Technology Assessments
An efficient review of technology necessities
Research and evaluate technology’s importance to the business
What is a technology assessment?
A Technology Assessment or Technology Needs Assessment is an efficient review of your company’s technology necessities, taking under consideration what is required today, and the anticipated needs based on your development. Whether you are an expansive company or smaller, before you decide to purchase new technology, you should highly consider performing a Technology Needs Assessment.
Why is a Technology Assessment Crucial?
- It gives you a depiction of your current innovation landscape
- It highlights gaps in your current structure, including aging and inefficient technology
- It recognizes ranges where your innovation is obstructing productivity
- It uncovers wasteful aspects and pointless duplication of hardware
- It permits you to structure a coherent arrangement for the purchase of new equipment
- It permits for innovation budgets to be streamlined and accurate
- It prepares you for the retirement and out of date quality of current technology.
4 Steps in a Technology Assessment
1. Discovery
To comprehend your existing reality
Aligning goals and Measurements
Understanding your current technology ecosystem
Understanding the issue
Understanding your people
2. Analysis
Understand precise usefulness
What can current tech stack do?
Is it being used or worked around?
Are users avoiding features and functions?
3. Define and Develop
This step is to build out the vision for the conclusion state
Does this feature/function address the current issue the company has?
4. Document
This is the final step where all of your work will be on paper and appear as a well documented plan
Includes a high-level overview, a clear explanation of what your are calculating and inquiring for, implementation and deployment details and venture timelines and ownership.
Discovery
Purpose: To comprehend your existing reality.
- Understanding your current technology ecosystem: This incorporates both the solutions you’re currently utilizing as well as the frameworks and forms utilized to combine those systems.
- Understanding the issue: You need to comprehend the issue, in terms of business and potentially your end-user involvement. Once you combine a business issue and the end-user issue, you can get a clearer picture of the exact problem and begin to create a way to calculate it.
- Understanding your people: End-user understanding isn’t going to come unless the time is taken out to really comprehend what your end-users are battling with and interface this back to the business problem. Ways to discover this can incorporate shadowing how individuals do their jobs, existing utilization information, user interviews and fast model testing.
Once you have an in- depth understanding of what your innovation environment is then you can move on to the next step.
Analysis
Purpose: To comprehend your existing reaof what your innovation environment is then you ca
Purpose: Analyze the precise usefulness that you currently have internally and how it’s being connected. Amid this step, a good spot to begin is to see:
- What your current tech stack can do. How the innovation is being connected?
- Is it being worked around or misused?
- Are the end users avoiding the features and functions?
This is crucial to look into because more regularly than not, organizations are misusing their current technology instead of utilizing it to its full potential. There will be some gaps and holes when the examination is completed which is where your technology evaluation should center. At the conclusion of this step, an understanding of valid and prioritized choices to fill your gaps with the pros and cons of each option.
Define and Develop
Purpose: This step is to build out the vision for the conclusion state.
It’s not just about the issue you’re looking to calculate but more around what is your technology solution aiming to do/ how to drive the business forward? This vision ought to be through the focal point of the business and operational necessities.
When looking at the choices, inquire yourself: Does this feature/function address the current issue the company has? This step is refining your vision down to be laser centered on the business issue and zoning in on precisely what is needed.
Document
Purpose: This is the final step where all your work will be on paper and appear as a well-documented plan. The end report should include:
A high level overview
A clear explanation of what you are calculating and what you are inquiring for
All the items of the implementation and deployment
Details on venture timelines and ownership
One last but crucial piece of documentation is verbal communication with the whole group. Confirm that everybody knows the “elevator story” which is the messaging to capture the interest and consideration of key officials. Meetings with the official decision makers to gain buy-in is crucial. They should be done one on one and together. This indicates both individual and group backing. Be prepared to alter certain areas of the plan based on the official feedback – Flexibility is key!
Risk/Impact Examples
Some typical risk/impact examples include:
TechCXO can provide leadership and knowledge on how to complete a technology assessment for your business. Some of the responsibilities include:
- Researching and evaluating relevant technology of importance to the business
- Spearheading and implementing business objectives, missions and visions
- Development and management of software, and their methodologies
- Defining a business’ Key Performance Metrics (KPMs)
- Understanding the level of scalability and resilience of various technologies
- Technology maintenance assessment and planning
- Democratic governance of technology
If you have a need for a C-Suite executive like a Chief Technology Officer, or a Chief Information officer, with over a decade of experience to help ensure your project is completed on time, on budget and ensuring a win for your team, please reach out to us today. We can tailor our service offerings to meet your needs.
Thought Leadership
Cloud cost management is a challenge for most businesses.
Given the prevalence of cloud over-spending, we have established a list of steps to take to get on top of cloud cost management:
- Right-sizing computing capacity
- Switching to reserved instances
- Deleting unwanted snapshots and implementing auto-scaling
- Closing down instances when not in use
- Moving to on-demand desktops with auto-shutdown
Let's start talking
At flōswitch, we believe the first step in a successful partnership is speaking openly and transparently with one another.
Book some time for us to discuss your particular business need. We’ll work with you and your team to understand the details of your initiative and produce a proposal outlining timelines and cost for you to review.
We're looking forward to meeting you.