Five participants, all with different roles but working with business relations in some way, entered the room for the first scheduled, open BRMP training in Sweden – anticipation high…no pressure on the trainer…breathe…breathe…
We started with playing around a little with worst practice, the ABC of ICT deck was on the table and a question asked:
Which three cards do you think have the biggest negative impact on the relationship between business and IT?
Cards chosen:
The four of Clover
IT is not considered a business partner. IT sits in the basement and is considered an Ad-hoc provider.
The eight of Clover
IT delivers solution with no or unclear value for our Business partner
The two of Diamonds
Metrics and KPI’s doesn’t measure value and may drive undesired behavior. (Chosen two times)
The five of Diamonds
No management commitment for BRM – on either side! (chosen two times)
The King of Diamonds
Our it strategy lives its own life and doesn’t support the Business strategy
The two of Clover
Language – IT is using IT centric language and we don’t understand each other. (chosen two times)
The eight of Spades
No improvement is shown from IT
The Ass of Spades
Blame! It’s ITs fault…no it’s the business fault…always someone else to blame. Ownership?
The two of Spades
Them and Us, no cooperation, no respect. Danger of BRM turning with the wind.
The four of Spades
IT to internally focused (chosen two times)
– So this is non-acceptable worst practices you might have in your organization? Let’s see if our upcoming three days can give you some tools and technics to address some of these worst practices!
After three great days of discussions, exercises and theory we closed the training with some homework on the worst practices;
“– After this course I will send you the worst practices you selected the first day and your task is to walk through them and consider what tools, knowledge or technics you now have to address some (or all?) of the worst practices you selected.”
Before we sat down for the examination procedure (the exam) some key learning points was captured:
- The importance of relationship to be able to create a Strategic partnership
- Value management – working with value in focus, instead of ‘failure’ (talk about incidents as Value leakage instead of just downtime…
- The importance of communication
- Not turning with the wind depending on what ‘side’ I’m talking to
- The difference between tactical and strategic BRM and the challenge as BRM to sometimes work with both levels
- All of it, the whole!
- Importance of visualizing customer value
- The whole – the complexity of the BRM role (navigator, connector and orchestrator)
Quotes from participants:
“BRM puts the finger on the soft values we in IT so long have ignored!”
“The training puts the BRM role in a context and highlights the complexity and many sides of BRM. The course gave a lot of great examples of concrete and usable technics and structures for the BRM discipline”
“Solid delivery by Leif! You know he’s an experienced teacher and knows the subject. He maintains an open and non-prestige discussions.”
Keep your eyes open for the next BRMP training! Schedule will come up on www.illumineight.se soon!
Notes:
The ABC of ICT deck of cards is a tool from Gamingworks BV, BRMP is a trademark for BRM institute. APMG is our accrediting organization for BRMP training and examination, illumineight is an accredited organization for BRMP.
