Which ITIL lifecycle phase interacts with the clients? October 11, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: change management, customer, customer service, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL V3, itsm
add a comment
The ITIL Framework is based around IT Service Management (so basically the activities that need to be done to create, deliver and manage IT Services).
As the focus is on the management of services it is of vital importance to stay in constant contact with your clients, every phase in the Service Lifecycle focuses on customer interaction.
For Example:
Service Strategy – Demand Management needs to listen to the clients to figure out what the Patterns of Business Activity are. What is it that the client needs from IT in terms of service types and support?
Service Design – This phase has processes like Service Level Management and Service Catalog Management. The Service Catalog has a business component to help clients make appropriate decisions in relation to the type of services they wish to purchase. This phase also starts the creation of a Service Design Package which features User Acceptance criteria.
Service Transition – This phase interacts with the customers about changes to the Services and Service Experience. Change Management will interact with the clients for high impact changes as their input is important in the assessment and authorization of changes.
Service Operation – This phase interacts mainly with the End-users of the service as this is the phase where all day-to-day activities take place. The Service Desk is the first point of contact between the business community and the IT Group.
Continual Service Improvement – This phase needs clear direction from the business and as such interacts with the customers in relation to vision, mission and strategy. Customer Satisfaction surveys are usually initiated from this phase in the lifecycle.
See? Every phase interacts with the clients and end-users at various levels. The IT group can’t work in isolation (anymore…) and needs to know exactly what it needs to deliver to the customers to what level of expectations.
How ITIL Service Management saves Europe from the recession October 1, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: customer, customer service, IT Service Management, itsm, money, recession, service management, SLA
2 comments
After spending many years in the ITSM / ITIL space I notice that everything in time becomes a best practice, good practice or bad practice example of IT Service Management.
This week’s example has to do with Demand Management, Service Level Management and Financial Management.
The scenario is like this: I traveled from Australia (where I live) to The Netherlands (where my family lives) for a short family holiday.
As part of being in The Netherlands I wanted to do some shopping (no need to analyse my PBA’s to figure that one out!). And I did go to the shops:
1) Shop nr. one – doesn’t accept credit cards at all (what the?! All I have is a credit card, what do I do now?)
2) Shop nr. two – DOES accept credit cards, but only when you have a pincode to go with it (??? yes, I am sure the bank sent me a pin number but I never use it in Australia so I completely forgot it…)
So far the holiday has been very cheap for me.. I WANT to spent money… I HAVE the money to spend and I know exactly what I want to spend it on… but I can’t spend it!
As a client I know what I want – the demand is there. And the demand management process has analysed my PBA … the appropriate shops are available for me to purchase the products and services that I want. What is missing is the combination between Financial Management and Service Level Management. I was not aware of the agreed service levels prior to me going to The Netherlands. And as a result I am an unhappy customer who feels ill-prepared, not able to receive the service levels that I want.
As IT organizations we can learn from this:
- Communicate our Services and Service Levels
- Understand what your customer wants and how they want the whole customer experience to happen.
- Make it as easy as possible for our customers to pay for our products and services (now that I can only pay cash, I definitely spend less)
- If you can’t offer the complete experience – communicate this very clearly to your clients.
To top it all off…
Yesterday I came prepared to the train station… I had a 50 euro bill to pay for my train ticket! Very proud moment, I felt extremely empowered. Went to the ticket machine and made it all the way through to the payment point where the machine asked me to enter 24 euro worth of COINS in the slot as the only available means of payment!
sigh…
In times of recession – how does ITIL Service Management help to keep your good employees? April 14, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in business, itil, itsm.Tags: certification, crisis, customer service, economy, IT Service Management, itil, itsm, recession, service, service management, the art of service, value
2 comments
Today I was interviewed by somebody from the itSMF about trends in the ITSM education and training industry. Inevitably the questions go the the current economic climate and the position of education in all this.
