Monthly Archives: July 2010

Continual Service Improvement Scenario

Service Measurement and Reporting

To do this effectively, it was necessary to take metrics and data and analyze this against targets.

The CSI improvement model was used as a roadmap for this SIP (Service Improvement Scenario). As the business needs changed, so had the perceived value of HYPE. HYPE had become an integral part of the business communication plan. As a result, new business plans/goals were established and new targets set, with an action plan for improvement.
This will identify:

* Technology improvements
* Process improvements
* Document improvements
* Training etc.

As plans were formalized and accepted by the business, Request for Changes to technology, process and documentation were submitted to Change Management.

And so it continues!

Continual Service Improvement Summary

There is great value to the business when service improvement takes a holistic approach throughout the entire lifecycle. Continual Service Improvement enables this holistic approach to be taken.

Some key benefits of the Continual Service Improvement phase:
* Increased growth
* Competitive Advantage
* Increased Return On Investment
* Increased Value On Investment.

ROI: Return on investment – Difference between the benefit (saving) achieved and the amount expended to achieve that benefit, expressed as percentage. Logically we would like to spend a little to save a lot.

VOI: Value on investment – Extra value created by establishment of benefits that include non-monetary or long term outcomes. ROI is a subcomponent of VOI.

Tension Metrics

All service providers are faced with the challenge with a balancing act of three main elements:
* Resources – people, IT infrastructure, consumables and money
* Features – the product or service and its quality
* Time schedule – the timeframes within which various stages and the final delivery of a service or product are required to be achieved.

The delivered product or service therefore represents a balanced trade-off between these three elements. Tension metrics can help create that balance by preventing teams from focusing on just one element. If an initiative is being driven primarily towards satisfying a business driver of on-time delivery to the exclusion of other factors, the manager will achieve this aim by flexing the resources and service features in order to meet the delivery schedule. This unbalanced focus will wither lead to budget increase or lower product quality. Tension metrics help create a balance between shared goals and delivering a product or service according to the business requirements within time and budget.

Continual Service Improvement Baselines

A benchmark captured and used as a reference point for later comparison.

It is important that baselines as documents are recognized and accepted throughout the organization. Baseline must be established at each level: strategic goals, and objectives, tactical process maturity and operational metrics and KPIs.

Examples
1. A Service Level Achievement Baseline can be used as a starting point to measure the effect of a Service Improvement Plan.
2. A performance Baseline can be used to measure changes in performance over the lifetime of an IT service.
3. A Configuration Management baseline can be used to enable the IT infrastructure to be restored to a known configuration if a change or release fails.

Continual Service Improvement Processes Service Measurement and Reporting Goal and objectives

To coordinate the design of metrics, data collection and reporting activities from the other processes and functions.

There are four main reasons to monitor and measure:

* Validate: Are we supporting the strategy and vision?
* Direct: Based on factual data, people can be guided to change behavior
* Justify: Do we have the right targets and metrics?
* Intervene: Take corrective actions such as identifying improvement opportunities.

Measurement of all the process metrics takes place throughout all the Lifecycle phases. CSI uses the results of these measurements to identify and establish improvements via reports.