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What’s the Return on Investment for ITIL?

What’s the Return on Investment for ITIL?:

With the widespread adoption of ITIL, industries now have a guide that their IT services can utilize with information as to what works and what doesn’t. Implementing ITIL can be costly and even more so when done poorly or not according to a focused plan. So how can your organization expect to recover those costs?

One of the many benefits of implementing ITIL is the key focus on services and providing value to the business by enhancing the functionality and the ability to perform as required. ITIL also brings together a common dictionary, which is something that has been lacking in the IT world.

A few other benefits ITIL can provide your company are:

• Improved financial management of IT, matching IT services to the needs of the overall organization while focusing on transparency and enhanced decision-making


• Improved relationship between IT and the organization


• Improved utilization of the IT infrastructure through a better understanding of the function of IT assets at all levels


• Improved operations of IT personnel through automation, and standardizing service offerings


• Improved reputation of IT within the organization with a focus on business outcomes and creating value

Those with ITIL experience say that adoption of ITIL has no end point, only a starting point and milestones along the way to measure your level of continuing success.

What Are the Difficulties of ITIL Implementation?

Let’s be honest, the adoption of ITIL may not be easy or short or cheap. IT has a habit of operating as an indispensable group instead of like a business that can use resources and provide services as it sees fit. How many times have you heard, “We know what our customer needs, and that is what we are providing”?

IT hasn’t run itself based on documented needs of the business, due to many organizations lacking a strong change management process. Due to the frequency of systems changes, most IT outages are the direct result of a well-meaning IT worker lacking sufficient knowledge about the systems on which they are working. Unknown to the IT worker, a simple modification, update, or change could result in disastrous consequences for the business. ITIL v3 believes lifecycle and service is crucial to the value of the business and offers excellent direction to managing knowledge.

The ITIL framework is about process, not organization. Most IT organizations spent years dividing up IT resources into responsibility, hardware, software, and staff. Redefining these roles to expedite the processes within the ITIL framework and ensuring the necessary information is passed between processes may be the most difficult challenge. It’s important to understand that the requirement for ITIL adoption must come from the very top of the IT organization. Implementing ITIL can’t be accomplished in six months, but there is an expectation that most IT projects should show positive results or even be completed within six months. ITIL will not meet either of those milestones; it’s better measured in years rather than months. A carefully focused plan makes it possible to achieve some results quickly — often in a matter of weeks, but “full ITIL” can take years. Not everyone needs to or can expect to implement all of ITIL. Adopt just those bits of the ITIL that have significant impact on your organization.

Implementing ITIL may also require new resources to support the processes or inter-process communication required by ITIL. The ITIL framework can only work efficiently when the right tools to support the processes are in place. For all but the smallest IT organizations, some form of automation or software tool is required.

So, where do you start? Two questions often asked are:

1. Do we try to do everything at once? No, trying to do everything at once is too difficult and will only increase the chance of failure.


2. It is such a major undertaking, where do we start? This varies for each individual organization.

ITIL provides flexibility in approach, offering a specific methodology for establishing a service strategy:

• Define IT services. The fundamental first step to managing a service is understanding what it consists of.


• Value the IT services. When the service is defined, establishing the relative value of each service to the business is next. Focus on the most important IT services that deliver significant and measurable value to the business.


• Measure IT services. Once service is defined and valued, then the quality of service provided to customers can be measured. If a service does not meet requirements, this is the starting point.


• Commission projects for improvement. Following the first three steps identifies what to focus on.

With this information, you can now examine ITIL (and its complementary guidance) to understand the service quality issue at hand and apply the guidance to the specific problem.

Although ITIL implementation can be difficult, the true value is the long-term adoption of best practices to see a positive return on investment. ITIL builds a stronger organization that matches the service provided to the present and future needs of the business in a cost-effective manner. These actions will improve the status of IT within the business and improve both the competitive advantage and bottom line of the business.

Recommended Courses
ITIL^® v3 Awareness
How to Define and Value IT Services

ITIL v3: What It Is and Why You Should Care Series

• What’s the Return on Investment for ITIL?

BIG DATA ofwel: overbelast door een Triljoen terabytes aan informatie.

BIG DATA ofwel: overbelast door een Triljoen terabytes aan informatie.:

De huidige generatie (babyboom) managers kan het zich nog goed herinneren: je was in gesprek met een klant & je verzocht je secretaresse om even het dossier op te halen. Die tijd ligt niet eens zo heel ver achter ons, zeg 10 jaar. (nb; het zou mij niet verbazen als er nu nog organisaties zijn waar pa’s dagelijks op zoek zijn naar de inhoud van klantdossiers….).

Zo’n klantdossier bestond gemiddeld uit een 10-tal pagina’s, ieder voorzien van een paar honderd woorden. Inmiddels leven we (echter) in een tijdperk waarin aan ons één miljoen miljoen miljoen databytes dagelijks beschikbaar staan (and rising), ook wel bekend onder de noemer BIG DATA. “Big data” refers to datasets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze.’ aldus McKinsey in hun rapport ‘Big Data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity.’

Interessant is het om te lezen wat we kunnen doen om e.e.a. behapbaar te houden zodat we niet ten onder gaan, ook niet overbelast raken maar weten te profiteren van deze enorme hoeveelheden, vaak gratis beschikbare, informatie……

McKinsey komt tot 7 Inzichten:

1. DATA HAVE SWEPT INTO EVERY INDUSTRY AND BUSINESS FUNCTION AND ARE NOW AN IMPORTANT FACTOR OF PRODUCTION.


2. BIG DATA CREATES VALUE IN SEVERAL WAYS: Creating transparency, Enabling experimentation to discover needs, expose variability, and improve performance, Segmenting populations to customize actions, Replacing/supporting human decision making with automated algorithms & Innovating new business models, products, and services.


