Demand Management Scope: Where does it fit?

[enhendrickson]

I'm sure there will be plenty of time for practical discussions about SN implementation, but I would like to take a quick theoretical poll to understand how the group members view the different parts of this SIG fitting together - demand, project, program, etc.?   For discussion purposes, is Demand Management a generic, yet early life, mechanism to receive, define, and authorize new ideas on their way to work items (projects, tasks, etc.) and after the work is authorized to start demand management is effectively done? or is is a end-to-end process that covers the full life cycle of an idea from conception-to-completion and even into continuous improvement?   something else?   how are you applying and measuring your take on the scope of demand management?

[ian_cox]

We are just starting to implement Demand management at Service now on HI to feed into our projects and portfolios. My view is that there should be visibility to the person who submitted the demand on the status of their demand.   ie is it accepted , rejected, being worked on etc. Once it is accepted it would turn into a project and we would feed back the status of the project every 2 weeks to the requester. This is done using the project and progress against key milestones so that they have visibility into the current progress of their project.

Once the project is complete then there would be a review to see if it met it's objectives and this normally spawns new demand for bug fixes or enhancement requests.   So I see it as a life cycle of continuous improvement.   ie nobody ever says stop enhancing that product it is perfect 🙂

[enhendrickson]

We do something very similar, though we do not and I love the idea that every two weeks there's an update to the requester from the demand process (rather than it being a function of just the project manager/team).   We also follow up after the project to determine if benefits outlined in the charter have been completed (per a set of defined accomplishment measures); which usually can lead to additional tasks.   Also, project sign off on deliverables at project end - another aspect of the charter/business case defined during the demand process - is used to ensure deliverables are completed for the purposes of follow up projects.   Great tie in to CSI here, the idea is often described more in terms of "accountability" more than CSI, but I appreciate the relationship of both project closure and post-implementation review to CSI.   Definitely an accurate association in my opinion.   Thanks for the comments.

[solutioningnow]

That's a pretty good topic for discussion Eric.

Yes, Demand Management moves towards Continuous Service Improvement process more, but in order to make a conception reach to its completion, Demand Management has to take help of other ITIL processes, it may not be an end-to-end process.

Demand Management goes hand-in-hand with Release Management when an idea starts moving from conception to completion. Now, when we decide if any idea is worth moving to its completion stage, the decision makers come into picture who evaluate and assess that particular demand.

Once the Demand is approved by the assessment team, it moves to the implementation phase which can be accomplished through Release Management.

One release can have multiple already assessed and approved demands.

If any Demand is an enhancement to the current process or is a fix to the defect, Change Management process comes into the picture.

So, a group of people, mostly business analysts raise demand requests which are then enhanced and managed by Demand Managers. After the demands are evaluated and approved, they are implemented in the current environment through Release Management and Change Management processes by different Implementation teams.

Regards,

Solutioner

Enhance Knowledge NOW@ www.solutioningnow.com

http://www.solutioningnow.com/

[enhendrickson]

solutioner now thanks for the thoughts.   I appreciate all of what you said, and I have a few follow up questions:

(1) you mention "release management" - what relationship (what outputs feed into what inputs? as well as sequence?) does that have to project management and therefore how do all three relate to demand?

(2) you mention "demand manager" and that really perks my interest - can you describe some of the duties of such a role/person?   are they someone who owns each demand request similar to a project manager would own projects (and therefore there are probably more than one of them.. as you seam to imply by the plural) or is this more like "change manager" or "incident manager" from ITIL where that role owns the process of demand management?   If the former, can you provide a list of the duties that each of a demand manager performs for each demand request they manage?   This idea has me very intrigued.   Another related question, what deliverables does this role help to produce in the demand process?