Prevailing Service Management

Organisations that practise concepts like IT service management, Agile, Lean, etc may from time to time commission process maturity assessments. These assessments, usually conducted by third parties, can provide a fresh perspective on the health and maturity of your service provision. While there are various views in the IT industry on the effectiveness of these assessments, the end result in most cases, is a report that outlines the strengths and weaknesses of your service delivery with a series of recommendations. Once these recommendations are handed down, the service provider usually selects and prioritises the recommendations for action. It is at this point, I'd suggest considering: Moments of Truth, and  Moments of Leadership. Moments of Truth  was a book written by the then President of  Scandinavian  Airlines,  Jan Carlzon . Published in 1987, Jan's book outlines his position (with examples) that customers will remain loyal if they are tre...

Great service management starts with effective communication. Effective communication provides the foundation for strong relationships with your customers, team and suppliers. In recent years, there has been a strong focus in service management on process and yet service management is essentially founded upon relationships and communication. Service management provides the interface between the customer and the service provider. Any provider can demonstrate value for money and provide services as required. But a great service provider goes beyond that, and can suggest solutions for a customer before a customer realises that they have the need (or problem to be addressed). This can only be achieved with a strong relationship, underpinned by good communication.  I reflected on this topic in a communication workshop based on Neuropower’s RELISH method to structure business communications. This method suggests that "you align the communication in line with the way the brain fun...

In my experiences of achieving outcomes with various methodologies, I’ve noticed variations in the promotion of a supportive organisational culture. Organisational culture is the collection of values and norms that are shared within a company, which influence the behaviour of company employees (Hill et all, 2007, p298). In ITIL, organisational culture is referenced as a pre-requisite check prior to implementing a number of processes or functions (Cabinet Office, 2011, p324). There does not appear to be any specific culture promoted or reinforced. With respect to Continual Service Improvement (CSI), the ITIL glossary defines it as a stage in the lifecycle of an IT Service and the title of one of the core ITIL publications. ITIL does make a small acknowledgement of culture by referring to culture as the heart of the matter or a key issue in implementing CSI. Culture could support an implementation (of CSI) or it could be the bearer of resistance. Other methodologies however p...

Agile is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self- organising, cross- functional teams. Agile is proclaimed to be more of a mindset or way of thinking rather than a software development process. Agile is made up of three (3) elements: 1.        Agile Manifesto & Values 2.        Agile Principles 3.        Agile Practices. The Agile Manifesto was developed in 2001 and consists of four (4) values: 1.        Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 2.        Working software over comprehensive documentation 3.        Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 4.        Responding to cha...