What’s a FOB-AIP-SEPR??

Don’t try to “google” this phrase. You’ll end up with all kinds of returns. Google will find everything from a German language dictionary and Israeli web sites to a listing of United States stock codes. How do I know? OK. I “googled” it. But only to see what would happen. FOB-AIP-SEPR is an acronym created by a friend and colleague as a memory peg for the steps involved in an ITIL implementation. The steps to the traditional roadmap follow the FOB-AIP-SEPR sequence:

F-Feasibility Study
O-Objectives and Scope
B-Budget
A-Awareness Campaign
I-Identify Roles & Responsibilities
P-Procedures, Options and Integration Points (of the program)
S-Staff Recruitment
E-Evaluate Tools
P-Pilot Implementation
R-Review

While this looks very much like a very well-defined step-by-step sequential process, in actuality these steps are iterative. We learn something from each step which generally requires us to revisit a previous step to validate our new information. That said, however, the logic of the steps is directionally valid.

This step-by-step approach is always done, then, within the context of the following guidelines:

1. What is the vision? (Business Objective, CTQ Workshops) - The IT organization that is seeking improvement must understand, in no uncertain terms, what it is they are all about, what they want to accomplish. Unfortunately, our experience indicates that far too little time and effort is devoted to this first but critical step of an improvement program that establishes where IT is going.

2. Where are we now? (Assessments, Surveys, Interviews, Executive Overviews and Workshops) - While Step 1 addresses the goal, Step 2 is equally important in that it is essential to know where you are today. Like Step 1 above, Step 2 is loosely aligned with the “Define” stage of the Six Sigma DMAIC process. But it also deals with “Measure” as it is an essential baseline measurement. The specific methodology of discovery at this stage is dependent upon the current state of the processes and organization. Often a very preliminary investigation must be carried out. This may be accomplished simply with management during an executive management overview to determine the best approach or means that we’ll want to use to evaluate the organization’s capability from which we’ll derive the starting point - the baseline.

3. Where do we want to be? (Control Objectives, Measurement Targets, Gap Analysis) - The specific method of discovery at this stage is dependent upon what you find in Step 2, the baseline. Thus, it CANNOT be done without Step 2. Only once the organization understands its current process baseline (Step 2) can they begin to visualize what they want to accomplish with the process improvement initiative.

4. How do we get there? (Process Improvement/6 Sigma, Process Design Workshops) - There is only a limited amount of science at this stage. Oh sure, there is some math, weightings and guided evaluative exercises. But the talent and experience of the process improvement expert comes into play significantly at this level. Further, the openness and commitment of the process team is essential. Come to think of it, this aspect is controlled and managed by the improvement expert as he or she must facilitate the sessions that will target the steps to improvement. So while improvement will impact the technology and process components, the real value at this stage is in empowering the “people” component to overcome the biases and inconsistencies of, shall we say, “the human condition.”

5. What are the quality criteria? (CTQ, functional, non-functional and business tracking matrices) - At first, this step may seem to be out of sequence, but in fact, it is an extension of Step 1. The quality criteria are captured in Step 1 and, through the methodical process of tracking and traceability, translated into evaluative criteria to see what was intended is actually implemented as an output of Step 4. Didn’t I say at the outset that this sequential approach is iterative and interdependent?

6. Maintenance (Control Plan, Reporting, Feedback) - Step #6 provides the self-correcting algorithm feedback loop to evaluate the strategy and vision and determine if we're on-track or if we need to adjust our strategy - the essence of a learning organization.

That's the roadmap; or at least the outline of the stages the improvement roadmap will address. But timing is a different issue because of the challenges unique to each organization. Some of these include:
• Cultural issues and resistance to change
• Leadership skills in managing change
• Tools dependency (and I might add obscene tool proliferation and flagrant point solutions)
• Capability and maturity of the organization which directly influences the transformation (from system support to service management) potential of the organization
• The level or degree of unrealistic expectations (inadvertently set by poorly trained and inexperienced champions)
• Inability to measure (lack of process and process metrics)
• Reluctance to measure (fear of "being found out")
• Accountability (also fear of "being found out" or perhaps fear of actually having to do something)

Thus, the timelines are highly variable. Each organization has all of these concerns to varying degrees. Further, the individual steps an organization will take is dependent upon the current maturity and capability of the organization, the starting point and the level of commitment and budget available. There are roadmaps; at least one unique roadmap for every organization that has successfully made the transformation. But each of these roadmaps would have no value for the another organization because what was designed to work at one would not fit the culture, needs and performance requirements of another. The programs we have assembled for client organizations are based on our understanding of client’s challenges at the time. The measures, communications, objectives, vision, and final milestones were specific to the needs of the organization at that time and what would work at that specific point in time, for that unique organization, given the capacity of the organization to deal with change within the capability of the existing processes.