I hear from our clients quite often that after they’ve purchased our software that they want to get something deployed for the “quick win”. When I explain the ideal approach to implementing business and IT service management solutions such as Tivoli Business Service Manager (TBSM) (Netcool/RAD), their response is often “that sounds great, but we’re too busy and need to focus on the quick wins”.

What’s a “quick win” for someone interested in business service management? How do we measure the value of a “quick win”? How do we keep the “win” after the “quick”? Are they merely tactical efforts that are scrapped when the strategic solution can be implemented? Are the returns from a “quick win” worth the effort of doing something a more difficult, time consuming or strategic way?

The approach to the “quick win” makese sense especially when there are obvious pain points with certain key business services within a company. The problems that I see in nearly all of our client’s environments is that we ultimately have to go through the same steps of the methodology to get the “quick win” as we do if we were to take the time to do it right in the first place.

Business service management takes quite a lot of planning up front and requires a solid foundation in the basics of network and systems management. There are many approaches that could help get that “quick win” but I find that most IT organizations don’t have a solid foundation to build something quickly. The last thing anyone should want to do is deal with the “garbage in garbage out” scenario with a solution that’s expensive and potentially very visible within the company.

Any other thoughts or ideas on “quick wins” and business service management?