Ric Merrifield and Jon Tobey

May 2006

Applies to:
   Enterprise Architecture

Summary: This article provides an introduction to the Motion Lite methodology for project prioritization and selection, using a case study to illustrate the applicability of the methodology. (19 printed pages)

For further references, a series of ARCasts is also available:

ARCast - Business In Motion (Part 1)
ARCast - Business In Motion (Part 2)

Contents

Introduction Day 1: Motion Overview Day 2: Value, Maturity, and Interconnectedness

Abstract

The work in Motion Lite is really pretty simple. Look at a business's project portfolio today, personalize a capability map for that business, link each project to a capability, and then ask some or all of the 20 questions about those projects. We use the new "lens" created by the 20 questions to look at the project portfolio, revealing what we did not know before, and we act accordingly.

Introduction

Motion Lite is a two-day methodology derived from the more intensive Motion methodology.

Motion Defined

Motion uses business architecture to expose the business model of an organization, and then applies that information either to resolving a specific problem, or to informing decisions related to project prioritization and selection. Motion includes a patent-pending business architecture model, a template-rich methodology, and a variety of tools for capturing the business architecture and business model information in a highly stable, objective, and metric-rich format. That business architecture information can be linked to process, organization, and IT architecture information. By design, everything about Motion is technology-agnostic and mostly acronym-free.

Motion Lite Defined

Motion methodology projects are typically eight weeks in length, and involve modeling your business architecture and choosing a project with the maximum value. In comparison, Motion Lite is a two-day short course, to introduce the concepts of business architecture as used by Motion, and to get you started on project prioritization using this technique. During the first day, you will build a high-level capability map of your business, leveraging one of over a dozen industry-specific templates in the Motion library. During the second day, you will look at the business value, maturity, and interconnectedness of your capabilities—among other specific attributes—and use that information to see how the Motion technique changes the way you think about project prioritization and selection.

Motion Lite Goals

• High-level understanding of Motion:
  • Concept of the capability
  • Capability mapping
  • Motion methodology
• Practical application workshop:
  • Practice some of the key deliverables using your customer's projects.
  • Use Motion Lite to prioritize projects and view them in a new light.

Why Motion?

Yesterday's tools (business architecture process mapping) were not designed to respond to today's needs (dynamic change) or tomorrow's promise (rapid innovation). More and more often, process and efficiency-based business improvement methodologies find themselves outflanked by the sheer rate of change. To resolve this problem and allow a business to reach its full potential, Microsoft challenged a team to look beyond current practices to the next generation of business philosophy, and to develop a business architecture methodology that could handle the present and coming challenges of the connected economy.

Capability architecture, not process architecture, is at the core of the Motion methodology. By initially abstracting processes and looking to business capability, you derive an inherently more stable view of your business. Business capability mapping allows for more control over a given function, because it blends the traditional process views with a strategic and tactical view of the organization. Exposing this "whole" view of your organization, called Motion Business Architecture, drives rapid and relevant decision making that is otherwise quite difficult to achieve.

Due to its inherently stable capability view of the business, Motion eliminates many challenges associated with operational change or large-scale project delivery, by:

• Preventing an organization from following initially promising initiatives into the same architectural mistakes of the past.
• Ensuring that the implemented business architecture relates to business requirements and objectives.
• Maximizing the life expectancy of the implementation in a rapidly changing environment.

Capabilities Are the Optimal Problem Solving Layer

Motion proposes modeling your business as a structured—as opposed to a physically integrated—network of capabilities. Business capabilities are the structural elements or "black boxes" that provide a stable foundation, enabling alignment with IT or other projects, which have their own business drivers. Business capability mapping and service orientation provide a new set of complementary tools that stretch the concepts of business beyond the physical corporate boundaries, to include the entire value chain or ecosystem of business functions within the map. This addresses the "rich interconnection" over which other aspects (such as the way technology is applied) can be layered from the start, instead of added as an expensive and cumbersome afterthought.

This abstraction of the business model allows management to examine what things work, and why they work in a certain way, before focusing on the details of how the work is done.

Capabilities Focus on the "What" of Your Business

Simple examples of business capabilities are "ship product" and "pay employees." Regardless of what the business implementation attributes ("how") of that capability are—whether it is in-sourced or outsourced, manual or automated—the underlying capability of "pay employees" is the same.

