A large insurance company, the parent company of the MSA group, offers personal and commercial lines products that are designed to fit the needs of Main Street America (MSA). Today the insurance company is a multifaceted company writing business in 16 states and partnering with the best independent agents in the industry, backed by superior, personal service.

It was seen that in the current IT operational control system, the processes were manual, therefore increasing the opportunity for error. There was no way of proactively determining potential issues and no formal resource planning either. There was strong need to define levels of service that will be provided by the IT organization both internally and externally. Additionally the organizational layout did not support key project execution, and PM organization/ roles were undefined.

The insurance company approached CTE for helping them counter their obstacles.

The insurance company participated in CTE’s Cambridge Executive Workshop (CEW). A typical CEW brings together executives, managers, end users, and other stakeholders to identify innovative ideas and quickly implement them as solutions. During the workshop CTE proposed a four-week program – IT Strategy Planning.

The IT Strategy Planning engagement will be a four-week program that will help MSA IT focus on operational control. CTE will work in concert with MSA IT to develop a “storyboard” of the desired state of IT operational maturity, as well as a strategic roadmap (process flow) that will articulate how MSA will need to evolve in order to realize its operational control goals.
The IT Strategy and Operational Control Findings and Recommendations will provide MSA with a gap analysis between the current and desired states of MSA IT delivery and operations.

The IT Strategy Roadmap will be a process depiction focused on the actions that the MSA IT organization will need to execute to realize strategic and operational control goals. The Roadmap will detail the transformation of applications, technologies, architecture, relationships, skills, competencies, and processes required to meet MSA IT’s desired operational state. The Roadmap will also include a validation of existing Business/ IT Alignment, and will offer any additional alignment recommendations that may impart business value.

The Strategy Planning Process will detail a repeatable process for MSA IT to use during its annual strategic planning cycle.

The proposed solution that would implement fundamental processes is predicted to offer multi-faceted benefits to the insurance company. They are categorized as listed below:

• A standard repeatable process for executing either legacy maintenance or web enabled development efforts
  
• View, analyze and update project information
  
• A standard set of Program Management templates
  
• A Portfolio Management approach for tracking and reporting project status

• Establishing rapid Business/IT agreement on business requirements
  
• Rapid “Storyboard” presentation to enable quick trade-off discussions
  
• Technology and Business drivers reviewed in a single forum
  
• Estimation and implementation details negotiated and agreed to promptly
  
• Business case constructed to aid in CIO’s decision-analysis and prioritization

• Repeatable Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology
  
• A standard set of development templates integrated with MSA Process Asset Library
  
• Well defined roles and responsibilities
  
• A managed approach where all functions (i.e. CIO, Director, CRM, PCO, PM) are able to view performance.