7 Bite-Size Steps to ITIL Success Pus making a Business Case for ITIL! Do you want to impement ITIL but don t know where to start? 7 Bite-Size Steps to ITIL Success can hep you to decide whether ITIL can hep you to improve service deivery AND gain some Quick Wins to prove ITIL s worth.
Bite-Size ITIL quick wins and pragmatism prove ITIL s worth If you think that adopting the ITIL framework is a serious undertaking, you re not aone and to a degree quite right. The proven benefits come after thought, panning and conversations the IT team has probaby sedom had before, with the business users of its services. The theory and reading behind ITIL v.3 can make v.2 seem positivey straightforward, yet 20 years after ITIL was first introduced, maturity eves remain fairy ow and organisations typicay adopt ony a few of the processes. A too often, fu scae ITIL adoption projects ose steam or ony show vaue many years down the ine. Taking a Bite-Size approach to ITIL does deiver measurabe benefits to boost IT services and utimatey the business, providing a vauabe patform for further service improvement. A 2006 survey by the Hep Desk Institute (now the Service Desk Institute) found that Incident, Probem, Change and Service Leve Management processes were the most commony adopted, but ony 7% of ITIL adopters had successfuy impemented 4 or more processes, with Configuration Management proving to be a stumbing bock for many. 3 years ater, the story is itte different. With more processes under v.3 and v.2 having been around much onger, sti most organisations fai to move beyond the 4 most commony adopted processes. Hornbi s ITIL: State of the Nation Survey of 500 respondents in the UK and US, found that the same pattern sti exists in 2009. ITIL v2 process adoption ITIL v3 process adoption Hornbi cas the adoption of these first 4 processes, Bite-Size ITIL. What s more, this common first step of most organisations makes absoute sense.
Exampe case study for Bite-Size ITIL success NAAFI NAAFI s centraised IT service management desk reaps efficiencies and improves customer service with new Fast Track ITIL processes and customer SefService The Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes is a non-profit making organisation which provides catering, retai and eisure for the British Armed Forces and their famiies wherever it is needed around the word. The Bite-Size Approach With thousands of staff working across wordwide ocations to serve the forces, supporting the IT infrastructure is chaenging. Unti recenty, the NAAFI had supported end users via an externa service desk and a separate in-house hepdesk operation. NAAFI seected Hornbi s Bite-Size ITIL software from severa other competitive soutions to enabe it to adopt the core ITIL processes without the cost or compexity of a more comprehensive service management system. We ooked at other soutions but thought they were too big and compex for our size and current needs. Hornbi s Bite-Size soution fitted our requirements it offered the core ITIL functionaity yet sti ooked so easy to use. Adiee Goodwi, IT Operations Manager SefService For Staff Working Wordwide NAAFI s front ine service desk is manned from 7am to 10pm but the Sef Service porta ensures customer can aways og or view the status of a ca after hours. They can aso submit a satisfaction rating for the ca. Increasing Efficiencies And Satisfaction Popuating the Supportworks KnowedgeBase with known probems and answers has heped the IT team operate more efficienty. Customers can ook up queries themseves, reducing the cas to the service desk. Identifying probems quicky and resoving them has heped the IT team to improve customer service and meet SLAs. In addition, using Probem Management to identify and track trends has enabed the IT team to be more proactive, saving time and improving efficiencies in supporting IT systems and users. When we have mastered the core ITIL processes, we have the option of upgrading to Supportworks ITSM Enterprise to introduce additiona processes. Choosing Supportworks ITSM Foundations and the Fast Track impementation meant that we were abe to go ive within just six weeks of our first demonstration. Adiee Goodwi, IT Operations Manager Business Benefits Swift impementation of Supportworks enabed adoption of ITIL processes for Incident, Probem and Change management in 6 weeks Centraised IT service desk brings efficiency gains and provides one stop shop for geographicay spread users SefService porta enabes customers wordwide to og and track cas around the cock Knowedgebase provides centra repository for probems and known errors, enabing faster resoution of queries Intuitive Human touch software enabes agents to provide more personaised service.
