How to sell CSDM to the Business

[Rado Ehlenov]

Hello Architects,

Common Service Data Model (CSDM) has been around for a while but I haven't seen good selling practices so far.

The standard presentations are highly theoretical and abstract when speaking to the business.

Loosing customer's attention and interest during conversations is a common pitfall.

I have been working on different technics to get in the customer shoes, hence closer to the business, so I put few ideas on the table to ignite the discussion:

• Start with the key Questions
  • Do you know which are your most critical services and how they support your business?
  • Do you know who the owner, consumer and supporting staff of those services are?
  • Do you know what underlying infrastructure supports there services and what it costs?
  • Do you know which SLAs will breach if your critical services go down and how much it will cost you?
  • Do you know if your business applications are compliant with regulatory requirements?
  • Do you measure performance and success of your services against business objectives?
• Highlight the drawbacks of inefficient Data Models
  • Data fragmentation leading to data inconstancies and slowed decision making
  • Inefficient issue resolution due to difficult root cause identification
  • Negative impact on customer experience and satisfaction
  • etc.
• Demonstrate the impact on the business by concrete examples (ITSM Process Performance Diagrams)
• Elaborate the benefits, practically - why CSDM?
• Prove the Concept using an example residing in the real business environment of the client
• Explain what’s the value of adopting CSDM
  • Efficient Data Management
  • Improved Collaboration
  • Faster Issue Resolution
  • Enhanced Reporting
  • Reduced Costs
  • Scalability
  • Flexibility and Customization
• Show how to start in a phased approach (crawl, walk, run, fly)
• Explain who will be involved and what will be the effort & cost
• Reiterate the keys to successful data modeling (i.e. sponsor commitment)

How do you master the conversation around CSDM?  

[Marcos Kassak]

Hello @Rado Ehlenov,

Thanks for sharing this content! That's a great subject because customers do not always envision the full value so they prefer to invest time and materials in other stuff.

I'm wondering about the approach here, would you make a presentation or separate interviews with different business stakeholders with specific subjects mentioned?

[Rado Ehlenov]

Hey Marcos,

thanks for jumping into the discussion!

Well, I do believe there are several layers to be convinced and made promoters of the CSDM idea across a business and each of them will require a slightly different approach and level of detail.

My starting point is always with exec management, so I try to be highly business outcome focused.

Then, after getting a buy-in exec level, I approach Service Owners, Configuration Managers, Process Owners etc., each with their specific 'suffering' caused by inefficient data models. ITSM Service Owners and Operations are always a good audience to start as they will most probably struggle with slow fixing of incidents/ major incidents, finding the root cause for problems and reliable change management, if they are unaware of their underlying infrastructure and services interdependencies. 

Feel free to share your approach and ideas, I'd be happy to learn alternative solutions!