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Post Implementation Review

	Neal Leininger Senior Consultant Veris Associates, Inc.

We've talked about metrics, and the way they drive continual improvement plans, another crucial component of the improvement process is the Post Implementation Review.

This is where all the players assemble, and review, for better or worse; what went well and what went wrong.

In the world of ITSM this is triggered by the Change Manager, after a change has been documented and completed, the Change Manager ensures that a Post Implementation Review is completed.

Enclosed is a "mashup" of the US Airlines Hudson Crash, if you thought the accounts were harrowing, wait until you see what happened in realtime.

Crash Simulator

Credit to Gizmodo


Copyright (c) Veris Associates, Inc. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Comments contents are the opinions of the person posting the comment (commenter) and not necessarily those or endorsed by Veris Associates, Inc. Veris Associates, Inc. reserves the right to remove any and all comments it wishes without any recourse of the commenter. Decision of Veris Associates, Inc. is final.

Metrics

Neal Leininger Senior Consultant Veris Associates, Inc.

You may have seen the posting last week about Google taking on Electricity monitoring: LINK

Personally I think it's a great idea, it takes away the ambiguity of how the utility companies are charging for services at a granular level, and enables transparency for the consumer.

It also spurs the discussion around metrics, without metrics how do you know any given service is performing as advertised, under-performing, or over-performing?

Granted, overcapacity is rarely an issue in the world of IT Service Management, but in practice it can be a goal for success.

There's the old adage of "If you don't measure it, it won't be done."

What are your thoughts around metrics? What are the Key Performance Indicators for your organization? How where they determined? How have they changed your day-to-day tasks?


Comment below or visit us on LinkedIn
you can also find me directly for feedback at : http://www.linkedin.com/in/neall



Copyright (c) Veris Associates, Inc. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Comments contents are the opinions of the person posting the comment (commenter) and not necessarily those or endorsed by Veris Associates, Inc. Veris Associates, Inc. reserves the right to remove any and all comments it wishes without any recourse of the commenter. Decision of Veris Associates, Inc. is final.

Tactical Failure, Strategic Success

	Neal Leininger Senior Consultant Veris Associates, Inc.

It has been written on numerous sites, the challenges of implementing ITIL, the "true" cost, and the "true" return on investment.

In our newsletter a few weeks ago, I mentioned how technology has shaped everyday events, like the "Miracle on the Hudson" of Flight 1549 with Captain Sullenberger at the helm. Not only was it the outcome that was amazing, but so were the "Lessons Learned" of what went right.

This is an example of how planning and paying the costs are not only a short term improvement, but in the long term, the cost of NOT DOING IT are far greater.

Without decades of safety engineering, and black box engineering, not only would they have lost many lives, but they wouldn't have known what went well or failed.

So it goes in IT, without proper processes and procedures, when disaster strikes, it may well still be a disaster, but through the toil and hardship of prior improvements, you will have the tools and wherewithall to recover and hopefully show the steady hand that Captain Sullenberger exhibited.

So in closing, never forget the price of not improving your craft, be it Flying a Jet, or Flying an IT Department.

Disaster will strike, and there will be tactical failures. Help your IT Service Management organization ensure a Strategic Success.

Below is an excerpt of the CBS Special with Katie Couric




Can you say "Mayday" with a calm voice to your CEO?




Comment below or visit us on LinkedIn
you can also find me directly for feedback at : http://www.linkedin.com/in/neall




Copyright (c) Veris Associates, Inc. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Comments contents are the opinions of the person posting the comment (commenter) and not necessarily those or endorsed by Veris Associates, Inc. Veris Associates, Inc. reserves the right to remove any and all comments it wishes without any recourse of the commenter. Decision of Veris Associates, Inc. is final.

Incorporating IT Service Management: Digging In The Right Place

Cheryl Croce Sr. Consultant Veris Associates, Inc.

As I pored through research on IT trends, the economic impact on those trends and the forecasts over the past few months, a line from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark kept popping into my head:

“They’re digging in the wrong place!”

For those of you who have not seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, everyone in the movie is in a race to find the Well of Lost Souls, which houses the Lost Ark, which contains power that would be useful to any army. (Bear with me.) In order to so, they had to have the map to the Well of Lost Souls, which was inscribed on a medallion. The villains in the movie did not get the medallion; however one of their henchmen had the information burned on his hand from trying to grasp it in a fire-encapsulated building. The problem with the approach: he only had half of the information. The medallion had location information on both sides and, as a result, the baddies exhausted resources and man hours by digging in the wrong place.

It’s the same thing with the implementation of IT Service Management.

In today’s market, many IT organizations have embarked on the multiple-year investment it takes to implement IT Service Management so they may improve their quality of service to their business customers. Many of those IT teams focused solely on functions, processes and services.

While it increases the IT organization’s service delivery maturity, this approach is still missing an important component. The biggest oversight is the lack of organizational adoption of the compulsory cultural changes associated with executing the ITIL framework as part of IT Service Management.

How does an IT organization successfully incorporate IT Service Management practices into their way of working? How does it dig in the right place?

