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How can Business Relationship Managers Influence Organizational Change?  Part 2 of a 2 Part Blog Series

1/2/2017

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​In Part 1 of “How can Business Relationship Managers Influence Organizational Change”, we looked at how Business Relationship Managers can serve as a translator for both IT and their business partners by bringing the benefits of IT work to life for both sides.  They can help IT staff and business stakeholders understand the true impact of the work by relating the benefit in a manner that is meaningful.  It is about more than saving money or upgrading a server.  Business Relationship Managers can explain how the work directly impacts the customer or the employee.  They understand the bigger picture but they can drill down to the day to day operational level and explain the benefit which allows all stakeholders to connect with this work at an emotional level and ultimately, improves the adoption of change.
 
Another aspect of driving change adoption is understanding existing performance as well as progress toward improvement.  Business Relationship Managers (BRM) are in a unique position to use metrics to help all of their stakeholders understand the value of the work being proposed or completed through the use of metrics.  The metrics can drive action and improve the adoption of change.
 
The business areas are tracking various productivity and satisfaction metrics.  The work completed relating to technology should enable stronger performance in these areas.  The BRM should be reviewing these measures with their customer on a routine basis.  Work completed by IT is often reflected in these measures.  Using our example from part 1 of this blog series, the work to upgrade an ATM may be reflected in the volume of customers using specific ATM functionality, the volume and type of security issues relating to the ATM, or the number and type of support calls about a particular application used at the branch. 
 
Technology supports the business in doing their job effectively.  Metrics that are monitored by business partners often show the impact of changes to the technology as well as changes to IT process and changes to the IT organizational structure.  Business Relationship Managers are able to use these metrics to show the IT staff how the work they do has a very meaningful impact. 
 
The same metrics can be used to facilitate a conversation with the business about the value IT is bringing to the organization.  While the business will also be making changes to strategies, processes, staffing, procedures, etc., and the BRM needs to understand the work that is underway, changes to the metrics also reflect changes taking place to the technology that is used every day by the business staff.  With minimal effort, the BRM can help the business understand the value proposition for IT by using metrics to show how IT is supporting business outcomes.
 
Using business metrics and correlating them to the work of the information technology team will have a considerable impact on change adoption by helping both IT and their business partners understand how the work being completed is affecting success.  Additional training, communication, application or other technical enhancements, process and procedure changes, and even organizational changes may result from truly understanding the metrics and how the changes completed by the IT team influences the end result.
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Attend the Building Your Business Relationship Management Capabilities Workshop to grow in your role and strengthen your relationship with your business customers!

Join our mailing list to ensure you don't miss another blog or important event!​  At AdOPT, we are transformation consultants focused on strategy, innovation, process, and culture change to improve IT efficiency, increase effectiveness, and optimize costs. For more information, phone 520-591-2427 or email us at info@adoptitsm.com.
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How Business Relationship Managers can Influence Change?  Part 1 of a 2 Part Blog Series

11/21/2016

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When an organization adopts new technology or processes, there is a change to how people work.  They need to modify their attitudes and behaviors to adopt the changes and this usually results in new procedures, updates to tools, and changing relationships between coworkers or departments.
 
Business Relationship Managers (BRM) understand the needs of the business and they understand how the IT organization works.  BRM’s work directly with business partners to ascertain their current and future needs and they help the IT team navigate meeting these needs.  They have intimate knowledge of both organizations and they are pivotal to keeping these organizations in sync.
 
While some would argue that the BRM should not be spending their time on organizational change management, it is actually a critical part of their role.   IT staff often wonder about the value of the work they perform.  They are asked to do tasks or take on projects but they aren’t provided with a lot of information.  They may be given a copy of a business case but the overall handoff to the IT staff generally does not include the context relating to the true impact of the work they are doing.  The BRM’s are in a perfect position to provide this context.  They understand both the tangible and intangible benefits.  Every communication to the IT staff should talk about the value of IT’s work to the business and relate this information at a level an IT staff member can understand and connect with at an emotional level.
 
