Post on 03-Jan-2016
#watitis2014
w a t i t i s . u w a t e r l o o . c a@ w a t i t i s c o n f
IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT
Shawn Winnington-Ball
#watitis2014
INTRO
• 15 years running UNIX systems• First year thinking IT Service Management• Distilling lots of ITSM literature• Work in progress, snapshot in time• Thoughts are my own, not speaking on
behalf of IST
#watitis2014
KEY POINTS
• Take a more rigorous, structured, planning approach to providing service
• Focus on customer needs, pay particular attention to customer interactions
• Service Management is more than templates and fancy diagrams
#watitis2014
WHAT’S A SERVICE?
• Understanding customer needs and delivering desired outcomes
• An action, not a thingE.g. a server isn't a service, it's a thing; providing a server is the service
In providing servers, there's often more emphasis on the servers bit than the providing
Providing ~ strategizing, designing, testing, releasing, documenting, fixing, etc.
#watitis2014
SERVICE IMPROVEMENT
• ITSM: managing service delivery actions• When are our actions (processes) good
enough?• Process maturity: Ad-hoc to optimized
Journey not destination: declining returns apply
• Our IT organization isn’t a bonzai tree• Throughput is a primary concern
Need to reconcile that with improving the ‘line’
#watitis2014
THE IDEAL
“Here’s what we’ve learned: uncommon service is not born from attitude and effort, but from design choices made in the blueprints of a business model. It’s easy to throw service into a mission statement and periodically do whatever it takes to make a customer happy. What’s hard is designing a service model that allows average employees—not just the exceptional ones—to produce service excellence as an everyday routine.”Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1839318/so-your-service-model-sucks-heres-4-ways-fix-it
#watitis2014
THE IDEAL
• ‘Four basic truths’:You can’t be good at everything: excel at what customers value most, underperform at what they value least
Someone has to pay for it: charge more, reduce costs, or have customers do some of the work
It’s not your employees’ fault: it’s the process model itself, and how it’s designed/managed
You must manage your customers: involve them in creating, not only consuming
Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/1839318/so-your-service-model-sucks-heres-4-ways-fix-it
#watitis2014
A STRUCTURED APPROACH
• How to proceed toward this ideal?• Two aims
Excellence as a general ethos (inspired vision)
Specific, focused improvements
• ApproachesCustomer-inward, internal-outward, both?
Make the things that work commonplace (‘bright spots’)
Attitude, Behaviour, Culture: Organizational Change
Use Best Practices for reference and guidance
#watitis2014
OBLIGATIONS TO CUSTOMERS
• Customer have come to expect that a service will provide…
Utility (does it meet my needs)
Warranty (how well does it perform)
Experience (how do I feel using it)
#watitis2014
SERVICE DESIGN
• Service Design – not in the ITIL sense, but in the artistic-designer-usability sense
• Systematic approach to designing service experience
• “It’s not what we do, it’s what they get”• Focus on touchpoints; value-laden
interactions• Decomposing service into component parts
#watitis2014
SERVICE DESIGN
Source: http://www.cooper.com/journal/2014/07/service-design-101
ServiceStrategy
ServiceTransition
ServiceOperation
CSI
Service Design
Experiential perspective: Process perspective:
Copyright © AXELOS Limited 2011
#watitis2014
SERVICE DESIGN
• Service blueprint: enhanced swimlane diagram
• Visual effect: you can see how the customer interacts with the service, and how the service is fulfilled
• Value is not the diagram itself, but what you learn in the process of creating it
#watitis2014
Source: http://www.cooper.com/journal/2014/08/service-blueprints-laying-the-foundation
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SERVICE DESIGN
• BenefitsConsistent experience across services
Fail points: where can the service go wrong?
Timing: What’s the execution time of each step of the service? When does perception of quality begin to wane?
Evidence: what tangible effects does the customer receive throughout their interaction?
• Need true services first (hint: service catalog)• Which services should get this treatment?
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BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE AND SERVICE
• How people perceive service interactions• Advice for smoothing the way
Get bad experiences over with early
Break up pleasure but combine pain
Finish strong
Give them choice
Let them stick to their habits
• ‘Natural tendency for IT to focus on internal needs and preferences at the expense of the customer’s experience’Source: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/operations/using_behavioral_science_to_improve_the_customer_experience
#watitis2014
IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT
• ITSM is not just ITIL• More a quality management philosophy
around how service is provided• COBIT (governance) MOF (based on ITIL),
CMMI (process maturity), ISO 20000 (ITSM standard), USMBOK (generic SM)
• People develop their own take on ITSM from various sources, and often sell it: think VARs
#watitis2014
WHY BEST PRACTICES
• Something is evidently broken or doesn’t work well, OR
• Things generally work, but demand outstrips capacity; can never get everything done
Prioritization: pick and choose according to criteria (loudest voice doesn’t always count)
Inefficiency: spending too much valuable staff time on practices that have potential to be improved
#watitis2014
MY SUGGESTIONS
• Read peopleTwitter list: https://twitter.com/droitwich/lists/itsm
Webinars: Brighttalk has plenty; many ITSM consultants freely disburse their views
• Take ITIL Foundations training, and write the exam; great reinforcement
• Whiteboard a process, question everything, see what comes of the effort
• I’m always up to chat about this stuff
#watitis2014
TAKEAWAYS
• Ask yourselves what ‘getting better’ means to you: is it throughput, technique, or both?
• Best Practices are tools to help solve problems
• Be sensitive to the customer experience; it’s not merely enough to offer a service anymore
• Think big
#watitis2014
USEFUL LINKS
"Beyond the Service Catalog to Service Design." EDUCAUSE Homepage. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.educause.edu/annual-conference/2014/beyond-service-catalog-service-design>.
England, Rob. “Basic Service Management”. Two Hills, 2011. Print.
"Service Design 101." Cooper. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.cooper.com/journal/2014/07/service-design-101>.
"Service Blueprints: Laying the Foundation." Cooper. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.cooper.com/journal/2014/08/service-blueprints-laying-the-foundation>.
"So Your Service Model Sucks--Here's 4 Ways To Fix It." Fast Company. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.fastcompany.com/1839318/so-your-service-model-sucks-heres-4-ways-fix-it>.
Shostack, G. Lynn. "Designing Services That Deliver." Harvard Business Review . 1 Jan. 1984. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <https://hbr.org/1984/01/designing-services-that-deliver/ar/1>.
"Using Behavioral Science to Improve the Customer Experience." McKinsey & Company. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/operations/using_behavioral_science_to_improve_the_customer_experience>.