To me this is really easy – but then again: I run an education company so I am slightly biased – ITSM education really helps organisations to make a difference. Note that I don’t say ‘training’ as I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about organisations who only focus on the training aspect.. teaching monkeys tricks… Of course there is a training aspect in each educational program but there is so much more to it! Being an educator means that you know your subject as well as have the ability to make people understand what this new theory means for them – in their working environment. You need to understand that it is NOT about you but about the students. Educating is more than presenting, it is about focusing on the needs and requirements of the students… constantly.
Anyway, stepping down from my soap box for a second here, I strongly feel that ITSM education can make the difference between an IT organisation that is subject to outsourcing or an IT group that adds value to the overall corporate goals. ITSM education make the difference to the individual wanting to get that new job, and helps to get passed by when the redundancies are handed out.
Like I said to the interviewer today; I am constantly looking for new staff. We filled 2 vacancies in March and are currently advertising for 2 additional vacancies. So I see my fair share of applications and resumes across my desk. In comparison to 12 months ago, we receive about 10x the amount of applicants but I can’t say that the overall quality of the applicants has risen. Mind you, there are still gems out there – and they stand out! But what I expected to see as a result of all these job cuts and redundancies was that a lot of highly skilled people with fantastic experience and backgrounds would be applying for jobs.. and I don’t see that at the moment. Not in Australia that is…
Why do I say this? Well, for highly competent – qualified and experienced ITSM staff members the jobs are still out there and it is easy to stand out among the other candidates. So adding ITSM certification to your resume could be a good thing for individual IT professionals.
On the other side – IT organisations can use ITSM education as a differentiator to maintain their high performing employees. Offering educational opportunities to them will make them highly productive in the work place – making sure the IT group can cope with the new requirements and added work pressures – but also happier employees as they know they are valued and continue to improve their skills and qualifications. This seems to be a way to retain your good employees. High performers want to be challenged, and constantly learning new things or improving current processes. ITSM education gives them the opportunity to do this. This ultimately saves you money through retention of your high performers and not having to look for new staff as well as an improved IT Service delivery mechanism.
Benefits no matter where you look! So, what’s keeping you from educating your staff?!
How ITIL Service Management can help the government February 26, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: customer, customer service, expectation, IT, IT Service Management, itil, itsm, management, service management, SLA, the art of service
add a comment
As a self-confessed IT Service Management advocate – I see the usability of IT Service Management and the ITIL framework in every single thing… in every day experiences I see how ITIL Service Management would be able to help. Pretty sad, don’t you think? There is just so much to improve, and so many areas in our life that can be improved on.. and most of the principles of ITIL Service Management are generic and universal enough to be applicable to many industries and processes.
For example:
Last Sunday I arrived in Indonesia to do meet with a client. The trip went as you would expect (and I consider myself a fairly experienced traveler by now…). Until the moment I got off the plane in Indonesia… Let me tell you what I expected, in comparison to what actually happened.
My expectations:
I usually have an electronic ticket and on this document it says whether you need a visa for the country or not. When I get off the plane in a country, I have my passport, entry document and baggage tag with me in my hand. I walk to the immigration desk, show my passport, they put a stamp in it and I continue my journey to pick up my bags. Most of the time I am pretty tired of the long plane trip (the joys of living in Australia!) and I am just glad to get to a taxi to take me to the hotel…
My reality:
In this case I didn’t have any indication that I needed a Visa and when I walked out of the plane I ignored the big yellow sign that says “visa on arrival” .. after all: nobody told me that I needed to have one, right?!
Wrong… when I got to the immigration booth, a very cranky immigration officer pointed out that I didn’t have a visa and that I needed to go upstairs to get one (why did I get the idea that this wasn’t the first time somebody had to be sent back?!).
