Failing is not an option…

As ((otrs)), the commercial organization behind the OpenSource Service Management Solution OTRS, is evolving over the last 5 years really successful we are facing more complex projects than we did a few years ago. Therefore the need for a project management framework like PMI or Prince2 is evident.

But from my experience, besides all the positive aspects going along with those frameworks, the negative aspects like exorbitant documentation, planning and communication are effecting your daily business more and more.

This leads to a schedule planned out with telephone conferences discussing functional specification hundreds of emails that need to be processed every single day of your life. The most extreme example I experienced in this case was a customer putting more trust in the underlying project plan than in the deliverables provided by my development team…

To break that circle I am naturally open minded to new ideas to improve project management and to implement a better understanding between the specialist division and the developer department. Lately I came across a method called “Scrum”. This method is trying to split a complex implementation project in smaller, easier to handle development phases called “Sprints” that have a duration of 4 weeks max.

The stakeholders provide their requirements in these sessions as “user-stories” that will be collected and documented in a “product backlog”.

Every single development phase start with a kickoff meeting where all user stories that need to covered / implemented within this phase will be transferred to the “sprint backlog”.

The communication with the customer will be covered within predefined cycles where to talk about feedback and reached or missed goals.

From my point of view this method has the capability to ease the stress of complex implementation projects and also provides a good chance to establish a very good  relationship and understanding in between the project sponsor and project contractor.

— Let’s scrum —

Since there is communication between human beings misunderstanding and misinterpretation is known by all of us. But starting 2009 there seems to be a hype ordering service A but expecting service A-Z being delivered.

It sounds pretty absurd but who would expect getting caviar by ordering a pizza?

When talking to some friends of mine working in the IT consulting or sales business as I do there really seems to be a heavy trend of what I call service subpreption:

To exceed customers’ expectation is a common virtue in the consulting business but it is a fine line between over-performance and the abuse of service.
An experienced consultant knows to walk that fine line but junior consultants might become a victim of this trend that is just a different way of cost saving.

I imply that customers analyze sales proposals before signing and this really makes me believe that there is a certain intention in expecting consultants over-performing on a regular basis…

I do not have a real good answer on this issue but I would like to share ideas.

Have you made comparable experiences this way?

When I ask my customers why they want to implement ITIL within their organizations the answers may vary but the trend is obvious:

• Lowering costs by standardization
• Improving quality of IT service

As we all know the named objectives can be reached but the other side of the coin most customers forget about is that the implementation of ITIL takes manpower, budget and finally the empowerment by the management.

1. Manpower
   Different to other projects the lion’s part of an ITIL implementation needs to be taken by the organization itself by collecting requested data like process definitions, expected key performance indicators (KPI), etc.
   In some parts an external consultant can act (just) as project manager who is taking care of responsibilities, deadlines and documentation.
   Even if the process design is covered by the consultant the customer’s organization needs to provide the input for that!
2. Budget
   Getting inspiration from predefined processes and workflows might work for MS Excel spreadsheet templates in some way but in point of an ITIL implementation it will definitely will become a mess! As standardized ITIL might be promoted as generic the definition are you can get out of it…
   A regular implementation of ITIL will take years!
   Starting with defined disciplines definitely makes sense even if there no general advise can be given because it really depends on the current situation and needs of the organization.
3. Empowerment by the Management
   The implementation of ITIL not only causes a complete change in the inner culture of an organization. It completely revolutionizes established workflows to a more service oriented, customer friendly behaviour that will also change the mindset of your employees.
   As you can imagine: such a project cannot only be driven from the IT department – no matter how empowered it might be…

All in all I can say that an ITIL implementation needs to be planned in advance, lots of prerequisites need to be covered before the first Incident might be raised…