Our methodology sets our customers up for success

We hear you: consolidating legacy systems and migrating to the cloud can be a challenge. How do we make it less risky and less expensive? Will our solutions be worth it? At Zia Consulting, we developed a clear-cut, five-step methodology that we take with every project presented to us: discovery, diagnostic, design, delivery, and delight.

By covering all of our bases, we gain a true understanding of your organization’s migration and transformation challenges. Hopefully, you'll find this approach to be helpful.

1. Discovery

First, we identify your organization’s real pain before recommending a best practice. We do this with upfront analysis and planning around these three notions:

• Pain: What current problems are you facing? Are you reeling from a compliance issue or a data breach? Do you want to mitigate costs and consolidate applications? Our team collaborates with you to articulate the underlying business and technical pain points.
• Claim: We architect a solution that provides differentiating capabilities to satisfy your success criteria. We also propose ways to build an effective communication plan for change.
• Gain: What specific results can we expect? One size doesn’t fit all. Before further investment, we build a case to demonstrate and measure the strategic, financial, and business user benefits of your organization’s transformation.

2. Diagnostic

After understanding your goals and business drivers, we’ll determine what actions to take with your organization’s applications and microservices.

• Retire: Identify applications that can be retired as part of the transformation.
• Replace: Generally a one-for-one system swap, upgrading an antiquated application with a modern framework and open API lowers risk on your platform. For instance, exchange unsupported systems with new technology, or straightforwardly migrate at end of life for long-term benefits.
• Rehost: This is the classic “lift and shift” model where we move your applications, usually to an extensible architecture in the cloud, quickly and easily without re-architecting them. Organizations consider this approach for solid business reasons, including reduced costs and improved performance and resiliency. 
• Rewrap: While content is spread across legacy systems on-premise and in the cloud, enterprise growth and scalability requires business processes to be streamlined across these silos. Similarly, legacy systems and data may need to be left in-place. Building micro front-ends to integrate disparate sources and connect business processes provides access to content located in sources across the organization as though they are stored in one location. 
• Redo: Business growth and acquisition increases silos comprised of disparate, aging platforms. This is the right opportunity for a business and IT transformation. For instance, when tackling mailroom automation, going paperless with intelligent data capture, or increasing throughput with business process automation, a new platform can provide the best solution.

3. Design

Through a series of agile workstreams, quantifiable milestones can be delivered in less than 90 days. In other words, to ensure success, short design phase is instrumental and consists of these elements:

• Roadmap: We build roadmaps with the long term view, plus month to month milestones to manage the overall risk and ensure agility.
• Tools: An overarching set of best practices and tools drives project efficiency and a clear set of operating guidelines.
• Team: Part of the design is identifying the right roles and skill sets to execute the roadmap. This defines resources from Zia and your internal teams who have the right skills, passion, and bandwidth.
• Prioritize: We’ll do the 20% of the work that will have 80% of the biggest bang. Above all, you’re always in the driver’s seat, and can change your mind as often as necessary.
  

4. Delivery

After the design step is solidified, we align your expectations with our deliveries in these three timeframes:

• Pilot: Ready to deploy in less than three months, the pilot rolls into production. Therefore, your organization doesn’t waste any time.
• Project: Ranging from 3-18 months, you’re involved and always know exactly what’s happening with scheduled development iterations, demos, and user testing cycles on a regular cadence.
• Program: After 18 months, your organization will be capable to maintain your platform. Thus, as time and budget allows, Zia provides overviews, documentation, and above all, guidance for your organization to become experts.

5. Delight

Finally, we build delight into our methodology because once your organization realizes tangible results, the more appetite you’ll have for continued transformation. 

• 90-day delivery: We structure your migration roadmap in a series of sprints that will result in quick wins for your organization.
• Agile approach: Agility blossoms out of automation. In other words, automation promotes growth by saving time on everyday processes, and this leads to higher employee engagement. The possibilities are endless!

In closing, if you’re considering consolidating legacy systems and migrating to the cloud, we’d love the opportunity to discuss the benefits and potential your company has to gain by working with Zia. Contact us today.