Prevailing Service Management

On 18 June 2013, I was one of twenty four honoured speakers to present at TFT13 , the world's biggest online IT Service Management conference. My topic was Leading IT Service Management using Agile  and this was my first presentation at an online conference. " TFT, Tomorrow’s Future Today , is the world’s first 24-hour, global, follow-the-sun virtual conference. It has a size and level of innovation that has never been seen before.  Speakers are   selected by their peers   and elevated to a global stage overnight.  All content is accessible,   without registration , pushed to Kindle and Evernote, available on iTunes, Vimeo, YouTube, BrightTALK and SoundCloud. " Shortly after the conference had finished, #tft13 had generated 7.6 million social media impressions. I was humbled to be selected for this event, and I enjoyed the opportunity to work with other IT Service Management thought leaders and to learn Google Hangouts. Using my Google+ acc...

One of the key roles for an agile team is the Scrum Master (or otherwise known as the Iteration Manager). Hartman (2009) summaries the Scrum Master's responsibilities as: "The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that the Team adheres to Scrum values, practices, and rules. The Scrum Master helps the Scrum Team and the organization adopt Scrum. The Scrum Master teaches the Team by coaching and by leading it to be more productive and produce higher quality products. The Scrum Master helps the Team understand and use self-management and cross-functionality. However, the Scrum Master does not manage the team; the team is self-managing." But who should be a Scrum Master, when the team may already have a team leader or manager? I'll briefly explore the opportunities and challenges of two main approaches. Team leader as scrum master: Opportunity : As Hartman stated above, the team should be self managing but when disputes arise, the team leader has...

One of the most common practices in Agile is the daily stand-up or scrum. The term scrum, adopted from the game of rugby, is a daily opportunity for team members to unite and share: -          what they did yesterday, -          what they’ll do today, and -          what is blocking them from delivering value to their customers. The reason it is also called a stand-up is because the participants stand. Usually taking 10-15 minutes, this gathering forces participants to stand and encourages them to be brief and provide only relevant information for their team. In most circumstances, the standup works well. However there can be times when the team members start to discuss trivial or irrelevant matters about what they did or will do. There can be various reasons for this, including perhaps a self-induced pressure to say something rather than nothing, or to...

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...

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...