3. USE OF BIG DATA WILL BECOME A KEY BASIS OF COMPETITION AND GROWTH FOR INDIVIDUAL FIRMS.


4. THE USE OF BIG DATA WILL UNDERPIN NEW WAVES OF PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH AND CONSUMER SURPLUS


5. WHILE THE USE OF BIG DATA WILL MATTER ACROSS SECTORS, SOME SECTORS ARE POISED FOR GREATER GAINS


6. THERE WILL BE A SHORTAGE OF TALENT NECESSARY FOR ORGANIZATIONS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF BIG DATA


7. SEVERAL ISSUES WILL HAVE TO BE ADDRESSED TO CAPTURE THE FULL POTENTIAL OF BIG DATA e.g. Technology and techniques, Organizational change and talent, Access to data, Industry structure.

Een overzicht.

(nb; toch mooi om te zien dat menselijk talent nog steeds een cruciale rol speelt )

Zo is het (ook) mooi om te lezen hoe een organisatie als WALMART dagelijks een schat aan Big Data verwerkt om de organisatie nog efficiënter te laten opereren & de klanten nog beter van dienst te kunnen zijn. ‘Walmart’s data warehouse now includes 2.5 petabytes of information‘. Het Britse TESCO ‘generates more than 1.5 billion new items of data every month’ aldus ass. prof. Robert Plant in Who’s Been Trafficking in Your Data? (de supermarkt, dus…)

Natuurlijk kun je nu zeggen dat jouw organisatie niet in de schaduw kan staan van WALMART, met 2,1 miljoen medewerkers (nog steeds/wel) de grootste particuliere werkgever ter wereld, resp. TESCO maar als je nu nog niet zoiets relatief eenvoudigs als de data van LinkedIn & Facebook hebt verwerkt in je medewerker- & klantsystemen hoe krijg je dan überhaupt je dossiers over hen ‘op orde’?

Lees verder in het 156 pagina’s (dat nog wel) dikke McKinsey rapport ‘Big Data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity.

*VID: of verdwijnen we langzamerhand helemaal in een virtuele wereld???…..

How IT Can Empower Your Employees

How IT Can Empower Your Employees:
What do smartphones, tablets, and self-service business information tools have in common? All three are on high-growth trajectories for enterprise adoption. In a new report issued last week by Forrester Research called called TechRadar For Enterprise Architecture Professionals: Technologies For Empowered Employees, Q4 2011, it shows how these and others have taken over the enterprise.


It is the classic IT problem. As Gene Leganza writes in the introduction, "Mobile, social, video, and cloud technologies give individuals tremendous access to information and resources. Employees can become the best source of innovation and the breakthrough ideas that CxOs are hungry for. But as employees become empowered, central IT begins losing control of the technology strategy."


The report discusses a variety of technologies and reasons for their adoption or lack thereof. The idea is that enterprise architects can use this information to analyze the technologies that best suit their organization's needs and culture and incorporate them into their future plans and road maps.


It has this wonderful graphic that we've reproduced below that shows three different adoption cycles for enterprise tech.




Discuss

7 kritieke succesfactoren voor IT-projecten

7 kritieke succesfactoren voor IT-projecten:

Jan Willem Knop schrijft in het artikel Requirements zijn de Big Hitter……voor succesvolle projecten! op XR Magazine dat de IT-wereld een slechte track record heeft als het gaat om het succesvol afronden van IT-projecten. Een goed ingericht requirements proces is volgens hem dé sleutel tot een geslaagd IT-project. Voor de goede orde, een project slaagt volgens Knop als het opgeleverde eindresultaat voldoet aan de (business) doelstellingen: op tijd en tegen gebudgetteerde kosten op te leveren.

Zich baserend op promotieonderzoek van Aart J. van Dijk (Succes and Failure Factors in ICT projects: A Dutch Perspective) beschrijft Jan Willem Knop zeven factoren die bepalend zijn voor de succesvolle afloop van een IT-project:

1. Goed projectmanagement
   


2. Realistische deadlines
   


3. Goede communicatie
   


4. Sterk en compleet requirements document
   


5. Voldoende betrokkenheid van toekomstige gebruikers
   


6. Betrokkenheid en commitment van senior management
   


7. Voldoende professionaliteit (professionals)
   

Wanneer je aandacht besteedt aan alle zeven factoren, is de kans groot een project succesvol af te ronden. Het verwaarlozen van één van de factoren, geeft een garantie op mislukking.

Requirements worden niet alleen expliciet genoemd, maar leveren ook een bijdrage aan goede communicatie: ‘Als ze zodanig beschreven zijn dat ze door alle belanghebbenden eenduidig geïnterpreteerd worden, verbetert dit de onderlinge communicatie over de requirements.’

Requirements engineering is het proces om tot requirements te komen. Volgens Jan Willem Knop zijn er vijf aandachtspunten die van belang zijn voor het succesvol toepassen van requirements engineering:

1. Organiseer je proces
   


2. Betrek de business
   


3. Wees pragmatisch
   


4. Start met het probleem
   


5. Leg requirements vast
   

Het artikel dat verscheen in XR Magazine is gebaseerd op het boek ‘Precies volgens Plan!’ geschreven door Mark Hoogveld, Jan Willem Knop en Marcel Schaar.

Bron: Requirements zijn de Big Hitter……voor succesvolle projecten!, Jan Willem Knop, 19 oktober 2011