As an example, take the checkout system at the grocery store. The cashier identifies a new customer and scans the products that the customer places on the conveyor belt, and eventually the customer pays the displayed total by some means. All the steps described are required capabilities that the grocery store has to provide in order to check out customers and receive the money for the products purchased. Currently, many grocery stores are adding self-service checkout systems. At first glance, it appears that self-service checkout—as opposed to "managed" (executed by the cashier) checkout—is sufficiently different to consider it as a new set of capabilities.

As it turns out, though, the customer executes exactly the same steps outlined above—identification of a new customer/sale, scanning of the products, and eventual payment. However, there is one additional required step that differentiates the self-service checkout: to avoid abuse by dishonest customers, and to drive down errors, self-service checkout requires a validity check. (This is implemented by placing the scanned product on a scale, to compare the weight of the scanned product with the weight of the product known by the systems supporting the scale.)

Therefore, although the set of steps differs only by this one—validating the purchased product—the processes for checking out customers varies quite significantly. So the question is: Is "what" they are doing different, or is it only "how" they do it that is now different? In this case, it is a bit of a trick question—we would say the validity check was always an implied step: since the store trusted the checkout clerk, and the clerk handled the item being checked out, the clerk would be the validity check. It's simply now that "who" is doing it changes—what was an implicit step now needs to be explicit. So the aggregate capability remains exactly the same, meaning that the business architecture block remains stable, whereas the process ("how") of business implementation changed.

The Capability Map

Typically, generating the Level 1 capability map is a straightforward exercise. At the highest level, the typical business has the following operational capabilities (see Figure 1):

• Develop products and/or services.
• Generate demand for those products and/or services.
• Produce and/or deliver the products and/or services.
• Plan and manage the business.
• Collaborate with constituencies.

Figure 1. A high-level capability map

These are called the operational capabilities, because they are part of the operating model of the business. Businesses are not self-contained, and therefore they need to consider external influences when constructing a model of organizational relationships. In a Motion project, these are identified in Level 1 as the environmental constituents with whom the business interacts. At the highest level, the typical business interfaces with the following environmental constituents:

• Customer-facing channel partners
• Customers
• Financial providers
• Logistics providers
• Infrastructure and compliance mechanisms
• Suppliers

To give an example of a thorough breakdown of a capability, we have included the following example for the fictional ABC Mortgage Corp:

Level 1 Capabilities

1. Develop Product/Service
2. Generate Demand
3. Fulfill Demand
4. Plan and Manage the Business
5. Collaboration

Level 2 Capabilities for Fulfill Demand

3.1.   Provide Service

3.2.   Advanced Planning

3.3.   Procurement

3.4.   Produce Product

Level 3 Capabilities for Fulfill Demand/Procurement

3.3.1.   Sourcing and Supplier Contract Management

3.3.2.   Purchase Resources

3.3.3.   Receiving of Indirect/Capital Goods and Services

Level 4 Capabilities for Fulfill Demand/Procurement/Purchase Resources

3.3.2.1.   Request Resources

3.3.2.2.   Acquire/Purchase Resources

3.3.2.3.   Manage Suppliers

Level 5 Capabilities for Fulfill Demand/Procurement/Purchasing/Request Resources

3.3.2.1.1.   Create Purchase Requisitions

3.3.2.1.2.   Manage Requisitions Approve Process

3.3.2.1.3.   Perform Encumbrance Check

3.3.2.1.4.   Create Auction Bids

From this map, the team looks at the business value of individual capabilities and uses various tests to pick an improvement project.

Motion Lite Tasks

Day 1

1. Motion overview (1 hour)
2. Task A—Project portfolio review/discussion (1 hour)
3. Task B—Business capability mapping overview (2 hours)
4. Task C—Business capability workshop (2 hours)
5. Task D—Assemble business architecture (2 hours)

Day 2

1. Task A—Populate the 20 Questions file (2 hours)
2. Task B—Evaluate 20 Questions Results (1 hour)
3. Task C—Review project portfolio with new views (2 hours)
4. Task D—Review progress/next steps discussion (1 hour)

Motion Lite Deliverables

• Business capability map
• Prioritized project portfolio using the Motion technique

Wrap-up

The following document will provide you with a complete explanation of the Motion methodology.

If you have any questions about Motion, please feel free to contact motion@microsoft.com.

