How do you conduct a technology readiness assessment?

Before identifying a goal or looking at evaluation criteria get a read of the people that brought you into the conversation. Are these people empathetic to find a solution? Do these people want you here? Why is this on the table? This is where you cut your teeth on behavioral assessment and make sure that the group or organization are open to change.

First and foremost is to baseline the scope of assessment and understand the business problems that need to be solved. Secondly, conduct an as-is analysis of the business processes to identify the MUST-have features and capabilities of the technology/tool. MOSCoW can be a handy framework to define this. Subsequently, understand the existing technology landscape of the business.

With the above defined well, prepare an evaluation tool/criteria to assess and score the capabilities of different tools. Check various tools available in the market, especially those with a footprint in a similar domain, and choose the top 3-4 tools with some initial filters based on the budget availability, fitment into IT policies and guidelines, Licensing models, etc. Assess the maturity levels of each tool on the different criteria and score the tools with a numeric scale. After evaluating the must-have capabilities go for assessing competitive positioning, other additional capabilities, and future roadmaps of the tools. Plot different graphs or tables to make comparative benchmarking of each tool.

Identifying gaps comes in many ways, from SWOT to build vs. buy portions of the tech stack. However, the key here is having agnostic and open conversations around the technology and its readiness to update/upgrade/or change. Getting to the root of an architecture, and ultimately its dirty secrets, comes from connecting and hearing the stories of the current technology stack and its major issues.

Have the risks posture, integrability, future capabilities, OOTB vs. Customization, etc. defined using SWOT, Risk matrix. Identify Skill and resource gaps within and outside of the organization. Check for the availability of SI partners and service support base preferably in the demography with SLA options.

The next step is to prepare the technology roadmap with as-is vs. to-be defined with the help of Target Operational Architecture. Roadmap to include the implementation plan with key milestones, budgets, and dependencies, risks highlighted. Follow a normal Project management methodology and define a detailed action plan.

Validation can come from user feedback or through testing. Testing is more agnostic than gathering feedback from the consensus of internal employees. Testing leads an organization to organic and verifiable changes that are required.

Communicate the decision, process followed to evaluate the tools and implementation roadmap, goals of the implementation, and various business benefits expected at various stages of implementation and the measurement of success.