For companies to remain competitive in the modern world with more and more digital businesses, it is necessary to modernize information technology (IT). Nevertheless, there are many challenges when it comes to executing complex IT transformation initiatives. Industry research indicates that only 24 percent of IT modernization projects achieve all their goals.

To increase the success rate, IT leaders should follow some of the best practices while managing modernization programs. In this article, we outline their key recommendations spread across all three of the different stages – strategizing, designing, and post-implementation monitoring. If these are adopted by companies, they can take full advantage of IT upgrades and prepare better for the future.

Defining Clear Goals and Strategy

The first is to tie modernization initiatives to well-defined business goals. Project-management.com found that unclear objectives were a top factor behind IT project failures. Before embarking on any upgrade program, IT leaders must answer questions like:

• What business challenges do IT modernization aim to solve?
• How will it affect other measures such as customer experience, cost control, and revenues?
• What capabilities need enhancing to meet strategic targets by 2025?

Clearly defined success criteria and quantitative measurements will enable one to monitor development and stop scope creep. To learn more about the success factors of IT modernization, click here.

Given their importance and urgency, a second crucial strategic choice is to give modernization initiatives top priority. Moving traditional systems to the cloud, for instance, is a difficult process; however, the delay pays for the cost of innovation and scalability. However, there is a quicker ROI in deploying new cybersecurity tools, but there is a need to update security policies.

IT leaders need to classify different initiatives into categories such as high, medium, and low priority. This staged approach helps balance quick wins with long-term goals without overwhelming resources.

Assembling a Skilled Project Team

IT modernization stresses organizations’ technological and human capabilities. Many projects flounder due to unskilled staff and poor leadership.

Hence, IT leaders must assemble project teams with specialized skill sets aligned to program objectives. In the case of cloud migrations, the core team must be experienced in areas such as DevOps, containerization and microservices. Soft skills such as stakeholder management, communication and collaboration should be possessed by team members as well.

According to studies, projects with strong monitoring and control systems are 2.5 times more likely to be finished on schedule and under budget. The ideal candidate will possess both technical grounding and experience handling complex IT change initiatives.

Creating Detailed Project Plans

With clear goals and teams in place, the next step is granular project planning and scoping. The plan should cover all key aspects like:

• Project phases from discovery design to post-go-live support
• Main workstreams and interdependencies
• Resource allocation for different tasks
• Timelines with sufficient buffers as per priority
• Budgets, cost estimates, and funding requirements
• Risk management strategies
• Quality assurance and success metrics

An exhaustive plan prevents unforeseen firefighting situations later. It also helps secure the necessary funding and executive buy-in early on.

Investing in Proofs of Concept

Since IT modernization directly impacts business-critical systems, technologies need thorough evaluation before full-scale deployment. Proof of concepts (POCs) enables testing integrations, measuring performance gains, and identifying issues in a controlled environment.

In fact, migrating an enterprise application to the public cloud may involve compatibility, security and latency issues. Investing in a limited POC first allows IT leaders to assess feasibility and fine-tune strategies before the wholesale migration.

POCs also deliver tangible demos to secure further funding from management. As per PMI, most of the IT modernization budgets get approved after successful POCs. Hence, they serve as an invaluable validation and risk mitigation tool.

Focusing on People and Change Management

Most commonly, IT upgrades are considered technology problems only. In fact, they need massive change in terms of organization and culture. A Progress survey highlights employee resistance as a top barrier to modernization.

To drive adoption, IT leaders must invest heavily in change management from the start. This includes:

• Getting executive sponsorship for transformation roadmaps
• Conducting training to upskill staff in new technologies
• Running awareness campaigns on modernization benefits
• Soliciting user feedback through focus group discussions
• Putting rewards and reinforcements to motivate adoption

By reducing uncertainty and boosting buying, proactive change management helps to simplify the technology deployment all over the company.

