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 component level. If we can get the end-to-end percentage that
is of course the target. But even if we look at the percentage of the server in
conjunction with the availability of the network, the storage and all of the
other elements in the end-to-end service, IT managers have to shift their
normal way of thinking, monitoring and reporting and reflect results that the
business and all others in the lifecycle can understand. Instead of reporting on percentages, a report
that states that there were two outages this week affecting the ABC service,
resulting in 2,500 orders being delayed at a cost of $$$ is a report that is
generated in terms of the business and business outcomes.
Value
Value
is only realized when the outcomes have been achieved. Each function, each
component and each process activity adds value but is not in and of itself the
“service”. To measure and improve,
service outcomes must be identified and quantified. This gives everyone in the lifecycle a clear
target and direction so that we can begin to work together and break out of our
silos. Identifying services and service
outcomes is needed, but the true value of CSI comes from having a system,
including people, processes and technology for ongoing monitoring, analyzing,
reporting and most importantly taking action to improve on the outcome. CSI must be embedded in an organizations
culture with clear ownership, accountable roles and responsibilities, workflow
and targets. Periodic reports and
reviews will ensure that actions are identified and most importantly taken.
Silos
- CSI – RISK!
Ongoing
Continual Service Improvement can be applied at a very granular or broad
level. Feedback loops are the key to
success. We can measure people, process,
speed, technology and more at every stage and at every level. If we do not take that feedback and align it
with the strategic business initiatives it won’t matter how much you improve at
the local level. Without this alignment it is likely we will miss the mark for required
business outcomes. An IT Director can
work on CSI with his networking team and get that network screaming. It might be the fastest network in the world
but if the application consistently fails the question has to be, how much
time, money and resources were spent on that network? Did the organization really need all of
that? Maybe and maybe not. CSI performed in isolation does not tend to
serve the end result that is needed. The
key is to shift the perspective. Do we
really need to look at how to make the “network” best in the world or should we
look at what we can do at the network level that will improve the end-to-end
value and business outcomes? We could
have the right intention but the wrong objective. CSI efforts are trending in development in
order to produce code deployments faster than ever before. Brilliant!
But, if we increase outrages velocity at the development stage these
improvement efforts are not likely to produce the end result that a service
provider hopes for. Again, is the
objective to have bigger better faster development or is it to produce improved
velocity and throughput to respond to changing business requirements? If it is the later, then perhaps we need to
consider the CSI effort throughout the value stream. Consider your approach and inspire your
organization for ongoing Continual Service Improvement with enthusiasm. Success is possible!
To gain knowledge and certification in Continual
Service Improvement - click here
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