SESSION 402 Thursday, November 3, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Track: DevOps and Agile

What Is Minimum-Viable ITSM?

Donna Knapp Curriculum Development Manager,ITSM Academy dknapp@itsmacademy.com

Session Description

Bureaucratic. Bloated. Let’s face it: ITSM processes have a bad reputation. They can also be a constraint on the IT value stream, particularly for organizations adopting Agile and DevOps practices. In this session, learn how to ensure your ITSM processes provide just enough control to earn compliance without impeding optimum flow. You’ll leave with specific techniques to help you streamline and increase the scalability of your existing processes. (Experience Level: Intermediate)

Speaker Background Donna Knapp has more than twenty-five years of IT industry experience working as a practitioner, consultant, and trainer. Her credentials include ITIL Expert, Certified Process Design Engineer, Certified Agile Service Manager, Certified Scrum Master, DevOps Foundation, and KCS Principles. Donna is the author of A Guide to Service Desk Concepts, A Guide to Customer Service Skills for Service Desk Professionals and The ITSM Process Design Guide.

Minimum Viable ITSMDonna Knapp

@ITSM_Donna

Session 402

About…

ITSM Academy

• Full service provider of IT Service Management (ITSM) education and advice

• Accredited and sustainable education and training• IT Infrastructure Library® (ITIL)• Process Design (CPDE)• DevOps• Agile Service Management® • ISO/IEC 20000

Donna Knapp

• Author• Curriculum Development Manager• Certified Process Design Engineer• ITIL® Expert, ITIL Practitioner• DevOps Foundation certified• Certified Scrum Master• Certified Agile Process Owner• Certified Agile Service Manager• Certified ISO/IEC 2000 Consultant/Manager• Certified in Knowledge-Centered Support

(KCS) Principles

IT Infrastructure Library® and ITIL® are registered trade marks of AXELOS Limited.

Agenda

• Process pitfalls

• Why things need to change

• Achieving minimum viable IT Service Management (ITSM)

Where we sometimes go astray…

• Rigidly applying (vs. adapting) frameworks, methodologies and standards

• Adopting some practices while ignoring (rather than adapting) others

• Allowing conflicting priorities to get in the way of getting things done

• Requiring unnecessary handoffs and approvals

• Failing to build in – or ignoring – customer feedback loops

• Forgetting the ‘why’ (vs. the what and the how)

• Failing to establish dedicated process improvement teams

• Failing to ensure every process has the right Process Owner

Every process is perfectly designed to get the outcome it gets. If you don’t have a well-designed process, it should

not be a surprise that your customers are dissatisfied.

Why Things Need to Change

Wait…What???

• “We value people and interactions over processes and tools”

The Agile Manifesto

• “The more you hardwire a company on total quality management, [the more] it is going to hurt breakthrough innovation. The mindset that is needed, the capabilities that are needed, the metrics that are needed, the whole culture that is needed for discontinuous innovation, are fundamentally different.”

Vijay Govindarajan

Why ITSM Processes Need to Change

The need to

• Reduce cycle times

• Speed up experimentation and learning

• Respond quickly to feedback and changing customer requirements

• Expand value streams to include customers, suppliers and partners

• Support knowledge workers

• Improve communication and collaboration

• Automate workflow

A myriad of factors are prompting IT organizations to streamline and, in some

cases, completely reengineer their ITSM processes.

Why Now?

“An integral component of the agile [software development] methodologies is the concept of

"continuous delivery." This [continuous stream of new and modified software into the operational

environment] demands significant changes in working practices for both … the infrastructure and operations

teams.”Gartner

Organizations that have implemented DevOps practices are up to

five times more likely to be high performing.

The DevOps Effect

• High-performing organizations are more agile• Code is deployed 200 times more frequently

• Deployments are completed 2555 times faster

• Services are more stable• There are 3 times fewer deployment failures

• Mean time to recover (MTTR) is 24 times fasterSource: 2016 State of DevOps Report

DevOps is a cultural and professional movement that stresses communication, collaboration

and integration between software developers and IT operations professionals.

Achieving Minimum Viable ITSM

A minimum viable product (MVP) is the most pared down version of a product (or process) that can be released and still provide enough value that people are willing to use it.

Repeat after me… MVP

How Much is ‘Just Enough’?Just enough process will depend on• Regulatory and governance requirements• Organizational and process maturity • Available automation • Supply chain and environmental complexities • Average volume and scope of changes • Release cadence• Testing requirements and criteria• Customer support mechanisms

How do you know if you have just enough or too much?

Start with a minimum critical activities and measure your performance.

