Integrated Thinking: The Answer To Enterprise IT`s

A Custom Technology Adoption Profile Commissioned By EffectiveUI
Integrated Thinking: The Answer To Enterprise IT’s Perpetual
Struggle
October 2013
Enterprise Application Development Teams Struggle To Keep Up
Despite adopting agile methods and digesting a constant flow of new software development tools, technologies, and
cloud services, a mere 39% of surveyed business decision-makers say that IT has the ability to regularly deliver on
time and on budget (see Figure 1). That’s a real problem when you consider how crucial technology is to the success
of the contemporary enterprise.
Software applications, in particular, are of strategic importance to virtually every function of the business, including
product research, design, and development; advertising and marketing management; sales; and customer
experience. That’s why the top critical software priority for IT organizations is to support business requirements
and corporate growth (see Figure 2).
The business implications are huge because both customer- and employee-facing applications directly and
indirectly affect a firm’s customer experience, employee productivity, business agility, and competitiveness:
• Customer experience is the ultimate sustainable advantage. Customer expectations are soaring as they
have grown accustomed to being dazzled by an onslaught of well-designed, easy-to-use consumer mobile and
web apps. If the customer experience is degraded by convoluted business processes, poor user interface
design, bad service, or subpar products and services, then the customer will go elsewhere. It would be a sad
state if exceptional customer experience is stultified by application development shortcomings.
• Employee productivity suffers from poorly designed applications. Customer experience is critical, but
firms must also make a profit to sustain them, invest in the future, and keep shareholders happy. Enterprise
software is always designed with the good intention of streamlining business processes, automating tasks, or
making employees more productive. But, as time flies, needs change and many firms find that their enterprise
software has now become more of an obstacle and less of the business wonder drug it once was. The impact
of newly developed software applications can be limited by the need to integrate with outdated legacy
enterprise applications.
• Lack of business agility can sink ships. Customers have a mindboggling array of choices: Hundreds of
equally compelling retailers, products, brands, and services are available at their fingertips, across the street,
or delivered to their front door. Customers can also talk about their choices using the largest megaphone ever
built — social media. One status update on Facebook or a tweet on Twitter can potentially reach millions.
The bottom line for businesses is that they have to be able to turn on a dime, and that means everything:
strategy, business processes, organization, operations, and software applications.
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Integrated Thinking, The Answer To Enterprise IT’s Perpetual Struggle
• Competitors won’t stand still and upstarts will disrupt. The ability to design, develop, or enhance
applications is often at the center of the ability to move on new opportunities quickly. For example, if a rental
car company offers customers a mobile app to choose any car and unlock it, and customers love it, then that
sets a new standard that other firms must address to stay competitive.
The good news: Application development teams are needed and more relevant than ever before. But, the struggle
continues. Why?
Figure 1
Enterprise Application Development Teams Struggle To Keep Up
“To what extent do the following statements describe your firm’s IT
organization’s processes and capabilities?”
(4 or 5 on a scale of 1 [does not describe at all] to 5 [describes completely])
Collaborates with the business on business
strategy and innovation
43%
Provides efficient and effective support for
back-office applications and processes
40%
Has the ability to regularly deliver projects on
time and on budget
39%
Has strong business analysis and business
process design skills
Maintains a clearly defined set of businesscentric services that the business can easily
understand
34%
31%
Base: 474 US business decision-makers from firms with 1,000 or more employees
Source: Forrsights Business Decision-Makers Survey, Q4 2012, Forrester Research, Inc.
Complexity, Silos Are The Culprit
Enterprise application development teams are faced with a hydra of obstacles that make it difficult to keep up with
the business demand for new applications and enhancements to existing web and mobile applications (see Figure
3). Netted out, these obstacles have plagued enterprise application development teams for years:
• Struggle with ever-changing business and user requirements. A global business transformation leader from
a North American retailer told us that translating business requirements to technology decisions was their
greatest challenge: “The business folks don’t think in terms of what capabilities are nice to have and what are
must-haves, and they often give a list of requirements that’s too high-level. This doesn’t help IT get an
accurate sense of how technology can help.”
• Managing priorities and expectations of the business. A director of enterprise architecture at a global
manufacturing organization told us that deciding priorities was their most difficult challenge: “[The business]
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Integrated Thinking, The Answer To Enterprise IT’s Perpetual Struggle
gives us a hundred things to accomplish and we’re always pushing back and asking, ‘What is important?’
‘What’s a priority?’ This is our greatest challenge.”
Figure 2
Top Six Critical Software Priorities For IT Organizations
“Which of the following initiatives are likely to be your IT organization’s top software
technology/organizational priorities over the next 12 months?”
(4 on a scale of 1 [not on our agenda] to 4 [critical priority])
Support business requirements and
corporate growth
Update/modernize key legacy applications
48%
25%
Invest in mobile applications for
employees, customers, or partners
20%
Increase deployment and use of
technologies
19%
Upgrade packaged applications to a newer
release
19%
Use custom development for better
business support and/or differentiation
19%
Base: 707 US IT decision-makers from firms with 1,000 or more employees
Source: Forrsights Software Survey, Q4 2012, Forrester Research, Inc.
• Lack of clear executive direction. Many of our interviewees noted that having the support of a top-level
executive who has the clout and authority to make decisions was a key to success, though it was often lacking.
• Lack of the right development talent. Contemporary applications and engaging experiences require new
skill sets, which many organizations struggle to fill, such as mobile and data-literate developers.
