How to implement unified processes with all the features of the company?
With the release of ITIL v4, I would like to pay tribute to the great methodology and tell about the Russian ITSM experience, why and how to apply it in today's environment to companies following the path of digital transformations.
In order to consistently disclose the indicated topic in the proposed article, one of the authors' favorite tricks is used - “4P”.
If you are a little familiar with the architecture of our application, you may know that on a single platform, Naumen SMP has created several products used for various technological areas.
There is such a thing as configuration - the minimum basic set of settings on the platform for a specific product direction. Today I would like to tell a little about one of these areas - Naumen Service Desk. The configuration of Naumen Service Desk is open to intensive constructive development, although, as practice shows, today it allows to solve most of the issues when implementing ITSM in the most convenient way. It is often updated, not on the basis of the painful inventing of something innovative, attempts to follow the mainstream and under pressure from the HYIP, but on the contrary, by consolidating and fixing the best of what we have accumulated over many years of design practice, successful accomplishments and successful discoveries, as well as cutting off negative attempts, screening events and methods that led to less successful results, errors and failures. At the same time, we try to save ourselves not only in the automation zone, but also in part of the theory - design documentation, instructions, techniques.
')
At some point, there was an urgent need for a global understanding of all applicable best practices to form an expert approach (both in technical and theoretical areas), leading to effective processes for the provision and support of services. And here the use of case-management basics served as a good help. This story will be in part about the results of our recent experiments in dynamic process control.
Repeated passage of the project path by customers with large and even gigantic scales in terms of the implementation of the same basic processes gave us the groundwork for research and analysis. Every time we come to a customer who is experiencing the pain of an absent / inefficient / unmanaged process, we pick up this virus. Viruses are different, complex, simple, mutating and migrating. Each time, testing them for ourselves, we diligently invent healing formulas. Over the years, symptoms began to recur in the processes being implemented, and the formulas also began to be reapplied. We came to the realization that one day we will have a single formula (or some business rules) that allows us to receive various input conditions at the entrance, including previously unexplored conditions, to adapt to them and act effectively.
That feeling was stretched in time and space, and the question did not stand up. Until the moment when we stepped into the territory of a single enterprise, where all the pains suddenly suddenly made themselves felt, and they had to be defeated by the same magical means.
For example, you can highlight some of the implementation tasks that caused the greatest concern:
To effectively address these challenging tasks, a single conceptual approach was needed, the principle of which can be explained on fingers by specialists of any level of competence, and the scope should not be limited to either territorial or organizational features or maturity levels of current processes and practices.
The uniqueness of services (services) and the unification of processes . On the one hand, each service organization has its own list of services offered, with nuances, features, unique specifics of support, its own corporate culture, and there are also a lot of individual constraints due to the ornateness of territorial, managerial, and organizational structures. On the other hand, there are processes that provide these services. Many methodologies almost ultimately require the unification and standardization of service delivery processes, thus promising the possibility of more efficient management of activities, as well as the possibility of certification and increasing the maturity of the company, and as a result, the company's extensive growth horizons, its volumes, popularity, and profits.
It was a good decision to cross these two contradictory areas and to organize activities at their intersection.
Thus, the configuration of the Naumen Service Desk works on the interaction of two conceptual areas of the service and process approach, where:
At the same time, the list of processes is basically constant — it is fixed, and the service catalog is designed and created based on the needs of a particular company.
Service approach
Loudly declaring that the service catalog is completely free from restrictions, a certain substance in the configuration, which gives an uncontrollable cast of all the nuances of the service organization, we are a little cunning. The composition of the service catalog can be of arbitrary depth and coverage, but its structure is formed taking into account Naumen’s project experience, as well as recommendations of world methodologies that allow one to settle in the ITSM industry, communicate with its followers in the same terminological language, and have the opportunity to freely share knowledge and skills.
Thus, in the Naumen Service Desk configuration, for each service there are certain platforms for fixing its settings with any thematic content, but the number of sites, their subject matter and structure are strictly regulated and controlled by a specialized process. This process provides a single point of control and contributes to the development and improvement of the service catalog.
What settings are defined in the service:
When fixing the key settings data in the system in terms of the services provided, an exact impression of the company's features appears - a catalog of services centrally managed as well as convenient for scaling.
Process approach
After all aspects of the company's cultural and technological values ​​are identified and fixed, it is logical to proceed to the design of activities that help in achieving specific goals. And there is an acute problem of modeling ITSM processes.
Process design is always a difficult, painful and high-risk area of ​​activity.
But how would you look at taking processes that take into account the maximum number of known needs and risks, and use them without unnecessary suffering and labor?
