Create a Work-From-Anywhere Strategy | Info-Tech Research Group

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Work-from-anywhere isn’t going anywhere. During the initial rush to remote work, tech debt was highlighted and the business lost faith in IT. IT now needs to:

Rebuild trust with the CXO.
Identify gaps created from the COVID-19 rush to remote work.
Identify how IT can better support remote workers.

IT went through an initial crunch to enable remote work. It’s time to be proactive and learn from our mistakes.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

It’s not about embracing the new normal; it’s about resiliency and long-term success. Your strategy needs to not only provide short-term operational value but also make the organization more resilient for the unknown risks of tomorrow.
The nature of work has fundamentally changed. IT departments must ensure service continuity, not for how the company worked in 2019, but for how the company is working now and will be working tomorrow.
Ensure short-term survival. Don’t focus on becoming an innovator until you are no longer stuck in firefighting.
Aim for near-term innovation. Once you’re a trusted operator, become a business partner by helping the business better adapt business processes and operations to work-from-anywhere.

Impact and Result

Follow these steps to build a work-from-anywhere strategy that resonates with the business:

Identify a vision that aligns with business goals.
Design the work-from-anywhere value proposition for critical business roles.
Benchmark your current maturity.
Build a roadmap for bridging the gap.

Benefit employees’ remote working experience while ensuring that IT heads in a strategic direction.

Create a Work-From-Anywhere Strategy Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create a work-from-anywhere strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Create a Work-From-Anywhere Strategy – Executive Brief

1. Define a target state

Identify a vision that aligns with business goals, not for how the company worked in 2019, but for how the company is working now and will be working tomorrow.

2. Analyze current fitness

Don’t focus on becoming an innovator until you are no longer stuck in firefighting mode.

3. Build a roadmap for improving enterprise apps

Use these blueprints to improve your enterprise app capabilities for work-from-anywhere.

4. Build a roadmap for improving strategy, people & leadership

Use these blueprints to improve IT’s strategy, people & leadership capabilities for work-from-anywhere.

5. Build a roadmap for improving infrastructure & operations

Use these blueprints to improve infrastructure & operations capabilities for work-from-anywhere.

6. Build a roadmap for improving IT security & compliance capabilities

Use these blueprints to improve IT security & compliance capabilities for work-from-anywhere.

Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

9.0/10

Overall Impact

33

Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

Michigan State Court Administrative Office (SCAO)

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

5

Department of Education and Skills

Workshop

9/10

N/A

60

Ken and Andrew convened a very structured and insightful workshop. Considering the limitations of it not being an in-person experience, the worksho... Read More

Workshop: Create a Work-From-Anywhere Strategy

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Define a Target State

The Purpose

Define the direction of your work-from-anywhere strategy and roadmap.

Key Benefits Achieved

Base your decisions on senior leadership and user needs.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Identify drivers, benefits, and challenges.

1.2

Perform a goals cascade to align benefits to business needs.

Desired benefits for work-from-anywhere

1.3

Define a vision and success metrics.

Vision statement
Mission statement
Success metrics

1.4

Define the value IT brings to work-from-anywhere.

Value propositions for in-scope user groups

Module 2: Review In-Scope Capabilities

The Purpose

Focus on value. Ensure that major applications and IT capabilities will relieve employees’ pains and provide them with gains.

Key Benefits Achieved

Learn from past mistakes and successes.
Increase adoption of resulting initiatives.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Review work-from-anywhere framework and identify capability gaps.

SWOT assessment of work-from-anywhere capabilities

2.2

Review diagnostic results to identify satisfaction gaps.

2.3

Record improvement opportunities for each capability.

Projects and initiatives to improve capabilities

2.4

Identify deliverables and opportunities to provide value for each.

Deliverables and opportunities to provide value for each capability

2.5

Identify constraints faced by each capability.

Constraints with each capability

Module 3: Build the Roadmap

The Purpose

Build a short-term plan that allows you to iterate on your existing strengths and provide early value to your users.

Key Benefits Achieved

Provide early value to address operational pain points.
Build a plan to provide near-term innovation and business value.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Organize initiatives into phases.

Prioritized list of initiatives and phases

3.2

Identify tasks for short-term initiatives.

3.3

Estimate effort with Scrum Poker.

3.4

Build a timeline and tie phases to desired business benefits.

Profiles for short-term initiatives

Create a Work-From-Anywhere Strategy visualization

Ensure short-term survivability while working toward near-term innovation.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

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Guided Implementation 1: Define a target state

Call 1: Assess current work-from-anywhere fitness and objectives.
Call 2: Design IT’s value proposition for work-from-anywhere.

Guided Implementation 2: Analyze current fitness

Call 1: Assess current fitness and satisfaction.
Call 2: Review your fitness results.

Guided Implementation 3: Build a work-from-anywhere roadmap

Call 1: Identify the strategy’s scope.
Call 2: Create initiative profiles.
Call 3: Identify and prioritize improvements.
Call 4: Summarize results and plan next steps.

Author

Ken Weston

Search Code: 96591
Last Revised: March 17, 2021

TAGS:

remote work, work from anywhere, work from home, flex work, wfa, wfh, covid-19, covid, everywhere enterprise, strategy, roadmap, pandemic, plan, new normal

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