With 70% of IT and digital transformation projects failing to meet expectations over the last 40 years and the press, research companies and pundits crying out for more focus on net business gain week after week in trade journals and national newspapers, we are pleased to announce that major moves are happening, and you can be part of them.
MaxVal Consultancy’s CEO, David Jacobs, tells the story…
Help for CIOs and their teams, finally!
In the autumn of 2024, I kicked off my “70% Fail To 70+% Succeed!” initiative at DigiGov Expo ’24 and Government Transformation Week (GTW) on the back of a 30-year research and development programme I’ve led on this subject. This R&D was triggered by some high IT business value results I obtained in the 1980s and ‘90s. Progressing from operating as a well-qualified business-IT mediator to a multifaceted, value seeking polyglot/polymath, I started writing down my techniques and had developed 65% of what is now Business Value Maximisation Framework (BVMF®) by the year 2000. Since then, BVMF® has been much refined and expanded. Its power lies in the fact that it defines, in a practical and understandable way, the fundamental, underlying principles for obtaining optimal value, success and ROI from IT and Digital Transformation. This leads to contained risk and stress, and better utilised effort and cost. Morale tends to go up as well!
Training and accreditation in BVMF® have been underway for some years now and the Business Value Maximisation Specialists (BVMSs) emerging to apply their new skills in the marketplace have shown what a huge difference a BVMS makes to any CIO’s team.
Key Points About Business Value Maximisation Framework (BVMF®)
As a framework consisting of 100 models, 500 concepts and techniques and lots of supporting skillset definitions and related cultural and communicational structures, BVMF® defines the multifaceted value focused skillset needed for the modern age, providing the essential model around which team members can work, all contributing to the end result, i.e. much higher levels of business outcome than have been the norm.
In summary, BVMF® provides models, concepts and techniques to help identify and measure value, predict/forecast track value, boost value and keep on boosting it, all while linking macro conception to micro level activity so no ounce of value is lost or wasted.
Not Reinventing the Wheel
The beauty of BVMF® is that it does not seek to replace other methods, approaches and disciplines; it completes, corrects and enhances them in respect of the crucial business outcome/value factor. And knowledge of just a few of the core models and techniques applied in a focused manner can pay dividends almost instantly. However, BVMF® also supports a more systematic value maturity journey should organisations wish to benchmark themselves and improve crucial value/business outcome capability across their departments. This kind of systematic approach uses BVMF®’s meta-models and related techniques for the implementation whenever the ad hoc, targeted application is not deemed to be the best approach.
Our MaxVal consultants will administer BVMF® working with client organisations to apply the models and techniques, or train and accredit internal personnel, i.e. CIOs, business analysts, project managers, senior subject matter experts/SMEs, etc. Often, a combination of these two approaches is the best way to proceed. Inherent to the comprehensive service we offer, we will also help out where projects are not on track with recovery/rescue support.
Scope and Inclusivity
BVMF® is highly inclusive, supporting all members of a project team, in fact anybody and everybody involved in helping an organisation with its IT and/or Digital Transformation. Every team member will understand and appreciate what IT business value is, from their perspective and their colleagues’ perspectives, generally, and specifically in relation to the piece of work concerned. Team members will see what the project value cake’s ingredients need to be and what the recipe steps will be for stepping through the actions to bake the optimally nourishing value cake. Whatever type of cake is required by the project sponsors will be created. The team members will be empowered to keep on baking a better and better cake. This helps to accede to the ever- increasing expectations of the business world on IT. BVMF® will also help to show up where any expectations are not realistic and should therefore make way for more achievable goals to be met or be suitably tempered in some way.
Core BVMF® Models
Here below are a few of the core models I’ve written about in Open Access Government’s online publications over the last 15 months. Each of these models has a 1,000 plus word article accompanying it. All my OAG articles are here.
The particular models shown here below and discussed in my articles cover:
(top left) how we assess and improve ISBV (information system business value)
(top right and lower left) application of the Golden Value Circle (parts 1 and 2) to bring to bear some of the basic principles to the whole project cycle which includes Business as Usual (BAU) and Continuous Improvement (CI) activities
(lower right) The Value Delivery Model (VDM)TM showing how value arises at run-time, a key factor in shaping project work to put the effort in where it needs to be for maximum resultant ROI
Further BVMF® Models
A few more of BVMF®’s core models and techniques, along with their basic purpose and function, are briefly described here as follows:
The Information Systems Activity/Role Model – shows how differently humans and computers think and work, and how to integrate the two most effectively
The 1934 Model and Step Diagram – show how expectations have been and will remain sky high and how best to work with this growing challenge
The Value Conception and Delivery Model (VCDM)TM – shows how value is conceived and designed at design time (as opposed to how it manifests at run time as per the Value Delivery Model)
Landscape Value Characteristics (LVCs)TM – these show how to decide on the best IT development approach from the selection of sequential/waterfall approaches across the spectrum through a wagile/hybrid type blended approach (a highly pragmatic way to go much of the time) to ‘pure’ agile itself. What IT design and development approach to use should not be the first thing decided without looking at the business (and IT) landscape in relation to the characteristics of the specific piece of work to be done!
