During June 2020, License Dashboard sponsored and spoke at the ITAM Review Wisdom Online 2020 Conference. Throughout this virtual conference, our director, Sean Robinson, discussed the evolution of SAM Managed Services and how adopting a modern Agile approach enables organizations to adapt to change, respond quickly, reduce costs and risk, and involve multiple stakeholders.
An Agile approach to SAM begins with creating a demand backlog of activities and outlines individual requirements to complete each one. This can range from gathering inventory data to providing reports or enabling digital transformation (and anything in between). During the Sean’s speaking session, he answered the question:
How do you measure the value of each activity you undertake for SAM?
Historically, the benefits of Software Asset Management have been overlooked, but this perception is beginning to change as more stakeholders take an interest and require information from an organization’s SAM team. Utilizing an Agile approach means that every project being worked on demonstrates value back to the organization and displays all the wins – large and small – SAM provides.
Creating a backlog starts with License Dashboard and the customer organization working together to provide a risk assessment for each vendor used within the IT estate, and then understanding what short-term goals the organization has set. Once these tasks are complete, the two teams can prioritize the workload in order of importance. These ‘sprints’ will then work around contract renewals or end of life dates arranged with the vendor.
Each sprint lasts a month and during this month there are several microservices that both parties are responsible for. Throughout the month, License Dashboard and the customer organization work together to plan, ensure everything is running smoothly and complete the cycle with a ‘demo’. This demonstrates the return on investment within that month, and moves any outstanding actions into the following month. This way, each stage of the Agile service is documented, and value is displayed every step of the way.
In addition to the customer SAM team generating the backlog, internal stakeholders can easily request information and activities that enable their jobs and ensure the organization isn’t overspending and is hitting companywide objectives.
Flexible Value through SAM
The flexibility of working through a backlog of activities in sprints means the organization can change priorities at the drop of a hat. If something more pressing comes up, then the sprint focus can be altered, and organizations can work with License Dashboard to shift their resource while ensuring value is being returned to the organization.
Measuring the value of each SAM activity
While each activity will provide a different value of its own, these are all recorded along the way and are easily accessible to stakeholders wanting to understand the work behind the Software Asset Management team.
To find out more about how you can measure the value for each SAM activity, get in touch.