I was recently asked this question... "Say an RFC is submitted between Mon - Fri and the CAB is on a Tuesday the following week. We are finding the following issues. 1. The approvals within the ServiceNow workflow have not been approved by individuals within the RFC workflow, for example, the architecture or security team. 2. Due to a delay in approvals not being actioned by individuals by the time of the weekly CAB the change implementation dates need to be postponed and rescheduled until all approvals have been completed and change Comms sent out. How can the above 2 issues be addressed?" Addressing the issues related to the approval delays in the change management process could involve several strategies: Improving Approval Turnaround Time Automated Reminders and Escalations Automated Reminders : Configure ServiceNow to send automated reminders to approvers at set intervals. These reminders should escalate in urgency the closer it gets to the CAB meeting. Es

Originally posted on DevClass , June 22,2021 written by Joseph Martins and sponsored by Axelos Experience is everything when it comes to delivering IT-enabled products and services. But it’s no longer about how many deadlines your team smashed, how often you’d exceeded service-level agreements (SLAs), or how many lines of code you’ve spat out. Rather it’s about how the services and products you deliver impact the rest of the organisation’s ability to do their jobs, increase productivity, deliver customer satisfaction and co-create value. “Experience” may be seen as subjective, even ephemeral, compared to the traditional IT metrics, deadlines and SLAs. But if you want proof of its importance, consider how ITIL® 4, the latest revision of the best practice framework for service management from AXELOS, focuses on improving user experience of digital services and how this enhances productivity right across the organisation. Ian Aitchison , VP Product Management at Nexthink, the leader in di

Originally posted on devclass.com, June 22, 2021 and written by Joseph Martins. Sponsored Experience is everything when it comes to delivering IT-enabled products and services. But it’s no longer about how many deadlines your team smashed, how often you’d exceeded service-level agreements (SLAs), or how many lines of code you’ve spat out. Rather it’s about how the services and products you deliver impact the rest of the organisation’s ability to do their jobs, increase productivity, deliver customer satisfaction and co-create value. “Experience” may be seen as subjective, even ephemeral, compared to the traditional IT metrics, deadlines and SLAs. But if you want proof of its importance, consider how ITIL® 4, the latest revision of the best practice framework for service management from AXELOS, focuses on improving user experience of digital services and how this enhances productivity right across the organisation. Ian Aitchison, VP Product Management at Nexthink, the leader in digital

Are your service-desk customers sitting in 9C? When customers evaluate your service, do they remember the experience or the statistics? What does that mean for modern IT management? Well, there is a better way to measure. It is called Experience Management. It is an evolution and next level of maturity above that of traditional Service Management. A while back, I read a book called From Worst to First written by Gordon Bethune, the former CEO of Continental Airlines. He led the management team hired to turn around the airline after two bankruptcies and ten CEOs in ten years—clearly a challenging assignment. Gordon, along with his team, established a clear plan to turn around the company. They made remarkable changes that took the airline from worst (in almost all categories) to first in just a few years. Greg Brenneman, the COO, wrote a brief article in Harvard Business Review describing the turnaround  read here . This story is personal to me. I lived near one of Continental’s hubs, s

As the pace of technological innovation increases and digital disruption becomes the norm, the need to adapt and accelerate IT service management (ITSM) processes is more critical than ever. It’s no longer a debate about whether ITSM and DevOps should interface; ITSM professionals must now understand how the practices they use to co-create value can either support or undermine the flow of work and pervasive automation in a DevOps environment. It’s easy to understand why ITSM professionals are skeptical about DevOps. ITSM performance metrics and service level agreements (SLAs) often revolve around the IT organization’s ability to mitigate risks, minimize impact, and “guarantee” availability. While these measures have value, sacrificing speed, agility, and innovation can negatively impact the business. Even with the evolution to ITIL 4 , the what and why of ITSM haven’t changed. A customer-focused culture in which everyone understands how they contribute to the co

