What
is hurting the capability of service providers to design and deliver service at
the rate of speed and at a cost that is viable to the business? I asked a group of IT managers and
practitioners in a recent training class and all agreed on these common causes:
- Lack of upper management strategy and direction.
- Lack of adequate or accurate information
- Resistance to change
- Cultural issues / Agenda’s
- Inadequate funding
I
am sure you can add to this list. Many
service providers are suffering from the same pain. What is causing this? One area that most will agree upon is the
fact that a lot of challenges for a service provider to deliver come from silos. A classic silo and division that some
organizations are addressing are those that exist between development and
operational teams. That will help, but it’s not only siloed teams that are hurting
this industry. It is the fact that ITSM
processes are also siloed. If your
processes and data are siloed even the best of intentions will not result in
the type of business outcomes that are required.
What
is the rate of demand in your organization today vs. a decade ago? Better yet, think about the increase in the
rate of demand in just the last three to five years. The service model that worked a decade ago
will not work in today’s service management world. What else has changed? In addition to demand, service providers must
also meet the challenge of consistently changing business requirements. That’s
another big source of pain for many organizations when in fact, changing
business requirements should be welcomed and encouraged.
So,
what can help? Best practice tells us
that “designing to match the anticipated environment is much more effective and
efficient, but often impossible and therefore service providers need to
consider iterative and incremental approaches to service design. Iterative and incremental
approaches are essential to ensure that services introduced to the live environment
are successfully transitioned. In the
absence of formalized service design, services will often be unduly expensive
to run, prone to failure, resources will be wasted and services will not be
fully aligned to business needs. It is unlikely that any improvement program
will ever be able to achieve what proper design should achieve in the first
place.”
Adopting
and implementing standardized approaches throughout the value stream that
include cross functional teams, integrated processes and integrated tools will
be required for optimized service provisioning. No more Silo’s. A successful service provider will not be
able to afford silos of people, siloed processes or siloed tools when it comes
to designing and delivering services that optimize value.
Changes
in behavior in high performing organizations have created cultural shifts that
allow for self-organizing teams to be adaptable to new approaches, automation
and shifting business requirements. Without
an integrated approach to strategy, design, and delivery, cost-effective
service is not possible. The
ability to gradually shape a new IT organizational culture will play a major
role in a positive DevOps environment.
For
more information:
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