The Rain in Spain

When Dr. Higgins attempts to improve Eliza Doolittle’s speech in My Fair Lady, he starts with the basics: practicing speaking with marbles in her mouth, repeating basic sounds and words, the most famous being “the rain in Spain is mainly in the plain”. The parallels with an organization seeking to improve its processes are similar in that the basics must be mastered first before one can be the belle of the embassy ball.

What are some of the basics that an organization can put into place while attempting to improve? Some choices are:

Strategy: Easily the most neglected area of organizations worldwide and IT organizations in particular, certain basic techniques of Strategy should be implemented. While full blown strategy methodologies might be a bit much for the beginning effort towards improvement, fundamental techniques of demand analysis, financial management and portfolio management should be implemented.

Customer Point of Contact for Negotiation: While organizations do have this in place in some fashion, it is rarely enacted formally enough to bring its true value and benefits to the table. ITIL’s Service Level Management process is a well defined methodology for achieving this objective. The ability to not merely interact and form a point of contact with the customer but to build a relationship and understand their needs allows for superior alignment of IT with customer’s requirements. This effort returns rich rewards and is definitely much value for money.

Change & Configuration Management: Again implemented by most organizations but not adequately. A good first step for organizations committed to improvement would be to evaluate what they have in place and tighten up and further align with what users require. At an organization that I consulted for in the past, they had a home grown Change/Configuration management tool that had fields and options that users did not need or use and did not have needed fields and options. Clearly they could have benefitted immensely with a properly thought out tool that fitted with their needs better.

Service Desk, Incident and Problem Management: Another set of those processes that most organizations do have in place but could desperately use an overhaul and update of. Common service desk shortcomings are lack of current information made available to service desk personnel, increasing call volumes and increasing and more complex changes to the service. Incident and Problem management also suffer from lack of communication from change and configuration management typically.

Continuous improvement: While there may not exist an organizational maturity to reach six sigma levels at the present, certain basic improvement techniques can certainly be implemented. A basic technique of Root Cause Analysis and resolution to prevent similar mishaps occurring in the future is easy and requires minimal investment. Therefore, there is no reason to not implement a RCA system of continuous improvement, no matter how limited resources are available in the organization.

It is often argued that times are too challenging or resources not available to implement process improvements by those not enthusiastic about improvements. However, there are small and simple steps that can be carried out that yield rich returns for the effort expended. It is possible to get started without a great deal of investment and disruption. With the improvement and stability gained with these initial steps, further and more complex process improvement endeavors can then be undertaken. Even if an organization is dedicated to a large scale process improvement effort, the basics must first be completed successfully. Remember, the rain in Spain is mainly in the plain.

The Need for Strategy

In a study, it was determined that the area of strategy within IT organizations and for that matter even non-IT organizations) is the most undeveloped and under-utilized with the greatest scope of improvement and realizing benefits. I have certainly found this to be true in my own career and dealings with various organizations.

The word strategy instantly brings to mind the concept of long-term planning. A highly reactive response to solving a customer’s immediate problem as quickly as possible is not a strategic activity. However, deciding what new products and service to introduce 3 years down the line is an example of strategic activity. What I have noticed too often in the past is that organizations get into a constant state of firefighting and reactive problem solving which results in adequate strategy never being realized. It is up to management to ensure that sufficient resources are dedicated to strategic activities and kept free of the day to day firefighting tasks.

Strategy is important because it provides the initial roadmap or path to the organizations long term goals and objectives. A wrong decision taken in the initial plan can have disastrous consequences in the long term. Furthermore, possible risks and downturns need to be evaluated and accounted for in the future planning. Over and above all this, the strategy team should evaluate the current products and services and the customer’s happiness with respect to them and make course corrections based on this as necessary. Therefore, it is apparent that the strategy step is crucially important and should not be neglected.

So now that we are convinced of the importance of strategy, how do we go about strategizing? The different areas of strategy, in my opinion, can be broken down to three main components. Understanding of your organization (which includes current products and services, resources and capabilities etc.), understanding the customer (demand patterns, market conditions etc.) and financial information (including Budgeting, Accounting and Charging). These are found in the ITIL body of knowledge as the Portfolio Management, Demand Management and financial Management processes within the Service Strategy Module.

Therefore, with the information needed to adopt strategy for IT services being readily available, there is really no excuse for the implementation of poor strategy. All the greatest generals in history, considered strategy the most important part of their military campaign, beyond even the number and strength of their armies and the technological sophistication of the weapons being used. Indeed, Napoleon Bonaparte won numerous battles simply because of his superior strategic planning. In the battlefield of business, the implementation of correct strategy will ensure economic victory.