I have recently been investigating provocative and heretical ideas. Among them are the very hard questions concerning radical service provider reorganization. I have found that some of the reasons why service desks have been valuable contributions to service provider organizations are perhaps no longer justified. I would like to start a discussion around this question: Do we really need service desks? [Read more…] about Do we really need service desks?
knowledge management
Organizing for Kanban
When Kanban decides against lower lead times
Certain organizations applying Kanban principles may choose not to include IT operations specialists in cross-functional teams, on the assumption that it would be very hard to keep such specialists busy. These organizations prefer, instead, to group the operations specialists in their own teams, thereby increasing the risk that an operations specialist might not be available immediately when a work item is assigned to that team. In other words, a compromise is made in favor of higher occupation levels for these specialists, as opposed to higher levels of throughput and lower lead times.
This article discusses the paradigms for organizing IT personnel that underpin such decisions. The choice between a pure cross-functional team and the separation of developers and operations into separate teams is more nuanced than a simple choice between optimizing occupation levels as opposed to lead time. [Read more…] about Organizing for Kanban
Case vs. Process is a matter of scope, innovation and maturity
First, a reminder about why processes are used
Perhaps the most important contribution of ITIL V2 to the realm of IT service management was its emphasis on working according to well defined processes. This contribution has undoubted merits, although its unthinking, blanket adoption has come under considerable criticism. Be that as it may, the fundamental argument of working according to well defined processes is four-fold:
- attempting to work in the same way for each instance of an activity allows that activity to be measured each time, and allows for comparisons and analysis of those measurements
- working in a process-oriented way enables the principle of perfecting via practice
- perfecting an activity makes it more effective, more efficient and more predictable
- the measurements of processes may be used to determine in what ways it may be improved.
[Read more…] about Case vs. Process is a matter of scope, innovation and maturity
Knowledge and BYOD
In an interview of Rohit Ghai, of EMC, on an ACMLive event [no longer available on line], an interesting twist was given to the traditional goal of knowledge management. This goal is often described as “providing the right information to the right person at the right time, to support making the right decision.” Rohit spoke of “providing the right information to the right person at the right time on the right device…”
The link with BYOD is the fact that many organizations chose not to allow their users to have the devices that the users themselves would most want to use to perform their knowledge work. It is said that the upcoming generation of knowledge workers is better equipped at home than at work. While this statement may be more folklore or spin than fact, it highlights the great inefficiencies that result from employees and consultants being denied the right to use the tools that help them be most effective and efficient. As a consultant I have frequently faced the issue of having precisely the information required to resolve an issue, but the documents are on my personal equipment, which I have not been allowed to bring into the customers’ sites. So, I get the right information, but because it is on the wrong device, I get it at the wrong time.
I look forward to the results of the itSMF International survey on the management of end user personal devices.