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Showing posts with the label Continual Improvement

Filling the Process and Framework Skills Gap

By Donna Knapp For many organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed one of two ends of a spectrum: poorly defined processes, or overly-rigorous processes. At either end of the spectrum, these organizations likely struggled to adapt as the pandemic impacted our lives. For those with poorly defined processes, things were probably pretty chaotic. For those with overly-rigorous processes, things were most certainly taking way too long. Even organizations with well-defined processes felt, and continue to feel, pressure to speed up the flow of work, minimize toil, and automate processes where possible. To do this, they must develop a culture of continuous improvement and learning. Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to improve all aspects of an organization; its people, processes, tools, products, services, and experiences… all of which are tightly integrated. Whether improvements are large or small, what matters most is that they are constant. The highest performing organizations a

The ITIL® Maturity Model

Most organizations, especially service management organizations, strive to improve themselves. For those of us leveraging the ITIL® best practices, continual improvement is part of our DNA. We are constantly evaluating our organizations and looking for ways to improve. To aid in our improvement goals and underscore one of the major components of the ITIL Service Value System , Continual Improvement .   AXELOS has updated the ITIL Maturity Model and is offering new ITIL Assessment services. This will enable organizations to conduct evaluations and establish baselines to facilitate a continual improvement program. A while back I wrote an article on the importance of conducting an assessment . I explained the need to understand where you are before you can achieve your improvement goals. Understanding where you are deficient, how significant gaps are from your maturity objectives, and prioritizing which areas to focus on first are key to successfully improving. One method many organi

WHY become an ITIL Strategic Leader

Guest Host Post by Jeff Jensen , previously posted on Jeff's Blog , February 23, 2021 I thought it would be valuable for me to share my own personal thoughts on what you will be able to do differently or better as a result of investing your time and money in becoming an ITIL 4 certified Strategic Leader : ITIL 4 Foundation WHY this class is worthwhile ITIL 4 Foundation introduces a brand new framework and concepts to reflect modern ways of working while providing guidance on how an IT organization can both position itself as a high-performing organization and improve its products, services, and underpinning practices and capabilities.  The class introduces the Service Value System, which is a systems thinking framework t hat is foundational for showing how an organization can visualize the end-to-end delivery for current state products and services, as well as utilize the guidance as a means to improve. This class is also the foundational basis of more advanced learning in the IT

Shifting Sands - Minimum Viable – What is it Really?

For high performing IT providers, the sands are shifting. If you are getting certified in ITIL 4 , DevOps , or Agile Service Management you hear that we have to “Think BIG and ACT small!”. Minimum Viable Products and Minimum Viable Processes (MVP) are on the move. Historically, IT organizations delivered products and processes into production with huge batch runs or the big bang approach. This method is fraught with issues, escalations, and constant firefighting. These large releases are tightly managed, governed from the highest levels, and require participation from all parts of the organization. The days of large batch runs that take months to create and war rooms staffed 24×7 for weeks before and after the release, have given way to small incremental deployments. In comes Minimum Viable Products/Processes:  High performing organizations know that deployments that deliver value to the consumer fast are required. The idea is not to stage, stage, stage until you have a huge batch

ITIL 4 Guiding Principles – Keep It Simple

Keeping it Simple is one step towards creating a world where people get up in the morning and are inspired to go to work and love to do the work that they do. The more complex something is, the more there are ways for it to go wrong. We as an industry of service providers must become educated and stop the insanity! Getting the education and the certification is a wonderful first step but once qualified we must adapt those learnings to make it simple and “Keep IT Simple”  “Keep it Simple”, one of the seven ITIL 4 Guiding Principles is a topic we have written about many times over the years.  It is anything but simple. We must acknowledge that IT services are comprised of many complex systems and if there is a way to make them even more complex IT Professionals in general seem to have that idea down to an ART.  So; How did we get that way. Business requirements are dynamic and are consistently evolving even as you read this line. Over a period of years and in ma

Adapting ITIL V3 Processes to ITIL 4 – Practices for the REAL WORLD!

One of the leading questions following the release of ITIL 4 is “How do I Transition from ITIL V3 to ITIL 4?   Which translates to, how do you proceed to adapt existing processes to the new way of working?  The answer is… ITIL 4 for ITIL 4. What? That’s right! ITIL 4 has the best practice for “adapting” and might I include “accelerating” the ITSM processes that you have in play today. Below is an outline of principles, concepts and precepts from ITIL 4 guidance that will help. Ongoing Continual Improvement has always been a best practice. Therefore: How do you proceed to adapt existing processes to the new way of working? Each is discussed here at a very high level. First and foremost, START WHERE YOU ARE!  Continual Improvement - ITIL 4 is the next logical progression of your improvement cycle. Business Requirements are dynamic and therefore we must be dynamic in order to provision for evolving business and customer needs. We must be responsive (Agile) and ensure “S