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Showing posts with the label CSI

Grilled Pizza, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Continual Improvement

Originally posted on owlpoint.com  August 6, 2020, written by Greg Smith , Director of Service Delivery and Resident Pizza Maker at OwlPoint Like many others, I’ve recently taken up a few “COVID hobbies” to keep me occupied (and sane). After homebrewing a few gallons of root beer, I decided I needed a hobby that didn’t result in such large quantities of food that had to be consumed in a relatively short amount of time. After some thought, I landed on making pizza on the grill as my next hobby attempt. Though I’ve always liked cooking and grilling, I’d never made pizza from scratch before, let alone doing so on the grill. It seemed like it would be finicky and have plenty of opportunities to mess up. But I’ve heard that there’s no such thing as a bad pizza, so I ordered two cast iron skillets from Amazon and set about my new hobby. Normally, when I engage in something new, I research the entirety of Google for hints, tips and what to avoid. After spending a couple of nights researchi

Metrics That Matter to Customers

I was recently asked to elaborate on a previous blog that discussed reducing metrics and reporting on those that matter to customers. In terms of any metrics, especially those that are important to customers, you should always think about or add the phrase “with quality”. Remember that the term “quality” is defined as “conformance to customer requirements”. So all metrics and measurements should ensure the work or actions you perform remains focused on the customer and their needs. Also in terms of how you phrase a metric it can often be more beneficial to measure in terms of increases and decreases rather than specific quantities. Given that, here some metrics that you might think about using: Increased Customer Quality Satisfaction %--perhaps the most important of all metrics Increase First Line Call Resolution [with quality] %--helps reduce costs but also builds perception of preparedness and knowledge in the eyes of the customer Decreased Mean Time to Restore Serv

The Top Benefits of ITIL

Stronger alignment between IT and the business: Historically IT has not been a participant in helping to create business strategies, it was normally in the role of supporting them. Recently, with the speed of innovation impacting businesses position in the marketplace, IT has been playing a greater role in helping to develop that business strategy. The ITIL framework enables IT to act as a service provider and become a core and more strategic part of the business. Pre-defined processes and best practices from the ITIL framework enable businesses to react quickly to today's rapidly changing technology landscape, focus on innovation and ultimately keep customers satisfied. Improved service delivery and customer satisfaction: Event, incident and problem management processes included within the ITIL framework enable businesses to review performance, perform root cause analysis, resolve issues and through problem management, prevent future incidents from occurring and allows us

Continual Service Improvement (CSI) and Survival

The systems, the processes, and the culture that worked for IT service providers 20 years ago will not work in today’s environment.  No big news here!  Most IT support staff will agree. The truth is that the same could be said for systems or methods that service providers used five years ago or even last year.  The dynamic and rapid change of business requirements demands that a service provider be dynamic and continuously adapt to evolving business needs and outcomes. When you get into your car and turn the key or push the start button, most would expect that the car is going to start.  You might also expect that it has wheels, an engine, and all the elements necessary to drive this car, right?   This is the same expectation that a business operation expects.  When a service is provided the business expects that service is going to have all the working elements to ensure that it does what they need. The customer expects that the service is available and secure for day to day oper

CSI and the Communication Plan

Timely and effective communication forms a critical part of any service improvement project. To transform an organization and move people and process from just thinking about Continual Service Improvement (CSI) activities to actually allotting time to be able to performing CSI activities, it is critical that all stakeholders are informed of all changes to the processes, activities, roles and responsibilities. The goal of the communications plan is to build and maintain awareness, understanding, enthusiasm and support among all stakeholders for the CSI initiative. A communication plan is much more than just sending out one notification on what is about to happen and should be a series of notifications and meetings to keep people engaged, informed and passionate while incorporating the ability to deal with responses and feedback from the targeted audience. First, we must design how we will communicate and then we must define what and to whom we will communicate. The pla

Business Relationship Management (BRM)

Business Relationship Management (BRM) is the process and role that allows us, as a service provider, to establish a strategic and tactical relationship with our customers. This will be based on ensuring we understand the customer and the business outcomes they are trying to create and how and what services are engaged by the business to meet those defined goals and objectives. A key activity of the BRM process is to ensure that as business needs change over time, we as a service provider, are able to translate these needs into requirements through the use of a Service Level Requirements document (SLR) which then manifests itself into the portfolio in the form of defined services.  The BRM will assist the business in articulating these requirements and the value of these services that the business places on them. In this way the BRM process is executing one of its critical success factors, which is to safeguard that the customer’s expectations do not exceed what they are

Failing Forward

In the introduction of her book The ITSM Process Design Guide, Donna Knapp writes “In today’s competitive business climate it’s not enough to do things right; Information Technology (IT) organizations have to do the right things right.”  Well what happens when we don’t? Remember New Coke?  Not every decision we make, every new design or redesign we engage in goes according to plan.  What happens when we fail?  One of the most important and most deeply entrenched reasons why established companies struggle to grow is fear of failure. In fact in a 2015 Boston Consulting Group survey, 31% of the respondents identified a risk adverse culture as a key obstacle to innovation. (1)  ITSM processes for strategy, design, transition, operation and CSI are all based on efficiency and effectiveness.  It’s about being in control of our IT environments and that we must do everything we can to prevent failures.  Now this may go against many of our strongly held beliefs but Pixar’s president, Ed Ca

