One of my
favourite expressions within service management training is the concept of ‘evolution, not revolution’. I use this concept to explain that, for
instance ITIL, is not an ‘all or nothing’ proposition that should be dismissed
if it can’t be achieved ‘just so’. My
explanation is that most Foundation training courses describe a perfect world
situation. However, whilst your
environment may never be perfect, that doesn’t mean you can’t use the concepts
to IMPROVE your current practices. Hence ...
evolution.
The other
reason is that no best practice guidance will tell you that everything must be
done ‘exactly so’! If your current practices are working, or even if they are
merely ‘sufficient’, there is no reason to ‘wipe the slate clean’, ‘throw out
the baby with the bathwater’, completely get rid of them and implement the best
practice ones instead. After all, a much-loved
saying recalls that ‘if it ain’t broke,
don’t fix it’ and a common consulting approach is to start with the area
where there is the biggest pain (and thus the biggest potential gain, and where
it is easier to obtain commitment to change etc.). Again … evolution.
But … sometimes
existing practices are so ‘rutted’ in, that gentle improvement is like trying
to rock a cart out of these ruts (in order to change direction). A small improvement or motion may be
observed, but relatively quickly the cart will resettle into the old ruts and
continue its previous (and probably doomed) course. In this case, the only option is revolution: thrust the cart out of the ruts, topple it,
disrupt it … and then reset it on whatever new course is required.
Not an easy
choice, and certainly not a popular one … but sometimes necessary. I had a professional acquaintance whose job
was just that: pushing the organisational cart out of the established practice
ruts. He would be invited into an
organisation seeking to make substantial change. As such he would basically come in, change
everything and make himself hugely unpopular.
After a few weeks or months, he would leave (or was ‘made to’) and
whomever followed him in the role, not only was ‘free’ of all the old practices
(which had been changed and dismantled), but also was instantly welcomed after
the horrendous experience the staff had just been through. The ‘shake up’ had paved the way for the new
manager to establish new, best practices with a higher acceptance and create
calm where there had been chaos.
I think that,
on some occasions, in service management, we have reached this position of
being ‘in a rut’, ‘down a hole’ or ‘at a dead end’. Many of us have been working with service
management practices for a long time, but in some cases, have not progressed
much past the operational, reactive processes.
Even then, how have we truly matured these processes to a point of excellence?
Who dares to stand up and sing the
praises of their perfect change or problem management processes?
I’ll come back
to that (customer participation) later, but I think that after a more than a
decade of evolution we can conclude that that is not going to get us much
further with the tactical\design elements of our service management model. We are ‘rutted’ or, to switch analogies,
we’re stuck on a track that is going nowhere.
A new approach
is needed … a revolution!
And, the timing
is right as, in my opinion, at this point, two developments are converging to
create the opportunity to consider a revolution.
The first is the
emergence of new best or enabling practices.
These new practices advocate a new approach that is arguably more
aligned with the modern technical and business environments, and thus provide more
suitable solutions for our current challenges.
Agile, SIAM© and VeriSM™, to name but a few, are offering
practical guidance, structure and progressive practices. Note that these practices often align with
existing, more traditional ones (like ITIL©, for instance) and that
thus -at least on the surface- perhaps a revolution would not be required (but
instead we can utilise these new practices through the customary evolutionary
approach, ‘splicing’ them into the old, established processes).
But, the second
development currently emerging is that of enterprise service management, or
business service integration. Again,
this is not something that is revolutionary on its own, and some of us have
been preaching service management in the enterprise for a long time, but the
business is, perhaps only now, realising that IT truly is an important business
enabler, and therefore needs to be integrated within the business processes,
business services and business management.
That’s right,
the keyword here is ‘integration’
and not ‘alignment’! IT alignment is nice, but it still presents IT
as separate to the business, whereas what we’re after is true integration. Add a term like ‘digital disruption’ (or the more
palatable ‘digital transformation’) and we may find a business that is
receptive to adopting service management practices to improve their business
model. But these businesses may not be
keen to follow established IT practices, like ITIL for example (especially if
their success is contentious), but rather look to emerging practices that have
the business at the forefront.
So, whilst
there is still the potential to simply evolve and embrace either newer service
management practices or enterprise service integration, by slowly improving and
expanding your existing practices, I believe the stars have aligned to allow
for consideration of a more radical approach and hit these two birds with one
stone …
A revolution,
which can more quickly establish new practices with the business, rather than
‘allowing’ the business to utilise and become ‘part of’ well-known IT practices. This might be the time to design a new service
operating model, from the ground up:
purpose-built, with business input and participation, based on existing
practices that we know that work (remember the baby and the bathwater?) but
augmented with new, progressive practices to utilise their strengths (especially
where those old practices failed, or at least were insufficient).
I believe that VeriSM
offers a great start to approach the development of such a revolutionary
service management operating model. VeriSM
outlines the need to create a model that considers Governance, Service
Management Principles and the wonderful new concept of a Management Mesh. This mesh combines the various practices,
technologies, resources and the environment (market, culture, …) available to an
organisation and through which it can develop and provide products and services.
This openness
and flexibility is a theme that is mirrored in other progressive practices. For instance, SIAM describes a structure which
allows an integrated approach to managing multiple providers to deliver end-to-end
service, focussing on collaboration and culture. It does so without prescribing
the specific ‘how’ to the parties
involved. For this ‘how’ we look towards
best-of-breed practices like Agile, ITIL (and half-a-dozen or more others), which
can be selected based on suitability to a specific project, customer or
environment and applied. The point is
that all these practices offer useful elements and indeed can and should be
utilised where they will deliver benefit.
One size doesn’t fit all and it’s a case of picking and choosing
elements based on a particular project, service, customer, culture or geography.
So, why not start
a revolution? I believe, now is the time to ‘throw of the shackles’ of the past
and seek to achieve those goals that perhaps used to seem out of reach, but which
are also those that are critical for future growth of an organisation! When
doing so, perhaps the following might be helpful:
- Be brave – Evolution is always a safe option, whereas revolution gives you that feeling of ‘burning your bridges’. But ‘no pain, no gain’ and in order to make that next, quantum-leap forward you cannot keep doing what you’ve always done (see Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity -or maybe it was Rita Mae Brown-).
- Start with the business – The business is your friend and partner in this. It’s them that need the IT integration (whether they realise it or not, remember ‘digital transformation’?) and it’s them that will push the need to do things differently (and thus will support revolution over evolution). Start a conversation with them on IT integration, on digital (business) services, on enterprise support (automated, self-help, …) and on agile project management and product innovation practices … all things this revolution can bring about for them and which would drive true business benefit.
- Start from the top – A ‘golden oldie’, but therefore not less true. With a revolution it is important to establish the required outcome first, before planning your attack. Make sure the governance, service management principles and Management Mesh are in place, before worrying about the details such as which practice, which technology etc. If you get too gung-ho and start selecting practices, rewriting processes or -worse- implementing new tools you may score a short-term victory, but may lose the overall war due to lacking direction or no ownership (see previous point) and thus no long-term commitment.
- Mix-‘n-Match – No one practice will do everything, for everyone, every time. Surprisingly, although different practices have different strengths (and weaknesses), they are remarkably similar in principle and thus can be combined. After all common sense is (supposed to be) common, no matter who writes it down or which perspective you take. The revolution will allow you to pick new & best of breed practices and mesh them into your model for maximum flexibility and benefit.
Good luck!
the ITIL Zealot
February 2018
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