Our friends over at CitrusCollab shared this really interesting case study: Improving IT service outsourcing experience: The magic of bringing XLAs™ & SLAs together Business Situation A regional utility company with 10,000 employees was ending a first time, multi-year IT infrastructure outsourcing contract with a well-known, sizeable India-based outsourcer. At the termination of the contract, the client was extremely unhappy with: the lack of service quality, the lack of promised innovation and cost reductions, the poor employee experience with the technical services delivery quality, the unacceptable governance experience with the management of disputes and issues, the ineffectiveness of financial penalties as a lever to obtain service performance improvements.  CitrusCollab consultants assisted in the outsourcing contract rebid process. We created several Employee Experience Level Agreements (XLA*) to augment the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the new IT Infrastructur

The risk is below the water and we are headed right towards it. Organizational Transformations, Business Transformations and IT Transformations are all at their very core really CULTURE Transformations!  Ok friends, I’ve loaded this one up. For a deeper dive into some of the topics addressed in this blog, be sure to click on the embedded­­ links provided. Culture must be considered to Drive Stakeholder Value - This is POWERFUL! Think about how a culture shift  enables the following: Mapping the customer journey with all touchpoints and interactions. You can potentially map the customer journey and map the stakeholder’s roles and responsibilities brilliantly, but what about the cultural shift to enable these stakeholders? Without it we will likely fall short of our goals. If we have any hope of converting demand into value via IT-enabled services – culture is key!  Properly designing XLAs , SLAs and meaningful measurement models.  Without culture, the risk is high t

It is a new day! The world of IT has changed from solely provisioning technology and services to actually being integral in the fulfillment of all business operations. It is time for staff and leaders to learn, get certified, evolve and most importantly to move forward with XLAs . As the climate of business operation changes it makes sense (or should make sense) that the way we measure and fulfill the provisioning of services must evolve to meet new challenges. This does not mean that SLAs are gone and XLAs are taking over. They can co-exist! Traditional Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are sometimes rigid and can be restrictive in a world where the ability to shift and change with dynamic business needs are prevalent. Many of you can relate to those organizations that are meeting and exceeding SLAs only to find Customer Satisfaction (C-Sat) Scores are tanking. Internally the staff celebrate while the organization loses market share! There is still a place for SLAs in the world

That is not a typo!   Alan Nance of CitrusCollab recently spoke about The Anatomy of an XLA in an ITSM Academy webinar.   I learned that the days of SLAs are behind us and the future lies with digital experience and eXperience Level Agreements (XLAs).  If this is the first time you have heard of XLAs then this is a sticky-note moment.    By that I mean; find a sticky note, and write down today's date.   Now write down XLA.   Remember that this is the day that you heard it and you heard it here!  XLAs are the foundation of a fresh and optimistic approach to managing the business of technology. Research for yourself and staff members. Learn and explore more about XLAs! A little history: “Service Management exists to guarantee a valuable experience to customers and colleagues. Despite years of implementing best practices, the reputation of most technology departments is below par in the eyes of business leaders. Consider that 90% of CEOs feel they aren’t meeting their custom

A short while ago I was asked this question from one of our reader: “ I want to set a KPI around how much of the time we meet the SLA. Like 'meeting the SLA x% of the time'. Can someone advise what would be that 'x'? What is the common practice?  Is there an industry standard around this?”   I’m going to have to go with the consultant answer and say it depends.   First, are we talking about a single service to a single customer? Are we talking about multiple services to multiple customers or somewhere in between those two extremes? Your SLAs should include details of the anticipated performance that your customer expects.  First thing you need to do is discuss with your customer what are the levels of utility and warranty they are expecting? Then document and agree these targets are reachable given the resources that are at your disposal and any constraints that may be discovered. The requirements for functionality (utility) should be defined by your BRM pr

The Professor was recently asked about the following very interesting situation. In my organization, we have a service desk that is not part of the main IT department.  Since we are a service desk solution provider, it is actually in one of our businesses units.  So our IT department has chosen to take advantage of that in-place service desk to effectively also be the service desk for internal employees.   Is this a situation where an operational level agreement (OLA) applies?    Or are the “parts” of the internal organization too far apart and a service level agreement (SLA) is more appropriate? I think the idea is that the OLA applies to different internal groups within IT?   Is that true? Let’s first define these terms and then apply them to this situation. An SLA is an agreement between a service provider and a customer. In the case of the service desk that is in one of the company’s business units, that service desk is a Type I (internal) service provider. Since ITIL is non-p