Entries by Troy DuMoulin, VP Research & Development

Recently I was approached by Stacy Collett at CIO.com to talk about IT culture in the workplace. Cooperation or playing nice for mutual benefit and individual goal achievement is simply not enough to support transformation goals, digital or otherwise. What any community needs are shared values, goals, practices, and a sense of shared priority. This is what it means to collaborate (shared goals) versus cooperate (individual goals). Here is a link to the article: Telltale Signs of IT Dysfunction -- and How to fit it.

As I prepare to teach a class on service configuration management, I find myself reflecting on one of the challenging aspects of the English language. Specifically, that we can use the same word with the same spelling to mean different things depending on the context.

As we wrap up 2019 and move into the holidays, life begins to slow down for some of us, providing a few moments for retrospective thoughts (Agile pun intended) and musings as to what the next year will bring. It would certainly not be an understatement to say this year was filled with intensity and change. One such major addition was the introduction of ITIL 4 and its key messages of systems thinking, safety culture, Lean value streams, and the Agile message of progress iteratively with feedback. These have all been very positively received and enthusiastically embraced by thousands of IT professionals and organizations.

The Casualties of Frameworks Going to War 

In principle, the primary goal of an IT service management (ITSM) framework is to provide a published body of knowledge (BoK) so professionals can improve their ability to deliver value to the larger community they serve. However, most IT organizations struggle with a silo mentality regarding culture, processes, and tools.

This cultural dynamic has unfortunately influenced the way the industry tends to write, use, and sometimes misuse the assets and resources it’s been given. This has also been fueled by the fact that various IT communities have developed their BoKs, management frameworks, and automation strategies around a principle of specialization versus integration. The outcome of this approach creates a culture of silo-based values, beliefs, and behaviors.

Being able to quickly react and effectively solve IT problems is crucial to achieving business value in today’s rapidly changing global marketplace.

Savvy competitors have embraced Lean problem-solving and improvement methods – which are established and proven – to help organizations enhance the quality, speed, and cost of their products and services by focusing on value while removing waste.

Well, another year is fast coming to a close, and 2018 seems to have flown by on a rocket-propelled hoverboard because so many things are changing!

As has been my habit over the past few years, I like to sit down and write my reflections about the past year as well as project what I believe will be the focus in 2019.

I predict the following five trends will impact our industry in a major but positive way in the coming year:

(From Process Owner –> Service Management Office -> To SIAM)

Every Community Needs Good Governance Otherwise We Get Lord of The Flies & Piggy Dies
_{Ref: Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize–winning British author William Golding}

As organizations look for ways to accelerate value delivery and improve collaboration, people and teams have traditionally turned to published IT frameworks and models for ideas and answers. Many of these models make the point that defining and documenting your processes is simply not enough. For any organizational process, product or capability to be sustained and improved over the long term, it is critical to establish and gain acceptance of ownership and personal accountability. Effective ownership means that those who accept this responsibility have each of the following characteristics; interest,  time, skills, knowledge, passion and authority. (All of these elements are critical and need to be present for this concept to work!)

Is Your Technology or Framework  A Solution Looking For A Problem?

It seems that every other webinar, tweet or conference presentation you see posted over the last few months all focus on increasing the speed of value delivery. My own writings have admittedly been focused on this challenge for over the past 24 months as our industry responds to the market demand for better faster cheaper!

As usual the IT solution to this challenge is typically presented in two categories. 

• Enter Stage Left: We need efficient & integrated processes {Agile, Lean & DevOps}
• Enter Stage Right: We need better tools {Cloud Foundries, Digital Pipelines & Artificial Intelligence}

However, from where I stand the primary challenge and barrier to building the necessary velocity continues to be a people and organizational change management issue and not a process or technology problem. To point out the obvious (Elephant in the room) if you would forgive the gratuitous reference to my employer the main barriers have always been and continue to be organizational and cultural challenges related to:

• Center Stage:  Leadership, Lack of Shared Goals and Silo versus Systems Thinking

Multi Vendor IT Supply Chains Are A Fact of Life, You Either Manage Them Or They Manage You

In our evolving digital economy, organizations are facing intense pressure to increase speed to market, address accumulated technical debit and move their focus from run to innovation. The result of these drivers creates a trend to leverage cloud technologies and increased use of third party suppliers. However, the growing complexity of our supply chain creates new challenges around alignment, shared priorities and service delivery. To address this challenge organizations are adopting an emerging management model called Service Integration and Management (SIAM) based on frameworks such as ITIL, COBIT and Project Management to improve service delivery alignment across different suppliers.

Join George, Shane and I In this episode of Practitioner Radio where we discuss how organizations use a designated and dedicated service integrator function to establish common practice across diverse internal and external supplier environments.

We face a period of un-paralleled change and demand, creating a tangible need to increase speed and agility. The drivers behind this change are a combination of several market forces.