TBM Adoption
Why TBM Adoption Matters
Adopting Technology Business Management (TBM) is a transformational journey that redefines how organizations govern, fund, and optimize technology. For many, TBM begins with a single insight—a lack of cost visibility, a growing cloud budget, or pressure to justify IT investments. But the destination is far more strategic: a culture where financial and operational decisions are grounded in facts, shared across disciplines, and aligned to enterprise value.
This page serves as a practical guide to help organizations navigate TBM adoption. Whether you’re building your first cost model, forming a TBM Office, or launching a governance cadence, this resource outlines the major milestones, common challenges, and foundational practices that shape successful TBM programs. The path may vary across industries and organizational sizes, but the principles are consistent: shared accountability, reliable data, executive sponsorship, and an operating model that supports continuous improvement.
Getting Started with TBM
Foundations for Adoption
Technology Business Management (TBM) is a value-management discipline that connects technology, finance, and business leaders through a shared language. It provides a structured path to improve transparency, accountability, and alignment between IT spend and business outcomes.
TBM uses a standard taxonomy to categorize and analyze technology costs consistently. By converting financial data into business insights, TBM helps leaders understand where money is going, who is using services, and how to optimize their technology portfolio.
Organizations often adopt TBM to solve visibility gaps, poor Finance-IT collaboration, unclear value delivery, and planning difficulties in hybrid environments. TBM addresses these by integrating data, aligning terminology, and enabling shared governance.
While some view TBM as just a reporting tool or software, its strength lies in its governance structures, operating practices, and reliable data. Tools are enablers, but the TBM Framework defines the people, processes, and outcomes that make the practice effective.
There’s no single path to TBM. Each organization begins with different goals and constraints. This page supports every stage of adoption—from exploration to full operations—whether you’re building your first model, defining roles, or launching governance for the first time.
Establishing Leadership and Structure
Securing the Executive Sponsor
Every successful TBM adoption starts with an executive sponsor who champions the program at the leadership level. This individual, often a CIO, CFO, or COO, provides air cover, ensures alignment with business strategy, and reinforces accountability across the organization. The sponsor should be actively engaged in shaping the vision, removing roadblocks, and participating in major milestones—especially during the early phases of adoption when resistance is most common.
Establishing a Program Charter
A program charter is the foundational agreement that defines the scope, purpose, and guiding principles of your TBM practice. It serves as a formal commitment between stakeholders, aligning the TBM team with leadership and business goals.
A strong TBM Program Charter should include:
The vision and purpose of TBM adoption
Business outcomes and measurable value objectives
Program scope—functions, systems, cost types, and organizational coverage
The governance structure, including the executive sponsor and advisory roles
A high-level roadmap or phased approach
Roles and responsibilities
Decision-making principles and collaboration guidelines
Resource commitments and funding assumptions
Success criteria or KPIs
While not legally binding, a TBM charter becomes operationally binding when signed by executive sponsors and distributed across the stakeholder network. It is often referenced during decision-making, progress reviews, and onboarding of new team members. To stay effective, the charter should be reviewed annually, especially after leadership changes, major scope shifts, or methodology revisions.
Accessible storage—such as a shared TBM team site or included in the TBM operations calendar—ensures the charter remains a living document. Effective charters are clear, action-oriented, and written collaboratively to build broad support.
Forming Governance Structures
Steering Committee and Advisory Group
While the executive sponsor plays a key leadership role, broader guidance is often needed. A steering committee—comprising senior leaders from IT, Finance, and the business—helps provide strategic direction, prioritize use cases, and support funding and staffing decisions. An advisory group, which may include service owners, cost center managers, and analysts, offers operational input and helps socialize the program across layers of the organization.
For organizations unable to establish these bodies, an alternative is to assign a small working group or designate individual champions across key functions. While this approach limits formal governance, it can be effective in smaller or flatter organizations where informal influence and tight coordination suffice.
Choosing the Right Organizational Placement
One of the early and most strategic structural decisions is where to situate your TBM practice. This decision influences not only visibility and authority, but also access to key data, integration with business planning, and long-term program sustainability.
Organizations typically choose among the following locations, each with specific benefits and trade-offs:
Dedicated TBM Office: Signals executive commitment and cross-functional neutrality; requires dedicated resources and governance.
