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I have been thinking about Carol’s and IT Skeptic’s comments about PM (and have read the thread he pointed me to, and an awful lot more) and I still think this comes down to a simpler notion. We have a yawning, enormous gap in most IT organizations between Design and Operations, in many cases cast in stone through outsourcing deals to different entities with no aligned targets or shared accountability. This creates the hot potato issue with which so many of us are familiar, and which really drives my interest in service transition, and particularly in placing Early Life Support (ELS) firmly in the hands of Release and Deployment Management. It is in fact the job of PM to manage the SUCCESSFUL transition of their project deliverables (which we’ll assume to be a new or changed service) into the live environment, and to support it until
1) The service is accepted by the customer AND
2) The service is meeting its designated service levels (this implies successful event mgmt, operational monitoring and reporting, and other operational readiness capabilities that really should be flushed out more as part of testing and validation activities).
Project Management (and Software Development Lifecycle Mgmt, but that’s another article) need to be able to coordinate service design and transition activities, and I would liken it to the approach ITIL takes with functions. PM necessarily coordinates across all the activities in service design and transition…based on the scope of their project. Process team leads perform activities across multiple projects in support of process goals and objectives (which should map to project goals around, for example, functional and non-functional (or warranty!) requirements).
The actual ITIL books don’t in fact describe exactly how to run projects (and rightfully leave this for the complementary guidance), but like a similar discussion currently on one of the LinkedIn threads about how ITIL leaves appropriate space for governance models (can anyone say CObIT), it really does so for PM as well, leaving flexibility needed to encompass large programs and small projects alike, while still providing a core set of building blocks needed to build a good service.
I’d like to hear from all of you…where do you see the big gaps, and what are your recommendations for addressing them? If you were writing ITIL 4.0, what would you add/remove/change to improve the efficacy of the guidance?
If you look at the descriptions of Critical Success Factors associated with ITSM adoptions, the first one on almost any list is Management Commitment.
Sounds good…until you try to figure out exactly what that means…
Management Commitment is more than just the willingness to train people, or buy software, or even have big Communications strategies about how important ITIL is…it’s the willingness to BE committed. The best way to actually measure this is willingness to sign up for roles like process and service owners. In order to ask for accountability from IT teams and to employ meaningful governance and oversight of Service Management, the senior managers (with enough authority to enforce commitments) must be willing to commit themselves as well. IT staff notice when senior teams make real commitments, and will align their efforts accordingly.
I recently watched a short promotional video from one of the major ITSM vendors (I’ll protect the guilty, but you can find it quickly if you look). It depicts a CIO describing the value of Business Service Management, and includes a roundtable with his senior IT staff. Ironically, the copy from the video is more typical than ever.
“I think we should tell the IT staff about the commitments I made on their behalf, so they know what I need them to do.”
Can’t get buy-in that way!
If you want IT organizations to commit to Service Management, IT leadership has to commit itself to processes like Service Level Management, which prevent “free lunch” behaviors and encourage the business to work cooperatively with its customers to evaluate evolving requirements against achievable targets. This involves listening to both clients and IT teams, and working to establish collaboration that focuses on the business value of the outcome, not only “do more with less.”
CIOs need to focus on business outcomes, and then work closely with their teams to support the optimal level of service to meet those needs, balancing cost/value. Taking specific service ownership of a key business service (perhaps, say, an online marketplace critical to sales growth) and taking specific accountability for service outcomes related to that service will raise the game a great deal, and drive the interest in metrics, continual service improvement, and ultimately business results. Once a CIO signs up for the most mission-critical one him- or herself, it’s a lot easier to get other senior managers to sign up for other services, and really establish cross-functional “service views” of the world.
Management Commitment is good talk, but, most of the time, talk is cheap. If you want to see results, demand real commitment, and real action. It will help you dramatically improve your results!
