Technical Assessment

Description

My assessments are designed to help you determine the feasibility of adopting a technology into your organization, and then planning the roadmap to implement that technology adoption. To accomplish this goal, we discuss your desired business outcomes from this new technology adoption. With your team and stakeholders, we perform a thorough evaluation of your existing strategic and tactical architecture. We evaluate your existing teams and processes, and then collaboratively envision the addition of the new technology.

My assessment delivery process is made up of the following steps:

1. Four to eight hours of workshop time that helps us
   1. Align the new technology to business outcomes
   2. Build a strategic, internal version for the technology within the organization
   3. Test the present organizational structure and teams topology to determine if the technology adoption is possible without help
   4. Collaboratively design a new tactical architecture to integrate the technology into existing systems
2. We create an executive briefing to help sell the solution to executive leadership, investors, or stakeholders
3. We create a solutions architecture document covering the desired state of the implemented solution
4. We create an iterative project plan, cloud or system cost estimates, as well as Time and Materials estimates for budget planning
5. We present the executive briefing, the solutions document, and the budget to stakeholders in a one to two-hour meeting with plenty of time for Q&A

Our Technical Assessment is priced at 5625 USD and represents a solution scoped around one primary business problem.

Why use a Technical Assessment service?

This is the ideal service to use when you have clear business outcomes in mind or a possible technology solution, and you want to make decisions around the implementation of the solution. This is one of my most structured workshops, because it’s meant to take an organization from a desired business goal to tactical architecture.

What can you expect from the service?

After purchasing this service, I will direct you to a form to schedule your first planning meeting. This is a thirty-minute meeting where we plan out the next four sessions associated with the service.

It’s a good idea to have anyone on the call whose schedules could be impacted by the meetings. I suggest we schedule no more than two sessions per week, with a few days between sessions. One session a week is ideal.

The first session must be planned to occur within seven days of purchase. I do my best to accommodate emergencies and unforeseen obstacles, but it’s important that you and your team are ready and available to take on the time and effort involved to make the process a success. You and your team do most of the work in these sessions. I primarily guide, facilitate, and advise.

I only run two of these workshops at a time, so if you see that there are no quantities available for the workshop, please reach out to me via the general contact form, and I’ll let you know when the next available dates are.

Once the session dates are planned, I’ll send out a welcome packet and some materials to familiarize everyone with the process. It’s import to know if I need to accommodate any special needs for the sessions, as well.

The Process

For this workshop, we follow the complete process. The first session will focus on building depth and understanding around your desired business outcomes and your organization. It’s my chance to better get to know you and your team, and for your team to get more familiar with the process and the way we can work collaboratively.

The second session is focused on understanding your present strategic architecture. Basically, how do you work today? What’s your customer value chain? How do your stakeholders work with the different systems and artifacts within your organization? Can the domain experts tell the story of the working system? And how do we see this new technology fitting into that story?

Our third session focuses on your teams, your processes, and the events that make your organization function. We include the new technology into the conversation and determine what teams and systems will need to change to accommodate the new system. If new development, services, or roles are required, we capture that information during this session.

Our fourth session allows us to take the new strategic architecture and attach it to possible service and transaction boundaries. Here we begin to flesh out the technical requirements of the system and build around the pillars of a well architected framework.

I record each session and capture a transcript. I will follow up each session after a few days with an email summarizing the meeting and answering any questions that might have come up during the session that required further research.

One week after the final session, I will deliver our closing documents. These are the executive summary, the solution architecture document, and the iterative project plan with cost and delivery estimates (the estimates have a 60 day shelf-life).

I will deliver these documents to workshop attendees first, and then we will plan for a final presentation and review of the documents and plans. At this stage of the engagement, I would be more than happy to let you or one of your team members make the presentation to stakeholders. I will be available to answer any questions, but after all the effort that you and your team will put into this, it only makes sense that you present it to the organization.

What are the normal next steps after the assessment?

During the assessment workshop, we will make a few determinations and decisions.

• Do you and your team feel like you have the time, the skills, and the people to carry out the implementation of the tactical architecture?

If the answer to that question is yes, then my job might be done. You and your team will be in a good position to follow the roadmap we’ve built. You can always reach out and schedule some general consultation time to answer any questions.

If the answer is no, then we will determine where there are gaps. If there’s a skills gap, I may be able to help with training. If there aren’t enough people, I can help bring in skilled contractors to fulfill the roles until you are able to staff the position. If it’s a time issue, we can discuss bringing in one of my partners who focus on implementation to cover the gap.

When should I not use an assessment?

Assessments are meant to help determine how to meet a business objective and what changes and plans need to be executed to make it happen. If you need an answer to a question, my Mini Tech Brief or Tech Brief might be better options. If you feel like you’re in a constant state of fighting technical fires, and you just need to get control of the chaos, then an EventStormig session is probably a better solution. If you’re not sure that any of these services will fit your needs, you can purchase a block of general consulting services.