Starting with Manageable Chunks
Because enterprise mapping and discovery projects are usually large-scale adventures, it is always a good idea to start small, tackling one business segment or area of mission-critical interest. It is vital to show the value of such projects quickly; the key is to not get too ambitious from the outset until tangible worth and benefit is shown on a smaller horizontal stage. Another option is to attack all business areas horizontally but under the guise of one dedicated “vertical” value mission from the list above. For instance, one of the most popular instigators of enterprise mapping missions are business continuity projects, where the relationships of all company assets, business processes, and people must be fully understood in order to help avoid disasters and recover quickly in the event that such catastrophe strikes.
Despite the critical nature of business continuity planning, companies continue to operate in a state of heightened risk because very few of them truly understand the complex relationships between their business processes, IT infrastructure and its resident enterprise data assets, and the people who touch and interact that infrastructure—in other words, they don’t understand the web of operational dependencies that result from years of being in business.
With respect to IT managers—not enough of them have a decent grasp enterprise systems and data heritage and ontology (which is why so many change management programs fail.) Without such an understanding, the ability to proactively protect their data (while retaining low latency, high integrity, and laudable performance) or respond to and survive to a disaster are diminished considerably. Corporate assets are becoming increasingly more distributed and exposed to new types of risk; as a result, they are more difficult to control and manage. Enterprise mapping projects offer organizations the best means to achieve literally dozens of the most critical governance-centered objectives in existence today.
Conclusion
The end result of enterprise mapping propositions should be the dashboard-enabled portfolio management of all corporate assets. With full transparency into their organization’s important riches, companies will be able to assess all impacts to their business, no matter what the circumstance, business segment and function, geographical region, project line, area of customer interest may be. Redundancies in data and business process can be spotted and managed in a state-of-the-art fashion with highly customized and filtered views enabled by dashboard functionality. For such solutions to remain scalable and viable though, enterprises must always think of discovery and mapping as an ongoing mission where all moving and static parts of the business are continually documented and updated to ensure full transparency and best of breed governance.
Senior management will need to determine how deep they must dig into the rules and data of their enterprise by gauging cost vs. value delivered at various depths of discovery and asset charting. The best way to embark on this journey is to conduct an initial gap analysis that focuses on the amount of transparency and information currently available throughout the company and contrast that with the perceived value that would come from having specific (horizontal and vertical) insight into their commercial syndicate at various levels.
About the Author
A Contributing Editor for Dashboard Insight, William Laurent is one of the world's leading experts in information strategy and governance. For more than 15 years, he has advised numerous companies and governments on technology strategy, methodologies, and best practices. He is a regularly featured writer and columnist for DM Review where he writes about IT and corporate governance. William currently serves on the faculty of Baruch College, runs an independent consulting company that bears his name, and lectures frequently on various technology and business topics worldwide. He would enjoy your comments at wlaurent@williamlaurent.com
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