Ten Steps to ITSM Success by Angelo Esposito & Timothy Rogers

Author:Angelo Esposito & Timothy Rogers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849284585
Publisher: IT Governance Publishing
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

There are many reasons to advocate using a standardized approach to process development. Above all, standardization is essential to achieving both efficiency and effectiveness. As the economist Ronald Coase demonstrated in his influential work The Nature of the Firm, Economica, 4:16 (1937), 386-40514 the very existence of a firm or organization is evidence of the desire to produce maximum results with minimum required resources. All organizations seek to be more efficient and effective, regardless of mission – this is equally true of commercial-/profit-maximizing firms, government agencies, non-profit organizations, or any variation of an organization thereof. Of course, achieving this state of nirvana is anything but assured – this is why the role of service management is so critical to an organization’s success.

In addition, there are many second-order effects of standardization that include, but are not limited to, the following. A standard approach:

• Provides general direction and guidance for employees: a solid, yet flexible, framework within which to operate.

• Improves communication within and between teams and, therefore, lessens the possibility of confusion and misaligned expectations.

• Greatly reduces the learning curve and training time for new or retrained employees.

• Enriches the consistency of the work effort across the enterprise.

• Ensures business continuity, and aids in quickly recovering from natural or man-made disasters.

• Allows for easier and more efficient delegation of routine tasks to lower-level employees.

To summarize, achieving process repeatability is the Holy Grail of service management. It virtually guarantees that the organization can rapidly scale (either up or down) to meet customer demand. Delivering the right amount of service with the necessary number of resources maximizes the bottom line, and promotes the overall health and well-being of the organization.

The underlying question is, and always has been: where and how should the line be drawn between enterprise-wide standards, and those standards that may be required for departmental- or geographical-specific requirements?

To satisfy customer demand, every organization must strike the optimal balance between enterprise standardization and the need to tailor individual processes to fit the unique needs of a particular business unit or wholly-owned subsidiary. A prime example of this is an international organization having branch offices in several different countries. Local rules and regulations may necessitate an exception or modification to an enterprise standard. Failure to do so may subject the organization to fines or penalties. It therefore behooves the enterprise to allow the local entity to modify existing standards, while continuing to adhere – as closely as possible – to enterprise policies, procedures and standards. This is important because enterprise efficiency and effectiveness can only be achieved through some degree of standardization. However, both measures ultimately suffer if standards are so rigid that individual business units are not able to apply the principles of a process to meet the unique needs of its customer base, or to adequately support a delivered service. Without flexibility and the authority to innovate, the business unit will inevitably resort to costly and inefficient workarounds, or, worse, will establish their own standards that may be at odds with inter-dependent processes and business controls.

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