Following Agile Delivery Approaches

IT modernization programs are large and complex, and therefore, they have rigid project cycles. The waterfall methodology that has been adopted is both inflexible and customer-centric.

Leading companies now use an Agile approach centered on iterative delivery and constant stakeholder collaboration. 

Key tenets of Agile project management include:

• Breaking initiative into smaller releases with defined priorities
• Involving user representatives in regular reviews and feedback loops
• Adding new user stories and backlog items based on feedback
• Focusing on working software over documentation
• Evaluating progress from real usage metrics vs. theoretical milestones

Agile methods promote course correction and prevent disconnects between IT teams and business priorities.

Investing in Robust Program Governance

IT modernization involves coordinating people, processes, and technologies across different business units. This complexity mandates setting up a robust governance framework.

As per FinancesOnline, organizations with mature governance achieve 77% of IT project goals while others languish at 56%. Critical pillars of effective governance include:

• Establishing a steering committee of CXOs to oversee the execution
• Instituting a PMO with centralized processes for QA and reporting
• Automating workflows for issue tracking, status updates, and approvals
• Integrating risk management as a recurring agenda in reviews
• Enforcing uniform policies, standards, and controls across units

Robust governance ensures alignment, transparency, and accountability at all levels. It also facilitates executive-level decisions and mid-course corrections.

Leveraging External Partners Selectively

IT modernization often requires niche technical capabilities that may not exist internally. Smart organizations take a partnership-based approach rather than attempting to build all expertise.

According to IDS’s analysis, companies can reduce IT project costs by 30% through strategic outsourcing and managed services. External experts can also transfer legacy workloads so that internal staff can focus on innovation.

Some examples of leveraging partners include:

• Staff augmentation to fill specialized skill gaps
• Advisory services for architectural design and road mapping
• Systems integrators for cloud deployments and data migrations
• Independent verification and testing services

While partnerships provide flexibility, organizations need to evaluate provider competencies and retain control over critical modernization decisions.

Building Internal Capabilities for Sustainability

Modernization programs also serve as building blocks for future ITorganizationsn. Instead of treating them as one-off engagements, IT leaders must utilize projects to develop in-house capabilities.

For example, skills augmentation for data center skills to manage hybrid infrastructure services must be systematic. Cross-skilling assignments, training programs, and internal certifications help to lock in the knowledge learned from external experts.

The skills and culture developed during complex IT transformations are also institutionalized for the long term. Companies realize that investing in people ultimately lowers dependence on outside partners over time.

Monitoring Post-Go-Live Performance

The job does not end once modernized IT services are deployed. Without rigorous post-implementation monitoring, the desired business impact will not materialize.

New systems are measured against baseline success metrics defined early on by IT leaders. Usage, adoption, customer satisfaction, and operational KPI data will show areas for improvement.

The user feedback also continues to provide feedback about the things that need to be fixed or upgraded. For instance, the adoption of cloud-based office productivity involves tweaking the user experience for the end user.

In some cases, performance regressions might require rolling back modernized services. Having established governance procedures will help take such corrective actions smoothly.

Finally, monitoring is used to find new automation and innovation opportunities. The capabilities developed during IT modernization are launch pads for the next wave of technology-led competitive advantage.

Conclusion

IT modernization is a powerful competitive edge, but the caring orchestration of people, processes, and technology is needed to achieve it. IT leaders can improve their odds of program success by following best practices in strategy, planning, execution and governance.

In turn, investments made in building skills and institutionalizing program management raise organizational maturity. Not all IT modernization projects need to be temporary exercises that are undone once the project is complete.

The most important thing to do in Agile is to adopt an adaptable delivery and feedback-minded mindset. In a fast-changing environment of user needs, modernization should be about the journey – not a rigid destination.

IT leaders who follow these best practices reap rich dividends from their modernization efforts now and in the future. Their organizations become more agile and equipped with the latest cutting-edge capabilities to manage industry disruptions ahead.