The current situation
Many of you who read this will be facing a similar challenge. That challenge is how to modernise your approach to Service Management best practice, in the light of the realisation that your current processes are no longer complimentary to an evolving world of cloud environments, Lean and Agile working, and DevOps models.
For most global companies, Service Management approaches have been influenced initially by ITIL v2 which provided a process focus, and more latterly ITIL v3 which provided a lifecycle focus, and although processes may be robust and effectively protect the production environment, they need to evolve further to meet the needs of this new fast-paced, digital age.
ITIL 4, a Modern view of Service Management
ITIL 4 is now with us, providing a basis for the continued evolution of Service Management to help overcome the challenge of modernisation, but you may be asking yourself – how (and when) do I embrace ITIL 4? Based on our experience of helping several companies modernise their Service Management approach, we can help you build on a solid base of Service Management maturity to start to capitalise on the new ideas and concepts introduced in ITIL 4.
ITIL 4 focuses heavily on delivering value, but does not help you to quantify value, or precisely define what constitutes ‘value’. That is because what is important to one organisation may be different from the next. One may be primarily focused on the provision of excellent customer experience, whilst another may consider operational stability to be key, and yet another may prioritise speed to market. However, it is universally true that interaction with users, customers and stakeholders is needed to ensure that IT is providing value, rather than working in isolation within the closed doors of the `IT department`. ITIL 4 emphasises this by introducing the idea of ‘co-creation’ (rather than simply ‘creation’) of value.
Value co-creation requires a shift in focus away from simply ‘what’ is delivered, to ‘how’ it is delivered. The ‘how’ requires a holistic view to be taken of the service delivery organisation, considering not just the processes, but also the people and partners involved in delivery, the technology used, and external factors that might constrain or influence service provision. This takes us into the realm of what ITIL 4 calls the ‘four dimensions of Service Management’, an expansion of the 4 P’s (People, Process, Partners, Products) of ITIL v3. ITIL 4’s advocacy of this holistic approach lies behind the re-vamping of Service Management ‘processes’ as they were termed in ITIL v3, to ‘practices’ in ITIL 4.
Value co-creation is not necessarily achieved via a single practice. There may be many interconnected activities, touching on multiple practice areas (remembering that each practice is four dimensional). ITIL 4 introduces us to the idea of a value stream as a series of specific steps to deliver value in a particular context. Value streams point to the importance of breaking down silos and working flexibly and co-operatively to deliver value.
iCore, and our consultants, can help you identify your key value streams (those that are most closely aligned with your organisation’s strategic goals), and work with you to map them out in a visual way that facilitates identification of opportunities to improve those value streams. We undertake maturity assessments of the practice areas contributing to the value streams, and by doing this we can identify opportunities to modernise those practice areas and the ways they interact, resulting in optimised value streams. We then present you with a roadmap for change to modernise the way that your organisation thinks and operates and help you to embed and normalise these new ways of working and thinking.
If you are facing up to this challenge and could benefit from a fresh perspective on how you can approach it, then please get in touch.
iCore
We have been in business for 25 years and are helping companies and organisations across several market sectors to modernise their Service Management strategy and focus to be effective in a Digital, DevOps world.
If you would like to discuss how iCore can help you then contact us on +44 (0) 203 821 1252 or email us at info@icore-ltd.com
