Publikováno: 24. 4. 2023
Fail fast but gracefully in IT service management
A summary of the Prague Dialogue, January 2023
part 4. Expert reflections
In addition to the Prague Principles as formulated the workshop attendees, Paul Wilkinson, the closing keynote speaker, contributed some observations and opinions for practitioners, managers and consultants in the ITSM domain to consider.
During the event I presented the results of a global survey based upon the five key success or fail areas identified in my ‘Shiny New Thing that Really Helps’ presentation from 2022. I have related the findings in the survey to the principles above, particularly ‘People’, ‘Value’, ‘Processes and Change’. The survey did not focus on ‘Tool’ related aspects. The figures below represent the percentage of survey respondents scoring this as ‘Poor’ or ‘Weak’.
People
Let people fail: In my experiences across the globe all transformations require ‘continual experimentation, learning and improving’ as a core organizational capability. 76.6% scored ‘Continual improvement is applied top-down and left to right through the organization and is seen as a strategic capability’ as Poor to Weak. 78.4% – ‘Time is reserved for people to continually learn and improve and improvement suggestions are prioritized and followed up on.’
Value:
Link everything to value: 69.1% scored ‘Strategic goals are always known and are cascaded top-down and left to right through the organization to drive decision-making and prioritization mechanisms’ as Poor to Weak. 79.6% – ‘Our governance mechanisms ensure that our portfolio of IT initiatives is balanced between innovation, risk, and improvement work.’
Show how we enable the business: 80.3% scored ‘We measure the outcomes achieved (in relation to strategic goals) from all IT investments and initiatives’ poor or weak.
Process and Change
Change the system and people will follow: refers to the role of managers in supporting and enabling change. Process and change also talks about learn from mistakes and failures. These areas require a shift in leadership skills and behaviors. 60.1% scored ‘We have leadership development programs in place to develop skills needed to manage culture and behavior change’ as Poor to Weak, and 66.1% – ‘Managers are committed to the behavior and culture change by creating safety, fostering feedback, and ensuring time is reserved for teams to learn and improve.’
A final word from me. In my ‘Shiny New Thing that Really Helps’ presentation I analyzed the principles from Agile, DevOps, Lean and ITIL 4, and identified three common principles they all share. These being ‘Focus on value’, ‘Collaboration and Flow’ and ‘Continual Learning and Improving’. It is these principles, when translated into sustainable, repeatable, end-to-end behaviors that will help accelerate and embed change in the organization and deliver continual value. The Prague Principles fit in and align well with these industry approaches.
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Autor:: Martin Kubeš