IT Value Mapping

IT Value Mapping is a framework, and approach to maximize business value created by IT investments developed by Sourabh Hajela.

IT Value Mapping is used to create a strategic plan, and roadmap for IT with a focus on:

• Maximizing returns on IT investments
• Quantifiable and sustainable value

IT Value Mapping quantifies and visually depicts IT capability of an organization. It creates diagrams, or value maps, to depict the state of key business and IT components at any given point in time. More importantly, it also depicts the impact of each component’s “state” on business value.

• Current IT Capability – alignment and value can be assessed by analyzing and comparing these diagrams
• Similarly, an assessment of planned IT decisions can also be made by viewing their impact on IT Capability through these diagrams – without a single dollar being spent on implementation

The technique is based on a unified framework that provides one view of the business:

• Top to bottom: Seamlessly links business and IT capability
• Left to right: links key components of IT capability – from strategy to implementation

It also recognizes the hierarchy of these components and links them - from IT Capability to applications, servers etc. External events or decisions, all, have an impact on IT value. IT Value Mapping shows us the “what”, “where”, “when” and “how” of this impact. By making this connection between “decisions” and their impact on “value”, it helps us improve IT ROI.

IT Value Mapping is business focused but specifically designed for IT  :

• Practical: The analysis should produce results that can be implemented
• Quantitative: The results should be quantifiable so progress can be understood, explained and monitored
• Integrated: Single framework that connects all components of Business and IT Capability so the complete impact of a decision – from top to bottom and left to right - can be assessed
• Iterative: Most things in real life do not happen on the first pass – they require careful calibration over time and take many attempts. If there is a common framework that synthesizes the lessons learnt so they can be carried forward, that immensely facilitates this process and makes it more efficient
• Ease of Use: Any tool’s complexity is its own worst enemy. Hence, there is a need to simplify the interface, data collection and other things associated with the framework, to facilitate its adoption.

source: StartSmarts

Tenets of IT Value Mapping

IT Value mapping is based upon the following tenets:
1. Any organization can be modeled using a single framework that links all its capabilities from business to IT
2. Business and IT Capability can be quantified and visually depicted
3. Business model is the focal point of any organization – everything it does must be driven by it and should be to enable it
4. IT is a “service business” internal to the organization it serves
5. IT Capability has two interrelated but distinct dimensions – alignment and value
6. There are three imperatives for value creation, namely, strategic alignment, process coverage and asset productivity
7. IT Value must be measured using metrics specifically tailored for the purpose, with little emphasis placed on dollar denominated ones
8. IT Capability is built iteratively using multiple “learn and do” cycles
9. All IT decisions are subordinate to IT Alignment and value
10. The need to make better IT decisions must drive any analysis of IT’s capability

See Also

IT Strategy IT Strategy Framework
Business IT Alignment
IT Capability