ITSM Uncovered

When it comes to barriers in adopting ITIL as a means of managing a technology operation efficiently, it is often said that obtaining buy in from leadership is a "must have" or the "key to success." I want to dive into that for a second with some possibly outlandish observations.

In most organizations there are usually three different layers or tiers within a technology organization; Leadership/Upper-management, Middle Management and the Operational layer. Like almost anything with three layers, the outer layers are usually firm and designed to absorb what comes at them from the outside. For leadership/upper-management their role is pretty clear. Deal with the business, budget and branding of technology. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have the day-to-day operational teams. These are the lower echelon of the organization who have developed a clear understanding of their role as well; the Business, Bullets and Bullsh*t.

When it comes to any change in the way any organization operates, it is usually mandated by the top layer, and implemented at the lower layer. Where it is driven from, in any successful implementation of not just ITIL but any mission, should be at that middle layer. It is at this layer where I believe success or failure lives and I don't make this comment lightly.

Having spent 8 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and a Sergeant, I can tell you first hand that the success or failure of any unit's mission lies squarely on the shoulders of its Non-Commissioned Officer Corps. That Middle Management layer of the Military, also referred to as "the back-bone" - The Sergeants, Staff-Sergeants and Petty-Officers, is where true change is managed and effected. It is where the Orders or Goals are received, interpreted, planned for and executed.

Now I am not suggesting that every business middle management layer operate like the Military. What I am saying, is that without middle-management buy-in and acceptance, any implementation of ITIL or any other endeavor will generally fail. Often what we see is Leadership or Upper Management attends a conference about ITIL or some other framework, becomes sold on the talking points, returns with the mission to have those benefits within their own organizations. They are essentially setting the goals of the organization. In most cases, not how to achieve the goals, just that this new destination is where they want the organization to be leaving it up to middle management to sort out the delivery.

At this point is where the fear of change begins to kick in. I have been astounded to enter into organizations where many within the middle management layer had risen through the ranks in an organization where small scale process had organically grown to a point that could no longer sustain the scale of business growth. Changing the only method of operations known, strikes fear into many. Diving into a new way of thinking or operating does not always spark the passion and drive needed to move a organization into a new way of thinking. So what happens? Not a whole lot. There may be a few Overview sessions or training courses put in place, but in terms of mapping out a strategy, plan and then delivering on it proactively, there isn't the push needed. The leadership needed is stonewalled by the fear of change.

Interestingly enough, it is the operational layer that after a couple of these training or overview sessions sees the benefit of adopting a new way of operating, even if it means a certain amount of pain to get to a place where fewer things break, service is delivered faster and their daily lives move from fighting fires and being door-stops to being more proactive in finding solutions to not only make their own lives easier, but also contribute to moving the organization forward.

If you do not address the resistance of adoption at that middle management layer, you will end up with a dysfunctional and sometimes hostile environment of change. Deadlines to leadership are not management, then at the last minute it becomes another exercise in jumping through hoops at the operational layer which breeds contempt and a lack of respect for what appears to be mis-management of the organization as a whole. In-turn there is a drop in morale and, well everyone loads into the hand-basket for the trip to hell.

The self-fulfilling prophecy of failure is the responsibility of middle management. To be fair, I am not referring to all individuals in middle management, you do have your champions. The problem is, these individuals are not always put into a position to drive the movement forward. These are the believers, the visionaries, the ones who "get it." Empowering them is the key. Placing them in positions that are either directly backed by leadership with authority or given the illusion of authority will go a long way to silence the resistors in the organization.

I have to admit that I have little tolerance for those who choose to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution; call it the Sergeant in me. On the up-side however, in my position to implement two key ITIL processes I have developed the unique ability to remain 'at-ease' when I hear "Yea we know it is supposed to be like that and we will get there, just not now because it has never been done that way." Back in the day, those would have been words which called for an immediate blanket party to sort the situation out. Ooh Rah!

So my advice is this for anyone in a leadership/Upper-management position thinking about implementing ITIL or any other change that results in a significant thought process shift for the organization; Find your motivators, your proactive, open-minded individuals up front. Develop a program outside of any specific department or team, empower them, supply them with the tools and training necessary to succeed, communicate your support for them to the Organization then turn them loose and get out the way. You may be surprised how much can get done.

