Welcome
Delivering high-quality software — and delivering it quickly — is crucial to digital business success. Yet most CEOs and CIOs (and software leaders) are not aligned on software goals, metrics, and strategies, preventing their organizations from realizing the full business benefits from their software investments.
Curious how your organization compares to others on alignment of business and software objectives? Take this assessment to find out. It should take no more than five minutes to complete and will yield custom assessment and recommendations for how to improve. This assessment is intended for your organization’s software leaders and the C-Suite (both business and technical senior leadership).
Our assessment is based on commissioned research by Forrester Consulting. Forrester surveyed 316 CEOs and senior business executives, CIOs or equivalent, and software leaders at global enterprises with more than 5,000 employees. Read the full study to find out more.
Questions
Which of the following statements best reflects how software requirements are developed and refined at your organization? (Select one.)
Questions
Which of the following statements best reflects how funding is allocated for software development and delivery at your organization? (Select one.)
Questions
Which of the following metrics do you track to determine effectiveness of software projects or packages? (Select all that apply.)
Questions
In your organization, how often do the CEO and CIO meet? (Select one.)
Questions
In your organization, how often do the CEO and software leaders meet (e.g., VP of software development, CTO)? (Select one.)
Results Overview
Results Overview
- Agility of budget and distribution of funds
- Agility of technical software development
- Software metrics
- CEO-CIO collaboration
- CEO-software leader collaboration
Recommendations
Your maturity result:
Your score means your organization has work to do on its software alignment and effectiveness.
- Make realistic investments in Agile software practices. If your team currently requires completely defined requirements prior to beginning software design and development with little opportunity for change, consider implementing flexibility to review and re-prioritize requirements during software projects based on user and team feedback. When done right, Agile methods enable faster software delivery with quality innovation, and can drive competitive distinction.1
- Explore more agile budgeting for software projects. If your budgeting process is completely fixed within an annual planning process, explore adding departmental discretion within set spending allocations. This is the first step toward the ideal of reprioritizing project funding continuously based on value delivered with departmental discretion. Agile finance drives business-software alignment. Shifting away from traditional capital expenditure (capex)-centric financial models to on-demand models results in faster product delivery, wider adoption, and better return on investment.2
- Establish business (not technical) measures of success. After determining shared business and software goals use business metrics to measure progress and success. CEOs and software leaders must agree on these goals and keep it simple -- one or two measures of progress toward strategic goals. Examples might include ROI of software development efforts or impact on customer experience. Software leaders then create the internal metrics to run their software organizations.3
- Raise collaboration between business and technical leaders. Most CEOs (57%) crave meaningful visibility into software activities. Meetings between your CEO (or COO) and both CIO and software leadership can provide transparency and foster agreement on software’s value.4 These meetings should be more frequent than one per quarter and be real discussions.
Your score means your organization’s software effectiveness has a solid foundation, although there are still some opportunities to optimize.
- Double down on Agile software practices to deliver quality software quickly. Even if your team currently reviews and re-prioritizes requirements regularly during software design and development, consider streamlining initial requirements compilation further and elaborating during iterative delivery. When done right, Agile methods enable faster software delivery with quality, and can drive competitive distinction.1
- Raise software project budgeting agility. Move closer to reprioritizing funding throughout the year based on value delivered. Provide departmental discretion to allocate spending. Shifting away from traditional capital expenditure (capex)-centric financial models to on-demand models results in faster product delivery, wider adoption, and better return on investment.2
- Implement the metrics that matter — business measures. Without metrics CEOs can use to measure the return on software investments, business-technology alignment is impossible. High-performing software teams judge success on their ability to create new digital products and services, improve margins, and establish new channels.3
- Expand collaboration between business and technical leaders. Most CEOs (57%) crave meaningful visibility into software activities. Meetings between your CEO (or COO) and both CIO and software leadership can provide transparency and foster agreement on software’s value.4 While your organization’s CEO may meet with the CIO and software leader, explore increasing those cadences to weekly – and make them real discussions.
Your score means your organization’s software effectiveness is at the top of the pack.
- Scale Agile software practices across all groups. You already practice Agile development, now scale it up. That means embracing Agile practices across the full lifecycle from compiling minimal requirements and iterating to agile funding and change management. Expand use of insights from customers and users to drive your software projects. Scaled Agile methods enable ever faster software delivery with quality and drive competitive distinction.1
- Progress to completely agile software budgeting agility. Ideally, reprioritize project funding continuously based on value delivered with departmental discretion. Shifting to on-demand models will result in faster product delivery, wider adoption, and better return on investment.2
- Drive business metrics into software teams. Many developers and software leaders want to be judged on common business metrics! Instead of translating from business metrics to software-development metrics, allow software teams to measure themselves against business metrics and do the translations themselves. Examples might include ROI of software development efforts or impact on customer experience.
- Make collaboration between business and technical leaders standard operating procedure. Encourage as-needed discussions between the CEO (or COO) and CIO and/or software leaders. Relax the chain of command for CEO conversations to promote immediate and continual alignment.
Endnotes
1Source: “Adopt Agile And DevOps To Drive Digital Business Success,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 7, 2020
2Source: “Digital Business Requires Agile Financial Planning,” Forrester Research, Inc., February 28, 2019
3Source: “CEOs: Foster The Software Teams And Talents Your Firm Needs,” Forrester Research, Inc., February 21, 2019
4Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Broadcom, August 2019. Base: 316 CEOs/senior business executives, CIOs or equivalent, and software leaders at global enterprises with more than 5,000 employees.
Thank you for taking the time to complete this assessment! To learn more, please read the full Forrester report commissioned by Broadcom.
View your detailed results
Next Steps
Methodology, Disclaimers and Disclosures
Methodology, Disclaimers and Disclosures
Methodology
Methodology
In this study, Forrester conducted six interviews and a survey of 316 CEOs and senior business executives, CIOs or equivalent, and software leaders at global enterprises with more than 5,000 employees to evaluate how effectively the CEOs, CIOs, and software leaders collaborate to drive business results. The study began in July 2019 and was completed in August 2019.
Disclaimers
Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this assessment, Broadcom and Forrester are unable to accept any legal responsibility for any actions taken on the basis of the information contained herein.
Disclosures
This interactive tool is commissioned by Broadcom and delivered by Forrester Consulting.