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Sun, Jun 8, 2008 11:46 EDT

The Service Management Approach to IT

Topic: IT Organization Management

Current Rating: 5 Comments: 2

When you plug the stereo into the wall, you expect to hear music. A lot goes into generating the electricity, getting it into your home, through the walls, and into that plug, but you don’t have to care about that. The electricity is there when you need it, you get exactly the amount you need, and you can reasonably account for the cost of using it.

It is precisely because these things are true that we are able to make use of electricity in order to get work done. Because the electrical service is available in the right quantities at the right time and at a predictable cost, we can use it to do all kinds of interesting things. The technology behind it is necessary, but the service is the point.

Still, many businesses operate their I.T. organizations as technology providers, not service providers. The result is that business stakeholders find themselves worrying about servers, routers, and disk arrays, when they really just want things like internet access, email, document management, and secure data. I.T. is reduced to a cost center, and there is little to no understanding of the specific Return on Investment (ROI) for I.T. spending. Technology is great, but does a business really need technology for its own sake? The answer of course is no: technology is beneficial to a business only to the extent that it facilitates delivery of a service. The ROI on a piece of hardware is zero – it is the service or services provided that generate the ROI.

To address these issues, forward looking organizations adopt the IT Service Management (ITSM) approach. ITSM is the subject of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and is supported by the ISO/IEC 20000 standard. ITSM is a different way of thinking about I.T., and it requires both operational and organizational changes.

Philosophically, ITSM looks at end to end delivery of IT services from a customer perspective. Rather than building isolated “silos” based on technical and functional groups within I.T., the approach is as follows:

1. Define the I.T. service needs of the business in terms of content, availability, continuity, etc.;
2. Hire or develop the organizational capacity to deliver and manage the necessary I.T. services;
3. Design processes and procedures aligned with business goals;
4. Implement tools and technology to meet business needs.

The irony is that in any given business, most divisions already operate under a similar paradigm. If you ask someone in sales what their job is, they will probably tell you that they sell products for the business. They won’t tell you that they make cold calls to prospects, maintain a database of contacts, take potential clients to lunch or write proposals. Sure, they do all of that, but the focus is on the end result, not the tasks required to achieve it.

It is time to bring I.T. out of the basement and apply the same principles used to run other divisions. Taking a service focused approach allows businesses to stop focusing on technology and start using I.T. as a powerful tool to get work done. When this happens, I.T. moves from cost center to competitive advantage.

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Wed, Jul 2, 2008 20:08 EDT
Posted by: Adrian Tudor
Rating: 90

Nice post, but is there anything new here?... Have we not heard the same issues for the last 20 years – how do we get IT to the business table, how do we redirect the CIO from under the CFO to be a direct report to CEO, how do we shape IT into a service provider?... ITSM, ITIL or whatever new body of governance, running IT as a service simply makes sense, and a lot of companies and smart CEO have figured this out and are willing to make it happen. The problem in my opinion is with the lack of leadership within the CIO ranks who once they get in these positions, cannot deliver, are then forced back to operate as a cost center, and are invalidating the argument for those that could deliver but are not given a chance. Just like with any job, one needs to lead and deliver in whatever is that they do. There are tons of CEOs out there but there are only a few Jack Welchs. It’s the same with CIOs. It’s all about leadership. Some have figured it out and are delivering results, while some are just… bitter. My advice then is – deliver results where you are and then make your move. The smart CEO is dying to get his/her hands on the CIO that can think this way and also deliver.

Adrian Tudor
VP Engineering
Integrien Corporation

 
Thu, Jul 3, 2008 17:16 EDT
Posted by: Brian Flora
Rating: 90

I couldn't agree more about the current state of CIO leadership. A lot of this comes from the current workforce paradigm in the US. We'll likely have 12-15 jobs prior to retirement now, rather than staying put at one company as pervious generations did. This can be great for businesses in that it allows a constant inflow of fresh ideas and grater potential for innovation, but the hiring process now tends to skew heavily toward getting someone who is an expert in one particular area. In IT this is even more pronounced; we hire the the expert in whatever technical skill we need at the moment, and fail to develop well rounded employees who are truly fit for the CIO position.

I didn't make this point in the article, but perhaps an IT organization that is truly structured around services instead of technologies could help alleviate this problem?

I think a larger issue, however, is that many companies don't know how to hire IT managers, much less CIO's. Most CIO job descriptions read like a laundry list of every technical skill and certification in IT, with only vague, passing mentions of the leadership and vision that the position actually requires. At best, that's a recipe for a CIO who just "keeps the lights on", as opposed to bringing any real strategic approach to IT and the business.

Brian Flora
Principal

Creative Enterprise Solutions LLC.
web: http://www.creativeenterrpisesolutions.com

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