The IT department is often accused of being nothing more than a cost center. That’s certainly not true. IT is the engine that creates value for your business. The real question is: how does an IT department build the most suitable IT environment to support value creation? And how can BRYXX help?
At BRYXX, we like to keep things simple. Our starting point is always the impact a high-quality IT environment can have on your business. We focus on three core elements: building a vision and mission (build), deploying infrastructure (deploy), and maintaining the entire environment (maintain). In this blog, we’ll discuss the first part: the design of your IT vision and mission.
Everything starts with a few fundamental questions. What does the business expect from the IT department? How can the IT department best support the organization? And what IT environment is needed to make that possible? Together, we first map out the answers to these questions. From there, we move on to the details: what is technically needed to build the IT environment, and how should you structure the organization to develop that environment without placing unnecessary pressure on the team?
Value streams
The first step is to map all the streams through which your organization delivers value to internal or external customers. To do this, we ask a series of targeted questions. Who are your customers, both internal and external? What do they contact you about? And what IT environment is already in place to respond to those requests? Every question, assignment, or order submitted by a customer constitutes a value stream. Each of these streams is linked to IT components that enable the delivery of value.
Identifying who your customers are and what they expect often proves to be a particularly challenging question for the IT department. However, answering these questions makes it crystal clear which new IT developments you need and which ones you can eliminate or outsource, without losing value. Based on this insight, we list all necessary IT developments, taking into account both the effort required for implementation and the expected impact.
The right teams
The next step is prioritization. The easiest and most profitable IT developments are implemented first, followed by the initiatives that require more time but still deliver significant value. For each development, such as building a new website, we assemble a team with the right mix of expertise. At the same time, we map out the tools they need for the development. Some tools may need to be purchased, while you’ll already have others in place. This exercise also quickly reveals whether you have multiple tools that essentially perform the same function. When tools are integrated directly into the platform engineering framework, this kind of redundancy quickly becomes apparent. You can then eliminate unnecessary tools and achieve cost savings.
By the end of the process, you’ll have a concrete roadmap outlining the steps, teams, and tools required, as well as an initial timeline for the implementation of the necessary IT developments, in the correct order.
Stop here? That’s an option too
At this point in the process, you haven’t made any major decisions as an organization. However, what you have gained is clear insight into how you could create a highly effective IT environment for your organization. What you choose to do with that insight is entirely up to you. You know your sector, your customers, and your business best. Our role is to get you thinking about the right questions and to brainstorm with you. If the resulting insights help you move forward, our mission has already been accomplished. And if you’d like support in turning your plans into reality, we’re always ready to help.