Adding value to your IT Services

[Sameer32]

"With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it." ~ Aristotle

Achieving excellence is a journey and not an overnight achievement those real-world organizations tend to strive for. A very evident question every organization pursuing excellence should ask ‘Why are we embarking the ITIL journey and why do we need an ITSM tool?

It is not surprising that most organization fail to answer this question. The reason is that leadership do not focus on actual consumption of a good ITSM platform. The questions like: Who would be benefited and how? Why should a ITSM tool be supported by standard ITIL processes? How will users know the new tool functionalities? How will new processes standardize operations? are unanswered.

Organization focus primarily on investing on a robust ITSM tool but fail to understand 'What is Good' for the organization'. Most of the times, tools are procured first and consultants are searched later to implement them. This approach binds both the consumer and implementer to deliver within the limited platform.

Before investing heavily into IT service management tools, organization should assess their IT maturity, appetite of their user community to adopt and existing tools those could be leveraged along with the new platform that is in discussion to be procured.

"The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘we’ve always done it this way.’" ~ Grace Hopper

The key aspect to make your IT service management successful is adopt to learn and adopt to change. It is a very usual approach to replicate age old processes in new tool without adopting to the new age offerings and new age tools those can support a large organization. Breaking out of the comfort zone and adopting to new functionalities is instrumental in creating value in an IT service management organization. This not only help building tools but also create a forward path in adopting the automation journey any organization strives for.

 “A fool with a tool is still a fool”!! ~ Abraham Verghese

ITSM tool is designed to embrace and deliver the desired outcome but the desire to the right outcome is not provided by tool. Sounds confusing, right?

This confusion makes it cumbersome to get the optimal output from any IT service management tool. While the tool has capability to deliver, it needs the right set of inputs (fodder) to consume, process and deliver the right set of outcome. It cannot prepare its own food and deliver unless it is taught to do so. It is assumed that procuring a good tool will solve all IT problems but that is a false assumption. Tools needs to configured wisely and consumed effectively to get the maximum ROI of a CAPEX and OPEX of IT service management.

Basics of achieving IT Service Excellence:

• Recently, ITIL®  introduced an advanced version – ITILv4 which is based on the basics and best practices for ITILv2 and ITILv3, coupled with matured new age methodologies, agile practices and most important of all the base principle Creating Value!!! The key motto of ITILv4 lies in creating a value outcome to any activity a user will perform in an IT Service Organization. This very key element is the crux of building the ITSM right journey for any organization is Creating Value.
• KYC! (Know your customer)

Customer to IT service management tool are the consumers who would consume the tool to support IT services in an organization. Knowing your customer is different from knowing the stakeholders. In usual Project management , stakeholder matrices are created aligning them to RACI and making them responsible to delivery. Yet the implementations fail!! This is because the end consumers and their behavior to the tool is never sought for. So, first step to success is understand the Usability, Understand who your customer is!

• Eat what you need

Imagine a buffet dinner served and you are about to enjoy it? What do you do? Pick up everything and make your plate messy? or follow the course of meal and enjoy it? I am sure you will chose the later. The same principle applies when choosing the right set of processes from the ITIL dictionary. Do not choose to RUN on Day 1.Plan to least walk, if crawling is too slow you think. Do not choose to stack up everything in your first attempt to implement. Go with a staggered plan of implementation. Run an phase wise cycle. Let new implemented process settle down, users get accustomed to it before introducing new processes, features, automation and innovation. Do not rush to optimize everything. Make automation and optimization a journey, as if it is well sought will give you the best results, if hurried will run in refurbishing all efforts spent in building it.

• (KISS!) Keep it Simple, silly

6 out of 10 businesses complain that their users do not access the tool to log their tickets rather the service desk to get their issues resolved. Why does this happen? Majority reasons are cumbersome interfaces, lack of mobility and insufficient user training

To mine a good value from the tool investments and months of implementation time and cost, keep the design simple to use and easy to access. Tool interfaces, accessibility and performance should be simple and fast for users to access and complete their work in seconds. This creates a good user experience encouraging the users to consume the tool than dialing and waiting for a service desk agent, overwhelming the service-desk with requests.

• Train well!

Along with the performance, enabling users to run business with IT support is critical to achieve the best of the tools. User can be effectively engaged and encouraged to use the tool through gamification, self help training videos, quizzes and rewards and announcing MVC (Most valuable consumer), to name few quick wins. Plan well for the OCM (organization change management) and allocate sufficient time for the users to understand it, run reinforcement messaging and refresher training and meticulously govern the tool usage.

Remember! The customer is not the stakeholder who provide you the sign-offs but the end users and technician who effectively consume the tool, follow the processes and extract effective reports. I have jotted down few points to help start your ITSM tool journey positively to encourage to achieve more. Building a strong foundation with a scalable and flexible platform makes it simpler to start your automation and optimization journey.