For example, the business case for completing an application upgrade at a bank may indicate that the branches will save millions of dollars and that customer satisfaction will be increased.  Generally, this is what IT staff know about the work as it is in the business case.   Why should they care?  The upgrade could result in lots of additional hours of overtime.  In this scenario, the programmer or engineer only sees the negative impact.  They don’t connect to the meaning of the work and therefore, they aren’t incredibly motivated to do the work.
 
The BRM has the opportunity to translate this upgrade into something meaningful for the IT staff.  They know the impacts to the organization’s strategic plan as well as the individual employee at the branch.  They can relate the impacts to a customer experience.  If the programmer or engineer understands that a branch employee will no longer have to contact support about the application when a customer is sitting in front of them or that the upgrade will provide the ability for self service through an ATM rather than requiring a customer to visit a branch, it would make a difference.  It would motivate the IT staff member to improve the experience for both their internal and external customers.  The BRM is in a perfect position to help IT staff understand why the work is occurring and the true impact of their work.  The BRM can tell the story.
 
On the business side, the BRM understands the various departments, organizational structure, and politics of their assigned area.  They are instrumental in setting and managing expectations.  The BRM understands enough about the IT organization and workload that they can effectively translate something technical into something meaningful for their business partner.
 
The BRM also knows their business partners well enough to understand their pain points and what motivates them.  They can influence buy in for upgrades, downtime, process changes, IT restructures, and other changes by applying this information in a useful, meaningful way.  For example, the server upgrade that will restrict application access for a half a day is required if you want the self-service functionality on the ATM.  The ATM downtime this week will allow us to ensure the customer’s information is safe and secure.
 
The BRM can tell the story to both IT and the business about how their work creates something meaningful for the staff and for the customer.  They can link the impact of the work to tangible and intangible benefits that will appeal to leadership as well as the frontlines.  They can have a huge impact on the success and adoption of change.
 
Don’t miss part two of this blog where we’ll talk about how Business Relationship Managers can use metrics to influence change!  Join our mailing list to ensure you don’t miss the next blog!


At AdOPT, we are transformation consultants focused on strategy, innovation, process, and culture to increase effectiveness, improve efficiency, and optimize costs.  Discover how an cultural assessment can help you identify key steps to influence change adoption.   Ask us to complete an assessment today and discover how to improve the return on your initiatives.  Contact us at  info@adoptitsm.com or by calling 520-591-2427.
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Pervasive Business Relationship Management Challenges

1/20/2015

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In recent months, we conducted one on one interviews with several IT executives that have responsibility for the Business Relationship Management process and function.  During these conversations, we explored their top concerns relating to this process and role.  In this week’s blog, we examine two BRM challenges that are pervasive. 

Challenge #1 - Maintaining a Strategic View

One of the most significant challenges noted by IT executives related to the Business Relationship Manager maintaining their strategic view.  It is very common for the Business Relationship Manager (BRM) to become an escalation point for high priority incidents, challenges with projects, and other ongoing issues.  While several IT executives agreed that their organizational challenges are sometimes the root cause of this issue, often it is easier for a BRM or their leadership to believe they are demonstrating value by handling operational issues.  If a customer comes to them with an operational issue, they handle it rather than ensuring the operational lead is handling the issue and effectively communicating with the customer.

Many senior IT leaders agree that the BRM is providing value while assisting with an operational issue but there is also a sense that they are masking a broader issue that the organization needs to resolve.  By facilitating a resolution to an operational issue, the urgency to find a long term fix is diminished and the BRM now has created a new norm in terms of their job expectations.  The value of the role would be heightened if the Business Relationship Manager sought to resolve the root cause of why they need to become involved in operational issues.  While investigating the root cause may not appear to fall into the BRM’s responsibilities, managing operational issues will not provide the long term value that was sought when the BRM role was created.

Challenge #2 - Understanding Business Needs

As noted above, Business Relationship Management requires a strategic focus.  When working with the customer, the Business Relationship Manager (BRM) needs to understand the business process and outcome enough to effectively represent the viewpoint when working with the IT team.  It can be difficult for the BRM to gather the right level of information from their business partners. 

At this stage, IT does not need detailed requirements.  They need a high level view with key areas of concern noted.  Process outcomes, regulatory constraints, risk areas, and existing ongoing issues are all areas that should be explored along with the impact of the work on business related strategies, goals, and objectives.    