To compare a "Core" technologist to that of a general technologist will always garner the contempt between various IT fields. My background is in support for example. I love technology and make every attempt to learn about the technology behind the products I have supported. Now, further on in my career as an Incident, Problem and Crisis Manager, I have to know about all areas of the products and services that IT delivers to the Business, including the likes of Storage, Database, Applications and Networking/Voice. I am not a specialist any any of these core technologies, but I am a GEEK for driving to understand them and how they work together to enhance our deliveries to the business.

Having said that, it is also one of many roles which requires soft-skills in dealing with core technologists, leadership on both the IT and Business side, I would probably not be employed if I didn't learn to interact and maneuver around the politics and personalities at all levels, in getting anything done in IT. So to say there is a back-lash or that I am a weenie for possessing soft-skills is somewhat an oversight as to how Technology needs to function in the modern business environment regardless of industry.

In short; all roles in Technology play their part in delivering on a business strategy. If we are failing in anything it is not ensuring that technologists "core" or otherwise do not think of themselves as better than any other technologist and that each requires different skills to serve a higher purpose. The cog in the machine if you will. Maybe then we can begin to leverage these different skill-sets instead of further instigating a "who's better than who" battle in IT. This is no longer the 1980's.

To compare a "Core" technologist to that of a general technologist will always garner the contempt between various IT fields. My background is in support for example. I love technology and make every attempt to learn about the technology behind the products I have supported. Now, further on in my career as an Incident, Problem and Crisis Manager, I have to know about all areas of the products and services that IT delivers to the Business, including the likes of Storage, Database, Applications and Networking/Voice. I am not a specialist any any of these core technologies, but I am a GEEK for driving to understand them and how they work together to enhance our deliveries to the business.

Having said that, it is also one of many roles which requires soft-skills in dealing with core technologists, leadership on both the IT and Business side, I would probably not be employed if I didn't learn to interact and maneuver around the politics and personalities at all levels, in getting anything done in IT. So to say there is a back-lash or that I am a weenie for possessing soft-skills is somewhat an oversight as to how Technology needs to function in the modern business environment regardless of industry.

In short; all roles in Technology play their part in delivering on a business strategy. If we are failing in anything it is not ensuring that technologists "core" or otherwise do not think of themselves as better than any other technologist and that each requires different skills to serve a higher purpose. The cog in the machine if you will. Maybe then we can begin to leverage these different skill-sets instead of further instigating a "who's better than who" battle in IT. This is no longer the 1980's.

I'm not sure why it is a general human trait to want to be satisfied with chaos. What I mean by that is in the world of technology there needs to be a certain state of order to be effective. It is for this reason that certain "Industry Standards" have been develop based on best practice.

Take for example the basic premise that the entire existence of technology is to serve the user. Somehow that concept becomes lost on those who work in technology. As long as I have been doing support, I still understand that no matter what happens, it isn't about protecting mistakes made by individuals, nor is it about throwing people who make mistakes under a bus. It is simply about making sure that the products or services that we in technology provide are available to those who make a living using it.

In order to do this, it has been my experience that you need to put in place guardrails of sorts to ensure that no matter what side of the road you travel down to get to to your destination, you are at least not going to run off of the road completely. These guardrails are the processes and policies that are developed and implemented to ensure that all is operating and being measured within a set of standards.

It is an evolutionary thing really, organizations start out small. There is no real level of complexity that demands standards, so you do what it takes to get the job done. This is the "Wild West" phase of organizational growth. At some point however, you do reach critical mass where simply doing "whatever it takes" creates more problems than it solves. The mentality is to get it to market and if something breaks, just fix it and push on.

At this point is when a serious assessment needs to be made on whether or not it is a one-off issue or a growing state of mind that needs to be adjusted or reigned in with some structure. The general perception is that there is a right way or a wrong way to do things. I would argue that there is a single way to do things. A way that is dictated by several things. The first is the tolerance of the technology deployed to adapt, the other is the tolerance of the business to accept failure from its technology.

The bigger an organization gets the less tolerance for failure will be accepted. I believe it is the mark of a good technology leader to see this coming and put controls in place to ensure that everything begins to melt down at one time. It is a serious cultural change in the way technology organizations operate.