• Foster Cultural Awareness. When IT Service Management models are adopted, IT becomes a strategic asset during times of growth and economic downturns. IT Service Management is a culture, not a project. It is not only important for the IT organization to understand this, but it is also critical for the departments they serve (HR, Sales, Marketing, Finance, Purchasing) to know this, too.
  
• Talk is Good. While the ITIL framework provides a common IT language, understanding business-speak is equally important in securing the cultural adoption of IT Service Management. It is important for an IT organization to be well-versed in both IT Service Management processes and sound business management practices.
  
• Conversations are Better. By having conversations – be they round tables, strategy sessions, departmental meetings or social network discussions - IT organizations will have a better understanding of the Businesses they serve. They will drive their service strategies and service development, and will continually improve their existing functions, processes and services.
  
• Understand the Definition of ‘Value.’ An IT organization may have excellent subject matter experts, solid processes, standardized tools and defined measurements and metrics, but all of that means little to the customers they serve if it doesn’t demonstrate value to them. By doing so, IT will be able to capitalize, exploit and maintain their functions, processes and services to meet existing and forecasted business needs.
  
• Use a Lifecycle Approach. IT organizations further enhance its strategic value to its business customers by employing a Service Management lifecycle approach. In this manner, the IT organization embraces a business and IT alignment through the use of ITIL’s Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, and Service Operations best practices. In addition, ITIL’s Continual Service Improvement ensures IT isn’t resting on its laurels. It provides an IT team with the ability to create meaningful internal and customer-focused metrics and helps it provide purposeful and powerful reporting for management and executives.
  

IT Service Management is a discipline for the efficient and effective management of information technology systems, philosophically centered on the customer's perspective of IT's contribution to the business. It is a culture, not a project, and provides sustainability to IT’s relationship with the business. By digging in the right place - looking beyond tools, templates and technology and seeing the cultural and business impact IT Service Management will have -IT organizations will be able to function effectively and get arms around their current operations.

Copyright (c) Veris Associates, Inc. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Comments contents are the opinions of the person posting the comment (commenter) and not necessarily those or endorsed by Veris Associates, Inc. Veris Associates, Inc. reserves the right to remove any and all comments it wishes without any recourse of the commenter. Decision of Veris Associates, Inc. is final.

Getting Control of IT Shared Services - Utility Services Part 1

Cheryl Croce Sr. Consultant Veris Associates, Inc.

In this first article of a series of five, the author explores how to relieve three of the nine common pain points associated with Infrastructure request fulfillment. By doing so, companies can transform infrastructure request fulfillment from a checklist activity to an organizational strategic asset – request fulfillment as a utility service.

Start at the Beginning! Making Requests Make Sense

Did you ever notice it’s the little things that create the biggest impact? That’s the way our clients and prospective customers feel when it comes to Infrastructure Request Fulfillment.

In general, we know we must conduct thorough analyses, provide cost justifications and maintain the allotted budgets for larger projects. However, it’s the requests that stem from daily operational needs and organizational growth that come as the big surprise at the end of the budget year - things for which project allocations do not account.

The IT Pain Points

In the white paper, The Games We Play: Conquering the Challenge of IT Request Fulfillment, we identified the following common pain points Infrastructure teams and management experience when it comes to request fulfillment:

Shock to the System: The multiple ways in which Infrastructure teams receive requests - e-mails, telephone calls, taps on the shoulder, and help desk tickets.

“Needs” Brain Freeze: When customers forget there might be rules when they want it and they want it now.

Request Definition Wish Bone: Many customers don’t get what they want or need, because the requirements of the request were not collected or provided.

Purchasing Apple: That lump in your throat may be the realization you’ve overspent on purchases for equipment and third-party services.

Spare Parts: You didn’t realize you had the part already in stock. Or, there’s a part you’ve purchased that’s gone bad and you have no idea where you’ve installed it or what the serial number is for it.

“Architect’s” Elbow: Your technical team’s elbow grease is gone, because they’ve expended it. And you have no idea how, when or why. Change Management is missing from the equation.

Testing Butterflies in the Stomach: Testing is such a fundamental activity within System Development Lifecycle, because in general there are test labs. That’s not the case a lot of times with infrastructure related requests. So, a “let’s try this and hope it works” approach may be used when rolling new components into production.

Writing Communications Cramp: As much as we are connected (you might be reading this on your BlackBerry device or iPhone), it’s interesting we’re still not communicating.

Broken Hearts All Around: Customers look at the end result and say, “That’s not what I wanted. Now what do we do?” And when they say “we” they really mean you, which equates to re-work and exhausted, cranky staff.

Perhaps some of you now are nodding your heads, as these items may look familiar to you. Share your experiences with us: What have you seen in your workplace?

Most IT teams are deluged with requests through different means, and a lot of times this concept is not acknowledged. For example, when we interviewed individuals at a client site about how requests were received, we heard different responses. The CIO told us all requests came through the company’s help desk system. The staff members, on the other hand, told us they received requests not only from the help desk system, but also by e-mail, phone call, taps on the shoulder, hallway conversations, and internal meetings with their IT counterparts.

The Requests Cometh

The requests obtained outside the help desk ticket system are often quickly scribbled on post-it notes and in notebooks.