Value Management Office (VMO): Aligns TBM with product value and business outcomes; risks deprioritizing data rigor.
IT Finance or CIO Organization: Immediate access to cost data; may reinforce IT-centric perceptions without Finance/Business collaboration.
Enterprise PMO or Planning Office: Provides structure and governance; may limit influence over operational costs.
Data or Analytics Office: Supports data integration and stewardship; may lack financial expertise unless supplemented by TBM-specific roles.
Regardless of location, success depends on maintaining cross-functional visibility and strategic alignment.
Building the TBM Team
Assembling the right team is critical for launching and sustaining a TBM practice. While some organizations may dedicate individuals to each of the core TBM roles, others—especially early in adoption—may assign multiple responsibilities to a small number of practitioners. Regardless of size, the full range of TBM duties should be clearly accounted for.
Standard TBM roles include:
TBM Program Manager – Responsible for planning, governance, and execution of the TBM roadmap. They manage the operating calendar, support alignment across stakeholders, and serve as the primary liaison between TBM leadership and delivery teams.
TBM Administrator – Oversees system configuration and data integration within the TBM platform. This role ensures secure access, maintains model structure, and collaborates with data owners and analysts to validate input data.
TBM Analyst – Designs and builds reports, dashboards, and metrics. Analysts surface trends and insights, support stakeholder questions, and drive adoption through recurring reviews and customized analysis.
Change Manager – Essential for driving TBM adoption. This role crafts communication plans, coordinates training, and helps guide behavior change. As TBM impacts budgeting, planning, and operations, change management becomes central to sustaining momentum.
Product Owner (optional) – Where Agile principles are in use, a product owner may be assigned to prioritize TBM feature development and stakeholder needs, particularly for system enhancements or integration with other planning tools.
For detailed responsibilities and skill profiles, download the Roles and Responsibilities eBook or visit our TBM Roles page.
Operating the TBM Practice
Once a TBM program is stood up and roles are assigned, its success depends on consistent execution. Operating the practice means managing its day-to-day processes, recurring activities, communications, and ongoing enablement. These foundational practices keep the model healthy, insights relevant, and stakeholders engaged.
Managing the TBM Operating Model
A TBM operating model defines how the practice runs on a recurring basis—who does what, how often, and through what tools or workflows. It formalizes processes around data collection, model refreshes, reporting cycles, stakeholder engagement, and support channels. A clear operating model enables coordination across teams and helps scale TBM as complexity increases.
Early in adoption, this model may be lightweight and informal. But as the program grows, it benefits from structured routines supported by systems, documentation, and defined roles. The operating model should align with organizational planning rhythms—such as monthly closes, quarterly business reviews, or annual forecasting—so that TBM insights remain relevant to decision-making.
As part of this model, teams must define intake mechanisms for new requests, procedures for validating and deploying updates, and escalation paths for resolving data or logic issues. Most importantly, the operating model must serve the broader goal of making TBM a reliable, embedded capability—not just a reporting function.
Using the TBM Operations Calendar
A critical tool in daily operations is the TBM Operations Calendar. This living schedule aligns the team’s workflows to financial and business cadences. It ensures that tasks like data ingestion, model updates, stakeholder reviews, and governance sessions happen on time and with clear ownership.
Below is a sample calendar of activities that many TBM practices adopt. These will vary depending on system complexity, data refresh frequency, and organizational cadence.
| Frequency | Example Activities |
|---|---|
| Daily | System health checks, monitor data feeds, respond to stakeholder inquiries |
| Weekly | Validate newly ingested data, investigate cost anomalies, update dashboards |
| Monthly | Publish cost allocation reports, review variances with stakeholders, refine showback logic |
| Quarterly | Conduct stakeholder syncs, refresh model assumptions, run TBM maturity reviews |
| Annually | Revisit the TBM roadmap and charter, align scope to strategic planning, audit model logic, assess training needs |
Using a shared and visible operations calendar helps maintain rhythm, builds cross-team trust, and reduces the chance of overlooked tasks—especially when TBM spans multiple roles or departments.
Creating a Communications Strategy
Even the best dashboards fall flat if no one knows they exist or understands how to use them. A proactive, structured communications strategy is vital to TBM operations. Its goal is to inform, engage, and align stakeholders at every level—from analysts and service owners to executives and steering committees.