Ultimately, application development teams are judged not by how well they gather business requirements, choose
development technologies, manage the project, or march through the development process — they are judged by:
1) how well their software serves the business goals, and 2) by how people — customers or employees — feel before,
during, and after they use their software. Teams know they need to improve. Only 20% of IT decision-makers
surveyed reported that they are very satisfied with the user experience of their customer-facing web applications,
and only 14% were very satisfied with their customer-facing mobile applications (see Figure 4). Their business
counterparts concur. Business’ satisfaction level with its IT department is lower than 50% (see Figure 5).
So, what’s the answer?
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Integrated Thinking, The Answer To Enterprise IT’s Perpetual Struggle
Figure 3
Top Five Obstacles Faced By IT Organizations In Developing And Enhancing Software Applications
“What are the top obstacles your IT organization faces in developing and
enhancing in-house developed applications?”
(% indicates sum of being ranked in top three)
Ever-changing business and user requirements
56%
We are trying to do too much all at once
50%
Lack of clear executive direction
34%
Lack of the right development talent
34%
Lack of stakeholder consensus
32%
Base: 50 US IT decision-makers with significant involvement in hardware or software decisions from firms with 1,000 or more employees
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of EffectiveUI, February 2013
Figure 4
In-House Development Teams Do An “OK” Job, But Most Fail To “Wow”
“How satisfied are you with the user experience of your customer-facing web
and mobile applications that are developed in-house?”
Very dissatisfied
Customer-facing mobile
applications
Customer-facing web
applications
Dissatisfied
10%
8%
Neutral
Satisfied
38%
20%
Very satisfied
32%
52%
Don’t know
14%
6%
20%
Base: 50 US IT decision-makers with significant involvement in hardware or software decisions from firms with 1,000 or more employees
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of EffectiveUI, February 2013
The Integrated Thinking Solution: Business And Technology Acumen Together At Last
Application development teams need to see the big picture. Integrated thinking is about combine and conquer —
making design decisions from all perspectives: business goals, customer experience, business processes, employees,
technology, architecture, and integration; making sure that every one of the thousands of technology, business
process, and user interface design decisions are linked to simultaneously, delighting customers and serving business
goals.
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Integrated Thinking, The Answer To Enterprise IT’s Perpetual Struggle
• Take back responsibility for great applications with integrated thinking. Unfortunately, a common refrain
enterprise application development teams use to excuse themselves is to blame the business for poorly
defined requirements. Integrated thinking requires application development teams to understand the big
picture and take responsibility not just for building the applications but for their positive (or negative) impact
on the business.
• Task integrated design with people who understand both business and technology. Too often, design and
customer insight are treated as process steps rather than an integral part of an application build life cycle.
These disciplines must be an integral part of the entire project. Design is about making decisions. Great
design comes from people who can enumerate the options, try decisions on for size, and make informed
choices that fit within design constraints, but that are consistent with the vision for the final product. Many
application development teams simply don’t have or don’t recognize the design talent needed to make great
design decisions. Furthermore, some design decisions necessitate consulting multiple experts, requiring a
level of design and insight collaboration throughout a product’s development that is absent from many
organizations.
Figure 5
Business’ Satisfaction Level With Its IT Department Is Lower Than 50%
“How satisfied are you with the following?”
Dissatisfied or neutral
Satisfied
Our IT department’s ability to
meet my technology needs
54%
46%
Our IT department’s
understanding of what I need to
be successful
55%
45%
Base: 887 US information workers from firms with 1,000 or more employees
Source: Forrsights Workforce Employee Survey, Q4 2012, Forrester Research, Inc.
• Measure every design decision based on its impact on user experience. Every design decision, whether it is
technology, architecture, integration, visual, or user interaction will impact the finished product. The user is
the judge and jury whether it is your employee using the application or the customers they serve. For
example, a hotel front desk application is not used directly by a hotel guest, but the design of that application
has a direct impact on both the productivity of the front desk staff and the customer experience of the hotel
guest. The front desk application must be designed to quickly check-in and handle other guest requests. Or,
maybe a front desk application is not needed at all if guests can automatically check-in with a mobile app that
detects their presence at the hotel and immediately displays a room number and they can use their mobile
phone as the key.
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Integrated Thinking, The Answer To Enterprise IT’s Perpetual Struggle
Conclusion
R. Buckminster Fuller once said, “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”1 Enterprise
application development teams can and must change. The business-as-usual software design and development
practices have failed to overcome the perpetual struggle of delivering great software, on time, and on budget.
Remember the good news? Application development teams are needed and more relevant than ever before. The
opportunity is there. Application development teams should not sit idly by waiting for enlightened executives to see
the light. Application development teams must make the change from within. Their simple, elegant vision must be:
design for people, build for change. Their simple, holistic approach must be: integrated thinking.
Methodology
This Technology Adoption Profile was commissioned by EffectiveUI. To create this profile, Forrester leveraged its
Forrsights Business Decision-Makers Survey, Q4 2012, as well as its Forrsights Software Survey, Q4 2012. Forrester
Consulting supplemented this data with custom survey questions asked of 50 technology decision-makers in the
United States with significant involvement in hardware or software technology decisions from firms with 1,000 or
more employees. The auxiliary custom survey was conducted in February 2013. For more information on
Forrester’s data panel and tech industry consulting services, visit www.forrester.com.
Endnote
1
Buckminster Fuller was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist.
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