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Critical Capabilities

IT Capability Maturity Framework™ (IT-CMF™) contains 37 Critical Capabilities.

For each capability, IT-CMF incorporates a comprehensive suite of maturity profiles, assessment methods, and improvement roadmaps.
These are expressed in business language that can be used to guide discussions on setting goals and evaluating performance

Managing IT like a Business:

Managing IT like a Business | Managing the IT Budget | Managing IT for Business Value | Managing the IT Capability

To optimize the contribution of technology to the organization as a whole, the IT function needs to be managed using professional business practices. This involves shifting the focus away from technology as an end in itself towards the customers and the business problems to which IT can provide solutions. The Managing IT Like a Business macro-capability provides a structure within which the IT function can be repositioned from a cost centre to a value centre.

Critical Capabilities

Accounting and Allocation
Description
The Accounting and Allocation (AA) capability is the ability to define and manage the policies, processes, and tools used for calculating the costs of IT and distributing them across the organization.

Business Planning
Description
The Business Planning (BP) capability is the ability to produce an approved document that provides implementable detail for the IT strategy, setting out the IT function’s tactical objectives, the operational services to be provided, and the financial and other resources and constraints that apply in the coming planning period.

Business Process Management
Description
The Business Process Management (BPM) capability is the ability to identify, design, document, monitor, optimize, and assist in the execution of both existing and new organizational processes.

Capacity Forecasting and Planning
Description
The Capacity Forecasting and Planning (CFP) capability is the ability to model and forecast demand for IT services, infrastructure, facilities, and people.

Demand and Supply Management
Description
The Demand and Supply Management (DSM) capability is the ability to manage the IT services portfolio in such a way that there is a balance between the demand for, and the supply of, IT services.

Enterprise Information Management
Description
The Enterprise Information Management (EIM) capability is the ability to establish effective systems for gathering, analysing, disseminating, exploiting, and disposing of data and information. The data can be held in any medium – all forms of digital storage, film, paper, or any other recording mechanism used by the organization.

Governance
Description
The Governance (GOV) capability is the ability to evaluate, direct, and monitor the current and future use of an organization’s IT resources in support of strategic objectives.

Green Information Technology
Description
The Green Information Technology (GIT) capability is the ability to minimize the environmental impact of IT, and to make the best use of technology to minimize environmental impact across the organization.

Innovation Management
Description
The Innovation Management (IM) capability is the ability to identify, fund, and measure technology-driven business innovation.
Leadership
Description
The IT Leadership (LDP) capability is the ability to guide the organization in making the optimal use of technology and related assets to drive business value.
Organization Change Management
Description
The Organizational Change Management (OCM) capability is the ability to plan for and manage IT-related change, and to support organizations as they go through it. OCM covers gaining and maintaining commitment to change, implementing and evaluating the impact of change, and embedding sustainable change processes in the organization.
Organization Design and Planning
Description
The Organization Design and Planning (ODP) capability is the ability to manage the IT function’s internal structure and its interfaces with other business units, suppliers, and business partners.
Risk Management
Description
The Risk Management (RM) capability is the ability to identify, assess, prioritize, treat, and monitor the exposure to and the potential impact of IT-related risks that can directly affect the business.
Service Analytics and Intelligence
Description
The Service Analytics and Intelligence (SAI) capability is the ability to define and quantify the relationships between IT infrastructure, IT services, and IT-enabled business processes.
Sourcing and Supplier Management
Description
The Sourcing and Supplier Management (SSM) capability is the ability to evaluate, select, integrate, and manage IT suppliers in line with defined sourcing and supplier management strategies.
Strategic Planning
Description
The Strategic Planning (SP) capability is the ability to formulate a long-term vision and translate it into an actionable strategic plan for the IT function.

Managing the IT Budget:

Managing IT like a Business | Managing the IT Budget | Managing IT for Business Value | Managing the IT Capability

There are many challenges associated with managing the IT budget, including, for example, unplanned cost escalation, the cost of maintaining legacy systems, and management reluctance to invest strategically in new technologies.

The Managing the IT Budget macro capability looks at the practices and tools that can be used to establish and control a sustainable economic funding model for IT services and solutions.

Critical Capabilities

Budget Management
Description
The Budget Management (BGM) capability is the ability to oversee and adjust the IT budget to ensure that it is spent effectively.
Budget Oversight and Performance Analysis
Description
The Budget Oversight and Performance Analysis (BOP) capability is the ability to compare actual IT expenditure against budgeted IT expenditure over extended time periods. Where appropriate, it offers management the opportunity to reprofile or reprioritize budget forecasts and allocations.
Funding and Financing
Description
The Funding and Financing (FF) capability is the ability to determine the funding level required for IT and to allocate it appropriately.