An effective TBM communications strategy answers:
Who needs to know what?
When do they need to hear it?
What channel works best?
What action do we want them to take?
Best practices for TBM communications include:
Audience segmentation: Tailor messages for each group. Executives may need high-level insights on cost trends or investment decisions. Service owners may need details on usage and allocation drivers.
Multi-channel delivery: Use a mix of formats, such as:
Email summaries that highlight key metrics and trends
Scheduled dashboards auto-delivered to inboxes
Newsletters featuring TBM wins, data quality notes, and roadmap updates
Presentations in business reviews or budget planning sessions
Cadence planning: Align communication timing with business events. For example, deliver cost trend updates before monthly closes or align service cost reviews with quarterly forecasts.
Feedback loops: Make it easy for stakeholders to ask questions, report concerns, or suggest improvements. This could be via dedicated inboxes, survey links in reports, or embedded feedback tools in dashboards.
In the long term, TBM communications are as much about reinforcing culture as they are about sharing data. Every message sent, insight shared, or meeting held is an opportunity to reinforce shared language, business alignment, and financial accountability.
Training and Enablement
No TBM program thrives without investment in training and enablement. Training ensures that the TBM team can operate the platform, interpret outputs, and engage stakeholders. Enablement ensures that stakeholders know how to use TBM insights and that TBM becomes part of the organization’s regular workflows.
Training must be tailored by role:
TBM Administrators need deep platform knowledge, model design principles, and security controls
TBM Analysts need fluency in reporting tools, data relationships, and storytelling with metrics
Executives and Business Leaders need onboarding into TBM’s strategic value and how to act on dashboards
Data Owners need clarity on sourcing expectations, validation practices, and their role in governance
Key training moments include:
New team member onboarding
Major platform upgrades or taxonomy changes
Use case launches (e.g., first chargeback report or cloud dashboard)
Role transitions for sponsors or stakeholders
Resources may come from internal SMEs, system vendors, or formal TBM Council training. A strong practice also promotes peer coaching, maintains onboarding kits, and encourages staff to participate in TBM community events.
Enablement is ongoing. The goal isn’t just awareness, but competency—ensuring stakeholders can trust, interpret, and use TBM insights in their work. As the model evolves, enablement keeps pace.
Building and Managing the TBM Data Foundation
At the heart of every effective TBM practice lies a disciplined, reliable data foundation. While many organizations begin TBM adoption focused on modeling or governance, long-term value depends on the trustworthiness, sustainability, and strategic alignment of the data powering the model. Building this foundation is not a one-time task—it’s an ongoing process that requires alignment with data owners, integration into enterprise systems, and a structured approach to validation and change management.
What Data Does TBM Require?
A TBM model begins by translating financial and operational data into actionable insights. The table below outlines the foundational data sources used to map costs through IT Towers and beyond. These represent the minimum needed for initial modeling and reporting. As TBM maturity increases, additional sources—such as application metadata, business capabilities, and consumption metrics—can be layered in.
| Data Type | Source System(s) | Purpose in TBM Model |
|---|---|---|
| General Ledger (GL) | Financial ERP | Core source of all technology-related costs |
| Headcount / Labor | HRIS, Time Tracking | Allocate labor costs by role, department, or project |
| Vendor & Contracts | Procurement, AP Systems | Identify costs by supplier and contract terms |
| Asset Inventory | CMDB, Asset Management | Allocate costs based on infrastructure usage or ownership |
| Consumption Data | Cloud Invoices, Usage Tools | Enable usage-based allocations to applications and services |
| Project Data | PPM Tools | Attribute costs to initiatives or delivery portfolios |
| Cost Center Metadata | HR, Finance Systems | Align costs to organizational structure and reporting hierarchies |
Each of these sources supports critical mapping, allocation, and reporting functions within the TBM model. Clear ownership, integration points, and refresh cadences should be established early with source system owners.
Building Relationships with Data Owners
TBM relies on data that often originates from systems owned by other functions—Finance, HR, Procurement, Infrastructure, or Operations. Rather than treating data sourcing as a transactional handoff, TBM teams should cultivate partnerships with these data owners.
Effective collaboration includes:
Joint development of data refresh schedules
Co-ownership of validation and reconciliation processes
Shared understanding of how their data contributes to business reporting
These relationships should be institutionalized through the TBM governance model and reinforced through inclusion in reviews, feedback sessions, and change planning.
Data Governance and Validation
Good TBM data governance enables accuracy, trust, and consistency across models and reports. It defines how data is collected, transformed, reviewed, and maintained over time.
A successful data governance approach includes:
Documenting source-to-target mappings and transformation logic
Creating data dictionaries to clarify key fields and calculations
Establishing thresholds for acceptable data quality and reconciliation
Assigning validation responsibilities during the monthly reporting cadence
Validation is not a one-time step—it must be embedded into the TBM operations calendar. Each data source should have an accountable party who reviews and confirms completeness, accuracy, and context before reports are released.
Sustaining Your Data Practice
Even once operational, TBM data pipelines must be maintained and continuously improved. Common practices include:
Regular audits of source data and mapping logic
Monitoring for drift (e.g., outdated cost centers, renamed applications)
Reviewing access controls to ensure data privacy and integrity
Scheduling annual refreshes of metadata (e.g., labor rates, cost hierarchies)
Some organizations assign data stewards within the TBM team or across contributing functions. These stewards act as liaisons between producers and consumers of data, helping ensure that changes in upstream systems are coordinated and well-communicated.
Integrating with Enterprise Data Strategy
TBM shouldn’t operate in isolation from the organization’s broader data strategy. In fact, the TBM practice benefits from—and contributes to—enterprise data governance, reporting, and planning efforts.
When possible, TBM teams should:
Register TBM-related datasets with enterprise data catalogs
Integrate reporting with business intelligence tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau)
Align KPIs and cost structures with performance and financial dashboards
Participate in data quality councils or cross-functional governance forums
Doing so not only ensures sustainability but also elevates TBM as a strategic data asset.
Managing Change Through Data Transitions
Every data enhancement—whether adding a new source, shifting allocation logic, or changing taxonomy mappings—introduces risk. Without clear communication and planning, stakeholders may be confused or resistant.
To manage change effectively:
Announce changes before dashboards or reports reflect them
Document rationale, impacts, and validation steps
Offer change logs or release notes with each update
Engage users in testing and review prior to go-live
Proactive data change management builds credibility and strengthens stakeholder trust—especially when the results of those changes influence budgeting or performance evaluations.
Overcoming Resistance and Driving Adoption
Even with a strong foundation, TBM adoption often meets organizational resistance. This resistance may stem from skepticism about the data, reluctance to change existing processes, or fear of increased transparency. Recognizing and addressing these dynamics is essential for long-term success.
Common Challenges and Root Causes
Organizational Resistance
TBM often disrupts silos by introducing a shared view of cost and consumption. Leaders or teams that have operated independently may be wary of centralized insights, fearing loss of control or reputational risk. Others may be hesitant to share data or expose inefficiencies. To counter this, TBM leaders should emphasize TBM’s role in enabling partnership, optimization, and better decision-making—not punishment or cost-cutting alone.
Leadership Gaps
Even with an executive sponsor, programs can stall without consistent top-down reinforcement. A passive sponsor may agree to launch the program but fail to support difficult decisions or defend TBM priorities. This erodes credibility. TBM success depends on visible, active leadership that sets expectations, supports accountability, and ties TBM results to business outcomes.
Low Data Quality
When data is incomplete, inconsistent, or out of date, it undermines trust in TBM insights. Stakeholders may challenge the validity of dashboards or ignore findings altogether. This is why early validation cycles, documented assumptions, and visible corrections are essential. Data quality should be treated as a shared responsibility, not just a technical task.
Inadequate Staffing or Skills
Understaffed TBM teams may struggle to deliver timely reports, resolve stakeholder issues, or evolve the model. Many organizations underestimate the level of financial, technical, and interpersonal skills required. It’s critical to invest in training, set realistic scope, and avoid assigning TBM duties to already overburdened roles without reprioritizing other responsibilities.
Tool Overemphasis
Buying TBM software is not the same as building a TBM practice. Tools enable automation, modeling, and reporting—but they can’t define use cases, build trust, or interpret insights. Organizations that treat implementation as a technical deployment often miss the cultural and governance elements that sustain TBM. Software should support your strategy, not substitute for it.
