Step 2: Research and Leverage
Sponsor
Sponsor
Organizations and Service Providers to Engage
Sponsor
Organizations and Service Providers to Engage
Target Performance Metrics
Vision, Goals and Objectives, Purpose Statement, and Scope
Validated Register of Stakeholder Needs
Target Performance Metrics
Vision, Goals and Objectives, Purpose Statement, and Scope
Validated Register of Stakeholder Needs
Organizations and Service Providers to Engage
Vision, Goals and Objectives, Purpose Statement, and Scope
Validated Register of Stakeholder Needs
Partnership Risk and Benefits Analysis
Memorandum of Understanding
Purpose
The purpose of this step is to identify organizations and service providers that may have already met, or are currently facing needs similar to the ones identified in Step 1, and then to analyze their experiences and results to determine if they can be applied and leveraged or if a partnership can be formed to address the needs together. In alignment with the “Shared First” principle (see Shared Services Strategy), it is at this point that planners consult both internal and external service catalogs for pre-existing services that are relevant to the current needs. In some instances, an entire business model, policy, technology solution, or service may be reusable to address the needs defined in Step 1 – an important benefit in these cost-constrained, quickly evolving times. Based on this analysis, sponsors and stakeholders determine whether or not they can leverage the experiences and results from other organizations.
The Planner’s Role
Planners (e.g. architects, organization and program managers, capital planners, and other planners) facilitate the research of other organizations and service providers to assess whether they have similar needs and whether these organizations have already met these needs or are currently planning to meet these needs. Planners lead the assessment of the applicability of the other organizations’ experiences and results and help determine whether there are opportunities to leverage or plan together. Once these organizations and their needs and experiences have been identified and assessed, planners formulate a set of findings and recommendations detailing the applicability and opportunity for leverage. These findings and recommendations are submitted to the sponsor who engages governance with this information as appropriate.
Outcome
At the conclusion of Step 2, planners, the sponsor, and stakeholders have a clear understanding of the experiences and results of other organizations, and the sponsor and / or governance have determined whether or not these experiences should be leveraged to meet the needs being considered as part of the planning effort. In some instances, another organization may be currently planning for similar needs and a partnership can be formed to collectively plan for these needs. The decision to leverage or not has a significant impact on the planning activities in Step 3. For instance, if the organization determines that it can leverage policies and systems from another organization in order to meet its own needs, these policies and systems become a critical input to planning in Step 3.
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.