How to Plan an IoT Project - 5 Things You Can Do Now
Benson ChanBenson Chan
The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to transform the way we live, work and play. However, while there’s no lack of IoT platforms, business models, and innovative products in the market, today’s products are still immature point solutions. Given the immature state of IoT, what should transformation, business, and IT managers do today? Here are five things that you can do now, as you plan an IoT project and prepare to deploy.
Your journey starts with a knowledge of the IoT building blocks. No matter what solutions you consider, you want to know enough to ask the right questions. I use the “follow the data” framework. Trace the data flow, from capture, processing and action. Ask the following:
While IoT evolves, challenges remain no matter what solutions emerge. These include security, integration, data management (collect, transform, and store), and analytics.
As you plan an IoT project strategy, identify gaps in your infrastructure, core skills, tools and resources. Build a plan to address these challenges before you implement your first IoT projects.
At this early stage, there are no right answers, no winning business models, and no “tried and true” IoT recipes to follow. Don’t try to predict the future.
Today’s immature products may not grow with your organization’s needs. Focus instead on using today’s IoT products to experiment with and learn crucial lessons. Accept failure and limitations. Learn from those experiences. Adapt the lessons learned and repeat.
Start small and add IoT pilots to existing projects. Don’t over-invest or over-commit. Plan small projects across the organization and scale over time.
It can be tempting to treat these IoT pilot projects the same way you you’d treat more established solutions, focusing on things like ROI and cost. However, this will lead to a portfolio of projects in which IoT is at the bottom of the priority list. Make these IoT pilots an explicit priority for the company so you can lay the critical groundwork for future success.
Remember, with early IoT projects, your main goal is to learn, experiment and uncover challenges. This will help you build the criteria for evaluating IoT projects and building the new digital roadmap. Consider projects based on the following:
Much of the value of IoT lies in the information that you can capture. That information can allow you to improve processes and be more efficient, understand your customer and provide a better experience, enable entirely new business models, and much more.
Make sure to ask yourself:
Take time to put together an information innovation strategy and roadmap. Work across the organization to create cross-functional teams to define this roadmap. Review it on a regular basis to ensure that your organization’s data needs are being met.
Originally posted on Strategy of Things.
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