Layers of Focus (LoF)TM – a more detailed version of the Value Conception and Delivery Model showing all the steps needed to design optimally high levels of value into the new world working practice. A key point here is that the IT does not necessarily directly engender the value!
Value Origins, Ingredients and Propensity (VOIP) – shows the main ingredients of value while asking which of these is likely to yield the most benefit when upgraded/improved (this invokes the concept of Propensity to create value)
The Business Value Equation (BVEq)TM – uses the value ingredients defined above in VOIP and shows the relationship and dependencies between them, i.e. how they work together to bring value about. These relationships are shown in logical/dependent and numerical/arithmetic terms. The arithmetic upper and lower limits of some of the variables may shock you around how easily it is to do more harm than good to your organisation, department or business! Don’t worry too much though as the Crossword Diagram and Business Practice & Contingency (BP&C) module help to mitigate this type of risk of value loss. This is an area that has not typically been well handled by industry so far. For example, hundreds of British Airways flights have been cancelled on several occasions in recent years because BA hasn’t followed some of the basic guidelines described by BVMF®’s BP&C module and its related principles, guidelines and techniques. Not isolating or decoupling their processes was and possibly still is the main culprit!
The Conceptual Units of Benefit (CUB) Ladder – if you find MoSCoW beneficial for prioritising work this will boost its use hugely, either applied as a replacement or an adjunct. Functions of business process or IT for example are not flat in their potential contribution to end result value. This model helps to identify dependencies between the functions and see which type of value each function is likely to provide. There are various types of value as there are different types of cake ingredients that perform different functions towards the quality of the end result. These value ingredient types require different recipe steps for optimal results to be obtained.
Optimal Human-Computer Interaction (OH-CI) – also known colloquially as Football Team Management (FTM)TM, this model and its techniques help to blend humans and computer functions together into an optimally powerful team specific to the circumstances, environment and nature of the opposition! This is not the same as HCI (human computer interface) which tends to focus on icon recognition, screen layout, etc. This is MUCH more fundamental, and powerful. This will improve the quality of any UX and CX work being conducted if you favour using these modern terms with lots of Xs in.
The Crossword Diagram – leads on from the 1934 Model that shows the gap between business expectations and computer hardware and software’s technological potential. This also leads on from the ensuing Step Diagram that demonstrates how to deal with the expectation gap connected with the inexorable and exponential rise of IT’s perceived capability. Here we decompose processes, functions, data usage, etc down to manageable chunks that allow us to focus on how much better our new world will be compared to the old world. Where it’s not much better, we need to up our game and this model and its techniques help to do just that!
Business Practice and Contingency (BP&C)TM – helps us avoid the sad situation where IT systems bring an organisation or department to its knees as we see all too often. The Business Value Equation mentioned above shows the numeric extent of such a situation, quantifying the potential for damage (negative) or value manifestation (positive). IT systems WILL go out of service from time to time or at least degrade a business department’s ability to operate. This needs to be acknowledged and addressed with insight and effectiveness rather than hoping it won’t happen. Here we gather the basics together to keep your business processes running at top speed or at least at a more decent speed than typical when the IT system gremlins strike.
Optimistic End Note
Of course, if you are succeeding more than 30% of the time with your projects to meet expectations, we will of course be able to help you raise your success rates, value outcome and ROI to even higher levels. That is always our aim, to keep raising the value of IT which has been a bugbear of the industry for far too long.
And please bear in mind that the client organisation always has the option to choose the degree of value focus applied to any piece of work using BVMF®. This means the client is in control of how strongly and quickly the march towards higher levels of business value takes place.
To find out more about BVMF® and MaxVal’s range of services just go to our website. The links on our home page’s Latest News feed take you to plenty of free information including videos, articles, webinar recordings, a podcast for C-suite executives and much more. Due to the chronological layout, you can also see key parts of BVMF®’s history and development.
MaxVal Consultancy is founder member of Do IT Better Consortium (DIBC), see www.DoITBetterConsortium.co.uk