I’m currently helping to support a large scale introduction of the ITIL processes (at least some of them) to a large military organization. While there is a lot of focus on the blocking and tacking around processes, supporting tools, and the like, it never seems to amaze me how every one of these adoptions are really exercises in managing organizational change. Perhaps the most important role on your ITSM team is the role of the Communications Manager, because they have to really drive both the client organization and the project team through Kotter’s 8 steps to Organizational Change,
The fundamental reality of life is that people resist change for survival reasons. I know how to survive today. If you change something, I might not know how to survive tomorrow. So I resist. If change is forced upon me, I will adapt, lessening the pain (by not complying) where possible.
In an organizational context, this is a recipe for disaster. If you wish to be successful in your project, you must be successful in creating buy-in and real commitment from the customer. This is very simply a game of WIIFM (What’s In It for Me?). For every stakeholder, you MUST understand the WIIFM, and communicate (again, and again, and again) and get buy-in to that to gain the trust and commitment of that stakeholder. Many times, this isn’t a process issue, or a tool issue, but a political one. What are they winning? What are they perceived to be losing? How do we maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of the change (sound familiar?)
Today’s post really is meant to remind all of us (myself very much included) why ITIL and IT service management matter. 20 years ago, if my email service went down, hardly anyone even noticed (On my BITNET account, I probably could send e-mail to about 5 people). Now, an e-mail outage can disrupt world commerce (ask anyone who has a Blackberry). Over the last 20 years or so, IT has transformed from a nice-to-have business enhancement to truly a utility – something that is basic and mandatory to operate virtually any aspect of a business.
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The basis for IT service provider organizations to deliver better value to their business customers begins with creating a “service culture.” Service culture is much more pervasive than a simple “customer service” perspective; it pervades what we do, how we do it, why we do it, and provides the fundamental basis for how to establish more efficient and more effective IT organizations.
Senior IT and business executives, IT management, staff, consultants, project managers, business liaisons and others interested in learning about IT Service Management.
Patrick von Schlag
Mr. von Schlag has more than 25 years of real-world experience managing IT and business organizations. He has served as a consultant, facilitator, and instructor in support of more than 200 ITSM program deployments, with a focus on practical benefits. He holds all 11 ITIL 2011 certifications and runs an accredited learning consultancy focused on Making ITIL Work ™ in real organizations. His customer list includes The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Nike, Sears, US Marine Corps, US Army, US Air Force, 2nd and 5th Fleet US Navy, DISA, IRS, Federal Reserve, The Hartford, Citigroup, Amgen, Los Angeles County, Port of Long Beach, GDIT, Accenture, Serco, Deloitte, and hundreds of other market-leading companies.
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This consultant-led, in-depth training and mentoring course is an effective way to introduce an executive management team to the concepts, relationships and benefits of an IT Service Management program using well-accepted IT frameworks, methods and standards.
During the program the participants discuss IT Service Management goals and objectives, service lifecycle management, process objectives, activities, procedures and work instruction development, tool alignment, policy development, relationships, key benefits and critical success factors.
Delivery Format: Instructor-led or Webinar
Senior IT and business executives, IT management, staff, consultants, project managers, business liaisons and others interested in learning about IT Service Management.
2 days
None, although Foundations certification facilitates conversation and planning activities.
None
Each student will receive a workbook.
ITIL Orientation
ITIL Foundations
Patrick von Schlag
Mr. von Schlag has more than 25 years of real-world experience managing IT and business organizations. He has served as a consultant, facilitator, and instructor in support of more than 200 ITSM program deployments, with a focus on practical benefits. He holds all 11 ITIL 2011 certifications and runs an accredited learning consultancy focused on Making ITIL Work ™ in real organizations. His customer list includes The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft, Nike, Sears, US Marine Corps, US Army, US Air Force, 2nd and 5th Fleet US Navy, DISA, IRS, Federal Reserve, The Hartford, Citigroup, Amgen, Los Angeles County, Port of Long Beach, GDIT, Accenture, Serco, Deloitte, and hundreds of other market-leading companies.
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