Did you know you are already doing Service Management?
I wanted to start this conversation with “Three consultants walk into a bar…” but it would be politically incorrect and may offend many people in many parts of the world. It may even be perceived as contemptuous as not all consultants go to bars. But, enough of this nonsense.
Instead, let me go directly to the conversation which is held in the company’s auditorium.
The Boss: We are going to do ITIL®.
The IT Personnel: “ITIL?”
The Boss: We will implement ITIL so we will be better at ITSM
The IT Personnel: “ITSM?”
The Boss: “ITIL is short for the Information Technology Infrastructure Library and ITSM means IT Service Management.”
The IT Personnel “?”
The Boss:: “We are going to do ITIL®. It is best practice, our competition is doing it, our suppliers are doing it and the consultants we hired told us we had to do it.
The IT personnel: “????????????????????????????????????????????????????”
The Boss (slightly frustrated by now) goes into this long explanation and overview of all that is ITIL and ITSM.
The IT personnel is by now texting, playing games on their mobiles, listening to music or are engaging is side conversations. In short, they heard it all before, another make work project.
“whoop-pee-doo”
The Boss: …effective…efficiencies…productivities…business and IT alignment…the business finally respecting IT…blah, blah, blah...
The IT personnel: …zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
But, enough of this nonsense
As I have mentioned in this blog before, at conferences and in articles, we are doing ourselves a MAJOR disservice by calling everything “IT this” and “IT that”.
ME – YOU ARE ALREADY DOING SERVICE MANAGEMENT.
YOU – HUH?
ME – You are working for an organization, the organization uses technology, the organization has many departments. It does not matter if you work in the private sector, public sector or for a not-for-profit organization. It does not matter if you are doing it internally or if you have outsourced it.
YOU – HUH?
ME: A rose is a rose is a rose; right? It does not matter if you work in the private sector, public sector or for a not-for-profit organization. Every organization has to manage the information it needs to operate and keep operating.
A long time ago, the technology was rock and chisel, and then came papyrus, vellum, paper, and finally, computers. They are all different right? No they are not. They are all various technology used to record and store information.
From now on, I want you to banish the following:
ITIL®
ITSM
Best practice
Business and IT alignment
Us vs. them
It will never work here
We are different
We don’t need this
WHY?
Because you cannot implement a library
The business customer is the only customer that counts – hence service management
There is no such thing as “best” practice, it is “good” practice and more often than not, good is good enough
The IT department has been part of the business since humanity invented writing
You are all in this together. Listen to you coworkers from other departments and don’t offer a solution until you know exactly what they are saying
You are already doing it so it is working in your organization
No you are not
Yes you do since you are already doing it
If you are still reading then your reaction is probably “?”
Do you know what your problem is? You are caught up by the hype. If it is not done by the book, then it’s no good. You simply have not recognized that someone, somewhere, is performing one or more of theses activities. That person may be an internal employee or you have contracted it out. Moreover, you or that person may not call it like the book does.
You know what? It does not matter what you call it.
Let me show you a way to prove to yourself that you are doing those activities. Please refer to the ITIL® Core book Service Operation, chapter 5 for details. I am not including the section numbers or the page numbers as these numbers may change in the near future.
IT Operations
Mainframe management
Server management and support
Network management
Storage and archive
Database administration
Directory services management
Desktop support
Middleware management
Internet/web management
Facilities and data centre management
Information security management and service operation
Improvement of operational activities
Please refer to the checklist provided at the link below
Next: Activities from processes
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I’m not seeing the link to the checklist that is mentioned above. I was hoping there was something that would help me assess our maturity in the major processes. Thanks. Nancy
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 03/08 at 11:59 AM
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