The steps 1 7 Assess whether ITIL s for you Stepping up from the notion of a reactive hep desk to a proactive service desk can seem a chaenge for many under-resourced IT organisations. The bigger picture of IT Service Management can appear daunting, particuary when you consider the many frameworks and standards that are avaiabe. However, one cannot ignore the popuarity of ITIL and its increasing eves of adoption by mid-sized organisations. If an auditabe quaity standard and certification is important to your organisation, you shoud perhaps consider IEC/ISO 20000. Before deciding which framework is right for you, it is vita that you estabish your current position and determine your vision for the future. ITIL wi not provide any mirace cures, but it wi hep you determine the processes that need to be in pace to improve your service management capabiities. Look through the ist beow, and if you re suffering from, et s say, more than haf to ITIL success: of these issues, taking on the ITIL processes of Incident, Probem and Change Management reay can hep you. In their most simpe terms: Incident Management can hep you to focus on restoring service, categorise for trend anaysis and improve communications to customers. Probem Management enabes root cause assessment, pubishing of known errors and grouping of incidents for common resoution. Change Management means you can reduce the chance of unexpected outages, track approvas for compiance and be better prepared to support new services. Combined with Asset Management, these Bite-Size ITIL processes are a more manageabe undertaking that can show rea resuts. Are any of the foowing famiiar to you? Never enough resource Constanty fire-fighting Difficuty prioritising cas No poicy for incident reduction Same issues resoved again and again No time to ook at common trends New services chucked over the fence Inadequate testing before depoyment Knowedge in peope s heads Poor communication with customers Customers have no visibiity of issues Loose Service Leve Agreements Metrics of itte business vaue Hard to measure improvements Service Desk staff don t know enough about the customer 2 Be prepared ITIL is no siver buet you may find it chaenging to take even a Bite-Size approach, but keep the outcome in mind it s a about improved quaity of service and increased customer satisfaction and ITIL can prove its worth. The processes aone wi not transform your service deivery; the organisation and more importanty, the peope in the IT and business departments concerned need to be on board and fee part of the programme. Eary on, identify some key business peope and expain to them what your service improvement programme aims to achieve expressed in their terms, it shoud be a about benefit. Whie you re going through eary stages, possiby before things improve, these coud be your supportive champions. Set yoursef some cear and achievabe short-term goas to engender the ethos of success. A commony quoted statistic is that IT projects have a 6 month window within which to prove themseves having been aocated finances, resources and hopefuy senior business management s bessing, the greatest faiing that a project can make, is to forget to set short term goas and show quick-wins.
3 Out-manoeuvre the sceptics One tip we wanted to pass on, comes from a number of Hornbi customers, who have recenty commented that the concept of adopting ITIL has met with either reticence or, on occasion, downright hostiity among IT and service departments. The more pragmatic among them have addressed this by simpy not caing it ITIL! Ca your initiative Service First, Service Management Pus or another service-focused name and you defect those with prejudices. 4 Limit your ambitions Athough your utimate vision may be to estabish a word cass service organisation, if you are starting from a reativey ow eve of process maturity, it is important to identify this and set your sights a bit ower during the eary stages of your ITIL journey. Limiting your immediate ambitions can have negative connotations but I d argue the opposite; it simpy oads the outcome in your favour. It s a positive move for many organisations, as the Bite-Size processes of Incident, Probem, Change, Asset and Service Leve Management can prove hugey beneficia. Organisations typicay refine and mature those processes before tacking the more compex aspects of service improvement. The esson is, whatever your ambitions, take a first bite of ITIL and show that it deivers vaue to the business; it wi make your on-going service improvement programme much more promising and widey supported. 6 7 Marketing IT Market your achievements in business terms too and you find support from unexpected business areas. We a know that IT isn t the most practised department for sef-promotion, but we a have to start somewhere survey, use those statistics to et the business know what you ve achieved. Focus on Continua Improvement Remember to do this: Put yoursef in a position to keep moving ahead don t risk roing back to where you came from. Standardisation is the key to Continuous Improvement but is often overooked in the enthusiasm to do move ahead with new and different processes. Continuous Improvement Pan Act Do Check 5 Prove the quick wins Don t forget to benchmark your service performance before you start. Current stats from customer surveys, however rough or even anecdota, shoud be part of the Business Case you need for the ITSM software to support your processes, so they re your starting point. Of course your organisation wi be abe to benefit from a far more detaied anaysis of service deivery with ITIL, but it can be hard to prove and report on success with no baseine to compare against. Standardisation
