Forrester has introduced two major innovations this year for technology leaders and practitioners: high-performance IT and the Forrester Reference IT Capability Map. Now, I am pleased to announce that we have brought them together in a unique assessment tool, Forrester’s High-Performance IT Capability Assessment.

Forrester’s High-Performance IT And Reference IT Capability Map Are Linked

As a recap, high-performance IT proposes four distinct styles: enabling, amplifying, cocreating, and transforming.

high-performance IT

 

This is not a maturity model. Organizations may move through any of these styles, in various combinations, in response to the particular circumstances in which they find themselves.

Two quadrants showing the four IT styles: enabling bottom left, cocreating bottom right, amplifying in the top left, and transforming in the top right. Going upwards is more scale of change. Going rightward is greater speed of change. The first quadrant is current state with an emphasis on enabling. The second quadrant is future state with an emphasis on cocreating.

 

Turning to the Forrester Reference IT Capability Map (click below for a close-up):

 

This is a structured framework for assessing the modern digital/IT organization, similar to other representations in the industry but with certain key updates.

So How Do They Interact?

In general, high-performance IT styles will find themselves either enabled or constrained by IT capabilities and the IT portfolio. High performance implies a responsive, resilient IT organization, and this is achieved through investing in the IT capabilities, which in turn curate and channel the direct investments in the IT portfolio. (Throw out the IT capabilities, and you have ungoverned, shadow IT, which has been shown time and again to result in sprawl, outages, and breaches.)

The IT capabilities can be aligned to styles. While a capability such as security is required in all styles, it is still reasonable to ask:

  • For a given style, would I need to enhance a given capability? (A capability adapts to the needs of the style.)
  • Or would I alter my expectations based on the limitations of the current capability? (The style adapts to the capability’s current state.)

Forrester analysts thought through this problem and derived a preliminary view, in which we indicated the style for which a capability would probably need to be enhanced (click below for a close-up):

 

For example, we see that the cocreating style requires the “application & product delivery” capabilities to step up. That makes sense because cocreating is the style where you cultivate the ability to sense and respond by creating novel digital solutions. Conversely, we probably want the cocreating style to accept existing security protocols and only seek to change them in exception circumstances, so “security management” does not contain a ‘C.’ We see that security is particularly challenged to change its models when organizations transform (‘T’) and as an ongoing pattern of required investment to enable and sustain existing operations (‘E’).

Introducing Our High-Performance IT Capability Assessment

This got pretty complicated, so we quantified weights for all of these cross-references, built an algorithm over many iterations, and created probably the most advanced tool I have ever published. The High-Performance IT Capability Assessment allows you to rank your perceptions of your capabilities’ maturity and then look at the implications across the board and then by IT style. A capability that you rank low overall might not be a problem or constraint for you in enabling but rises to the top when you find that you are in a cocreating mode (click below for a close-up):

 

For example, above we can see that the user is interested in cocreating (perhaps a result of their taking the High-Performance IT Readiness Assessment), and now they see that their top weaknesses for that style are product delivery, engineering, and stakeholder relations. Every recommendation we offer, as above, has a clear rationale.

You might disagree with Forrester’s reasoning. We hope that you don’t accept it as dogma. But if it sparks useful debate and analysis in your organization, leading to insights that you might not otherwise have had, then we have added some value.

I think this is one of the most nuanced capability assessment tools I’ve ever seen (speaking with great humility, as the lead author). It’s nonlinear and stringently avoids the one-size-fits-all “maturity” antipattern of too many other such tools. I hope you enjoy it!

Much credit to Fred Giron, Bobby Cameron, Ted Schadler, Carlos Casanova, David Mooter, and many others for helping out!