You’ve completed onboarding, now what?

So, you have spent a few months working with Apptio or a 3^rd party to deliver your Apptio solution and now the delivery has ended and they are no longer there to support you in the same way. This is a great opportunity to take a breather and reflect on what you have achieved and start thinking about:

It can be a little scary but also what an opportunity to influence positive change to your customers lives, those immediately around you, and to the organization you work for.

The question to ask is “So what”. What have we been working on Apptio for these last few months? What is it really all about? Why does it matter? Who really cares? Why am I doing this?

Take the time to reflect and answer these questions. Talk to others to get their thoughts. Write it down. Keep it handy to remind you or even better, find an opportunity to communicate them across the organization as you continue to evolve the story using Apptio. These thoughts will continue to change over time. Update them as appropriate.

Once these are clear in your mind, start thinking through what the use cases are that are top of mind for the organization and make sure these are aligned to the organizational goals. Be as specific, detailed and prescriptive as you can be. This will ensure clarity when it comes to getting folks onboard, executing the plan, and delivering value to the end users.

Then it’s a matter of prioritization. Sometimes the “juice is not worth the squeeze” meaning that the effort and cost required outstrips the expected value. It might also be the case, that the data is not available or not in a state to be of any value. So don’t focus too much on what it not available, although good to note for possibly revisiting in the future as the business evolves and data becomes more readily available through such vehicles as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

Focus 80% of your time and energy on the here and now. What can be done today based on the expertise, data, motivations, and alignment to the organizations goals. And then prioritize based on ease of getting done, value of expected output, and most importantly on the strategic &/or compliancy goals of the organization. Make sure this is approved at the highest level that makes sense, to ensure support and $’s to land the capabilities to end users.

Don’t try to tackle more than 2-3 use cases at any one time. Once locked on use cases, getting the right resources is critical to success and they may be different for each use case. The core roles are as follows:

·       Technical configurator to develop the Apptio capabilities. They should understand the goals of the use case and be able to ask questions to build the best solution given the available resources

·       Decision makers who determine the right data and how the Apptio model should work

·       Data SME’s who have access to the data

·       PR person to communicate progress, capabilities, and value

·       Leaders to drive adoption

·       A few champions in the “User” community

Remember to keep in mind every step of the way the following:

·       Keep the “user” community involved and educated

·       Create a solution easy to understand and use

·       Create something that will drive material value and success can be measured

·       Build a solution that is easy to maintain and govern

·       Be relentless in communicating progress and value at every opportunity

Tenacity to pursue relentless success is a requirement for anyone leading this effort. Good luck and enjoy the journey. If it was simple, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

Don’t forget you are competing with many initiatives. So you have to keep selling why what you are doing is top of mind. It’s critical to tell the story. Ask yourself, why are movies compelling. I’ll leave you with this: