What Inform does
The Inform phase builds the visibility layer. It answers what is being used, what it costs, who owns it, how it is trending, how it compares to expectations, and where surprises are emerging.
A weak Inform phase shows totals but not ownership. A strong Inform phase gives each persona a view they can trust and act on while still reconciling back to finance-approved numbers.
Core Inform activities
| Activity | Practitioner focus |
|---|---|
| Reporting & Analytics | Create role-specific views with definitions that reconcile. |
| Anomaly Management | Detect meaningful deviations and route them to accountable owners. |
| Benchmarking | Compare teams, units, products, or industry patterns carefully and contextually. |
| Allocation | Assign spend to products, teams, environments, cost centers, or services. |
| Showback / Chargeback | Use cost visibility to drive accountability, with or without actual financial transfer. |
| Forecasting / Budgeting | Turn usage trends, plans, and business context into forward-looking expectations. |
Allocation is a product
Allocation is not a one-time tagging project. It is a maintained product with users, rules, exceptions, data quality checks, and feedback loops. If teams do not trust it, they will ignore the reports even when the math is technically correct.
Start with transparent rules. Separate allocated, unallocated, shared, and disputed spend. Show the pathway for improving data quality over time.
Knowledge check
Q. Which outcome shows the Inform phase is working?