Metrics and Business Value

IT managers gather and distribute metrics that reflect their group’s performance on a regular and timely basis.  But outside of their immediate organizations do these metrics have any real meaning or impact? Do these measurements really define the value that IT is delivering?  Business executives shouldn’t have to work to see the positive impact of IT performance.  It should be made readily visible, in language they can grasp quickly and easily.  In many IT organizations there is a continued focus of their reporting towards the performance of the technology and not the value being delivered to the business.  This emphasis continues to create a gap between IT and the rest of the organization. (1) What metrics do you employ?  Service metrics, measuring the end to end performance of your services, based on your technology metrics.   Technology metrics, performance of your components and applications. Are they available when needed? Do you have the correct levels of capacity to meet d

CSI & Knowledge

Stuart Rance wrote in a blog  “Knowledge only has value when it is available to someone, either because they remember it or because they are guided towards it at the time they need it”.   One of the key elements in support of CSI is Knowledge Management. An organization must continually gather knowledge about its services and support processes in order to look for trends, find improvement opportunities and develop strategies that will move them into the future.  The philosopher and essayist George Santayana wrote,  “Those that cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it”. In today’s reality of increased rates of change, increased employee turnover, increased access to information and greater market completion it is ever more critical to build meaningful knowledge bases that allow an organization can create and capture value by insuring that data, information, knowledge and wisdom are being brought forward to benefit how and what the ITSM organization does to support bus

Managing Across the Lifecycle

As the current IT organization has grown from a provider of technology to the Service Provider of choice we have had to incorporate the principles of service management to ensure that we deliver the outcomes required by our customers.  Given that, we have to ask ourselves a couple of strategic questions: What outcomes are we trying to provide? How do we as a service provider facilitate that? Delivering an outcome based definition of services will allow the IT organization to move beyond just business / IT alignment to towards business / IT integration, which really should have been the goal from the beginning.  Supporting customer / business outcomes should be the ultimate focus of the IT organization thus creating value through the delivery of services. A focus on business outcomes is both a critical and in most cases a cultural shift for IT service providers.  As customer’s preferences and perceptions change over time so does the value statement that a service provider

Continual Service Improvement (CSI) - Thoughts on Measuring, Value and Risk

The best practice approach and the Seven-step Improvement Process for Continual Service Improvement (CSI) begin with identifying the vision, mission, goals and objectives of the business.  In order to measure with appropriate targets these outcomes and objectives must be quantified. If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it.  First and foremost in order to perform ongoing CSI for a service we must identify the service.  That is just common sense right?  Yet how many discussions take place in Sales, in Development, and in Operations about whether something is or is not a service.  Collectively everyone in the lifecycle has a mission to meet the outcomes of the service or services that are being provided.  Measuring and Reporting For CSI to be successful we measure and monitor and report upon a service end-to-end.   When measuring and reporting IT managers will generally report availability in terms of percent with such things as 99% availability on a server or other c

Roadmap

Most executives understand that a business’ performance is only significant when it is benchmarked against its competitors.   As an accepted business best practice it is expected that the functioning of an individual organization will be measured against other like type organizations. This practice of benchmarking oneself against competitors should be no different for any IT organization.   There can be no better instrument to utilize then benchmarking to insure whether the IT operation is providing a competitive product.   Without this peer to peer comparison it would be difficult at best to define if IT’s performance is weak, competitive or an industry leader. Of course in order to benchmark you must first determine are my processes mature enough to ensure that I can gather the significant data needed for this undertaking.  If not then your resources would be better utilized in first assessing your processes maturity through tools such as the ITIL Process Maturity Framework (PMF

WTF? Why the Failure?

Through the implementation of best practices, one of ITSM's critical success factors is to enhance the business' perception of the IT organization.   By creating a service strategy which helps to define good design, encourage effective transition processes and deliver valuable services through efficient and effective operational management, we work hard at making this goal a reality. Unfortunately, IT is often perceived to be ineffective and inefficient.  Recently, the government’s inability to deliver a working website for the affordable care act was splashed all over   news with many of my non-IT friends and family asking, how could this happen?   How come IT people never get it right? I want to respond with “BUT WE DO” and list many of the successes that I have been part of during my career.    But I look at them sheepishly and respond with” I don’t really know”.   As I think about this, I begin to get angry and not just because I’m an American tax payer, but because a

Changing ITSM Seasons

As we approach the fall and winter in the northern hemisphere, the change of seasons makes me think of the whole idea of renewal. This leads me to think about the place of renewal in ITSM—Continual Service Improvement. To make improvement work really well it must be a continuous activity. At a minimum, we should take some time to recognize that ITSM has seasons just like the physical world. Each year as we strive to deliver value to our customers, users and business partners we should think about those seasons. The seasons of the year offer up an opportunity to renew our efforts in ITSM and to bring new life out of the longer-term activities and efforts within our organizations. Just like the need to change a battery in a smoke detector once per year, the “battery” of your ITSM work might need replacement, recharging or renewal. What does renewal of an ITSM implementation or effort look like? Here is a short list of the activities and steps you might take to help your own “renewal”

Are You Ready for Some Football?