Case Study Introduction

Throughout this document, we illustrate the applicability of the methodology by referring to a single case study. The example illustrates ABC Mortgage Company's desire to improve its loan approval and funding processes.

ABC Mortgage Company accepts mortgage applications from brokers, and analyzes them to decide whether the application ("the asset") meets its funding risk profile. This analytical process is referred to as decisioning.

The decisioning process is complex; there are many stages of analysis and verification. The current decision process takes 84 hours to complete. The industry considers the ability to grant approval faster than the competition a significant competitive advantage. ABC Mortgage Company is not among the fastest. Funding is a complex process, because the asset has to be reviewed, appropriately documented, and stored in the company's asset management systems. In the past, efforts to shorten this have created compliance problems with the requirements established by ABC's Risk Assessment and Loan Committee.

ABC Mortgage Company spent over a year compiling a detailed analysis of processes, and developed Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams of the current-state flows. It also implemented a number of improvements to its loan processing, including new workflow, imaging, and decision support systems. Ultimately, ABC found that the performance results did not meet expectations. The company decided to step back and take a more holistic look at its operating model, to improve performance. In Motion terms, the point of entry for this would be characterized as "exploration," because the team will be trying to find root causes and developing solutions, even though major systems and retooling efforts are underway. The sponsor is confident that the efforts to-date have not addressed the root cause, and is looking for a more effective framing of the opportunities for improvement.

Day 1: Motion Overview

1. Motion overview (1 hour)
2. Task A—Project portfolio review/discussion (1 hour)
3. Task B—Business capability mapping overview (2 hours)
4. Task C—Business capability workshop (2 hours)
5. Task D—Assembly of business architecture (2 hours)

Overview

First, we will introduce the basic concepts of Motion: what it is, what is unique about it, how you do it, and what you get out of it. Then, we review your current portfolio of projects (Task A) from a project management office (PMO), or some other aggregation of projects that you select.

The rest of the day is devoted to understanding your business architecture. First, we will identify your high-level capabilities by taking one of over a dozen industry-specific business architecture maps, and customizing it to your particular organization by validating the Level 1 capabilities (Task B). Then, we explore the Level 2 and Level 3 capabilities that make up the Level 1 capabilities (Task C), and tailor them to your organization. Finally, we put these all together into a capability map (Task D).

Day 1 Task A: Project Portfolio Review/Discussion

Inputs

• List of candidate projects from participants

Deliverables

• Prioritized project list

Templates Used

• 01_MotionLite_Customer_Projects.xls

Guidelines

The purpose of this task is simply to review your portfolio. This task allows the project team to get to some justifiable assertions about why that project is valuable and why it will benefit from a Motion project.

Every project and every business is different. In some instances, it is obvious to the project champion which project should be done, whereas in others, a large amount of discussion and analysis goes into the decision—regardless of the cost or scope of the project.

Process

1. Ask the users to put the names of their projects in the columns of the template, and then answer as many questions as possible for each project in the Excel file.
2. Ask them to prioritize their projects.
3. Assemble all project lists.
4. Depending on the group, it may not be meaningful to try to prioritize them all together, but if it is, aggregate the projects and get the group to prioritize all projects together.

Case Study

The team produced the prioritized project list shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Task A deliverable (Click on the image for a larger picture)

Day 1 Task B: Level 1 Business Capability Mapping

Inputs

• Appendix D: Template Level 1 capability map

Deliverables

• Proposed Level 1 capability map of the business—or businesses if it is likely that the Motion project will span multiple businesses in the overall enterprise.

Templates Used

• 02_Motion_Lite_Level1.doc

Guidelines

Typically, generating a Level 1 capability map is a straightforward exercise. By virtue of the stable nature of capabilities, the map generated in previous projects should prove relevant for subsequent projects, at least to level 3, making this task optional if there have been previous Motion projects completed for this business.

Tip or Trap

When performing a Motion study, many companies exclude capabilities that are in some way outsourced or performed by third parties. This is a trap that can impair your ability to be aware of your business and mitigate the impact of Motion. Whether or not a capability is outsourced, it is still a part of the business architecture, and therefore it should be included.

Figure 3. Level 1 operations capabilities and their interface with external constituents

When building Level 1 map for your customer, you will customize the names—and potentially the purposes—of each of the Level 1 operations capabilities and external constituents for the particular business at hand (see Figure 3).