So I went back… stood in line at the visa desk, only to be told by the person that I need to go to the BANK first to pay for the visa. Oh – OK… so I stood in line at the BANK to pay for the visa. When it was finally my turn, I gave them my credit card to pay for the visa… WRONG! The boy pointed at the sign that said “CASH ONLY”.. I mean, who has cash when you just arrive in a country? Lucky for me they accept Australian Dollars (and it was only twice as expensive) and I paid for my visa.
Back in the other line to get the sticker and back to the immigration person who now let me into the country.
By the time I had all this done, all the baggage was taken OFF the caroussel and placed in a separate area somewhere, which nearly gave me a heart attack as I thought that my bags had gone missing!
OK – how could ITIL Service Management help in this situation? Easy – by management of expectations! We all know that Service Level Management in particular aims at setting realistic expectations. Would the activities have changed by me knowing in advance what needed to be done? NO – but I would have known what to expect and it would probably have saved me some time and definitely aggravation! Same is true for our clients and end users. We have a Service Catalogue that is accurate and up to date, Customers can choose from the Business Service Catalogue and we negotiate an SLA that is realistic and only contains service levels that we can guarantee and measure. Mistakes are still made, IT systems still fail every now and then… but the customer’s expectations are at a realistic level. In addition to this we communicate with our clients about our expectations and actual achievements. We keep the finger on the pulse and our clients are never in the dark. They know what to expect, and receive what they anticipated… People are creatures of habit, and in general people want to know in advance what will happen, what they can expect and what impact it will have on them!
People behave the same whether they operation within the IT industry or outside of it… ITIL Service Management helps us to manage people’s expectations and create a positive service experience! If only the government of Indonesia had attended some of The Art of Service’s educational programs…. 
ITIL Release and deployment management for Windows 7 January 17, 2009
Posted by ivankamenken in itil, itsm.Tags: business, capacity management, change management, customer, customer service, IT Service Management, itil, ITIL V3, itsm, microsoft, service management, testing, value
add a comment
With all the hype around Windows 7 I have been thinking about the release and deployment processes that would be associated with a large and very visible project as this one. Obviously, there has been quite some customer feedback from the previous releases and versions (Vista). This would have been the basis for the RFC (request for change). So how would the ITIL processes be applicable to this project?
- It will all be under control of Change Management, as this process is meant to manage all risk associated with changing the IT infrastructure and IT Services. As there will be a major potential business impact for faults and mistakes, I would expect a rigid process and procedures around this project and a strong CAB with firm decision making powers.
- Change Management will rely on the process of Evaluation to gain a better understanding of the expected performance and quality criteria for this changed service and product. This is most likely the reason for the current public beta testing that is being performed, as this is a fantastic way to gather performance information from the production environments.
- Service Validation and Testing definitely plays an important role! Especially as we are talking about software development as well as the development of associated support services. Not only will the project team need input from the support engineers early in the project (as is appropriate when one follows the V-model for testing), but the formal transfer of knowledge – including, but not limited to Known Errors – is very important for future client support. Knowledge Management is considered to be a separate process that is very closely related to both Service Validation & Testing and Evaluation.
- The project will also be heavily involved with the Release and Deployment process of the organization. How are we going to make sure that we manage the transfer from one environment to another with out disrupting the status quo? (things should only get better.. not worse). Who do we include in the training and education, as well as the communication plans around this release? As this project is delivering a product that will be for sale to the general public, you will receive direction and input from the Sales and Marketing departments as well as the technical support areas.
It all sounds so easy, and on paper it will be. However, I haven’t even talked about the connection with Service Asset & Configuration Management, Capacity Management, the Service desk and all the operational processes. It is much more involved than you can type up in 400 words but… in order to manage a project this large and this visible, maybe you have to start very simplistic and state the obvious processes, procedures and work instructions that are needed for a smooth transition. Maybe, just maybe, this will help in identifying all the people involved and the gaps in the initial thought patterns.
Who knows… it might even help Microsoft in delivering a product to the market that actually does what it is supposed to do and is accepted and revered by clients across the world?!
Or would that be too good to be true?!
