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Forbes Media: Balancing the Need to Run the Business vs. Grow the Business with Innotas IT Governance

Mykolas Rambus, Forbes"At the beginning of the configuration phase, we worked with Innotas to do a quick snapshot of what Forbes needed from the product so Innotas could help us standardize all the tasks our project managers were working on. Innotas provided templates that helped us accelerate the setup process."Mykolas Rambus, CIO
Forbes

Bottom Line

Forbes CIO Mykolas Rambus has high expectations. "We expect our IT department to provide a great deal of value to the organization." But in order to make sure IT was providing measurable value, Rambus needed a complete picture of the IT project portfolio. To get that picture, Rambus implemented on-demand IT Governance from Innotas.

"First, I was looking for transparency into all of our projects. I knew this information would provide a lot of value, and would shed light on the trajectory of projects. With an IT Governance solution in place, any team member can see the status of any given initiative on a daily basis across the portfolio, and how those efforts are being distributed. You can quantify which projects are providing the most benefit to the organization, and devote dollars to areas which the organization values most." Bottom Line: "We saved tens of thousands of dollars by implementing a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) IT Governance solution versus an installed solution. Averting a project disaster can easily save north of $100K. We've gained a few hundred thousand dollars in value added and money saved. If I could get that kind of ROI on most tools I'd be a happy guy."

The Situation

As a new member of the Forbes management team, Rambus needed to get his arms around the organization. He needed to understand how the priorities matched up against the current load of programs and projects, and he couldn't take a year to get there. "I was new to the organization, and I was given a number of key initiatives to work on for the company that immediately took a third to half of my time, so I had less time than the usual 90 days to figure out the organization's priorities."

However, coming out of the starting blocks, there was a hurdle that had to be cleared. Rambus lacked the information he needed to lead the organization. "There wasn't a single place to turn to get a sense of the projects in flight in IT, to get transparency into those projects, from a time or budgetary perspective. I wanted transparency into the projects that were going on."

Rambus brought with him a management bias for visibility and standards, and that bias applied to active projects as well as new project requests. Quite often, the effective management of active projects is not the only opportunity for positive change. In many cases, change will come from projects that have not yet been identified. "We needed consistency in identifying key projects and running projects, but we also needed consistency in managing inbound requests. We needed a standard approach for accepting and working on projects."

Selection and Implementation

"In looking for an IT Governance solution for Forbes, we looked at an installed PPM solution, we looked at other SaaS vendors and we looked at Innotas. We did the typical bakeoff, looking at their product capabilities and product roadmaps. Our near-term need was to address IT's challenges. We knew that, over time, we would want to expand our IT Governance solution to organizations outside of the IT organization, to allow IT to run all or parts of the enterprise Project Management Office (PMO), so we wanted to choose a product that would scale over time to meet our needs."

Despite the pressure to get up and going quickly, Rambus took an incremental approach to modeling the IT Governance process. "At the beginning of the configuration phase, we worked with Innotas to do a quick snapshot of what Forbes needed from the product so that Innotas could help us standardize the tasks done by our project managers. Innotas provided templates that helped us accelerate the setup process. We started with those templates and modified them, and we ended up with a standard way of delivering projects for the organization."

"We worked with Innotas to develop ways to measure ROI on projects, and within 30 days, I was able to get the transparency that I was seeking in the organization," Rambus said.

Results and Relationship

Simply put, the purpose of IT Governance is to make sure the organization is working on the right projects the right way. In other words, project execution is only half of the question. The other half comes down to project identification and selection. Forbes focused on both goals. "Since we've implemented Innotas, we've switched from devoting 75 percent of our resources to IT and maintenance projects and 25 percent in business growth and efficiency to the opposite, in fact. Now, the majority of our portfolio is being devoted to things that are extremely valuable to the organization."

Once Rambus had a clear picture of the work his team was doing, he was able to look for new ways to create value for their stakeholders. "A good example is with Forbesmedia.com, which is our Web site for potential advertisers. The transparency that Innotas gave me showed that we weren't spending very much time on marketing projects to help promote Forbesmedia.com, but we were spending lots of time on Finance and HR projects — which are important, but don't drive revenue. So I approached the head of our marketing department to tell her how I could help her. Forbesmedia.com was seven years old, and was minimally serving our needs. It was due for revitalization, so IT worked with marketing to revitalize the Web site, improve the visitor experience, save the company money and to increase revenue."

IT Governance has become a critical piece of the Forbes' business DNA. "I can't fathom how we could run IT, or how anyone could run IT these days, without having IT Governance in place."

Customer Profile

Forbes Media was formed in August 2006 as a result of an investment in Forbes by Elevation Partners, in which the private equity firm became a minority shareholder in a newly formed company, encompassing Forbes magazine, Forbes.com and other media properties. Forbes.com reaches an excess of 20 million people monthly. Forbes is the publisher of Forbes, the nation's leading business magazine — which celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2007 — and its international edition, Forbes Asia, which, together, reach a worldwide audience of nearly five million readers. Forbes.com is the company's Internet business, which is the homepage for the world's business leaders and the #1 business site on the Web. The company also publishes ForbesLife and ForbesLife Executive Woman.