It is very common in the largest organizations for the various business units to operate very independently, with a different set of terminology and a very different perspective. Capability maps are an effective and efficient way to expose, in very objective terms, the similarities and differences between business units. They also allow disparate groups, using disparate terminology, to form a common framework around which to consolidate what would otherwise have been unidentifiable as similar. In those circumstances where the project involves multiple business units (that is, a large organization or a merger and acquisition project), create a map for each of the business units, affixing a short (3–5 character) prefix for each business unit and to each Level 1 label, for differentiation.

A good example of this can be found in any large enterprise that has multiple business units. Most major automobile makers today actually have multiple car businesses under their overall corporate "roof." In this case, every separate business would have its own complete capability map, regardless of whether some or many of those capabilities are performed by a central group (Human Resources is a common example of this.)

Once those capability maps exist, then, when looking at how they are implemented in terms of people, IT, processes, and so forth, it becomes easier to expose where the same capability is being performed by the same people, and where the same capability is not being implemented the same way. This can often lead to the very productive discussion of where it does and does not make sense to use the same people, IT, or processes for those capabilities.

Process

1. The Motion Lead reviews the template Level 1 capability map with the executive sponsor, and begins to develop the required customizations.
2. After developing the capability maps, the Motion Lead works with the executive sponsor to customize the Level 1 capability map.
3. The Motion Lead talks with the project sponsor about some of the basic attributes of the capabilities (there are well over 100 possible attributes for each capability). The following list is by no means exhaustive:
   • Owner
   • Short description
   • Metric (time, financial, volume-based, and so forth)
   • Performance goal
   • Core/Non-core
   • Key specific external relationships/contacts
   • Cost

Case Study

Following a conversation with the Project Champion, the Motion Lead updates the Level 1 capability map. For ABC Mortgage, the Motion Lead substituted Purchase and Certify Assets for Deliver Service or Produce Product in Level 1 of the capability map (see Figure 4). This is the core service that ABC performs. They purchase mortgages from brokers, and certify the likelihood that the mortgages will be paid fully by the mortgagee.

Figure 4. ABC Mortgage Level 1 capability map

Frequently Asked Questions

• What if I need to change the number of operations capabilities or environmental constituents to reflect my business?

  In some circumstances, this may be necessary. Frequently this is a sign of trying to be too detailed at this point. The Level 1 capability map is used to help provide context to the project objectives, and to guide analysis. There will be many opportunities to get more granular as the project progresses. For the time being, try to keep to the proposed structure, unless you are sure that the additional detail is necessary.

• What if I have outsourced capabilities? Are they operational or environmental?

  Who does the work does not impact placement of capabilities. That said, typically, a capability that can be outsourced is something that is part of the business operations, and thus outsourced capabilities are generally operational capabilities. They are part of the operating model of the business.

Day 1 Task C: Business Capability Workshop

Inputs

• Level 1 capability map from Task B, and high-level organizational process maps

Deliverables

• Completed capability cards for Level 2, at least

Templates Used

• 03_MotionLite_CapabilityCards.xls
• 04_MotionLite_Level2PlusMap.xls

Guidelines

The objective of this task is to identify or refine Levels 2 and 3 of the capability map. The level of effort depends on the richness and accuracy of the template that was used at the beginning. This starts with the Motion Lead and Project Champion reviewing the Level 1 capabilities, to determine possible environmental constituents and identify Level 2 capabilities. Level 2 capabilities often match directly, or at least very closely, to high-level processes, business application systems, and/or organizational departments. Label the Level 2 capabilities clearly enough that people in the organization are able to identify who is responsible for them.

The clear connection between the overall organizational performance objectives and the Level 1 capabilities does not break down when mapping from Level 1 to Level 2 and beyond. Level 2 capabilities are simply the next level of detail, where a group of Level 2 capabilities make up a Level 1 capability.

Given how few capabilities there are at Level 2 (often between 20 and 30), if the business has done a Motion project before, there is a good chance that some or all of the capabilities needed for this task have already been captured. It is worth reviewing these with the project team and making any necessary changes. The goal is to identify which of the capabilities do and do not directly impact the outcome of overall goals or key performance indicators. The goal is not to map every detail of the entire business in one project. However, it is also important to note that repeated execution of Motion projects should yield a more completely populated business capability map, eventually representing the entire business.

