Skip to main content

New Moon on the Rise

Image
By
What is a new moon? It is the phase of the moon where the moon is rising but not yet visible from the earth. For us, a new moon is definitely rising. It may not be visible but it is definitely here with BYOD, virtualization, shadow IT and cloud computing.   And that moon is demanding that we examine our practices in order to improve Time to Value.

You may have heard a lot about the cultural and collaborative movement called DevOps.  Some service providers are making the DevOps vision a reality by focusing on improving their cadence - the rhythmic flow of something as it moves forward, such as software development or complex projects. 

Agile service management and DevOps strive to improve the cadence between three main players in the value stream:

Cadence of the Business
Business demand is dynamic and the rate of speed is increasing. The business needs a cadence that is able to meet their accelerated requirements.  Lisa Schwartz in a recent webinar from ITSM Academy described the business as a  “Jaguar”.  The picture is lean, fierce and most importantly super fast!

Cadence of Development and Design
In the past, development was perceived to slow the business down with their waterfall approach and extensive work in progress.  Agile and Lean best practices have helped to speed things up and improve the cadence between the business and development - but it still isn't enough.  The flow of work between Dev and Ops still suffers from significant bottlenecks and constraints.

Cadence of Service Operation
The business is trying to move super fast and development is getting in step with the business via Agile/Scrum practices.  Operations has taken substantive steps to improve by implementing service management processes.  However, in order to improve end-to-end cadence, those service management processes need to become more agile.  It may be the gap between development and operation processes that is the core constraint that is affecting the entire organization's cadence.

A new moon is on the rise and it is rising quickly.  Ongoing competitive advantage may be largely dependent on the smooth flow of work within the value stream.  Adoption of guidance from frameworks such as ITIL, ISO, Lean and Agile will certainly help.  However, it is the cultural emphasis of DevOps that may prove to actually improves cadence.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Four Service Characteristics

By
Recently I came across several articles by researchers and experts that laid out definitions and characteristics of services. ITIL provides us with a definition that can help drive the creation of value-laden services: A means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks. An area that ITIL is not so clear is in terms of service characteristics. Several researchers and experts put forth that services have four basic characteristics (IHIP): Intangibility—Services are the results of actions not things. They have no physical presence and represent a logical set of elements. One way to think of service is “work done for others.”  Heterogeneity—Also known as “variability”; services are unique items because of the mechanisms used to deliver services, which is people. Because the people element adds variability, the service is variable. This holds true, especially for the value proposition—not eve...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Is A Service Offering?

By
The ITIL 4 Best Practice Guidance defines a “Service Offering” as a description of one or more services designed to address the needs of a target customer or group.   As a service provider, we can’t stop there!   We must know what the contracts of our service offering are and be able to put them into context as required by the customer.     Let’s explore the three elements that comprise a Service Offering. A “Service Offering” may include:     Goods, Access to Resources, and Service Actions 1. Goods – When we think of “Goods” within a service offering these are the items where ownership is transferred to the consumer and the consumer takes responsibility for the future use of these goods.   Example of goods that are being provided in the offering – If this is a hotel service then toiletries or chocolates are yours to take with you.   You the consumer own these and they are yours to take with you.      ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The New Four Ps of Service Management

By
By Donna Knapp For years, people , process , and technology (PPT) was a widely recognized framework for balancing and integrating the components needed to achieve optimal performance and outcomes. In the ITIL v3 Service Design publication, this framework was expanded to the four Ps: people , processes , products , and partners . ITIL 4 has further expanded and evolved this framework to the four dimensions of service management. These four dimensions are collectively critical to the effective and efficient facilitation of value for customers and other stakeholders in the form of products and services. The four dimensions of service management are: Organizations and people Information and technology Partners and suppliers Value streams and processes. These four dimensions represent perspectives which are relevant to the whole service value system (SVS), including the entirety of the service value chain and all ITIL practices. Each ITIL practice is a set of organizational resources base...
Post a Comment
Read more