This ad-hoc repository causes three issues:

Inability to Prioritize Work is Shocking! Managers have no true view of where their team members are engaged, and therefore they assume they are free for major projects. As a result, managers didn’t understand why they have low morale or higher turnover, and team members are frustrated their managers don’t understand how to prioritize the workloads to meet customers’ demands.

We Know You Want It Now, But Is the Request Valid? Then there’s the question of whether a request is valid at all. We live in an “I want it now” society. We blink and technology is obsolete. We blink and our company has decided to go in a different direction. Now. Not tomorrow. Not when you can get to it. But now. That’s a difficult expectation to manage for IT. IT is a multiple personality. There’s the side of IT that needs to maintain its architectural integrity and protect its structure from changes that do not make sense for the environment. Then there’s the other side where customer service and fulfilling customer needs is inherent. How do you say no when clearly a request is a square peg in a round hole?

Request Definition - What Was That Middle Part? When IT team members are eventually able to get to the requests recorded outside the help desk system, they generally remember the broad scope of the request. However, there’s only so much memory can provide in terms of understanding what the requirements are. Depending on where the request came from and from whom, team members may be less inclined to go back to ask questions and instead, knock the request off their list of things to do. The end result of this approach is low customer satisfaction.

Fixing the Pain Points

How do you fix these pain points? We recommend the following:

Start At The Beginning. Establish a single point of entry into your request fulfillment process. No exceptions.

3 Es - Educate, Empower and Evangelize. At Veris Associates, we love how a good process can make a difference in a customer’s way of working. However, we also acknowledge process isn’t worth a hill of beans if you haven’t incorporated it into an IT organization’s and customer’s culture. Once you’ve established a single point of entry, educate your IT staff – including the CIOs, Directors, and Managers – about the single point of entry. IT Leadership will need to provide customers with communications on this expectation, especially if it is a new concept. As part of this awareness campaign, IT team members must be empowered to steer customers to the single point of entry.

Remove the Square Peg From The Round Hole. As part of the single point of entry, you may want to add questions to help you determine if a request is valid. For example: Is this request tied to a project cost code? Does this request tie to a business objective? Do you have funding? What is the business need? Do you have business and IT Senior Leadership approval?

Talk to Your Customers – They Won’t Bite! You want to know how to mend a customer’s broken heart? TLC – Talking. Learning. Communicating. Time and time again, we see top ten lists come out stating one of the top challenges IT faces is communication with the business. With the single point of entry, a need has been identified by your customers. This is your opportunity to start the conversation and gather information on what the customer wants and needs. If what they need doesn’t align with what was requested, you as the IT expert have the knowledge to provide them with alternative solutions. In the end, your customers appreciate it. You and your team will have a clearer understanding of what’s needed to fulfill their requests.

Make sure you grab a copy of our latest whitepaper: Games We Play - Utility Services with Veris. Simply register and the whitepaper will be sent to you.

Copyright (c) Veris Associates, Inc. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Comments contents are the opinions of the person posting the comment (commenter) and not necessarily those or endorsed by Veris Associates, Inc. Veris Associates, Inc. reserves the right to remove any and all comments it wishes without any recourse of the commenter. Decision of Veris Associates, Inc. is final.

ITIL & ISO/IEC 20000

Ron Przywara ITIL Certified Consultant IT Service Management Veris Associates, Inc.

I recently received certification for ISO/IEC 20000 at the Foundations (introductory) level and the Professional level for the Management and Improvement of IT Service. My experiences in Service development and implementation for clients and the fun I’ve had teaching ITIL during the past 12 years gives me a great view of the benefits of both.

For example:
The common focus of “Change Management” in ISO 20K & ITIL. Both drive the focus on formal authorization of change based on an understanding of risk and resource scheduling. ISO 20K takes Change to another level. There are requirements for communications plans for the various audiences (which must be identified). Specific requirements for reporting the performance of the Change process. In ITIL, there are guidelines for these, yes, but ISO 20K “requires” these communications and proof they take place consistently.

ITIL & the ISO 20K designation can initially appear very similar – the IT Service Management focus, the core processes (Incident, Change, Problem, etc.), having roles and responsibilities laid out.

The first difference is ISO 20K requires your organization to clearly demonstrate not only a process exists, but it is being followed. That means evidence. The second difference is ISO 20000 includes governance and management requirements. The ITIL framework alludes to the need for the accountability and quality control components of governance and service management, particularly in the updated “ITIL v3” lifecycle approach.

Quick view: Start using the ITIL framework to create and implement how your IT organization develops and delivers IT Services. Once your teams are driving repeatable, measureable processes to provide services, look the ISO/IEC 20000 specification to fine-tune the quality and efficiencies of IT Service Management. It’s not a “one or the other” choice.

More to come…


Copyright (c) Veris Associates, Inc. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Comments contents are the opinions of the person posting the comment (commenter) and not necessarily those or endorsed by Veris Associates, Inc. Veris Associates, Inc. reserves the right to remove any and all comments it wishes without any recourse of the commenter. Decision of Veris Associates, Inc. is final.