It’s that time of year where the kids are heading back to school, the seasons are about to change and YESSS it’s time for the NFL to begin its new season!    The other night I was watching the HBO series NFL Hard Knocks about the Cincinnati Bengals training camp and it dawned on me how much a football organization is similar to an ITSM organization and how they incorporate ITIL best practices in their methodology.   I know you are saying, what the?????? But hear me out and let me show you a few comparisons. Strategic Plan :   Win the Super Bowl and become the world champions.   Well defined, well communicated.   Everyone in the organization understands what the fans ( customers ) want. Strategy defines the perspective, position, plans and patterns that the organization will need to execute to meet its business objectives.   This began at the end of the previous season ( CSI ) as the coaching staff reviewed statistics ( CSF & KPI ) to identify improvement opportunities for the ne

ITSM … We’ve Gone Loopy! [ Part 1 of 2 ]

Feedback Loops Negative and Positive    IT professionals agree that vital information is required in order for a service provider to adapt to the ever changing dynamic needs of the business.   Best practice tells us we should create a culture of ongoing continual service improvement (CSI).   In order to propose strategies for service improvement plans that will allow us to meet the ever changing demands of our customer we need to get a pulse on what is really happening in our internal and external environment.   Taking a SWAG at it is not good enough. Data, information and knowledge are not enough.   A service provider needs to provision the measurement systems that will enable success.   In comes “Feedback Loops”. Negative Feedback loops are positive for ITSM A Negative feedback loop brings you toward your target set point to optimize and sustain an internal stable environment.   An animal maintains homeostasis or a stable body temperature through negative feedback loops.   H

The Best of CSI, Part 4

Kotter's Principle - Head to Heart Originally Published on April 5, 2010 The other day I was researching John P. Kotter’s Eight Steps for Transforming your Organization. This approach for organizational change is discussed in Chapter 8 of the Continual Service Improvement (CSI) book. While I was exploring his website: http://www.kotterinternational.com , I came across one of his principles which discusses how to present your vision for strategic change. Communicating the corporate vision for change out to an organization is a critical success factor for the adoption of IT Service Management. I agree with Kotter’s principle that not only do you have to speak to the “Head” but you have to speak to the “Heart”. I am extremely passionate about ITSM and the benefits of CSI. The following quote from his website really spoke to me: “People change because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings, not because they were given endless amounts of logical data. When changing

The Best of CSI, Part 3

Creating a Metrics Program Originally Published on November 30, 2010 Every organization should create a metrics program to ensure that business and process improvement goals are being achieved. We need to have the ability to show that processes achieve results and we must review and schedule process audits. A metrics program describes the measurements needed to achieve business goals. It also identifies how to collect the data and how to use the information to continually improve performance. An effective program focuses on what you should measure to achieve business goals, individual process performance and process interfaces. Each of the best practice frameworks stress metrics as a way of assuring continual improvement. ITIL defines the "7 Step Process" for identifying, collecting, analyzing and using data.  The Deming Cycle's "Check" stage requires that we have methods for monitoring and measuring processes.  The Balanced Scoreboard looks at performa

The Best of CSI, Part 2

Sustainment Originally Published on August 21, 2012 Performance (noun): The capabilities of a person, process or system, esp. when observed under particular conditions How long can you hold your breath? How fast can you run? How long can you go without food and water? Each of these questions is tied to an understanding of your personal ability to perform. The same holds true of processes and systems. Ultimately a person, process or system can only perform to a peak or optimal level for so long. Energy wanes, process steps get skipped and system elements and components wear down or break. So how do we improve our ability to sustain peak performance? The key is to understand how the person, process or system functions, and understand its limitations and “breaking point”. Once we understand the limits and boundaries of peak performance we can implement Continual Service Improvement approaches to help improve the individual performance of a person, process or system within th

The Best of CSI, Part 1

  We conclude our "Best of" blog series with Continual Service Improvement.   CSI and the 7 Step Improvement Process Originally Published on January 24, 2012 I would like to revisit the 7 step improvement process from the perspective of CSI, since there has been a slight (logical) modification to it.   The concept of measurement, what we measure, gathering the data , processing it into understandable formats and then being able to analyze it, is fundamental in our ability to perform (CSI)   Continual Service   Improvement as an overall vision and in support of the business need and the underpinning of tactical and operational goals. 1. Identify the strategy for improvement: (Plan) Talk to the business, to your customers and to IT management.   Utilize your service catalog and the associated service level requirements to define a starting point.   The question “What is important to the business?” must be answered.   Look to the corporate vision, mission, goals