How To Get The User Buy-In

In continuation of "Getting User Buy-In for ITIL Implementation"

 

Let us focus on how you can answer the questions of my previous post.

 

Organization is because of employees. Any initiative can be beneficial to the organization only if it benefits the employees as well. Benefit need not always mean financial benefit. ITIL processes are meant to:

• Make your life simpler…simpler in terms of doing your day-to-day activity
• Make your professional life better…better in terms of doing quality work
• Make you performance highlighted…highlighted because there will be metrics defined which will give a qualitative and quantitative indication of your performance levels
• Have a clearly defined roles and responsibilities. This will open up additional avenues for growth.

 

Taking an example of incident management, you can highlight how it will help in clear categorization of task/activities to be performed by the resources based on their expertise. How it can prevent the resources from having to answer calls related to incidents when they are actually midway in their effort to resolve one of the incidents.

 

We can take this example a step further…

By defining and implementing a service desk, we have a dedicated team to answer to the user’s calls, logging incidents, taking care of service requests, updating users with the status, etc. Thus, it would free the experienced resources from having to undertake these tasks in parallel to their task of resolving incidents. This would help in improving their performance level.

 

Also, with incident prioritization and categorization only the team with right skill set and expertise will work on that incident. This will help in faster resolution.

 

 

In this way, ITIL consultants need to come out with examples and answered to the questions that trouble the end users. This small exercise on part of the ITIL consultants will surely make the implementation a success.

 

Kindly note that these recommendations are in addition to other activities that are planned to promote the initiative and its awareness.

Getting User Buy-In for ITIL Implementation

Taking a step further from my last post, I will focus now specifically on getting user buy-in for ITIL implementation. The same logic of getting buy-in for process consulting applies to ITIL as well.

Although, the stakeholders are well aware of the business benefits of ITIL implementation, awareness is lacking in end users about the benefits of the same. Moreover end users are more concerned about the benefits which they will drive from the initiative. Following questions trouble them:

ITIL is for the organization and not for me. Why should I follow the process?

• 
  
  What is there in ITIL for me?
• 
  
  How is ITIL going to benefit me?
• 
  
  How will the ITIL process (es) benefit my team?
• 
  
  Is the organization trying to make me replaceable? Am I going to loose my job?

ITIL Consultants should be prepared to answer these questions. Specifically regarding the last question, the consultant should advise the stakeholders to adopt ‘change management’ and take the end users into confidence before trying to roll out the new initiative.

Every ITIL Consultant focuses on benefits of ITIL for the organization. But one should remember that this will just help in getting the ITIL consulting or implementation contract. But in order to make the ITIL initiative a success, one needs to get the buy-in of the end users as well. Consultants should also take out time to answer the above questions which trouble the end users.

(Con’t…)

Process Consulting: Getting Customer's or End User's Buy-In

I have seen process definition or improvement initiatives fail because of the lack of desired level of support from the customers or end users. Some of the reasons for the same includes:

• Fear of job loss
• Poor perception of the process
• ‘Just another’ initiative

Customer in this scenario are not only the sponsors or the people who are going to pay for your service but includes the sponsors or the stakeholders, internal and/or external customers and the end users of the process.

It is very important to get customer buy-in for any process consulting initiative. Process consultant should ensure that the customer understands and sees the benefits of the initiative. Answering the following questions will help a process consultant to be prepared to handle such situations.

• Why would the customer need the process?
• What does the customer expect from the process?
• What is the customer’s view of the process?
• How will the process benefit the customer?
• How is the process performance from customer’s perspective?
• What are the customer’s measurement criteria for the process?
• What can we do to improve the process?
• What performance levels does the customer expect from the process?
• What is critical to the quality of the process from customer’s perspective?

A kick-off workshop focusing on the benefits covering points from the answers to the above question enables the consultant to break the ice and build on the confidence level of the customers. During future process definition workshops, consultants should stress (but not beyond a point) on the benefits of the process and how it can simplify customer’s way of working. This would help in getting full cooperation from the process owners or customers and would help in making the initiative a success.

Con't...

My Appeal To ITIL Professionals

There are few training providers, who not only allow candidates to have an open book exam but also give answers to the question paper. I am referring to Service Manager Certification. With ITIL V3, focus on V2 exams got reduced as attention shifted to the new version.

I got a word doc from a candidate who had taken the exam. It contained all questions and answers. He send it to me for comment on his performance. If I try to recollect my exam, I remember that I was not able to confidently recall even a single question word by word. Not only that, the properties of the word doc clearly showed the authors name to be that of a training provider. This type of activities is reducing the overall value and recognition of Managers certification.

I lodged a complaint with APMG, EXIN, ISEB and OGC. APMG identified the Examination Institute which was offering that case study and replaced the case as well as has taken steps to tighten the examination system.

As ITIL professionals it is up to us that how we can maintain the recognition and sanctity of our certification. My appeal to entire ITIL community, please do not turn to be a blank spectator to such incident; be proactive and be assured that APMG & OGC will take necessary action.

ITIL Foundation Certified Professionals: The New Breed

I had been a bit busy for last couple of days with my organizational activities. Also, I had been interviewing potential candidates for openings that we have for various ITIL operational roles. I have come across many ITIL foundation certified professionals, whom I would prefer to call a new breed of ITIL professionals.

One of the candidates I interview had mentioned ‘Foundation Certified in IT Service Management’ and ITIL V3 Foundation certified. I asked him ‘what is the difference between these two certifications’…answer was ‘I don’t know’.

My next question – ‘What are the various lifecycle phases of ITIL V3’…I got another blank face…I went on to next question ‘Name any 5 processes of ITIL V3’…again a blank face and then an answer ‘I don’t know’. I asked ‘you are ITIL V3 Foundation certified and I expect the name of ITIL processes at least’…A great answer I got ‘My company asked us to get certified. I was shocked. I thought that this would be a one of case. But thereafter I have found many guys like him, who do not even recall the process names. Another interesting case was when I asked one candidate, ‘which version of ITIL you are certified in’…he thought for a while and then answered ‘Version 1’. He had completed his engineering in 2006, probably would have been just a couple of years old when ITIL version 1 was introduced.