Senior IT leaders want to vest the Business Relationship Manager within the IT organization and with the business yet they struggle to do so when additional IT resources are often needed to fully understand high level requirements.  IT resource consumption rates have increased with the introduction of the Business Relationship Management process as the Business Relationship Manager is often facilitating additional conversations between technical resources and key business staff. 

Most IT leaders agree that Business Relationship Management is adding value and customer satisfaction is increasing however; they would like the BRM role be more self-sufficient in their investigation and understanding of the business needs.


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Help your team grow in their role and strengthen their relationship with their business partners.  Ask us about the Building Your Business Relationship Management Capabilities workshop!  At AdOPT, we are transformation consultants focused on strategy, innovation, process, and culture change to improve IT efficiency, increase effectiveness, and optimize costs. For more information, phone 520-591-2427 or email us at info@adoptitsm.com.  ​
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Measuring the Success of Business Relationship Management

7/22/2013

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Written By:  Pamela Erskine
Business Relationship Management (BRM) is a process focused on ensuring IT is supporting the business in meeting their objectives.   The role of the Business Relationship Manager is primarily concerned with customer satisfaction.  In theory, the BRM role is working closely with the business to understand their strategies, goals, and objectives.  They are capturing high level business requirements and deadlines for the IT organization.  They are serving as a consultant to the business offering advice on existing and new technology and/or coordinating conversations with subject matter experts in the IT organization.  

To ensure success with the BRM process and role, it is important to set goals and objectives for success ensuring that progress can be tracked and measured.

What are key metrics for business relationship management?

·  Customer satisfaction levels are the primary metric.  When referring to customer satisfaction, both end user and customer views are important.  The customer is responsible for the business outcome and they may be paying for the services provided but the end user view is also relevant.  Satisfaction with IT supporting outcomes  through services should be considered.  While transactional satisfaction with incident management or request fulfillment is important, it is a small subset of the customer’s overall view of the IT organization.  

·  The number of escalations and complaints from the business should be trended.  As the BRM process and role mature, the services offered and supported by the IT organization will meet the needs and expectations of the business.  Complaints and escalations about service should diminish.

·  Requirements to support every new service are known and agreed to by the business and the IT organization.   Signoffs by the business and IT occur in each lifecycle phase.  The number of new services with documented requirements and signoff metrics should be tracked against new services without the appropriate documentation. 

·  Changes to the customer environment are evaluated and result in changes to the IT services or strategy.   Customer satisfaction levels will reflect this metric however; evaluating the number of changes brought forth and implemented due to the BRM role will assist IT with understanding the value and performance of the Business Relationship Manager.

·  The business consults with IT to understand how technology can enable more efficient and effective business process.  When solving business problems, does IT have a role?  If the customer is asking the Business Relationship Manager to sit in on business strategy or process improvement discussions, the BRM role is having an impact.  Ultimately, customer satisfaction levels will reflect success in this area however; tracking the level of BRM involvement and recommended actions or solutions implemented will provide IT with additional value and performance data.

·  Metrics to reflect IT’s performance in relationship to business objectives.  While operational metrics in the IT organization are important, when working with the Customer, the Business Relationship Manager can translate how IT is supporting business outcomes into meaningful business based metrics for the IT organization.   Rather than merely tracking availability, mean time to resolve, or some other operational metric, business relationship management should help the IT organization develop business based metrics such as new sales supported, claims processed on time, diagnostic tests performed, patients scheduled, etc.   The BRM process owner and BRM role should ensure IT is focusing on both operational and business based metrics.

Business relationship management can be a pivotal process for strengthening the relationship between IT and the business.  Measuring success of the BRM process and role is crucial to maturing this aspect of IT service management (ITSM).
Attend the Building Your Business Relationship Management Capabilities Workshop to grow in your role and strengthen your relationship with your business customers!

Join our mailing list to ensure you don't miss another blog or important event!​  At AdOPT, we are transformation consultants focused on strategy, innovation, process, and culture change to improve IT efficiency, increase effectiveness, and optimize costs. For more information, phone 520-591-2427 or email us at info@adoptitsm.com.
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