Take for example, a service like Twitter. For years, it worked. It drew crowds. Then it began to hit critical mass and the infamous "Fail Whale" began to appear more frequently. So much so that capacity outages became almost a daily occurrence. Not having been a fly on the walls of twitter-ville, I can't say that anyone had the controls in place to see this coming. To predict when things were due to break before they actually broke. From a customer point of view, all I knew what that the uproar from the twitter community was huge. Many began to leave for other services, giving up on twitter completely.

Apply the service provider/customer model to any business and you can see where managing technology effectively becomes a higher priority than just making it through another day with a few outages. At the end of the day it is about revenue and market share. When technology understands its true contribution to this model will we then begin to see more investment in controls, governance and risk management.

These are not traditional hands on development or system administration roles, and that is probably the reason why technology departments haven’t embraced the concept of managing technology as a business. Most senior management has grown up in the very chaotic environment that they now struggle to manage. There is no experiential growth that can get them to understand the importance of running technology as a business.

The most effective leader is one who abandons "the way it has always been done" and begins to look to the industry to provide the answers needed for stability and growth. Once that happens, can the chaos begin to be managed into something which supports growth and stability in any organization.

It seems that in the course of one’s life, there are individuals who inspire, guide, motivate and challenge you to push yourself past the realm of what you believed you were capable of achieving. You trusted them, you watched them in action, and you became dependent, without knowing, that these were the individuals who would set the bar for future “Managers” in your life. The reality is, these were not simply managers, these were the Leaders in your life.

Unfortunately, the ratio of leaders to managers is drastic. Sadly I can count on one hand the number of true leaders I have worked for. Sure, most who are in positions that carry the title of Manager like to think they are leaders, but very few understand the difference. The sad part is, that to them, being in a position to supervise other people is viewed as an entitlement to be respected, never questioned or challenged. A little term I picked up in the Marine Corps was “Blind obedience to orders.”

There are many today who have stumbled into management positions, because of what they have produced as an individual, which is commendable; through time in service, somewhat commendable; or by, lets just call it what it is, kissing ass, completely unacceptable. No matter the path, when presented with taking on the responsibility of managing people, many are ill-prepared for that challenge. As a result, they end up breaking the backs of those they ride upon.

A small part of me feels sorry for these individuals for they have and will probably never experience the joy of being a leader. Leaders experience a level of pride in watching those under their charge grow and flourish. Reward comes at them through the accomplishments of their staff. They recognize this, value this and cherish this. They reward their staff by dedicating themselves to them. If you don’t believe this, look no further than any coach at any level of sports who has a winning team. The formula is quite simple: Do any and everything for your people and they will do the same for you.

Over the next few weeks, I will be focusing on the topic of leadership. In many ways as a reminder to myself of the things that I should challenge myself to uphold. To not be swayed or frustrated by those who have not the capacity, understanding or desire to understand the responsibility or honor of leading people. I only hope I can convey the importance of this topic in my life in a way that others can validate, borrow or leverage in their own careers.

The bottom line is; Manager is a title and as such, one should never forget that a title is a title; it does not entitle one to forsake those who put you where you are.

The concept of IT Service Management accompanied with the ITIL Framework elicits many different responses from all levels of the organization. From the Management side, the general focus question is "What will it cost me?" From Middle Management it is; "How will I allocate resources?" and to the man or woman on the front lines it is "What are you thinking!?" The latter is always the voice that is often missed in communicating the benefits to the organization.

There is plenty of talk targeting the implementation of ITSM or ITIL revolving around defining business requirement to drive IT Services. Processes and steps to providing these services in the most efficient and cost effective manner is not always addressed. Even with the best intention of proactive management of IT environments to predict and support future business growth or potential weak points, communicating that is often an uphill battle day one.

These are all very valid points in delivering a true Service Management environment to any business. In order to achieve this, one area is consistently overlooked; the role of the individual. This can be attributed to the fact that unlike processes or tools, it is extremely difficult to discover, identify and document. It is the intangible element.

Processes can be defined, people can't. Many implementers, whether internal to an organization or brought in from the outside to consult on what needs to occur to improve IT Service to the Business are very versed in the tactics needed to implement any of the areas of IT Service Management. The challenge is convincing the individual that what is being proposed can inevitably make their lives easier.

