As you begin to plan for implementing IAM projects, which can be complex and expensive initiatives, it might help to take into account some common experiences gathered from other similar projects. Make sure your approach is both strategic and flexible.

Here are some general strategies for enterprise to consider, before embarking on major IAM implementations:

• Obtain executive sponsorship because IAM is an important part of information security
• Understand your business and define processes first
• Automate provisioning process
• Offer self services to employees
• Customize or custom develop Access Layer and Workflow Processes
• Lay out requirements and business logics as much as possible before starting integration
• Make IAM as an enterprise backbone and mandate all new and legacy applications to use the backbone as much as possible
• Just like IAM, its event log also must be in a centralized repository as much as possible
Make sure compliance audit costs are included in RoI calculations for IAM. It usually results in much faster RoI with these costs included.
• While directory consolidation is a part of IAM implementation, possibility of a single enterprise directory may not be the ‘best’ option in all cases. It is usually not a good practice to use the same repository for Enterprise Directory and User Provisioning
• Plan your AIM solutions in steps. Big-bang approach can lead to chaos. SSO is great. Yet, it is not realistic in many cases, as many legacy systems pose considerable limitations.
• For large organizations, plan to expect some users to fall outside the defined Roles. Few exceptions do not add too much overhead, anyway.
• Do not limit your IAM solutions to just Password management or ESSO. They are mere point solutions. Do consider User Provisioning from the beginning, as it offers tremendous strategic benefits to the organization.
• It Is not good idea to develop what you can buy off-the-shelf. It is never worth it in IAM space. Particularly, buy off-the-shelf products, particularly Directory Servers, Meta Directories, Virtual directory servers, Administration products (management tools and provisioning products)
• Talent in IAM is hard to hire and hard to retain. No point in trying to build the team in-house. Outsource your IAM operations.