Last time I wrote about the “Displacement of Goals” which
is turning things from what were once intended to provide instrumental value
into things that merely provide terminal value.
Our IT Service Management Culture (or “Service Culture”) has done the
same thing. We struggle to justify the
business value of ITIL and in many cases rely on metrics related to the
terminal value of our IT Enterprise rather than devote critical thought to
instrumental value we provide to the business.
Too often we measure success in classic terms: time between failures,
time to recovery, reducing the time to process changes, or mitigating the
incidents related to change. These may
be instrumental for IT, but they are terminal for the Business. We must be more concerned with IT Business
alignment: being a line of business in support of organizational strategy and
goals.
Notwithstanding the possible inconsistencies among
business units which can be a challenge, IT should focus on the delivery of
services and not products and how those services contribute to business goals
rather than measuring availability of components such as servers, networks and
applications. As ITIL has matured and
grown there is now evidence that support its benefits and value to the
business, such as achieving good governance.
Additionally, the benefits of implementing ITIL best practices include
consistent and repeatable processes for business continuity/risk management;
controlling IT costs; improving internal user satisfaction; and ensuring
regulatory compliance. We are now in the
“post-industrial society” where the knowledge worker is becoming more important
than the service worker. In the
knowledge based economy, the ability to exploit and automate intangible assets,
such as knowledge and business processes, has become far more decisive than
simply managing static physical assets. So
ITSM practitioners can and need to make a clear case for the business value
beyond mere cost savings, improved “processes,” and component availability. The information is there. The message needs to be delivered.
So, what does that business value look like? Clearly, IT’s role as an equal partner in
determining the most appropriate business strategy has increased as a result of
ITIL, but business value falls generally into two categories: development and
delivery of the proper IT Services to support the organizational business
strategy; and more efficient and effective running of those services. Let’s look at two examples of each starting
with the most tangible: efficient and effective services.
For this tangible value of ITIL,
the following assumptions are made for an organization:
·
All
employees cost $50 an hour
·
Your
organization comprises 500 Users
·
The
total number of Incidents is 5,000 per year
·
The
average time to fix an Incident is ten minutes
·
A
working year has 200 days
Following the implementation of Configuration
Management, the Service Desk has a much greater insight into the relationship
between users, configuration items and incidents. The three people assigned to
incident can be reduced to two, resulting in a savings of $80,000.
The less tangible is showing the value of
development and delivery of the right services at the right time to support the
organizational strategy. This comes through
the more business-value focused ITIL version 3.
Where ITIL version 2 focused on processes, version 3 focuses on business
value. This shift attempts to improve the linkage between the business needs of
the organization and the IT operational processes that enable them. Hence,
version 3 has a more strategic approach than the tactical approach of version
2. For example, Service Portfolio
Management, as described in ITIL V3, is responsible for the investment IT makes
in its Services across the Services’ entire lifecycle. It forces IT to answer questions like:
·
Who is the customer
·
What is the market space
·
What are the opportunities that IT can
support the business to exploit
The business value here is to focus IT to think as a
business partner and service provider rather than just an IT technology shop. ITIL v3 and the IT Service Management service
culture provides business value by providing the paradigm through which IT uses
technology and processes as a means rather than an end. IT can support and compliment (and sometimes
drive) business strategy by designing and deploying the right services. The business value is being a business
partner rather than merely a technology provider.
We need to make this message clear and ensure the
business understands this value and the Service Culture understands their role
in providing that value.
Works Cited
Doherty, P. (2009). Service
Portfolio Management: Optimizing the Business Value of IT. White Paper
Service Portfolio Management. Computer
Associates.
Harris, M. D. & Herron, D. E. &
Iwanicki, S. (2008). The business value of it: managing risks, optimizing
performance and measuring results. [Books24x7 version]
Šimková, E.
and Basl, F. (2006). Business value of IT. Systems Integration.
The
benefits of ITIL, (2008). Pink Elephant
What is IT-business alignment?
(2012). Pink
Elephant
