When I teach, I like to talk about knowledge and wisdom and the value that they bring to the organizational table.   A lot of the time people give me a quizzical look, Knowledge? Wisdom?   Where is this conversation going?   I ask people how they capture the knowledge or do they even capture the knowledge that is gained when they develop a new service, application or when some new technology is introduced into their live environment. Although what we deliver can sometimes be intangible (availability, capacity, security) it is very complex and can take years to build up the know-how on how to deliver these elements and continually meet the changing needs of our customers.    However you need knowledge, born from experience, to solve problems, to always improve, to use your wisdom to answer the question of why should we make one choice over another? Like any other organization we must brand the product we deliver.   This brand will then garner a reputation; the reputation will be b

George Santayana, the Spanish American philosopher, wrote the famous saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”   This really is the underlying basis for the process of knowledge management.   It plays a key role in CSI but data must be captured in each of the service lifecycle stages.   This D ata capture must then be processed into I nformation, synthesize the information into K nowledge and applied to the context of the environment we are supporting to create W isdom.   This is known as the Data-to-information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom structure. DIKW.   Wisdom (not repeating the past) will allow us to make more informed & better decisions around improvements in our processes, functions and services. The purpose of knowledge management process is to quantify all of this D-I-K-W and then to share perspectives, ideas, experiences and information at the right time in the right place with the right people to enable informed decisions efficiently by no

I recently had a question regarding the inclusion of Service Requests into metrics for First Call Resolution. As always, the answer is “it depends”! ITIL now treats Service Requests and Incidents as two different processes – Service Request Fulfillment and Incident Management. Both are generally logged into the same tool and owned by the Service Desk. They are also measured by their own key performance indicators and metrics. ITIL does not consider first call resolution as a process metric - it is more of a service desk performance measurement. First call resolution historically helps measure the handling of incidents by the Service Desk. The definition of an incident is usually pretty clear. However, since the definition of a service request can vary greatly from organization to organization, the value of including requests in incident metrics may also vary. If your definition of a service request includes pre-authorization and funding, then the Service Desk’s ability t

A learner who is working towards developing a Cost Management department recently asked about key performance indicators (KPIs) for the Financial Management and Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) processes.      ITIL 2011 actually maps Critical Success Factors (CSFs) to KPIs for each process.   Key performance indicators for Financial Management can be found in section 4.3.8 of the Service Strategy book while those for SACM can be found in section 4.3.8 of the Service Transition book. While I cannot list all of the KPIs for both processes, here is a good sample: Financial Management The financial management for IT services framework specifies how services will be accounted for, and regular reports are submitted and used as a basis for measuring the service provider’s performance. All strategies have a comprehensive analysis of investment and returns, conducted with information from financial management for IT services. Internal service providers receive the fu

In my last blog, I provided some suggestions for overcoming challenges in obtaining agreement on the scope and definition of IT Services.  As I mentioned, the Service Catalog is one of the first and most important assets in any service management program. Today we are going to take a high level look at mapping IT Services to business processes.   The first step is to understand what your business or customer does and how it does it. In truth, every business only has five primary focus areas - regardless of whether it is public, private, governmental, non-profit, small or large.  Consider this: Every business designs, develops or acquires products and/or services Every business communicates, markets and sells those products or services Every business delivers those products or services Every business supports its products or services Every business has to have a corporate infrastructure (HR, IT, Finance, etc.) Can you identify where these activities are performed within your

A Service Catalog is one of the first assets that an organization should build when initiating their Service Management program.  After all, how can you manage services if you do not have a clear understanding what services your IT organization provides? Unfortunately, many organizations struggle with obtaining agreement on the scope and definition of end-to-end, business enabling services.  If left unchecked, these struggles can turn political and widen the divide between IT and the business as well as cause conflict between internal IT units.  To avoid some of the potential challenges in service definition exercises, here are some helpful suggestions: Set the stage by providing IT staff with a chart of business processes and begin integrating business vocabulary into service parameters ("Order Processing" not "Ecommerce").   Have business stakeholders conduct "lunch and learn" presentations that educate IT on how each unit uses IT Services.  Start

Having recently attended the Fusion 11 conference in Washington DC, I came away with some key insights that I thought I would pass along. The event brought together the worlds of IT Service Management and Help Desk in a great mix of information sharing and learning through breakout sessions and emotion and motivation in the form of five fantastic keynotes. One of the sessions I attended talked about being a leader in an ever globalizing world. The presenter shared her knowledge and wisdom of how to build a framework of leadership by embracing diversity and different cultures. A couple key take-aways: “I’m different, like you” : Understand that we all have different cultures, backgrounds, knowledge and experience that make us important and unique individuals. Embrace the differences and use them to your advantage. It is our differences that make us similar as people trying to be successful in a complex and technology filled world. “Help me understand” : Keep an open mind and s