Bryan Dean who appears to be a BSM Researcher over at the HP “Making BSM a Reality” blog posted an excellent article on some of the reasons they’ve found for BSM/ITSM projects being less than effective. I think Bryan’s hit the nail on the head here!
In summary, Bryan pointed out that …
The research showed that most CIO’s simply had a different perception – when compared to their IT operations managers- of their IT organization’s fundamental service delivery maturity and capability. This seemingly benign situation often proved to be a powerful success inhibitor.
When pressed further, CIO’s believed that the IT service management basics of process and technology were already successfully completed, and the CIO’s had mentally moved on to other priorities such as rolling out new applications, IT financial management, or project and portfolio management.
We probed deeper in the research, diligently questioning the IT operations managers on why they didn’t dispel the CIO’s inaccurate perception. In order to secure the substantial budget, these Ops managers had fallen into the trap of over-promising the initial service management project’s end-state, ROI and time to value. (I wouldn’t be surprised if they had been helped along by the process consultants and software management vendors!)
These Ops managers saw it as “a personal failure” to re-approach the CIO and ask for additional budget to continue improving the IT fundamentals. Worse yet, they had to continually reinforce the benefits from the original investment so the CIO didn’t think they had wasted the money.
What this points to in my mind, and aligns to what I’ve seen from almost 20 yrs in IT, is that the traditional IT organizational structure and investment models are broken. The general lack of accountability, responsibility and open, honest and blunt speaking up and down the chain is what leads to situations that Bryan’s research apparently uncovered in some significant amount. Not involving both the C-level and business unit executives in developing a sound strategy, business case for BSM/ITSM and road map with frequently reported progress (ala the 10-Q report for BSM/ITSM) is the recipe for unmet expectations, value or return on investment/effort.
In my opinion, the correct path starts with developing an overarching BSM Program firmly rooted around the development of the BSM Strategy. Call me crazy but maybe we need “The Office of Business Service Management” in the next generation IT organization that’s under the CEO staffed by both IT and Business folks in some matrix organization magic. The key will be that the performance reviews and incentive compensation would be owned by this group and not IT or the Business side.
The “Office of BSM” will own the overall BSM Program. They’ll focus heavily on the BSM Strategy and what the heck BSM means to your company and business, the expected value (and measuring it), ROI/ROE (and proving it), competitive differentiations, etc. but also how you’ll incorporate BSM into the entire company. This includes how you’ll operationalize BSM, how you’ll think about future initiatives through the BSM Strategy “glasses” and how you’ll iteratively work through the BSM Roadmap on your path of continuous improvement.
I’ll talk more on this later. It’s a key component that must be thought of for long term BSM success and must be a key component of the overall BSM Value Proposition in companies that choose to adopt BSM.
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This rings true.
My experience tells me that ITSM is not a mature capability in the vast majority of IT organizations. Most Operations Managers are frantically trying to work around, or out-work their lack of discipline in this area. It’s a tough conversation to have with your VP/CIO, i.e. “We need to improve our Change Management process” (or another area), even when that’s what’s needed most.
Most CIO’s I come into contact with have developed a keen “project” mindset that would immediately result in questioning the Operations Manager on why that hasn’t been “done already.”
It’s a delicate dance to keep this a conversation about maturing processes (an on-going activity) without falling into the trap of punishing the people asking for help.
I like the idea of a BSM office, if for no other reason than it clearly articulates this as an on-going effort rather than a 30-90 project (which most vendors communicate). This could help shift our language towards “improvement opportunities” vs. reactions to “failures”. That helps the CIO AND the Operations Manager.
Yep, that project mindset is a direct result of how IT investments and initiatives are funded today. I think that if you looked at nearly all of the CapEx requests that someone in IT had to write to get the project funded, you’d find the few “boiler plate” tidbits of business justification that was needed to get if funded. How about turning that on its head. How about writing the business case for funding without using a single IT term, TLA, phrase, vendor name, etc.? How about talking exclusively about how the project is for the business, client, customer, etc.? This may be hard to do, but I think that this is where we start to fail and lose sight of what’s most important. And oh BTW, the business case in business language should be written BY THE BUSINESS!! Compensation, accountability and reporting on progress then become the CIO (and IT’s) responsibility. Let’s turn things from just another “IT Project Request” to a strategic business investment with direct linkages to business outcomes!
If the Operations Manager only had the opportunity to have a real “day in the life” discussion with the CIO! I see far to many mid-level managers that are whipped with the wet noodle into near sightedness that there’s never any chance to get ahead of the tactical firefighting and onto longer term strategic change and net benefit. We need a fundamental IT organizational model change for BSM/ITSM!
Thanks for commenting Ryan!
Doug
Accuracy and reliability are still the biggest challenges for winning the trust of the Executives AND even Ops managers in most BSM implementations. BSM success in my view really is rooted in precision of the information presented.
Accuracy –> Trust –> Traction –> Right decisions
@Doug
Should the strategy document not lay down the margin of errors in terms of accuracy and have rooted measurements for gauging effectiveness of the implementation?
Great discussion. “Office of BSM” is an interesting concept, with the obvious challenge of how to keep it interesting to the business and not just an ivory tower position.
From a project perspective -what so many CIO’s are drawn to- the PMO has organizationally and functionally come a long way in most companies. Maybe an addition to the PMO charter, combined with some sort of independent “service management auditing” could yield results??
In some of our other posts, we talked about sample comapanies that had set up an independent “Business Service Visibility and Accountability” team that reported to the CIO, but sat between business and IT (or business and service provider in some cases).
Clearly this is a work in progress, and there isn’t a clear standard on how to break through.
It is great hearing the different perspectives.
Bryan Dean
Well, accuracy and precision again are going to be in the eye of the end user audience. It’s important that we focus on being accurate and precise, but our goal should be to deliver actionable information that people can make decisions, ask questions and move the ball forward from.
Accuracy and precision traits may be more easily captured in our underpinning methods and procedures. Setting and calling out guidelines, best practices, methods and procedures would be acceptable in the BSM Strategy, but avoiding low level details. Something like “We will ensure all IT measurements are in accordance with established methods and procedures set for in corporate standard CDW-110a” or “all IT measurements will be presented in context to the business service or business applications for which they most directly relate to in accordance with corporate standard CDW-110a”.
Are you in a position in your current role to have these discussions with the company?
Doug
Thanks for commenting Bryan! There is probably some role, function or group tied into the big “G” Governance areas that may fit for sure. I definitely don’t want the “Office of BSM” to be some “secret club” or some place where the “old timers” are put to pasture. It must be a very dynamic organization, very tied into what’s happening in the company from both a strategic and day-to-day tactical perspective.
Keep your posts and comments coming!
Doug
I really like the way you put it, as this is a key differentiating factor. I’d rather NOT have BSM then have an inaccurate BSM solution. Inaccurate BSM can do much more harm then benefit.
Couple scenario that I recently observed when BSM was reporting incorrect application status which eventually ended up in a huge org. restructure and multiple teams getting impacted are cases that I learnt immensly out off….
>> Are you in a position in your current role to have these discussions with the company?
Well not for the entire 300K employee company; but definitely for a big organization within the company.