Continual Service Improvement

9. Challenges, CSF and Risks

9.1 CHALLENGES

Every organization will have its unique set of challenges. As with implementing any type of change within an organization one of the major challenges will be managing the behavioural changes that are required.

The other issue is that CSI often requires adequate tools for monitoring and gathering the data, analysing the data for trends and reporting on the data. CSI does not happen only through automation but also requires resources to allocated to CSI activities. The resources need to understand their roles and responsibilities and have the correct skill sets to execute the CSI activities.

Listed below are some of the common ones that you m, encounter when implementing Continual Service Improvement:

Lack of management commitment
Inadequate resources, budget and time
Lack of mature service management processes
Lack of information, monitoring and measurements
Lack of Knowledge Management
A resistance to planning and a reluctance to be proved wrong
A lack of corporate objectives, strategies, policies am business direction
A lack of IT objectives, strategies and policies
Lack of knowledge and appreciation of business impacts and priorities
Diverse and disparate technologies and applications
Resistance to change and cultural change
Poor relationships, communication and a lack of cooperation between IT and the business
Lack of tools, standards and skills
Tools too complex and costly to implement and maintain
Over-commitment of resources with an associated inability to deliver (e.g. projects always late or over budget)
Poor supplier management and/or poor supplier performance.

9.2 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

Appointment of a CSI manager
Adoption of CSI within the organization
Management commitment - this means ongoing, visible participation in CSI activities such as creating vision for CSI, communicating vision, direction setting and decision making, when appropriate
Defining clear criteria for prioritizing improvement projects
Adoption of the service lifecycle approach
Sufficient and ongoing funding for CSI activities
Resource allocation - people are dedicated to the improvement effort not as just another add-on to their already long list of tasks to perform
Technology to support the CSI activities
Adoption of processes - embracing service management processes instead of adapting it to suit their own personal needs and agenda.

9.3 RISKS

Being over-ambitious - don't try to improve everything at once. Be realistic with timelines and expectations
Not discussing improvement opportunities with the business - the business has to be involved in improvement decisions that will impact them
Not focusing on improving both services and service management processes
Not prioritizing improvement projects
Implementing CSI with little or no technology
Implementing a CSI initiative with no resources - this means that people must be allocated and dedicated to this
Implementing CSI without knowledge transfer and training - this means educating first (acquire knowledge), then training (practice using the newly acquired knowledge). The training should be done as close to the launch of improvement as possible
Not performing all steps of the 7-Step Improvement Process - it is important that all steps of the improvement process be followed; missing any one step can lead to a poor decision on what and how to improve
Lack of making strategic, tactical or operational decisions based on knowledge gained - reports are actually used; people see that the reports are being used
Lack of management taking action on recommended service improvement opportunities
Lack of meeting with the business to understand new business requirements
The communication/awareness campaign for any improvement is lacking, late or missing altogether
Not involving the right people at all levels to plan, build, test and implement the improvement
Removing testing before implementation or only partially testing. This means that all aspects of the improvement (people, process and technology) must be tested, including the documentation as well.

9.4 SUMMARY

Implementing CSI is not an easy task: it requires a change in management and staff attitudes and values that continual improvement is something that needs to be done proactively and not reactively. Identifying the risks and challenges before implementing CSI is a critical first step. A SWOT analysis can help identify these items. It is important to define mitigation strategies for the risks and identify how to best overcome challenges that an organization may encounter.

Knowing the critical success factors before undertaking CSI implementation will help manage the risks and challenges. Don't try to change everything at once.