Now that we've taken all of this interesting Operational Data from our Data Owners and used it to drive our allocations, the first question most of them ask is "How are you using my data ?"  It's a very fair question and while we've had numerous conversations with them along the way, now it's time for a final briefing on where things finally landed in the model.  It will serve two purposes:  make sure they understand and are able to respond to questions that will be coming at them from people who consume their infrastructure and give them a good foundation to help us drive subsequent improvements in the allocation rules.

I'm curious what approach others have taken to create model documentation that helps your Data Owners visually see and understand the path that their Tower/Sub Tower/Sub Tower Element expenses take through the model and how their Operational Data drives that flow.

While I'd love to be able to do interactive walkthroughs in Studio, I don't think we're quite there and am focused more on another form of documentation that helps answer their questions in a more direct/concise view. 

Suggestions or examples anybody is willing to share ?

I would strongly advice against detailed studio based explanations.Been there, done that .... Not efficient or effective.

We are developing right now a document for this purpose. I'd be happy to share once ready. It will be a simple diagram showing the cost pools/towers/applications where the cost comes from and the destination. The driver data that runs the allocation and little more.

These potential conversations are good as long as these take place as part of the on going TBM governance meetings, or at least you're a part of those.

I am new to the Apptio and would love this document for future use as well! I am just getting into the studio explanation myself and I could not imagine breaking it down in that manner for every data owner!

Great to hear that you are developing the document.   Looking forward to seeing it and sharing.

Has there been any Progress on that Topic? We are currently also in the same Situation where I do not find it efficient to discuss the model with other departments but we somehow Need to show what is going on behind the Scenes without going too deep.

Trust in the data/model is very hard to establish...

Very much agree with Juan Jose – if you go down the model rabbit hole with anyone who doesn’t live it every day, you’ll lose them.  Easiest way I've found to ease folks into an understanding is by stepping them through the process very simply...

TBM is all about marrying financial data with infrastructure consumption to provide an enterprise view of spend vs. the traditional cost center view...

• First, we start out by categorizing all expenses into ‘cost pools’ (cost categories) based on the expense’s account number...
• Then we then determine what the expense is in support of based on the associated project, cost center, or other data...
• And lastly, once the expenses are in their respective towers – be it server, storage, network, etc. – then we move those costs up the model to the applications they support – this is based on matching the infrastructure used with the application and how we determine how much of the expense you receive is based on the consumption details – if you have a lot of database assigned, or use a physical server vs. a virtual, etc...
• Possibly note that you receive x amount of data feeds from the various areas per month...

Attaching the quick and dirty document I have - and this is probably too much detail even still, but people seem to get it after reviewing and haven’t complained, so that’s a plus. 

Also, the attached mainly shows allocations up to the Applications - didn't focus on Business Services or Business Units since we only send out reports for app costs right now to management...  We utilize BS/BU in our chargeback process, but do not distribute reports for that yet...

And Juan Jose, I’m definitely interested in your document once complete as well!

LOVE LOVE LOVE the doc you shared @Jenny Franklin!!! hi5

Thank you!  When someone is about to present a new concept to me and I don't quite yet get it, I'm like, "Talk to me like I'm four."  So I flipped the script to present it that way.  Okay, maybe a little older, but you get the gist..

Jenny & Juan Jose,

You're quickly confirming my suspicion that trying to open the model and step people through it is a losing proposition.  While TBM is all about transparency there is a delicate balance on where to draw the line.   A lot of our data owners feel like they need to be able to understand and verify every calculation performed on their data, something that is neither feasible nor a good investment of time.  I'd much prefer making sure they have a solid handle on the flow through the model and understanding how their operational data influences the resulting allocations.   

What you've done Jenny is an excellent view of that.  I like the level at which you've chosen to show it and the narratives condense a lot into something more easily consumable.   Thanks for sharing !

We, too, have had some who wanted to get into the weeds on every calculation - as a means to create their own model in Excel or some other system to validate what we're doing.  I'm happy to give them all the data we have if that's what they want to do, but warn them before they get too wrapped around the axle that if it could easily be done, Apptio's customers, many of which are Fortune 100/500 companies, would have found a way to do it already.  Once they get a glimpse of the complexity involved, that helps settle the debate.  And here's a little something that helps explain the complexity ha - old grease board drawing I did a while back (so some of these may not tie out w/the PDF I posted earlier -- this doesn't break out the "server triangle" either).

Server Triangle.  I just burst out laughing.  Nobody here understands why.  That's an awesome diagram.  It brings this image to mind : )

LOL   Yeah the server triangle is easier to explain once they realize that the VMs get their slice of costs from its Host (Hypervisor).  We're dealing with some wonky data right now whereby the VM appears, but the Hyper doesn't, so the VM looks like it costs $0, but that's bc its Host isn't there to send the bill.   Working on that one now.  On another somewhat similar subject, I had someone once not understand why VMs are cheaper than physicals and I told them it was all about the slicing of the costs.  A physical server is one pizza - if you have four apps on that one server, there's four big slices.  Multiple VMs sit on a hypervisor, which is nothing but a physical w/VMware, and if you had 10 VMs on there with 4 apps each, then you're looking at 40 slices, so smaller slice, smaller cost.  I may not have all the technical details right, but it serves as a decent explanation I guess.

Hello George

Not sure, how useful this would be, but I guess a good start to representing the Model, would be to go to the Metric tab, select the Model Metric, say for example, it's Cost. In that, in the drop down, change "Modeled Metric" to "Legacy Modeler". That would be give a Model view like we had in R11.  I believe this would be useful to Data Owners, to figure out the following:

- Where their Data is used/sits in the Model

- It's relevance

Here is my promised document

I can understand the doc, but if I shared something like this with others not in the weeds with TBM work...I expect it will create more confusion. :-(

I think @Jenny Franklin's doc is easier to consume by non-TBM partners.

Some brilliant material above, thanks all.

I've started with the report here:

thodi.andersson.huxley@axa-tech.com/blog/2018/03/09/internal-benchmarking-between-services-and-entities">https://tbmcouncil.jiveon.com/people/thodi.andersson.huxley@axa-tech.com/blog/2018/03/09/internal-benchmarking-between-services-and-entities

Side by side comparison of similar services within the group showing the proportional costs.

I've found it is not so much 'what are you doing with my data' that they care about as 'are my services economically viable now you have the details, am I going to be outsourced?' and 'IT Finance adds how much to my unit costs!?!'

I completely agree, don't show the model in Apptio as this will just create more questions and confusion.

This topic was actually part of our presentation yesterday at the London User Group (LUG) and we try to keep it as simple as possible; we show a version of the model and use a food delivery company example to show how costs are built up throughout the model

I'm sure the slides will be shared out soon but here are just a couple taken from our internal training sessions & the presentation

.

Thanks, Julie, for adding these!!

Thank you for sharing! @Natalia Guley, check this out.

SunTrust got it to one page  SunTrust - Recognize Pivotal Moments and Accelerate Trust in TBM (slide 18 below)...