For CIOs

March 23, 2009

Tools For IT Planning

by Sharyn Leaver with Tim DeGennaro and Alex Cullen

EXecutiV e S ummarY
Strategic planning is more difficult than ever. Todays volatile economic environment means that IT must plan quickly, more flexibly, and more thoroughly. Plans that dont follow this path quickly become obsolete sometimes even before theyre completed. For years, planning teams have relied on sources of information of varying quality and sluggish manual processes to create their IT plans. But now, a group of tools from the enterprise architecture (EA) arena is emerging with the goal of making IT planning a quicker, more flexible, and more thoroughly aligned process. PLANNING IS MORE IMpORTANT AND hARDER ThAN EVER The combination of business increasing reliance on IT and the volatility of the marketplace has put more pressure on IT to plan quickly, accurately, and thoroughly. IT must now compare plans to alternatives, prepare them with contingencies, and review them on a monthly or quarterly not yearly basis. ITs current planning function is ill-equipped to plan at the pace of business. Heres why:

IT takes too long to adjust plans to meet business needs. By the time IT is prepared, opportunities
have passed and the plans are obsolete. IT doesnt have the means to understand how it currently supports business strategy. The linkage between ITs capabilities and their associated costs, benefits, and risks and business needs is not mapped out. Additionally, information gathering and number crunching hold the process back.

IT makes plans that dont reflect what IT will actually do or what the business actually needs.

In the end, business doesnt understand how IT contributes to the execution of strategy. IT doesnt start planning with a clear picture of which demand is truly strategic or which actions will have the biggest impact. Information regarding business needs and the costs, benefits, and risks of IT capabilities comes from sources of varying quality. IT then makes planning decisions based on misleading information.

ITs plans often end up rigid and unverifiable. Plans dont include contingencies that reduce

the impact of change, nor have they been verified as the best plan of action via comparison to alternatives and scenarios. IT simply doesnt have the time and information for it. Manually preparing multiple plans and selecting the best one would take too long for most organizations especially considering the availability of the information needed for a comparison.

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Tools For IT Planning

For CIOs

CONSIDER A TOOL-BASED AppROAch TO IT pLANNING Forresters process framework for effective IT planning guides planning teams to an actionable and useful end result (see Figure 1). IT planning tools can help drive this process, providing a unified tool that supplies users with the information they need to plan quickly, accurately, and comprehensively. An optimal tool base keeps information regarding business strategy, IT capability, demand, capacity, and standards in a single place. This allows for continuous, real-time capture of this information and provides planners with the ability to manipulate this data creating multiple plan iterations and comparing them across various scenarios. To support this process, a vendor will provide customers with:

A repository of application data. Planning tools provide a common inventory of application Capability maps. Forrester recommends using capability maps to link ITs capabilities to the Gap analysis tools. Alongside capability maps, planning tools capture information about

data including costs, life cycles, and owners, so that planners have easy access to the information that drives their decisions.

critical business processes they support.1 These software tools provide a graphical tool that clearly outlines how the business capabilities that IT provides to the business are linked to ITs efforts.

the future state of business capabilities as dictated by business strategy. Users leverage this functionality to identify the areas where IT capabilities need to be built, enhanced, or scaled back driving ITs strategy.

Modeling and analytic capability. These tools enable planning teams to create a variety of

plans, which can then be compared to one another to weigh the pros, cons, and risks of each. In addition, their impact on architecture and current initiatives becomes visible. This keeps plans relevant, provides teams with the foresight to plan holistically, and enables IT to communicate the plan clearly.

Reporting tools. Reports guide the planning teams decisions for example, which

applications have redundant capabilities, have not been upgraded, or are plagued with costly issues. ITs strategic decisions are therefore more easily justified.

Alfabet And Troux Oer The Most Robust IT Planning Capabilities A handful of vendors offer IT planning capabilities at various levels of complexity. A recent Forrester Wave evaluation found that alfabet and Troux Technologies are the clear leaders in this market. But others particularly MEGA and Metastorm are not far behind, and general-usage vendors such as Casewise and IDS Scheer can also be used for IT planning.2 We rated each of these vendors on its ability to support planning teams with modeling, analysis, application life-cycle management, reporting, and templates, as well as the architecture of their solutions and company strategy.