Managing IT for Business Value

Managing IT like a Business | Managing the IT Budget | Managing IT for Business Value | Managing the IT Capability

Investments in IT must be linked to overall business benefits. This means that the investments should not be viewed simply as technology projects, but as projects that generate business value and innovation across the organization.

The Managing IT for Business Value macro-capability provides a structure within which the IT function provides the rationale for investment in IT and measures the business benefits accruing from it.

Critical Capabilities

Benefits Assessment and Realization
Description
The Benefits Assessment and Realization (BAR) capability is the ability to establish an outcomes focus for the selection and management of IT-enabled business change initiatives to ensure that their potential value is delivered. BAR addresses the cultural and behavioural change needed to create and to sustain value from those initiatives. In this way, BAR ensures that business benefits are planned, dynamically adjusted, and actually achieved.
Project Portfolio Management
Description
The Project Portfolio Management (PPM) capability is the ability to select, approve, and balance project portfolio components (projects, programmes, or sub-portfolios) to deliver the organization’s strategic objectives and its operational needs.
Total Cost of Ownership
Description
The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) capability is the ability to identify, compare, and control all direct and indirect costs associated with IT assets and IT-enabled business services.

Managing the IT Capability

Managing IT like a Business | Managing the IT Budget | Managing IT for Business Value | Managing the IT Capability

The IT function was traditionally seen as the provider of one-off IT services and solutions. In order to fulfil its role as the instigator of innovation and continual business improvement however, the IT function has to proactively deliver- and be seen to deliver-a stream of new and improved IT services and solutions.

This macro-capability provides a systematic approach to adopting that role, by effectively and efficiently maintaining existing services and solutions and developing new ones.

Critical Capabilities

Capability Assessment Management
Description
The Capability Assessment Management (CAM) capability is the ability of the organization to conduct current state evaluations and plan improvements for its portfolio of IT capabilities. Current state evaluations involve gathering and documenting data about the specific IT capabilities in the organization. The results then inform the planning and execution of improvement actions to deal with any deficiencies.
Data Analytics
Description
The Data Analytics (DA) capability is the ability to specify analytical objectives, to identify data sets likely to enable those objectives, to apply analytical methods and techniques appropriate to those objectives, and to interpret, communicate, and exploit the analytical results to deliver value for the organization.
Enterprise Architecture Management
Description
The Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) capability is the ability to envision, plan, design, lead, manage, and control organizations, systems, and/or processes in current, transitionary, and future states, and the relationships between them. Architecture conceptualizations may be layered to represent specific types of relationships – for example, those between applications, business services, internal IT services, security, networking, data storage, and so on.
Information Security Management
Description
The Information Security Management (ISM) capability is the ability to manage approaches, policies, and controls that safeguard the integrity, confidentiality, accountability, usability, and availability of information.
Knowledge Management
Description
The Knowledge Management (KM) capability is the ability to identify, capture, classify, analyse, share, and exploit knowledge to improve organizational performance.
People Asset Management
Description
The People Asset Management (PAM) capability is the ability to meet the organization’s requirements for an effective IT workforce.
Personal Data Protection
Description
The Personal Data Protection (PDP) capability is the ability to develop and deploy policies, systems, and controls for processing personal and sensitive personal data relating to living persons in all digital, automated, and manual forms. It ensures that the organization safeguards the right to privacy of individuals whose information it holds, and that the organization uses personal data strictly for specified purposes agreed with the data subjects.
Programme Management
Description
The Programme Management (PGM) capability is the ability to assemble and assign resources to identify, select, approve, oversee, and deliver value from programme co-ordinated components (i.e. sub-programmes and projects).
Project Management
Description
The Project Management (PM) capability is the ability to assign resources to initiate, plan, execute, monitor, control, and close projects that deliver project objectives within agreed variances of cost, timeliness, quality, and scope of works.
Relationship Management
Description
The Relationship Management (REM) capability is the ability to analyse, plan, maintain, and enhance relationships between the IT function and the rest of the business.
Service Provisioning
Description
The Service Provisioning (SRP) capability is the ability to manage IT services to satisfy business requirements. This includes ongoing activities relating to operations, maintenance, and continuous service improvement, and also transitional activities relating to the introduction of services, their deployment, and their eventual decommissioning.
Solutions Delivery
Description
The Solutions Delivery (SD) capability is the ability to design, develop, validate, and deploy IT solutions that effectively address the organization’s business requirements and opportunities.
Technical Infrastructure Management
Description
The Technical Infrastructure Management (TIM) capability is the ability to manage an organization’s IT infrastructure across its complete life cycle of: •Transitional activities including building, deploying, and decommissioning. •Operational activities including day-to-day operations, maintenance, and continuous improvement.
User Experience Design
Description
The User Experience Design (UED) capability is the ability to proactively consider the needs of users at all stages in the life cycle of IT services and solutions.
User Training Management
Description
The User Training Management (UTM) capability is the ability to provide training that will improve user proficiency in the use of business applications and other IT-supported services.