What are Minimum Critical Activities?• Represent activities that must be performed to provide evidence of

compliance• Legal and regulatory controls, standards

• Define the ‘what to do,’ not ‘how to do it’

• Are not based on a single framework

• Provide a starting place to assess current practices• Red: not performing

• Yellow: performing; needs improvement

• Green: performing successfully

Activities can be implemented using a combination of successful internal

procedures and ITSM frameworks and standards (e.g., ITIL, COBIT, ISO20K).

What is a Minimum Viable Process?

• In the context of process design and improvement, an MVP • Includes minimal critical activities

• Provides a scalable starting point

• Demonstrates enough benefit to justify additional investments

• Provides feedback to guide improvements

• Can be automated

Don’t waste your time and

money building a process no

one will want to use or pay for!

A minimum viable process has ‘just enough’ control to enable business results.

MV ITSM and DevOps

© DevOps Institute unless otherwise stated 18

Service Strategy

Service Design

Service Transition

Service Operation

Release and Deployment Management

Change Management

Service Asset and Configuration Management

Non-functional (Warranty) Requirements

Deployment PipelineContinuous Integration • Continuous Testing • Continuous Deployment

Sprint Retrospective24

hours

2 - 4 weeks

Daily Scrum

SPRINT

Sprint Planning

Sprint Review

No changes allowed!

Sprint Backlog

Product Backlog

Product Planning

PotentiallyReleasable Product

Increment

Event, Incident, Problem, Knowledge Management

…But They Must be Adapted (1)

Improvement Opportunities Example

Invert management and authorization models

Change Management

Automate as much as possibleRelease and Deployment Management Service Asset and ConfigurationManagement

Shift left Service Validation and Testing

All ITSM processes are necessary to DevOps. How they are designed,

implemented and managed will need to be adapted.

…But They Must be Adapted (2)

Improvement Opportunities Example

Rethink the role of technologyIncident Management Problem Management

Improve interfaces Event Management

Enable self-service Request Fulfillment

Eliminate waste Knowledge Management

“Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to

make it simple.”Woody Guthrie

How to Decide?

• Rates and prioritizes process improvement opportunities

• Maps processes against improvement criteria

• Considers ‘Available Resources’ (e.g., funding, staff, tools)

Process Incident

Mgmt

Problem Mgmt Change Mgmt

Customer Dissatisfaction 5 3 4

Employee Dissatisfaction 4 4 5

Cost Saving Opportunity 2 5 2

Time Saving Opportunity 3 3 4

Quick Win Opportunity 4 5 1

Available Resources 5 1 2

Total Score 23 21 18

1 = least opportunity for improvement 5 = greatest opportunity for improvement

Use a Process Improvement Matrix to determine whether

to develop, reengineer or improve processes.

Source: The ITSM Process Design Guide

What to Design In

• Start with minimum critical activities

• Identify how and where work should be performed

• Strive to achieve best practices such as• Building in empowerment and trust

• Ensuring work is done where it makes the most sense

• Building quality in starting at the source

• Maximizing the use of models

ITSM PDG – 6.7

Trust

Control

“When you want something done, what’s more desirable, commitment or compliance?”

Dan Madison

What to Design Out

• Excessive handoffs

• Bottlenecks

• Unnecessary checks and reviews

• Activities that result in rework

• Duplicate activities

• The need to rekey information

• Sequential activities (where parallel activities are possible)

• Activities spread across multiple roles (when a single role is possible)

ITSM PDG – 6.7

“Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification…”

Tom Peters

Maximize the Use of Models

• Predefined procedures• Steps to be taken • Chronological order and dependencies• Responsibilities • Timescales and thresholds • Escalation procedures

• Define steps for handling specific types of transaction

• Ensure a defined path or timeline is followed

• Can be automated

Based on ITIL Text - ST 4.2.4.5

Examples

Change models

Release models

Test models

Incident models

Problem models

Request models

Models make it easy for people to do the right thing!

Start Where You Are!

• Build and educate a dedicated process improvement team

• Develop a process improvement matrix

• Develop a Minimum Viable ITSM checklist

• Set goals • Simplify and automate X processes

• Deliver X% savings over time

• Foster the team’s ability to experiment and learn

• Claim the benefits

Change is…

Hard at the beginning.

Messy in the middle.

Awesome at the end.

Overcoming Objections

• Align improvements with overall organizational goals

• Think Lean – talk time and money

• Bring in the auditors

• Progress iteratively – leverage Agile Service Management practices

• Show proof of concept – baseline, benchmark, simple ROI calculations, anecdotal (are we better today than we were yesterday?)

• Create feedback loops that expose people to the consequences of their actions

• Make it easy for people to do the right thing!

Adopting Agile values, principles and practices affects organizational culture.

Culture change and continuous improvement cannot happen without the support of people like you.

Take action!

Thank you for attending this session.

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