplifies decision making enabling team autonomy ● Devs are empowered, understanding clearly how their work aligns to business outcomes IT Strategy enables agility
- 13. IT strategy alignspeople on what’s important ● IT can’t change the world on its own, needs buy in and help from the entire org ● Clear alignment to business success helps investment ● Importantly gives clarity on what is not being done
- 14. IT strategy isbusiness strategy ● Proactively contributing to business success ● No longer about asking for requirements, it's about understanding the bigger context and looking for impact opportunities ● Moving from a service function to a strategic partner Business Strategy IT Contribution
- 15. Ok that soundsgood, you have convinced me. But why should I care? I came here to learn about #DDD!
- 16. “Always design athing by considering it in its next largest context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” -- Elliel Saarinen To succeed with DDD you have to understand about context...
- 18. ● Understand thenext biggest context ● Understand how what you do fits into the overall strategy ● With a greater understanding of the big picture you can make better decisions IT strategy is the bigger picture context Domain-Driven Design Focus is application level Understood within the context of the... IT Strategy Focus is enterprise level
- 19. The anatomy ofa good IT Strategy
- 20. Business Goals A goodIT Strategy is composed of... Business Context Business Strategies Business Capabilities IT Initiatives ● Heavily business driven, Domain-Driven if you will ● IT Contribution clearly shows how its aligned to business goals ● Document is just the end result of the process
- 22. If you understandthe real motivation to remove a constraint or capitalize on an opportunity then you can offer better solutions
- 23. ● Understand initiativeswithin the bigger picture. ● Contribute to business architecture ● Like Cyrille said - do more design, less requirements and co-design the business Business Goals Business Context Business Strategies Business Capabilities IT Initiatives Move your influence further up the chain
- 24. Business Context: Whatis it? An analysis map of the environment in which your business operates. What is going on in the environment around you? Political? Competitors? What could impact our business? Business Goals Business Context Business Strategies Business Capabilities IT Initiatives
- 25. Understanding about yourenvironment allows you to make better decisions. As they say if you don’t know where you are, a map won’t help.
- 26. What could impactyour business? Political Brexit? Legal GDPR? Tech Lowering barriers to entry? Market New entrants? Use techniques like PESTLE Analysis to model the environment that you are trading within
- 27. Nick Tune’s WidgetCo. Business Context Business Context Political Economics Competitors Technology Brexit affecting consumer confidence which has has highlighted our dependency on the local market …… UK Market is soft, growth flat for the 2nd year, in order to grow we will need to take market share European Market is showing strong year on year growth …... New entrant to market with strong digital offering, already has 3% of the share …… Suppliers now offering direct access API access, so very quick to be able to sell for new entrants and non-industry players ……
- 28. Business Goals: Whatare they? How your business will win and how you will measure success. Do we drive sales online? Open up in new markets? Launch a new business model? Business Goals Business Context Business Strategies Business Capabilities IT Initiatives
- 29. Don’t accept genericbusiness goals ● Ask, How will the business win? Capture specific goals ● How will we “delight customers”? → Offer delivery within 2 hours. ● How will we “be more efficient? → move to home assembly model like IKEA
- 30. Nick Tune’s WidgetCo. Business Goals ● Market is not growing ● Brexit/UK Dependency risk ● Risk from new entrant ● Supplier lowering bar to entry “We will win by expanding into territories, while growing loyalty and taking market share.” Objective Increase customer loyalty Measure ● Increase repeat sales by 7% Measure ● Grow market share by 5% Goals Objective Take Market share from competitors Measure ● Launch into 2 new european countries Objective Expand geographically Business Context
- 31. Business Strategy: Whatis it? The approach the business will take to achieve its goals What strategies would I consider if my goal was to cross a river? What would I focus on? What strategy would I choose? Business Goals Business Context Business Strategies Business Capabilities IT Initiatives
- 32. Nick Tune’s WidgetCo. Business Strategy Expand geographically ● Launch into 2 new european countries Strategies ● “Never be beaten on price” - Price parity with competitors Goals Take Market share from competitors ● Grow market share by 5% Increase customer loyalty ● Increase repeat sales by 7% ● Acquire UK competitor ● Exclusive rewards for customers ● Launch into two new countries and grow customer base organically
- 33. Business Capabilities: Whatare they? The things a business does, not how it does them. The abilities required to deliver value. If your strategy is to dig a tunnel to cross the river what capabilities would you need? What is critical? Business Goals Business Context Business Strategies Business Capabilities IT Initiatives
- 34. Distill a businessinto a capability map Retail Manufacturer Domain High Level Capabilities Distilled into Product Development ● Rearch ● Production ● ….. Sales ● Lead Mgmt ● Warehouse ● …. Fulfilment ● Shipping ● Warehouse ● Returns ● …. Sourcing ● Vendor Mgt ● Warehouse ● …. Marketing ● Email ● Online Ads ● ….. Customer Services ● Complaints ● Warehouse ● …. HR ● Training ● Hiring ● …. Finance ● MI ● Accounting ● ….
