The Biggest Enterprise Roadmap Regret

Lately, we've been advising many of our subscribers on their longer-term roadmaps for digital workplace and marketing technology.

This is a good sign. It means that enterprises are transitioning from reacting to emerging technologies to pro-actively planning a strategy to exploit digital opportunities.

We always try to share lessons of those who have gone before you, and in that spirit, I'd like to offer the most common "what-would-I-have-done-differently" advice we encounter. What do enterprise technology and business leaders say three years into implementing a strategic roadmap?

First, a Runner Up

One of the most common regrets is not a new one, but an increasingly important requirement in an era where customers and employees alike demand a more humane digital experience.

    "I wish we had more closely followed user-centered design principles"

Here I mean design in the broadest sense, from experience design at the screen (where you should always start) back to data and system design.

If your roadmap centers on enterprise-centered design and then tries to derive effective experiences for your employees and customers, you're inviting Business-IT conflict amid unmet expectations.

User-centered design is a discipline in the sense of a collection of coherent methodologies, but UCD is also a discipline in the sense that its greatest value comes from consistent application across all the projects in your roadmap.

The Number One Enterprise Regret

But there's an even deeper and more prevalent regret:

    "I wish we had sorted out our Identity & Access Management foundation sooner."

Every technology (and their biggest analyst and vendor boosters) wants to be foundational in your enterprise stack. Well, IAM truly is foundational. If you don't put the right tools, processes, data, and people in place to create a definitive repository of identities, roles, groups, and attendant entitlements, your ability to execute strategically can become sorely crippled.

I frequently hear feedback like, "We had great plans to bust internal silos, but then hit a roadblock when we couldn't turn to a consistent IAM store." Fragmented identity and access services almost always lead to fragmented user experiences.

Note that there's much more to this than "security." Security is important, but the long-term value of a comprehensive IAM foundation is really less about mitigating risk and more about exploiting opportunities -- opportunities to offer single sign-on, profile-based user experiences, better integrated data and services, and smoother collaboration and networking.

When to Fund?

IT leaders often complain that business stakeholders don't like to fund these sorts of infrastructure programs, which usually aren't tied directly to a specific project. That's a valid complaint. The time to deal with IAM is when you are creating a long-term roadmap that anticipates how different pieces of your digital ecosystem need to work together.

If your organization is a Real Story Group subscriber and you'd like us to sense-check your strategic plans, log in to schedule an advisory session with one of our experts.

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