Many organizations are at a point where they are trying to understand the full benefit of managing their operational technology (OT) devices.
Managing these devices begins with having a trusted device inventory (visibility); it is the foundation of the program.
“At First, OT Does Not Look Like an Opportunity, It Looks Like More Work”
Once visibility is established, OT device management moves on to workloads like incident management, change management, and vulnerability remediation. These new workloads in OT represent a significant change, and organizations rightfully begin to ask questions about the return on these changes.
If your team cannot properly discover, quantify, and communicate the value of a program to manage OT devices, adoption will become a problem.
When sorting this out, it is helpful to think of the value derived from OT Management in 3 different timeframes:
These time distinctions are important because the true value of managing OT devices increases as the program gains maturity. You must build a strong foundation before you get to the really good stuff. Equally important is the idea that OT has many stakeholders with different expectations regarding time and value. Speaking to these varied expectations will go a long way toward establishing effective organizational change management (OCM), a critical element for program adoption.
It is counterintuitive, but starting at the beginning means talking about a vision for the future.
This is because, at first glance, managing OT devices in an operational environment does not look like an opportunity; it looks like more work. It is only when teams see the future probability of solving some big problems by managing their OT devices that they change their mindset. Often, even the leaders in operational organizations need a nudge to see the real vision of what is at stake.
A good question would be, “AI is being leveraged throughout your organization today; how are you going to get those same advantages for your team?” and then, “Do you think that is possible without trusted data about the devices that make up your processes?”
The future narrative creates alignment in the organization and provides the required energy to get the job done.
Establishing a baseline of OT Management maturity is a key milestone to realizing a future vision.
OT baseline maturity can be correlated to operationalizing an OT program across a materially significant portion of the organization. The organization is spending real money now, and the promise of future benefits cannot carry this on its’ own. This timeframe is where we need to focus our value discovery and documentation efforts. The resulting value differs for every organization but often starts with security, mean time to remediation, operational efficiency, or compliance.
If you get the right stakeholders in the room and have a strong OT value discovery process facilitator, you will see strong links develop between stakeholder priorities and your OT program. This collaborative work also plays an important role in advancing OCM.
With the context of the future narrative and the established program in mind, we can shift our focus to a phase 1 project or a pilot.
The value discussion for the Pilot should be tactical and centered around a handful of key performance indicators (KPIs) that form the pilot success criteria. Criteria related to the trustworthiness of the OT data collected are foundational and must defined and included.
Other success criteria should be related to the primary use case or to a key value element you discovered when you discussed the value of baseline maturity. The important thing is that you get the stakeholders aligned on the measurable success criteria required to validate the Pilot and move the program forward.
Collaborating with OT stakeholders on value through this series of time-based lenses is crucial. It ensures that your OT program does not get off track or stall out because of stakeholder misalignment or a lack of adoption.
These discussions are the basis for OCM and will surface the critical answer to the question that all stakeholders and sponsors will ask, What is in it for me?”
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