Getting Your IAM Program Ready for 2012

It’s that time of year, when everyone does their best Carnac the Magnificent impression and rolls out their prognostications and top 10 lists. Here at Identropy, we’re not so sure about trying to predict the future, but we do know a thing or two about helping customers succeed in meeting the goals of their IAM programs. So if you’re looking to make a new year resolution, we’re here to remind you of some steps you can take to truly set your IAM program up for success.

First, create an IAM governance body. Without establishing a governance body, your organization is not going to be able to overcome the roadblocks, complexities and sometimes personalities that often derail even the best planned IAM project. Proper governance is also crucial in making sure that the project adjusts properly to the continuously evolving business and policy environment that IAM needs to operate within. Our CTO, Ash Motiwala, recently wrote an article for SC Magazine on how to go about setting up your IAM governance body.

Next, you’ll need an IAM Roadmap (if you don’t have one already – naughty list). If you have more than a few identity related problems that you are trying to solve, an Identity Management Roadmap will be critical to ensure that you tackle it as a program, with various phases that are sequenced in the appropriate priority order and have tangible business benefits and “wins” along each step of the way.  We’ve published a series of blog articles on developing an IAM roadmap that can help you think through how you may want to approach your own situation.

Of course, in order for the governance body to know how the program is progressing and make good decisions, they need good information. To address that, you need to take the final step of using metrics to help measure the effectiveness of your IAM program and identify inefficiencies and issues. Our very own Frank Villavicencio wrote for CSO Online earlier this year about the 10 IAM Metrics that matter. Even if you don’t use a tool like our own SCUID Operations, there are simple reports and analysis you can do on a periodic basis to get some visibility into how your IAM tools and processes are doing against the business objectives laid out by the governance body. It’s a worthwhile investment that can often pay for itself in terms of the improvements it can help identify.

So take some time to figure out how to put in place the support structure your IAM program needs to truly achieve its potential and deliver on the objectives you laid out for it.

And Happy Holidays from the Identropy family to yours!

[Cross posted from the Identropy Blog]