Prevailing Service Management

In this article, I'll lightly explore continuous improvement using Agile, ITIL and Lean. Continuous improvement with Agile Agile is more than just a modern software development process, it is having an agile mindset (or to demonstrate agility for your customers' dynamic needs). While the Agile Manifesto outlines four (4) values, it is principle 12 that highlights Agile's focus on continuous improvement. Principle 12 states " At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly " (Principles behind the Agile Manifesto, n.d.).  Retrospectives are one instrument that Agile provides to check the health of your service delivery and identify improvement opportunities. Held at the end of a sprint (time boxed interval of enhanced product delivery), the retrospective gives stakeholders an opportunity to reflect on: - what went well for the sprint (to repeat it again), - what didn't go well (to ...

Proposal for TFT13 Presentation (18 June 2013) Organisations continue to face and generate change at a rapid pace. Consequently, IT departments are being challenged to deliver increasing value by reducing costs and/or being responsive to dynamic customer needs. IT Service Management (ITSM) functions must contribute to organisational outcomes by becoming enablers of change and not blockers, a perception often held by other IT teams due to the ITSM’s need to balance efficient operational support processes while meeting various regulatory & legislative requirements. This presentation will articulate the challenges faced by Suncorp’s ITSM team from February 2011. The team was experiencing poor customer perception of their services, little perceived value for the business, the absence of a Service Management System or Plan, lack of tactical direction and disjointed service management processes. These challenges existed against the backdrop of significant organisational change...

In this article, I'll explore one reason why Agile and ITIL compliment each other in IT service delivery. By design, they support teamwork at a micro and macro level respectively. Agile promotes teamwork through the Agile Manifesto which contains the value of “individuals and interactions over process and tools” (Manifesto for Agile Software Development, n.d.). This should be interpreted as we value individuals and interactions more than process and tools. Individuals and interactions do not supersede process and tools and nor should process and tools be ignored. One of chief Agile methodologies is Scrum which derives its name from the view that a product development team should behave much like a rugby team - a group of individuals, working as a unit, moving the ball down the field. Cohn (2010, p. 217) outlines that teams who embrace the Scrum methodology thoroughly, can demonstrate behaviours like: whole team responsibility for delivery and quality, minisiming ind...