- 35. Avoid capabilities thatscrape burnt toast ● I am good at scraping burnt toast, but I don’t want to automate it, I want a better toaster! ● Tease out the real capabilities that are required, don’t just take requirements verbatim ● Don’t fix the symptom, fix the root cause ● E.g. “Do we need a capability to manage the call center better or do we need customer self help capability?”
- 36. Nick Tune’s WidgetCo. Business Capabilities Discount Management Strategies Competitor Price Analysis Loyalty Program Capability ● “Never be beaten on price” - Price parity with competitors ● Exclusive rewards for customers ● Acquire UK competitor ● Launch into two new countries …. ….
- 37. IT Initiatives: Whatare they? The IT investment themes that will bridge the capability gaps What is the tech vision that will enable the capability? What is IT going to do to contribute? What outcome will IT provide? Business Goals Business Context Business Strategies Business Capabilities IT Initiatives
- 38. Focus on enablingcritical business capabilities ● What capabilities are critical to support the chosen strategy? ● What is the gap between desired and current capability”? ● How well does IT support the capability? Focus Effort Here Needs to be good enough
- 39. Business capability isthe link to IT initiatives ● Business strategy is high level, business capabilities enable the connection to IT contribution ● What a business does changes very infrequently - it is how the business does what it does that is subject to change ● Business capabilities make great starting subdomains
- 40. Measure IT initiatives ●Use metrics to show how IT initiatives will contribute to the business outcomes ● E.g. “We will adjust our prices every 20 mins by scraping our top 5 competitors."
- 41. Avoid Bikeshedding anddon’t get distracted ● The Law of Triviality ● Don’t spend time on relatively unimportant but easy-to-grasp issues ● Focus only on what is critical to enable the capability
- 42. Focus on thecore IT initiatives only ● No need to show everything you are doing ● Ignore business as usual activities such as service desk, security, scalability as these are assumed ● Focus on the critical initiatives only
- 43. Nick Tune’s WidgetCo. IT Initiatives Discount Management Competitor Price Analysis Loyalty Program Capability Real Time Pricing Engine Customer Rewards System IT Initiative …. IT Metric ● % of key competitors price catalogue captured ● Frequency of competitor price checking ● % of customers claiming rewards
- 44. Nick Tune’s WidgetCo. IT Initiative Vision Initiative Real Time Pricing Engine Outcome and Improvements • Scrape key competitors catalogue for prices • Automatically adjust prices based on competitors and publish to all sales channels • Remove need for manual competitor analysis • ……..
- 45. Common Mistakes withIT Strategy
- 46. Don’t develop ITstrategy in a bunker ● You need empathy with business colleagues to really understand motivations and needs ● Don’t sit in the IT bunker and try and guess on the constraints and opportunities ● You need clarity on how IT contribution aligns to business value
- 47. Don’t be overlytechnical ● Think about your audience - it's about the outcomes you are going to enable ● It's about the focus not the technology ● It’s about the investment themes, not the frameworks
- 48. Don’t write toomuch ● Keep it concise and memorable ● Make it catchy, snappy and easy for anyone to quickly read and understand what IT is doing. ● Use simple business focused language
- 49. Don’t leave iton a shelf ● Don’t treat it as a static document ● The document is not the point ● It's about the conversations and actions and knowledge
- 50.
- 51. The elevator pitch…or IT Strategy in a lift “To enable Nick Tune’s Widget Co. to win IT will focus effort in these areas: 1. Localising the platform for global expansion and scaling to enable an acquisition 2. Pricing automation to ensure we are never beaten on price 3. Driving customer loyalty by developing a rewards engine.” - Nick Tune’s Widget Co. IT Contribution pitch
- 52. The one pager ●Distill your strategy doc into a single page or poster ● Use at IT townhalls ● Use in interviews ● Use to explain IT strategy to other departments
- 53. Tell stories tobring the strategy to life, sex it up! “Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.” - Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the future
- 54. So How doYou become a Strategist?
- 55. DDD is teachingyou to think outside of the technical domain. IT Strategy is just applying it at a higher level of abstraction. Duh?!! DDD you’re already doing it!
- 56. ● ⅘ ofan IT Strategy is about business needs ● IT Strategy is about modelling the domain at its highest level Business Goals Business Context Business Strategies Business Capabilities IT Initiatives Looks like a Model to me....
- 57. The Business Contextlooks like Context Mapping to me…. ...An analysis map of the environment in which your business operates…. Identifies factors that could impact your business…..
- 58. ...distill the businesscapabilities critical to enabling the business strategies…. Capturing Critical Business Capabilities looks like Distillation and Core Domains to me….
- 59. Looks like aUbiquitous Language to me... ...communicate IT contribution in a business focused language…..
- 60. <corny>Apply the patterns,principles and practices of DDD that you are learning today when you are the leaders of tomorrow ;0)</corny> When you think IT Strategy think Domain-Driven Strategy
- 61. @ScottMillett Finding out moreabout IT Strategy
- 62.