The secret to success? Consistency! September 9, 2008
Posted by ivankamenken in Uncategorized.Tags: business, customer service, management, Sales, security, the art of service
add a comment
This morning I am flying to Canberra to meet a few clients and as so many times before, I had to go through the airport security. And you know what happened?? For the first time ever, my bag was taken from the security belt and had to be searched…. reason: an umbrella!!
Not an issue, I hear you think – this is just another security measure, one of many as this has become a normal part of airtravel. Well, but what about the fact that this umbrella has been in my bag for the last 12 months (at least!) and I have been flying with this bag/umbrella combination at least 10 times now. (last time was last week)
The security guy told me that there had been an issue a few months ago when somebody put a knife in an umrella and this wasn’t picked up and since this incident, the security measures were upgraded to the extend that ALL umbrellas now have to be checked.
That is fine, but why didn’t this happen at the other 9 occasions where I flew with my umbrella in my bag? Why today, and not last week?! I find it very hard to take all these security measures seriously, especially as they are not performed consistently.
So what can I learn from this? How can I use this experience to improve my business? Well, the most important thing that we are working on is building a personal relationship with our clients. People buy from people they trust… and you can’t trust a person who is inconsistent. I can’t expect clients to buy from us when we change the rules all the time. So the secret to success is consistency.
Consistency without being rigid, as our customer service ethos is very high! There is a LOT we do for our clients, to help them with their business, to improve the way we contact our clients and the experience we give them.
So where would consistency be important:
- Invoicing terms (when do we expect payment, and when do we start chasing?)
- Inclusions in the courses (do students receive a certificate of attendance or not?)
- Living up to our promises (we have a pass guarantee for our classroom Foundation course)
- Processes and procedures (I always try to send an email within 12 hours after meeting a person to confirm the action items from the meeting)
Fan error… September 4, 2008
Posted by ivankamenken in Uncategorized.Tags: customer service, itil, the art of service
add a comment
The saga continues… I absolutely adore my laptop and am completely in love with the tablet function and inbuild mobile internet connection. Needless to say I take it everywhere I go… my laptop and I are becoming like siamese twins! When you see me – you see my laptop.
But it hasn’t been love at first sight: the first laptop only worked for 1 day or so –> the motherboard decided to die on me. Easy fixed as it was within the first 7 days of opening the box (more like, the second time I turned it on!!)
The laptop was sent back to the supplier for replacement…. and I waited…. and waited… and received the message that the second laptop died in transport.
Not to worry, a replacement laptop was organised and arrived after a few weeks. This one has been my loyal trusted companion for the past 8 months or so.
UNTIL TODAY…
When I tried to turn it on this afternoon, all I saw was a black screen with 2 words:
FAN
ERROR
Oh boy… not good! No fan, no laptop – it’s as simple as that. But since I have no idea of the technical implications I called the supplier to get it fixed tomorrow morning. I have a number of meetings in the afternoon and don’t want to show up without my trusted companion. But noooooooo, it needs to be packed up and shipped to the repair centre and it will take approx. 4 working days to get it fixed!!
The Service Desk person didn’t even miss a beat and had no sympathy for the fact that I am now left without a computer for the better part of 4 days. (I tried the “but I run an internet company… how am I supposed to do my business processes?” His answer: Not my problem! If it is that mission critical you should have thought of other warranty and support plans!)
I suppose I should have read the Service Level Agreement a bit better when I purchased the product and the warranty/support service… Lesson learnt I suppose.
What am I going to do? I have just switched completely to laptop only and don’t have a desktop as a backup scenario anymore… I feel abandoned and alone. Luckily I saved all my data on an external hard drive last week or so and all company related information is on the server (I am so HAPPY with the The Art of Service’s policy that nobody is allowed to put company related information on the C-drive) but still… you feel dismembered. My siamese twin is sick and has to go to hospital.
Please don’t send flowers… we’ll be fine… I think.
Ivanka
