A workshop for IT transformation champions

Facilitate rapid stakeholder buy in with a structured workshop

Previously, we’ve discussed that managed IT services aren’t for everyone. If the future looks like the current, then companies are often happy to look after IT as they do now and usually by themselves. Therefore, managed IT services probably won’t work for these companies. However,  as the gap between a company’s current IT state and their required future IT state widens, so too does their propensity to see the value from working with a third party.

As with any change, there is an internal champion and these champions have a tough role, they have to:

1. Understand and document the benefits available.
2. Communicate the business value to the internal decision makers.
3. Overcome inertia and the fear of change amongst that community.
4. Align the community to exactly what should be provided internally and what a managed service provider (MSP) should deliver.

Sometimes the champion is also faced with old perceptions about managed services. These can include a lack of awareness about why a service can be provided to a higher level externally, confusion as to how an SLA would work and concerns over transition sounding more complicated than it really is. Meanwhile, the champion knows that any IT team cost-effectively delivering digital business transformation is going to need a mixture of all 3 resource types (internal, contractors and managed service provider).

So, how can the IT champion rapidly get internal alignment on the way forward?

We think one of our Transformation Sessions: Transitioning IT support to an IT Partner, can help IT champions in this situation.

It is a customised and facilitated workshop led by us and the IT champion, with all the internal community in attendance. It will help the IT champion align the internal users and decision-makers at the required speed. It is a 100-minute discovery session where we will take the whole community through a structured journey, together. We work to your specific agenda having reviewed the specifics of your situation in advance.

Typical session agenda

• Understanding the current IT environment and operating model.
• Reviewing the ideas for the required IT state.
• Discuss the role an MSP can play in helping a company get to the future transformed state.
• What typically is kept internally managed.
• Objections and concerns.
• How working with an MSP operates on a day-to-day basis.
• Support for the transformation business case.

Issues are surfaced, alignment is facilitated, and the way forward is agreed – leaving the IT champion with a path to progress…