Change Failure
TBM success requires new behaviors—leaders interpreting dashboards, teams aligning costs with value, and finance partners collaborating with IT. Without consistent messaging, communication channels, and reinforcement, change fatigue can derail momentum. Change managers should embed TBM into planning, governance, and reporting rhythms to build habits, not one-time compliance.
Model Complexity or Drift
As the model evolves, it may grow too complex to explain or too far removed from original goals. Reports may include dozens of cost categories or allocations no one understands, and the audience may disengage. TBM teams must periodically revisit the model structure to ensure clarity, alignment, and stakeholder relevance.
Anticipating and Addressing Resistance
Successful TBM teams don’t wait for resistance—they plan for it. Resistance often surfaces as:
Pushback on cost visibility or allocation logic
Delays in data delivery or validation
Disinterest in stakeholder reviews or report walkthroughs
Claims that TBM reports “don’t match my numbers”
These reactions are normal. To counter them, TBM leaders should:
Acknowledge concerns without defensiveness
Provide clear documentation and walk stakeholders through assumptions
Frame TBM insights as opportunities, not indictments
Celebrate small wins and document impact
Empathy, transparency, and consistency are powerful tools for shifting perception.
Influencing Without Authority
TBM teams often operate laterally—without direct authority over budget holders, infrastructure teams, or service owners. In these situations, influence comes from delivering value, not directives. Analysts and administrators should:
Offer to help interpret data for team planning or QBRs
Tailor dashboards to stakeholder needs
Be responsive and curious rather than prescriptive
Follow through consistently and respect feedback
The most successful TBM leaders are seen as enablers, not auditors. This mindset builds stronger relationships, which lead to deeper adoption.
Driving Engagement Through Demonstrated Value
Ultimately, TBM adoption gains traction when stakeholders see the benefit. A well-crafted report that helps a department justify a new hire or rationalize vendor spend creates far more buy-in than abstract metrics.
Early use cases should:
Solve real problems for real people
Be co-developed with stakeholder input
Produce measurable, shared wins
Be followed by a story: who benefited, what decision changed, what impact resulted
When these stories are shared—via newsletters, leadership decks, or town halls—they build credibility. They also encourage other teams to ask: “Can TBM help us with this too?”
Tracking Progress with Adoption Milestones
Adopting TBM is not a one-time deployment—it’s a journey of organizational change, data maturity, and growing value delivery. Many teams start small, prove value, and expand over time. While every TBM practice is unique, successful implementations tend to follow a series of recognizable milestones. These help teams track progress, build stakeholder confidence, and maintain alignment with business goals.
Suggested Milestone Path
Charter and Governance in Place
The starting point for any sustainable TBM initiative is alignment. A program charter sets the direction and scope, defines roles, and documents early commitments. Governance structures—such as an executive sponsor, a steering committee, or advisory group—ensure visibility and provide mechanisms for ongoing alignment and issue resolution.
Staff Trained and Roles Assigned
Even lean TBM teams must account for all key responsibilities: modeling, analysis, stakeholder management, and system administration. At this milestone, core roles are assigned, and each team member is trained on TBM principles, the taxonomy, and the reporting cadence. Even if one person fulfills multiple roles, clarity is critical.
First Use Case Modeled and Delivered
Initial success is often defined by the delivery of a targeted use case—such as tower cost visibility, labor allocation, or showback. This milestone includes gathering data, building the model, validating the output, and delivering value to at least one stakeholder group. The goal is to solve a real problem, not to launch a perfect model.
Governance Cadence Launched
With the model producing outputs, the team begins to operate on a regular governance cycle. Steering committees meet, stakeholders review reports, and planning cycles integrate TBM insights. This milestone marks the transition from project launch to sustained operations.
Feedback Cycle Operating
TBM’s power lies in collaboration. As stakeholders engage with reports and dashboards, they provide feedback, challenge assumptions, and suggest refinements. When this feedback loop becomes consistent and drives model improvements, the program becomes more adaptive, accurate, and embedded in decision-making.
