Not Every Organization Will Be Successful

I am constantly amazed by the number of organizations that operate with the belief that adopting this or that methodology or complying with a given standard or framework will make all their dreams come true and their problems go. There are a number of reasons not every organization that starts down the ITIL path is going to be successful. And those reasons go back to one of the quality gurus of the 40's and 50's. For your consideration I present the reasons in no particular order:

• Adopting a process framework requires change. An organization that is not open to change cannot be successful in adopting a standard or framework.
• Decisions require facts. Assumptions, soft figures, guesses, and "from the gut" intuition have no place in decision-making.
• Changing one element of a business process impacts other elements. Think of a water balloon. You cannot push down on one side of a balloon filled with water without displacing water elsewhere in the balloon and altering the shape and functionality of the balloon in general.
• The concept of constraints as they impact a system is very closely related to the above point. Regardless of where one may be in an organization, providing a service or fulfilling support, all individuals operate within a system. Ignorance of the reality of a system is just naive. One process, one individual, or one team can only be as good as the constraints placed on it by the system.
  
• Leadership, though vital to the successful adoption of any process framework, is not sufficient. Motivation for improvement must be integrated into the overall program and ultimately the fiber of the organization.
  
• Maintaining focus, momentum, and energy throughout an improvement program requires clarity. Clarity as to why we're doing this. Clarity as to what this means to me. Clarity as to how what I do today impacts the overall organization.
  
• Measurement is essential. You've heard the adage, now excessively over used. You can't improve what you cannot...what...?
• Uncertainty must be eliminated! How is it possible to eliminate uncertainty? And what uncertainty are you talking about? Process owners must feel they are working in a culture that is open to change, willing to support the entrepreneurial spirit, and will not condemn those who are working with a sincere commitment to the organizational objectives.
• Process owners must believe in and trust management. Sorry management. If your people do not trust and believe you, their efforts will lack heart and commitment. They will always be looking over their shoulder rather than forward.

Point Solutions Just Don't Cut It

Woe be to the process owner who might boast about how their process works. If that process works in isolation, it is neither effective nor efficient and one may suggest that process does not work at all. It is the job of the IT Service Manager to make certain the inputs of one process yields outputs that support those dependent processes. And thus the dilemma of organizational process improvement. If you do not deal with all the processes, can you effectively deal with one at a time?

Before we propose an answer, consider the individual process owner who is both responsible for and proud of his or her process. The level at which their process can mature (i.e. increase in capability) is restricted by constraints that lie either in their own process or within related, interdependent processes. The astute process owner recognizes these limitations yet has no means to drive improvement in the other process. How does one deal with this in an organization?

The first step is to identify the individual process limitations within the context of the overall service management organization. No one process is held exclusively accountable yet it is within the process evaluation itself that the limitations may be identified. It is not that the process is exclusively responsible for a missing element, but that it is during the process evaluation that the deficiency is often detected - that is, during evaluation, gap sensitivity is greater and more enhanced.

Quite frankly, it is nearly impossible for a process owner to recognize the deficiency; they are just too close to the process elements. Further, it is even more difficult for a process owner to exact corrective action on the gaps if there is no authority that recognizes process deficiency is an organizational liability. Thus the second step is to identify an authority that has overall responsibility for organizational effectiveness as realized in the service management framework.

Finally, it is a management responsibility to ensure the dependencies across all processes are identified and follow-up action taken to "raise all boats."

So, where does one start? Must we work on ALL processes at once? Yes and no:
1. Identify what is required to meet your customer needs
2. Determine what you want to accomplish with your service management initiative
3. Define the requirements

Now you may begin descending from the higher-level objectives to the individual processes:
4. Decompose the requirements into the individual process interdependent components
5. Map how each requirement is fulfilled by each component
6. Use that information along with budgetary and customer inputs to scope and time-line the effort
7. Charter the initiative including authority under a Program Manager who will take responsibility for seeing individual process projects through to completion.

The reality is you are building a system. You will work on a number of different processes but the efforts will no longer be point solutions. They will be:
a. Focused on meeting an overall objective
b. Tied to individual requirements
c. Coordinated around the interdependencies of each process (inputs/outputs)
d. Prioritized, budgeted
e. Authorized