Tip or Trap

It is useful to capture a number of lower-level capabilities at this time, to help the team understand more clearly what is a Level 2 or Level 3 capability, and what might be a lower-level one. However, avoid the tendency to be overly analytical at this point. Just capture the Level 2 and 3 capabilities efficiently and without great deliberation.

It is preferable to include more Level 2 capabilities rather than too few—including too few risks not fully realizing the scope of the project context early on. As the project team starts to get a sense of how many Level 2 capabilities are appropriate, the team will get a sense of where to draw the lines between Level 1 and Level 2, as well as across the various Level 2 capabilities. This will further mature as the team goes deeper into the capabilities. This sense of where the boundaries are between levels, and within a level, is a key skill that people should concentrate on. Members should also identify capabilities in the environmental constituents with whom they interface.

Note that for the environmental capabilities, we only focus on those capabilities that relate to how the specific group outside of the business interacts with this business—we do not endeavor to map all of the capabilities of all of the constituents, just the interfaces. In detailing what the constituent does just outside of the operation's boundary, in some cases the team has to infer details rather than measure them. As a process, this works fine and is alright, as long as the team is clear on what is known as opposed to what is inferred.

The naming convention to describe a business capability is verb–noun form—for example, Manage Records. This is also a good time to capture more information beyond just the verb–noun, so that it is clear what is included (and excluded) from the group. Developing the structure for the capability map establishes taxonomy for the team. The model should be accessible by all team members, so that they recognize their section of the model and have a good understanding of what other team members are doing.

For our case study, the recommended numbering schema is as follows:

Level 1 Capability 3: Purchase and Certify Assets

3.1.   Purchase Decision

3.2.   Certify Assets

3.3.   Manage Records

3.4.   Manage Resolution

Examples of things that are not capabilities include:

• Send Fax (good noun–verb, but this describes an implementation of a capability that would probably have the verb communicate, and the noun could be confirmation, status, receipt, or something along those lines).
• Payroll (no verb).
• Maintain (no noun that is being maintained).
• Procurement (this would be more of a group or department that does not follow the noun–verb format, and so this could be Procure Facilities, Procure Raw Materials, or any number of things).

Examples of capabilities include:

• Create Order.
• Manage Leads.
• Pay Employees.
• Generate Demand.

The Motion Lead reviews the Level 2 capability map, and collects data related to process, business application systems, financial, and organizational chart information (see Figure 5). The Motion Lead then will make revisions as appropriate, based on the content collected.

Process

1. Conduct a cursory investigation to confirm the availability and accuracy of business views around process, business applications, financials, and organizational structure.
2. The participants use the back of the cards to write the capabilities' names, and they discuss which are Level 2 and which are Level 3. (There should be some Level 3.)
3. Once there is agreement on the cards, the cards are turned over and filled in.
4. Once the Level 2 capabilities are identified and captured, conduct a cursory investigation to confirm the availability and accuracy of business views around process, business applications, financials, and organizational structure.

Case Study

The team produced the Level 2+ capability map shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. ABC Mortgage level 2+ capability map of "Purchase and Certify Assets" (Click on the image for a larger picture)

Frequently Asked Questions

• How granular should these capabilities be?

  Only develop Level 2 capabilities where you have motivators or business objectives to achieve. The key is to go only as deep as you need to for this analysis. Experience says that a team often has to do a little work that's "one step deeper" than they need in order to find that boundary—then, they can back off with some framing for why they settled on that level.

• What if you come up with a Level 2 capability, but you know that it is outside the scope of the project?

  Capture it anyway. As the project evolves, there is often movement of Level 2 and Level 3 capabilities, so having the complete picture of Level 2 capabilities coming out of this task is the goal.

• How can we tell if we are going too deep?

  If you are generating capabilities that you can conceptually abstract into other capabilities, it is probably not a Level 2 capability, but a Level 3 capability. Each of the levels of the hierarchy is a higher-level abstraction of the level below it. Therefore, Level 1 capabilities include Level 2 capabilities, Level 2 capabilities include Level 3, and so on. It is good to get a "big picture" understanding of the taxonomy, but if you are generating capabilities that fall within a Level 4+ capability, you are going too deep for this phase.

Day 1 Task D: Assemble Business Architecture

Inputs

• Capability cards from Task C

Deliverables

• Updated capability map Excel file

Template Used

• 04_MotionLite_Level2PlusMap.xls

Guidelines

In this step, the team takes the capability cards, and uses them to fill in the capability map template. At the end of this exercise, the team will have an overview of its business architecture, both in terms of their industry vertical in general, and also in terms of its specific implementation.