Ongoing Improvement
Maturing Capabilities
As the team gains confidence, they take on more advanced modeling, automate data flows, and expand stakeholder engagement. Capabilities such as total cost of ownership (TCO) reporting, forecasting, showback or chargeback, and investment planning become feasible. TBM transitions from a transparency tool to a planning enabler.
Expanding the Model
The scope of the model grows. Initial mappings—perhaps just labor and infrastructure to towers—expand to include applications, services, business units, or project portfolios. Cloud data is integrated. Allocations become more refined. With each expansion, new stakeholders are brought into the fold.
Refining Reporting
As usage grows, so do expectations. Reports evolve from exploratory dashboards to curated decision tools. The team segments reporting by audience—executive summaries for leaders, detailed cost breakdowns for service owners—and introduces scheduled, self-service delivery.
Shifting Toward Strategic Use
Eventually, TBM becomes more than a cost visibility tool. It informs sourcing decisions, cloud strategy, vendor management, Agile delivery models, and product funding. TBM insights shape decisions before money is spent, not just after. At this point, TBM is integrated with enterprise planning—and seen as essential to managing the business of technology.
Resources for Continued Growth
No TBM journey is completed in isolation. A global community of peers, practitioners, publications, and tools exists to support teams through every stage of adoption. Whether you’re just getting started or seeking to scale, the following resources can accelerate your progress, enrich your practice, and help you avoid common pitfalls.
TBM Council Publications
The TBM Council produces foundational resources and practical guides to help practitioners build effective, outcomes-driven programs:
The TBM Framework: Defines the foundational layers of a successful TBM practice, including the model, outcomes, and value drivers
The TBM Taxonomy: The global standard for modeling and categorizing technology spend
Roles and Responsibilities Guide: Details the core roles required to run a TBM practice, including responsibilities, collaboration patterns, and common challenges
High-Impact TBM Use Cases: A guide to the most common early use cases and the modeling practices that support them
These documents provide structure, language, and repeatable methods for new teams and maturing practices alike. Many are referenced throughout this page—visit the TBM Council Publications section to download the most current versions.
Software and Service Providers
Organizations often look to technology partners and consultants to help accelerate or operationalize their TBM practice. While TBM is a strategy first and a system second, commercial tools and managed services can enable:
Faster implementation of the TBM Taxonomy
Integration of financial and operational data sources
Role-based dashboards and reporting
Ongoing model maintenance, support, or insights
Visit our Tools page to explore commercial TBM platforms, TBM-as-a-Service providers, and the features that differentiate each.
Communities and Peer Support
TBM adoption is as much about shared learning as it is about internal execution. The TBM Council hosts an array of peer forums and learning spaces to help members benchmark, troubleshoot, and grow their practices:
TBM Connect: The Council’s members-only online platform for Q&A, working groups, and content sharing
Regional communities: Local chapters and meetups for networking and collaboration
Live events: Join TBM Tuesdays, expert panels, or our annual TBM Conference to hear directly from leaders and practitioners around the world
These communities are built for every stage of adoption. Whether you’re launching your first use case or refining multi-layer allocations, there are practitioners who’ve been there—and who are ready to help.
Additional Resources
To support your TBM Adoption efforts, consider exploring the following:
- TBM By Design white paper
- TBM First Steps Guide white paper
- High Impact TBM Use Cases report
- Mastering TBM Adoption: Roles & Responsibilities eBook
- Top Five Best Practices for TBM Adoption guide
While you’re here, join the TBM Council to connect with peers and stay updated on all things TBM. Explore our Knowledge Base for frameworks, case studies, and how-to guidance. Learn more about the TBM Framework and how it supports smarter decision-making across IT and Finance, or find resources for building a TBM Model. You can also attend an upcoming event, pursue training or certification, or see how our partners are contributing to this area of TBM practice.
Join the TBM community: where innovators and leaders converge
The TBM Council is your gateway to a treasure trove of knowledge: think cutting-edge research papers, insightful case studies, and vibrant community forums where you can exchange ideas, tackle challenges, and celebrate successes with fellow practitioners.
We’re calling on organizations and forward-thinking individuals to dive into the TBM community. Participate in our events, engage in our discussions, and tap into a vast reservoir of knowledge. This isn’t just about networking; it’s about contributing to and benefiting from the collective wisdom in navigating the dynamic world of cloud computing.