Making the business case Typicay the advice given for service improvement initiatives is don t start by seecting a too. The preferred approach is Peope, Process and Product in that order. However, in practice, many organisations do exacty the opposite, as their existing toos do not enabe them to make any progress from their current state. Provided you have satisfied yoursef that the too can meet your initia objectives, accommodate your medium term goas and that the vendor has a soid track record of enabing their customers to improve service deivery, starting with the too can have some immediate advantages. Modern ITIL-compatibe service desk toos deiver a significant amount of functionaity out-of-the-box and can hep you to quicky estabish your processes. However, convincing the business to fund the purchase can prove chaenging. A sampe foows of the most common issues IT organisations face, which you may wish to consider incuding in your business case. Remember that every business is different and you need to identify the hot buttons for your organisation, but if you start with this ist, you shoud find it easier to buid a case to justify the investment. Consequences (Risks) of not making investment in Service Desk Software: Difficut to support business growth without management information Quaity of IT services may deteriorate further Cannot impement Service Leve Management (few meaningfu KPIs, no OLAs) unabe to baseine current service performance, highight inefficiencies and therefore improve service deivery Service desk remains entirey reactive, unabe to anayse incident trends to highight repetition and dupication of effort No effective process for identifying and managing probems No automation, manua processes reduce ca handing effectiveness Reduction in morae as IT staff fee they are not making progress Knowedge in peope s heads Cannot easiy differentiate between Incidents and Service Requests Poor communication with customers regarding the progress and resoution of their requests Poory panned changes to the infrastructure affect service avaiabiity Increased ikeihood of audit nonconformance Manua reporting is time consuming IT assets and maintenance contracts not managed adequatey
Tangibe Benefits: Desired Soution Incident Management, escaation and resoution Effective Probem Management Change Management Asset Management Automated mechanism to monitor performance against SLAs Best-practice approach IT governance and business risk Impement and manage KPIs Automated service reports generated Economies of scae and support for increased growth Sef-Service Knowedge Base Improved customer communication and increased perception of service quaity Impement additiona service improvement processes in staged phases. Business Benefit Improves service to users by increasing XX% of cas resoved on time. Improves service reiabiity by addressing recurring fauts and identifying known errors. Reduces risk of unexpected service outages and provides smoother introduction of new services into the production environment. Faciitates controed growth of the business and drives efficiency. Better utiisation of IT assets, increased financia transparency and eimination of waste. Sets user expectations for incident resoution and deivery of IT services. Highights areas of potentia faiure and reduces the risk of missing SLAs. Improves service to users by increasing % of cas resoved on time. Reduction in manua effort to monitor SLAs. Improved ITIL aigned processes and automation. Increased service deivery performance. Effectiveness rea time monitoring of skis and resource demands aow optima distribution of effort. Maintains an accurate record of IT activities required to reduce business risk and for audit purposes. Improved capture of metrics to enabe accurate reporting and service improvement through trend anaysis and proactive probem management. Significant reduction in effort required to generate reports. Tracking and management of service eves to ensure minima oss of service. Improved efficiency enabes IT to achieve more with existing resources. Increased IT transparency. Users have greater fexibiity in ogging, escaating and viewing progress of their cas. Reduced reiance on knowedge in peope s heads. Improved ca resoution and abiity to pubish FAQs to users to promote sef-service. Effective management of customer profies and their reationship with IT. Abiity to gather feedback of customer satisfaction eves. Automated updates to customers when managing requests. Soution can grow as IT service management processes mature ensuring ongevity and protecting investment.
Anyone can take a bite out of ITIL There s a esson we can a take away from the reaity of ITIL impementations. Setting your sights ow isn t negative, it s hugey positive. Bite-Size ITIL can prove the vaue of service improvements, engender support and give you the confidence to mature and adopt further processes in the future. In many ways it s just common sense don t bite off more than you can chew, take on just a few processes with the goa of short-term, proven success and after that we, you can think about taking on the word, of ITIL at east. Hornbi s Bite-Size webinar series offers vauabe advice on taking this approach. Visit www.hornbi. com/bitesize for more information. Supportworks ITSM Foundations provides the idea software framework to support an organisation in its first stages of impementing ITIL. Based on Hornbi s industry-eading and award-winning famiy of IT Service Management soutions, Supportworks ITSM Foundations enabes IT organisations to rapidy adopt ITIL processes and deiver those vita quick wins, offering a soid base for on-going IT Service improvement as ITIL maturity deveops. The soution is easy to depoy, in days, not weeks - and is affordabe for organisations that need a quick start in service management. Supportworks ITSM Foundations automates many aspects of IT Service Management, increases IT staff productivity and makes it easier for IT staff to deiver services with a business focus. Business Benefits Famiiar ook and fee reduces training overhead Deivers business vaue in the shortest possibe time Automate service requests from customers Increase IT productivity Manage IT resources more effectivey Reduce the cost of IT support Improve quaity of service and customer satisfaction Simpe to insta, fast to depoy Hornbi Service Management Ltd. Ares Odyssey Business Park West End Park Ruisip HA4 6QD UK Hornbi Service Management Inc. 300 East John Carpenter Frwy. Suite 110 Irving TX 75062 USA Te: +44 (0)20 8582 8282 Fax: +44 (0)20 8582 8288 saes@hornbi.com Te: +1 972 717 2300 Fax: +1 972 717 2331 usasaes@hornbi.com For more information visit www.hornbi.com