Business Relationship Management (BRM) Training: Aligning IT & the Business

In this Business Relationship Management (BRM) training course, you take on the role of a business relationship manager, learn to overcome communication barriers between IT and the business, leverage innovative best practises, and solve business problems in an IT environment. You learn to take on the role of the trusted IT adviser who can align the needs of the business with IT services.

• Two years of work experience in IT or business

Business Relationship Management (BRM) Training: Aligning IT & the Business Delivery Methods

• After-course instructor coaching benefit
• Learning Tree end-of-course exam included

Business Relationship Management (BRM) Training: Aligning IT & the Business Course Benefits

• Build a strong alignment between IT and the business
• Plan a strategy that positions you as a trusted IT advisor to key stakeholders
• Choose IT projects that build trust and alignment
• Articulate IT solutions that meet business needs
• Differentiate your internal IT services for competitive solutions

Business Relationship Management (BRM) Course Outline

Overview of Relationship Management

• Why organisations need successful relationships between IT and the business
• Balancing the needs of IT and the business
• Effectively aligning IT investments and business goals

Principles for Aligning IT and the Business

The trusted IT advisor

• Recognising how trust feels
• Defining trust in an IT organisation
• Building a trusted relationship

Business Relationship Management (BRM) roles

• IT relationship management vs. IT project management
• Discovering your strengths and weaknesses
• Required technical and social competencies

Determining the Current State of IT

Defining a catalogue of services

• Identifying IT products and services
• The components of an ideal catalogue
• Creating an initial catalogue from scratch
• Ranking services with metrics

Developing awareness of the organisational culture

• The IntCRM Model
• Overcoming common IT relationship barriers
• Exploring how things get done in the organisation
• Applying tools for culture analysis

Building the Trusted Relationship

Knowing your stakeholders

• The stakeholder relationship life cycle
• Classifying the roles stakeholders play
• The importance of stakeholder power and influence

Optimising the first meeting

• Planning the meeting
• Models for understanding people
• Explaining the role of the BRM
• Confirming relationships and roles
• Leaving with actions

Planning the relationship strategy

• Analysing the relationship
• Recruiting trusted teams
• Forming the plan
• Executing the strategy

Facilitating Actionable IT Solutions

Performing competitive analysis

• Evaluating IT outsourcing and consulting solutions
• Establishing your competitive advantage

Identifying opportunities for improvement

• Capturing, prioritising and documenting business needs
• Applying a framework for prioritising and selecting projects
• Picking quick-win projects

Designing a strategy to meet customer needs

• Conducting a modified SWOT analysis
• Questions you should ask
• Making a go or no-go decision

Winning Competitive IT Projects

Responding to requests

• Differentiating your services from your competitors'
• Communicating your internal IT capabilities to the business
• Validating business needs in business terms

Selling your solutions to the business

• Translating IT speak to business speak
• Linking IT solutions to pains
• Articulating IT solutions in terms of business value
• Writing clear, tailored Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Managing project handoffs

• Ensuring a seamless transition
• Creating and maintaining communication channels
• Building the relationship

The IT relationship scorecard

• Establishing performance metrics
• Assessing BRM success
• Analysing results