Communication needs to be tailored to the hands-on audience, much in the same light as you would with Management or even Middle-Management. There is a benefit that needs to be explained to gain buy-in. Explaining the monetary benefits and ROI to senior Management is only one piece of the puzzle. Determining the most effective methods of resource management and reporting to Middle Management is also part of the critical path. Understanding and communicating the true benefit to the individuals who are tied up with daily projects, firefighting or disgruntled users must not be approached as an afterthought.
The term "Grass-Roots" is often thrown around in various seminars and case studies but there are living, breathing people who comprise this Grass-Roots element that are vital to the success in moving forward with any attempt to become a high performance organization. True leaders realize this; successful programs are ones that focus on all levels of the organization.

So what is the key? Some believe that a complete buy-in and enforcement from Senior Management by default, forces the organization to comply. This is not to say that Senior Management buy-in and commitment is not important, but to get to the goal faster, having a motivated, mobilized workforce behind the effort will accomplish tasks and milestones more effectively if the troops are made to feel as if they are part of the solution on delivering the end product.

The truth of the matter is, everyone has their processes. Some good, some bad and some definitely ugly. Nevertheless, they are processes that people put time and effort into developing to make their own contribution to the organization better. Discounting these efforts by pushing new unfamiliar process framework from the top down is not necessarily the right approach. The fact is, that people take pride in their work and are resistant to anything new or mis-branded to make their job seem inefficient.

Then there is the concern about Job security. Many only see a program on Process Improvement, standardization and enhancements, coupled with terms like improved resource management as buzz words to cut head-count. If you are in the position of deploying an IT Service Management Agenda across your organization you have to take into account the human side of the deployment and recognize what is not always being spoken.

It is critical that you provide comfort in the new processes as much as you do selling the need to enhance them. Ignoring the on-the-ground concerns in any implementation of process improvement will only result delays and push back as walls are put up in sub-conscious efforts to protect the domain of the individual. Then you have a nasty mutiny to deal with.

When defining the roles of those charged with driving these new process initiatives, give some thought to the soft-skills side of the communication process. Simply being good at translating the ITIL Framework or Service Management process in general terms is not good enough.
Being able to "dumb-down" ITIL-Speak in a way that can convey benefit and value to be digested by the organization is critical. It takes time and understanding of who you are dealing with, but this is time well spent in terms of moving the program ahead. It is always easier to form an alliance up front than to tear down walls later.

Downtime kills a business and for the first time, businesses are beginning to realize that technology is not simply a tool, but a strategic business line to be invested in. The simplistic view that technology is simply an application on a desktop is one that is shifting due to the pain realized from technology failures that are not right in front of a user. If something breaks, people want to see smoke and fire. In IT when things break they just stop working. Nothing visible, no strange odor of burning rubber... nothing.

Today, more and more businesses are moving away from looking at IT as a means to an end and more as a business capable of adding true value. The key to doing this involves developing and supporting the proper implementation and management of IT. Not too unlike that of a sales force or any other business line.

What you now have is an environment where the business understands the impact technology has on its bottom line. You also have IT management breathing a sigh of relief that they now have the attention of the business. The challenge for IT is to change direction from focusing on "time to market" growth demands to one of stability and strategic growth in a managed amount of time. In most industries this amounts to a shift from a "whatever it takes" mentality to one that is very much structured and process driven. The latter also introduces a new era of two way communication between IT and the business.

In a very real sense, the skills needed to succeed in technology are also shifting. Of course the demand for core technology specialists is still required, however, a hybrid specialist is needed to fill the gap in areas of technology that are process and strategy driven. An individual who is very much aligned with the business vision to assist technology in realizing the contribution to the overall goal while at the same time, someone who can also introduce new technology to the business which outlines the value add of implementing the new technology.

It would appear that the only individuals who are living in this space between the business and technology are the ones who already have the skill set needed to fill a more strategic role in the organization. These are the IT Support professionals, Project Managers and Business Analysts. The new world order is expanding their previously over looked value to the organization in bold, new, career enhancing ways.

As an individual whose second career has evolved from swapping Ultra 5s and 21" CRT monitors on a trading floor, managing an IT service desk, managing IT vendor relationships/contracts, back to the IT Support Account Manager for the previously mentioned trading floor and now to a role that is part of this new world order, I see the potential, the value and therefore have become a "Champion" of the cause. This is my Camelot.