Process

1. Consolidate capability cards into capability maps.
2. Update the template 04_MotionLite_Level2PlusMap.xls with the capability card content (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. Capability inventory form (Click on the image for a larger picture)

Day 2: Value, Maturity, and Interconnectedness

1. Task A—Populate the 20 Questions file (2 hours)
2. Task B—Evaluate 20 Questions Results (1 hour)
3. Task C—Review project portfolio with new views (2 hours)
4. Task D—Review progress /next steps discussion (1 hour)

Overview

Now that we have the capability map, we can ask questions about specific capabilities and their impact on the business. By evaluating these answers, we can pick a project as a Motion candidate.

Day 2 Task A: Populate the 20 Questions

Inputs

• 04_MotionLite_Level2PlusMap.xls
• 01_MotionLite_Customer_Projects.xls

Deliverables

• Updated 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls

Template Used

• Updated 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls

Guidelines

In this task, we evaluate various capabilities and their impact on:

• Business value.
• Maturity.
• Compliance.
• Interconnectedness.
• Performance.
• Process.
• Key metrics.

We will use the answers in the next step to generate "heat maps" that give us a visual overview of our business.

Process

1. Paste the customer project information from 01_MotionLite_Customer_Projects.xls into Updated 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls
2. Once you have focused on the part of the business the customer owns, explain the 20 questions, and talk through which of the 20 questions the customer would like to answer.
3. Ask the participants to populate the 20 questions, noting that a key part of this exercise is connecting their project to a capability or set of capabilities, which will enable them to go back and forth between capabilities and projects. Discuss issues as they come up. Some key definitions are:
   • Business Value—A capability's value contribution can be measured in performance "today," as well as in things that are deemed strategic that do not contribute directly to performance today, but are expected to become "high value" capabilities at some point in the future as they mature.

     It is common for organizations to struggle with this point because, in some ways, everything has value; but to make it simple, here are some good examples:

     Low Value: Pay Employees—This is a great example of a capability that has to be part of the business, that has to perform at a certain level, and that has to be compliant, but it is one that has no relationship to organizational performance. Because it has no direct relationship to key performance indicators or organizational performance, it is generally considered a low-value capability in this context.

     High Value: Create Products/Services—It is often the case that the products and services of an organization are what differentiate it, and if that is so, they would be considered high value—a software company, for instance. If, on the other hand, the products and services are not unique, but it is the people who perform them, Creation Products/Services would have a lower value, and something in the Fulfill Demand area would be an area of high value. Think of a business like a fast food restaurant. You can get food of a similar quality at a lot of places, but it is their reliance on consistency and speed of service that sets them apart.

   • Maturity—Maturity indicates that a capability is performed in a consistent, well understood manner. How stable is the capability (high or low common cause variance frequency)? Do we perform the capability at a highly predictable and repeatable level, or is the capability volatile, unpredictable, or poorly understood in the current state?
   • Interconnectedness—A high level of interconnectedness implies that a capability is related to or impacts the performance of several other capabilities. Are the connections and dependencies of this capability internal or external? If the capability is self-contained, it may be exchanged fairly easily. On the other hand, if there are many dependencies and connections, it may be very complicated to make changes.

Case Study

The team produced the Excel spreadsheet shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Example Deliverable (Click on the image for a larger picture)

Figure 8 shows the initial 10 questions, with their general categorization on the right.

Figure 8. Initial 10 questions with general categorization (Click on the image for a larger picture)

Day 2 Task B: Evaluate 20 Questions Results

Inputs

• 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls

Deliverables

• Heat maps

Template Used

• 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls

Guidelines

We ask some or all of the standard 20 questions for the capabilities the business decision maker owns. Their answers drive the heat maps. Although these will be easy questions for them to answer, they just do not have a way or a set of tools like this that enables them to generate this view of their business today. So this is credible and valuable, answering questions such as:

• What are the high-value capabilities that are underperforming?
• What are the underperforming capabilities that would be the easiest to improve?
• What are the capabilities that are not very mature and that have a high compliance requirement?
• What are the highly mature capabilities that are not very interconnected to other capabilities (to look to new opportunities to outsource, for instance)?
• What do we know and not know about our business architecture?

