RESOURCE · READINESS CHECKLIST
Is your organization ready to turn Adobe Experience Cloud into measurable customer decisions?
This executive checklist helps transformation leaders identify whether the foundational decisions required for Adobe Experience Platform, Real-Time CDP, Adobe Journey Optimizer, Customer Journey Analytics, and connected activation have been sufficiently resolved.
This is a directional readiness check, not a substitute for technical discovery or solution design.
How to use
For each statement, select Yes (established, documented, approved, understood), Partially (some work exists, decisions incomplete), No (not yet established), or Unknown (ownership or current state is unclear).
1. Business Outcomes and Use Cases
- 01We have defined the business outcomes the platform investment is expected to produce.
- 02Our priority use cases are written at a level that business, data, marketing, analytics, and engineering teams interpret consistently.
- 03Each use case identifies the intended customer or prospect, decision moment, channel, action, and measurable outcome.
- 04Use cases are prioritized based on value, feasibility, data readiness, dependency, and measurement capability.
- 05We have separated foundational capabilities from later-stage optimization use cases.
2. Identity and Profile
- 01We have documented the business meaning and permitted use of each important customer, account, household, device, CRM, and digital identifier.
- 02We have defined how anonymous activity becomes associated with a known profile.
- 03We have established profile-match priority and ambiguous-match behavior.
- 04We have defined what happens when no profile match is available.
- 05Identity, profile-merge, and activation decisions are approved by the appropriate business, data, privacy, and technical owners.
3. Data Foundation
- 01Required source data has an identified system of record and accountable owner.
- 02Required attributes and events have documented business definitions.
- 03Batch, streaming, and real-time requirements are based on the use case rather than a general preference for faster data.
- 04Data-quality rules and validation responsibilities are established.
- 05Consent, privacy, and regulatory constraints are incorporated into data and audience design.
4. Audiences and Activation
- 01Audiences have documented business purpose, ownership, and approval.
- 02Inclusion, exclusion, suppression, and consent rules are defined per audience.
- 03Destinations are authorized per audience with expiration and refresh policies.
- 04Paid and owned activation use consistent campaign, audience, placement, creative, and offer metadata where appropriate.
- 05The organization can distinguish the intended audience, activated audience, matched audience, and reached audience.
5. Decisioning and Journey Orchestration
- 01Decision moments, eligibility, prioritization, and fallback behavior are defined for each real-time use case.
- 02Journey orchestration integrates identity, consent, audience, and channel context.
- 03Next-best-action logic is explicit and testable.
- 04Suppression and holdout behavior is defined for measurement.
- 05Real-time requirements are tied to real-time decisions the business will actually make.
6. Measurement and Attribution
- 01Every priority use case has an approved measurement approach.
- 02Required events, metrics, dimensions, and outcome data are documented before implementation.
- 03Online and offline outcomes can be connected where business measurement requires it.
- 04Campaign, media, audience, decision, and conversion metadata can be analyzed together.
- 05Control groups, holdouts, experimentation, or incrementality are incorporated where appropriate.
7. Operating Model and Delivery
- 01Business, marketing, media, data, analytics, privacy, engineering, vendor, and implementation responsibilities are explicit.
- 02The organization has a process for resolving cross-functional architecture and governance decisions.
- 03Vendors and implementation partners are working from approved business requirements and architecture decisions.
- 04Dependencies, risks, assumptions, and out-of-scope items are maintained visibly.
- 05The roadmap defines decision gates and completion criteria, not only target dates.
Directional interpretation
Count one point for every Yes response.
0–12 Yes responses
Foundational decisions remain unresolved
Establish business, identity, data, governance, activation, and measurement decisions before committing to a broad implementation sequence.
13–24 Yes responses
Partial readiness
Complete a focused readiness assessment and resolve the highest-risk decisions before expanding scope.
25–35 Yes responses
Positioned for detailed architecture and execution
Validate assumptions, confirm implementation ownership, and convert approved requirements into a build-ready backlog.
Warning signs regardless of score
- No executive owner for intended business outcomes
- No approved identity strategy
- Consent considered only after audience or activation design
- Real-time requirements without a defined real-time decision
- Audiences without owners, expiration, or measurement
- Media activation without persistent audience and campaign metadata
- Measurement requirements defined after development
- Vendors operating from different definitions of the use case
- No-match, ambiguous-match, suppression, or fallback behavior left undefined
- Roadmaps based only on platform features rather than business capability
This checklist provides general planning guidance. Actual readiness depends on the organization's objectives, platforms, contractual obligations, data, privacy requirements, architecture, operating model, and implementation scope.
NEED HELP INTERPRETING YOUR READINESS?
Convert readiness signals into resolved decisions.
CME can help identify the decisions, data, governance, and architecture required to move from platform investment to executable transformation.
Adobe Value & Readiness Diagnostic — a focused, fixed-fee engagement. Typical investment: $15,000–$30,000.