Step 1: Identify and Validate
Stakeholders
Sponsor
Governance
Stakeholders
Stakeholders
Sponsor
Sponsor
Governance
Performance Gaps
Draft List of Stakeholder Needs
Validated List of Stakeholder Needs
Risks and Impacts
Performance Gaps
Draft List of Stakeholder Needs
Validated List of Stakeholder Needs
Impacts, Value, Risk, and Dependencies
Vision, Goals and Objectives, Purpose Statement, and Scope
Governance Structure
Purpose
The purpose of this step is to identify and assess what needs to be achieved, understand the major drivers for change, and then define, validate, and prioritize the mission and goals with stakeholders and operational staff. During this step, the stakeholder needs and the operational requirements are validated so that ultimately, all stakeholder groups are working towards the same, well understood, validated outcome. Initial performance metrics are created to begin focusing the measurement of success to be consistent across stakeholder groups. In this step, a sponsor for the planning effort is identified. The sponsor can range in levels of scope from an executive leader to a functional leader or even an application owner.
An additional purpose of this step is to identify and engage appropriate governance.
The Planner’s Role
In this step, planners (architects and other planners) facilitate a direct collaboration between the sponsor and stakeholders as they work together to define, validate, and prioritize their needs, and build a shared vision and understanding. In doing so, planners analyze stated needs in the context of overarching drivers to help aid decision makers in their assessment of whether stated needs are feasible and realistic. Since these needs shape the scope and strategic intent for planning, it is imperative that the sponsor and stakeholders agree on the needs before beginning subsequent planning steps.
In addition to identifying needs, planners work with the sponsor and stakeholders to establish target performance metrics that will ultimately be used to determine if the planned performance has been achieved.
Once needs are identified and validated, planners support the sponsor in identifying and initiating appropriate governance. It is important for governance to be understood up front so that there is a body of people that can be leveraged for feedback, oversight, and for decision-making throughout the planning process. Who makes the decisions and when those decisions will be made is important to the timing and buy-in of recommendations for change.
Outcome
At the end of Step 1, the key outcomes are (1) identified and validated needs, (2) an overarching set of performance metrics, and (3) a determination of who (governance) will ultimately oversee and approve recommended changes to meet those needs.
A Note on Core Artifacts
Like any methodology, the Collaborative Planning Methodology is designed for each step to be followed and each Activity Output to be produced. The use of “Core” and “Not Core” to describe these outputs is meant as the first set of tailoring guidance if an organization has constraints of time, budget or resources. As the CPM is tested and refined, feedback from organizations will improve this assignment and generate templates that help to scale outputs according to scope or size.
As described earlier, the goal in using this methodology is to encourage collaboration for high priority projects. This increases the awareness of solutions and services whose reuse can result in efficiencies. The CPM also provides the framework for organizations to generate actionable, consistent and rigorous plans that can lead to improved solutions.
Activity 1.1
Activity 1.2
Activity 1.3
Activity 1.4