March 23, 2009

2009, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Tools For IT Planning

For CIOs

Figure 1 The Successful Planning Process Framework

Business strategy Project and service commitments

Current capabilities

Needed capabilities IT strategy

Strategic investments Governance process

IT demand management Aggregate demand

MOOSE

IT budget
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.
2009, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

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March 23, 2009

Tools For IT Planning

For CIOs

R ecomme N D atio N s

ASSESS ITS ROLE AND ABILITIES BEfORE INVESTING IN pLANNING TOOLS

Planning tools are a dream come true to planning teams and to CIOs. Having such a wealth of information in one place in a format that allows for the data to be easily manipulated and compared is a desire of all IT organizations across all decision-making processes. But with implementations costing up to $400,000 or more, not all organizations will see a signicant return. Organizations will see the greatest and fastest returns when:

IT is the partner player archetype.

Planning tools provide the most value when ITs role is already viewed as an integral piece of business strategy and oerings. CIOs in this role, by denition, use these solutions to be a better business partner and improve ITs integration with enterprise strategy.
3

Application information is available and consistent. To build the useful information

inventory that these tools provide, that data must be gathered at the start and continually updated. Organizations that capture minimal application data and that lack consistent methods for doing so will have trouble building up a solution that provides enough highquality data.

Project and portfolio management (PPM) processes are also in place. IT planning
tools take on a precursory role in PPM because by nature they help identify demand and its alignment to business strategy a necessity in portfolio management. In the past, vendors built custom integrations with PPM solutions for their customers. Recently, Troux Technologies began building productized integrations with PPM solutions like CA Clarity in response to customer demand.

SUppLEMENTAL MATERIAL Companies Interviewed For This Document alfabet IDS Scheer Metastorm Troux Technologies

March 23, 2009

2009, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

Tools For IT Planning

For CIOs

ENDNOTES
1

IT leaders have been challenged to harness the complexity of business as it affects planning, architecture, and IT operations. This complexity is only increasing, driven by mergers and acquisitions, globalization, and decentralized business organizations. CIOs need a tool that can address ITs importance to business success, flex to reflect ongoing business change, and relate the business activities to the bill of IT ITs hardware, software, and services. Business capability maps provide exactly this tool. These maps provide a picture of the business-IT architecture, relating business capabilities and their outcomes to business processes and functions, IT services, and hardware and software. The capability maps have a strong impact across IT like guiding IT investment decisions and relating IT operational expenses to business results. See the November 16, 2007, Capability Maps Anchor Business Complexity report. In this second release of Forresters assessment of enterprise architecture and business process analysis (BPA) tools, Forrester assessed nine leading vendors in a 93-criteria evaluation. We found that IDS Scheer, Casewise, MEGA, Metastorm, and Troux Technologies lead the pack for general EA tool usage. For the more specific IT planning usage category, these Leaders are joined by the most powerful vendor in this specific category: alfabet. The Leaders are followed by IBM, a Strong Performer in all three categories; iGrafx, a Strong Performer in the business process analysis category and the general EA category; and Sybase, a Contender in all three categories. See the January 7, 2009, The Forrester Wave: Business Process Analysis, EA Tools, And IT Planning, Q1 2009 report. From the outside looking in, all IT organizations appear to have the same reason for being. But CIOs must understand that there is no one type of IT organization right for all enterprises and all industries. Instead, there are three clear archetypes for successful IT organizations: Solid Utilities, Trusted Suppliers, and Partner Players. Understanding which is which helps articulate IT strategy, dictate tradeoffs, and help IT achieve its goal of running more like a business. Top management expectations dictate which type is right but overall IT maturity constrains or enables performance within each archetype. See the March 22, 2006, The Three Archetypes Of IT report.

Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology. Forrester works with professionals in 19 key roles at major companies providing proprietary research, consumer insight, consulting, events, and peer-to-peer executive programs. For more than 25 years, Forrester has been making IT, marketing, and technology industry leaders successful every day. For more information, visit www.forrester.com. 2009, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. To purchase reprints of this document, please email clientsupport@forrester.com. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com. 54110