Being faced with huge business transformation programs, to me it is clear that the success of implementation of ITIL service management depends on straightforward communcation, management empowering and cultural envolvement.
ITIL is almost 100% cultural driven. Meaning: the procedures, appointments, unifying processes, activities, tasks, the way to use a unique approach to service management.
In ITIL we recognize at least 3 entities with their specific contributions and setting:
1. the service desk (SD)
2. the service management (SM) processes
3. the operational model (OM)
This covers the domains Processes, Organization, Data, Applications and Services.
It is crystal clear that these subjects are quit different per departement and per country.
To emcompass the so many differences here’s my approach:
1) assess the current state (or As-Is)
the mapping of current state of SD, SM, and OM
- how an incident, an event, a problem, a change is treated through the whole organisation
- what are the activities of the managers (manager Inc, Prob Manager, Help Desk, Level 1 … 3)
- what are the resources, tools for a service request to record and monitor
- what are the criteria in these processes and tooling (example: when to escalate, when to call for a major incident)
This analysis provides a visibility on the current situation.
Instruments: short workshops and assessments with the SM and SD controllers.
2) propose the future state (To-Be)
Don’t start from scratch, there’s plenty good stuff available : the basic ITIL framework, but CUSTOMISE
Keep a few training sessions to explain the ITIL framework to the audience SD / SM.
The culturere differences (resistance to change behavior) will become clear very soon.(in country X we are using this and that, in country Y this is not existing …), collect all those differences ASAP
A detailed breakdown of activities will be made available through workshops.
Example of GAP:
- different service desk tooling
- different service management tooling
- different processes
- different approach of contacting the service desk (no use of Single Point Of Contact)
- no regular administration of the activities
- different operational model (who’s doing what)
- different need or interpretation of SLA
- different understanding of roles (what is a L2 in all countries/departments)
- different approach of servicing the customer (application oriented or service oriented)
The benefits: improves process performance and allows to rollout sustainable changes to large numbers of people
3) Perform a GAP Analysis
Estimate the differences between the current state and future state by department and country.
Translate the differences into work packages (eg training processes, provide for SD / SM tooling, updating the criteria, completing a one overall CMDB, organizing events around the SLA’s, etc)
This results in a set list of activities that must be completed by the operational key persons.
Manage communication at all levels (top mngt, floor, operational management)
One step further is to go for the optimisation of the operational model.
Several solutions I’ve brought to the boarder and could implement for instance “virtual service desks”, “global operational models” … with the goal to reduce the cost of a data center.
4) Implementation
- Workstream 1: Implementation of ITIL/ITIM
- The design of an operational model (who is doing what, when, how, with what)
- Hands-on training (role based) of all employees of the SD / SM (also mgmt)
- Setup of classification of type of incidents, urgencies, impact level
- Implementation of the process framework (agile approach, example : start with Incident Management)
- Workstream 2: implementing the tooling for SD & SM
- contact vendors
- request for demonstrations (based upon proper use cases)
- survey of proposals
- request offer
- select vendor
- implement & govern
- synchronise with workstream 1
Patrick Roose 