Times are tough and many organizations are looking for ways to reduce costs. However, even in difficult times, investing in the people, processes and technology used to serve customers is sure to reap a positive return. National Customer Service Week (NCSW), held October 5-9 in 2009, provides an excellent opportunity to explore ways to better serve your customers. It is also an excellent time to let the employees who serve your customers know how important they are to the success of your organization. Always the first week in October, NCSW is designed to raise awareness of customer service and the vital role it plays within an organization. It is also an opportunity to say thank you to those who work in customer service for a job well done. Organizations take part in NCSW by hosting events in their workplace. These events can be large or small, serious or fun, they can be held all through the week or just on one day…. it's up to each organization to decide how to celebrate.

Microsoft has recently published two interesting whitepapers mapping its Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) to ITIL V3 and ISO/IEC 20000: Cross Reference ITIL® V3 and MOF 4.0 Using MOF for ISO/IEC 20000 I have always been a big fan of MOF - it makes sense, is filled with question-based guidance and it's free. Microsoft has graciously provided free job aids, templates and whitepapers such as the ones referenced above. I like to think of MOF as "service management for the masses." As the whitepapers describe, MOF can be used to complement ITIL implementations and/or fulfill the minimum critical activities required for ISO/IEC 20000 certification. Frankly, MOF's biggest obstacle is the big "M" that sits in front of the framework. There is a common misconception that MOF only applies to environments that are heavily invested in Microsoft technologies. The truth is that the best practices in MOF apply to any environment. The guidance is very generic and is not

Have you ever driven a stick-shift car? At first, it feels as if there are way too many steps to remember just to move from park to drive. Step on the clutch, put the car into gear, ease off the clutch as you gently press on the gas. Once you are moving, you then have to upshift and downshift to navigate thru traffic, all the while hoping not to stall the car or strip the gears. What if you get stuck on a hill? It takes all of your skill not to slip into the car behind you. You may have thought, "Is this really worth it? If I were in an automatic, I could just put it into "Drive" and go. This stick-shift is slowing me down". So why do race cars choose manual transmissions over automatics? The answer is simple - it gives the drivers better control, helps them meet the challenges of the track and allows them to go much, much faster. IT Service Management process improvement is similar to driving a stick-shift car. At first, you may perceive newly implemented processe

Since it's adoption, there has been a slow, but steady growth in the number of organizations that are seeking, or have achieved, ISO/IEC 20000 (ISO 20K) certification. For the most part, interest in the standard is being driven by RFP requirements or perceived competitive advantage. The certificate is seen as an "award" that an organization receives for achieving best practice ITSM. While ITIL is being actively adopted, many organizations are overlooking ISO 20K because they do not perceive any value in the certification. I recently realized that we are looking at ISO/IEC 20000 in the wrong way. The standard has so much more to offer than just a certificate. It actually provides a starting place for an ITSM journey, not only the destination. ISO/IEC 20000 defines the "minimum critical activities" required to deliver high quality, aligned services. Once these activities are understood, an organization can assess which activities they already execute well and w

I often hear from organizations that they are not reaping the expected benefits from their Incident Management Systems or integrated Service Management suites. One of the biggest reasons is that they are struggling to determine how to categorize incidents, problems, service requests, changes, and so forth. Coming up with the right categories for your organization is easier said than done. If you’ve had to do it multiple times, you’re not alone. Having said that, it is important to persist. Categories drive many process activities such as: Incident matching Second- and third-level escalations Workflow management Self-service decision tree logic Priority definition Knowledge base searches Trend and root cause analysis Metrics production SLA reporting Miscategorized records cause inefficiencies, ineffective reporting and can even damage the relationships between lines of support. For example, are your second-line support teams regularly asking “why was this record assigned to me?” If so,

I was having a discussion with a learner this morning about the difference between Service Requests and Standard Changes. This learner's organization publishes a list of standard services that users can request via a self-help tool. The Service Request will be routed to the Service Desk. The Service Desk will review the request. If appropriate, the Service Request may be fulfilled by applying a Standard Change that has been approved by Change Management. By definition, a Standard Change is a pre -approved, low risk change (such as a new hire) that can be fulfilled almost immediately. Standard Changes must be recorded, possibly as a Service Request. They do not require operational oversight by the CAB. It is important to note that not all Service Requests are Standard Changes. Service Requests can include questions, queries, complaints and compliments. Similarly, not all Standard Changes are Service Requests. Standard Changes can include batch jobs, patches and other low risk chang

I have been reading Service Transition and am struck again that one of the most undervalued processes is Evaluation. The purpose of Evaluation is to provide a consistent and standardized method for determining the performance of a service change. The actual performance of a change is assessed against its predicted performance. Any detected can therefore be understood and managed. One of the goals of Evaluation is to provide effective and accurate information to Change Management. The objective is to: Evaluate the intended effects of a service change as well as the unintended effects of the change. For example, does the change meet the requirements agreed to in Service Design? Does this change have any negative effects on availability, capacity, etc…? Provide good quality outputs from the evaluation process so that Change Management can asses whether a service change is to be approved or not. Triggers for the Evaluation Process: Request for Evaluation from the Service Tr