Agile Service Management in practice?
It turns out agile and Service Management go together quite nicely. But how? How do you translate the agile philosophy to actual changes in your work? Here are 6 examples.
1.Make sure everything you do adds value for the customer
IT departments too often put a lot of work into things that have little value for their customers. I recently visited an organization where the IT department had written an extensive manual for a new smartphone they offered. Sounds useful, but most of this information was already available on the internet. And the next OS update is going to make their manual outdated. A more agile way of documenting is to keep the information in your manual limited to what is strictly necessary and first give these instructions to a small test group.
Only describe company-specific information, like how to synchronize your work email with the new smartphone. Do you receive questions from your test group? Update the documentation before you officially start supplying the smartphone.
2.Always work closely with your customers
When designing services or processes, service organizations make a lot of assumptions about the needs of their customers. An example: for years, a facilities organization encouraged their customers to
log a call when something was wrong in the office building. They recently discovered their customers found it quite annoying to receive five to six status update emails after they logged a call.
That was the reason many customers decided to stop logging calls altogether. In Agile Service Management, you involve your customers often and as soon as possible with everything you do. This way, you avoid working based on assumptions.
The organization from the example has come up with a solution together with their customers. When customers log a call, they can tick a box saying they want to receive status updates. One question and a single checkbox could have spared five years of frustration.
3.The right people in the right place
Many IT organizations lean heavily on processes. The goal of working with processes is to guarantee a consistent quality of services, no matter who supplies the service. Sounds good in theory. In practice, it does matter who supplies the service. An unmotivated service desk employee probably leaves a less positive impression on the customer than a happy, motivated employee.
You can’t cover this difference with a process. An important part of the agile mindset is having enough time and attention for your team members. Your team only functions well with people who are good at the work they do, and when the work they do makes them happy. Is a team member no longer motivated? Talk to him or her. Maybe they’re happier in a different role.
4.Make your processes as flexible as possible
ITIL processes are usually not flexible. Take change management. A Request for Change needs to go through a set number of predefined steps. The only choice you have in the process is approve or decline. There is no room to change plans. If you want to change them, you need to stop the process, make a new plan and get approval.
Make sure that the processes you design are flexible enough to deal with ever-changing demands. This however doesn’t mean you need to implement every single change during the process. It does mean that you leave room for your team to deal with the processes as they see fit.
5.Design, implement and improve your services step by step
New software or services implementations can take up months, years even. When the implementation is finally done, you’ve gained so many new insights you probably want to change everything. But by that time there’s no more budget left, the project team members have moved on and it’s up to the application manager to process all the feedback on her or his own.
Delivering new services in an agile way means you deliver something workable as soon as possible, collect feedback, and use this feedback to improve the product.
About the Author
Brett Moffett
Solutions Architect, Cireson
With over 20 years of experience in a range of industries, Brett is all too aware of the many challenges with IT support and associated ITSM tools. Having held most support roles, Brett’s passion now lies in promoting the System Center platform. He has designed and implemented System Center and Cireson to customers in both Australia and globally. Joining the thought leaders in System Center Service Management and Asset Management, Brett is a frequent blogger and contributor to the Cireson Community and other online forums. He also hosts monthly Adelaide and Canberra Microsoft IT Pro Communities, as well as webcasts on technical or business process topics.