It's critical to be clear that the colors represented by the map are not always "good" or "bad." The point of the heat map is to compare two things and inform where people should be focusing their attention. For instance, when the red/green range is selected, red simply means it is worthy of attention (so high business value will always be red). Green is an indication that it is less likely to be a priority (so green business value is low business value). In the "spectrum," selection blue is "attention" and red is "no attention." When questions are not answered, the capabilities on the map still print out, but they print out grey; therefore, in addition to getting very colorful and informative maps for where the questions are answered, we get a clear indication of what is known and not known, and that can be very helpful in informing the decisions related to what the next steps should be.

Process

1. Review the answers to 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls, and choose which heat maps to create (business value/performance is the most common).
2. Figure 9 shows the main sheet of the heat mapping tool. There are buttons at the top left of the sheet that will allow you to change the level of detail you are showing in the map, from Level 1 to Level 6.

   

   Figure 9. The heat mapping tool

3. Because there are often multiple questions for each segment, the tool aggregates the answers to the questions into a single score of 1–5. How those weightings are assigned is farther off to the right of the file. If people want to make this simpler and just assign the values of 1–5 themselves, they can do this, using the values in the part of the file reflected in the Figure 10.

   

   Figure 10. Relative weightings (Click on the image for a larger picture)

4. Once you have gone through the questions, click the Options tab, and then select both the coloring you wish to see in the map, and also the values you want to map.
5. Select the colors you want to see the heat map represent: red-green, or more of a spectrum range. In terms of picking the two values, the heat map creates a box for each capability; one of the values you select designates the color of the box itself, and the other designates the color of the border around the box.
6. Click the sheet where the 20 questions information is stored. That sheet has to be "active" in order for the heat map to be activated.
7. Click Outline Mapper at the top of sheet 5, and then click Build Map.
8. Discuss what the heat maps mean, and whether people want to change any of their 20 questions answers.

   This has just been a brief overview of the tool. For any other questions about Motion and the heat mapping tool, please contact motion@microsoft.com.

Case Study

The team produced the heat map shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. A sample heat map (Click on the image for a larger picture)

Day 2 Task C: Review Prioritized Project Portfolios

Inputs

• 01_MotionLite_CustomerProjects.xls
• 04_MotionLite_Level2PlusMap.xls
• 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls

Deliverables

• Updated prioritization of project portfolio

Template Used

• 04_MotionLite_Level2PlusMap.xls
• 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls

Guidelines

After the 20 questions exercise and the heat mapping exercise, the following should take place:

• A dialogue of what has been learned.
• A dialogue related to one of the following questions:
  • Whether the 20 questions (or however many of the 20 questions were used—less than 20 can also be very valuable) validated things that people already knew to be true relative to value, compliance, and process.
  • Whether the exercise exposed some real surprises relative to what they thought the real opportunities for improvement are.
• Thoughts on what you should do with this new/different "lens" that has been provided, in terms of project re-prioritization or review of existing activities—or something else?

This is where you look at the heat maps and the responses to the 20 questions, and use that to go back to the project list from Day 1 Task A, asking the question, "How will we look at the project portfolio differently with this new lens on the problem spaces?" Would you sequence projects differently? Would some projects fall off the list? Did we identify new projects that should be on the list? Did you decide to change the description or metrics for some of the projects? Those are the kinds of conversations you have in Task C.

Process

1. Talk through the content of the 20 questions.
2. Update the project priorities list.
3. Compare the Customer Projects priority list to the 20 questions priority list, and note and discuss differences.

Day 2 Task D: Progress Review/Next Steps

Inputs

• 05_MotionLite_20Questions.xls

Deliverables

• Next steps action items

Template Used

None

Guidelines

Lots of things can be discussed as next steps—for example:

• Will the stakeholders in the meeting do things differently among each other as a result of this work?
• Is there something specific that the Microsoft team can do as a result of this work, to help the customer make decisions about how to rethink their project portfolio?
• Other?

This is the "Now what?" task. Now that you have had all of this rich discussion and talked about the project list, what are the next steps that should be taken? Should you pursue case studies or additional information to help make decisions about your projects? Should you continue to use Motion to get more detail around the business architecture in general, or should you look at using Motion on one of the specific projects, in order to get a better sense of what to do next?

Process

• Note the findings from the revised project portfolio, and discuss whether there are any next steps with respect to a project.