As part of the configuration of the Naumen Service Desk, the main processes that are most in demand in Russian companies have been developed, helping companies easily adapt to ITSM and get quick results. In the painful design of processes is no longer necessary. In the Naumen Service Desk, they are already prepared, combed and run-in at many stages of trial operation of various projects. Thus, in the configuration now it is possible to activate up to 10 of the most common processes.
The composition of the main processes
For each of the processes defined:
Example of process steps
The processes turned out concise and transparent. As a result, it is not difficult to train new members to work in them, as well as to manage and control.
“Any multi-way, complex and branching sequence of activities can be built in the form of pyramids of services and requests. At the same time, the execution of each of the requests is very simple and does not cause difficulties for specialists, ”said Alexander Nagorny , ITIL Expert, head of the process design team.
It is available - saving time on design, allowing us to use it to form a more accurate catalog of services.
Scaling
When companies come to an effective automated management of their activities, rapid growth does not take long to wait. Therefore, even at the first approximation to the design of processes and systems, it is very important to think about how it will scale:
There are several aspects that ensure the intensive and smooth development of ITSM in a company in direct proportion to its growth:
These key points help make scaling possible, understandable, and timely.
We have identified three important aspects on which the automation of service processes is based. But for the organization of their clear interaction you need a link. As a link, governing business rules are used.
Business rules are the main formula for universal adjustment of mechanisms for dynamic management of business processes of an enterprise, taking into account the specifics of locations and nuances of technological processes in certain services.
A key role is played by business rules when processing requests. Initially, they are laid sets of conditions that accompany the appeal, and options for reactions to these conditions. Thus, upon receipt of appeals, the system, based on the information received, automatically selects the most suitable option for its processing, according to a business rule.
Examples of situations in which business rules are used:
Determination of the responsible for processing requests
For example: 1. If you are an employee of the Moscow office and your computer is faulty, then a specialist from the Moscow support service unit will help you to restore your working capacity. 2. If you are an employee of the Moscow office, but you are in a business trip to St. Petersburg, then a specialist from the local unit will come to the rescue.
In these examples, the executor is determined by pre-configured business rules based on location, service, and the essence of the request.
Definition of participants and sequence of approvals
For example: 1. If you need to get a laptop on a business trip, then be kind, agree on such a decision with your manager. 2. If you need to receive the unloading of information from one of the systems, then one manager cannot do. In coordination, both the leader and other participants, whose opinions should also be taken into account, will participate, sequentially or in parallel. This can be either the owner of the system or representatives of the security service.
Determining the sequence of work
For example: 1. When organizing a workplace, a new employee in Moscow needs to perform a sequence of work, for example, install equipment, connect to the Internet, create an account. Based on the business rule, requests will be created in parallel or successively to perform the relevant activities. 2. But in Yekaterinburg, the service catalog is not limited only to the IT field, representatives of the PMS are also involved in the process, therefore, electricians will be connected in a similar situation to check or arrange connection to the power grid.
In these examples, due to the pre-configured business rules, depending on the location, the composition of implementation steps is determined.
Determining the regular execution time of requests
For example: The technical support service is centralized and located in Moscow. We can promise to replace the cartridge in the printer in 2 hours of astronomical time to employees of departments that are located in the same office. But the employees of the branches from the Moscow region - guaranteed time for performing work - at least 8 working hours, or even 16.
In these examples, due to pre-configured business rules depending on the unit, the execution time and the maintenance mode are determined.
In general, we shift all the conditions and decisions to the rules - and the happiness of the human-loving service management will come!
The basic configuration principle of the Naumen Service Desk is a single concept based on adaptive control business rules. This is the desired “KEY” to success and effectiveness.
This configuration will suit you if:
The configuration features of the Naumen Service Desk are that:
The use of Naumen Service Desk as a universal tool has allowed many companies to successfully implement a service approach taking into account their needs, bring order to the management of processes and the provision of services, providing an opportunity for continuous improvement and efficiency growth.
In order to consistently disclose the indicated topic in the proposed article, one of the authors' favorite tricks is used - “4P”.
Prerequisites
If you are a little familiar with the architecture of our application, you may know that on a single platform, Naumen SMP has created several products used for various technological areas.
There is such a thing as configuration - the minimum basic set of settings on the platform for a specific product direction. Today I would like to tell a little about one of these areas - Naumen Service Desk. The configuration of Naumen Service Desk is open to intensive constructive development, although, as practice shows, today it allows to solve most of the issues when implementing ITSM in the most convenient way. It is often updated, not on the basis of the painful inventing of something innovative, attempts to follow the mainstream and under pressure from the HYIP, but on the contrary, by consolidating and fixing the best of what we have accumulated over many years of design practice, successful accomplishments and successful discoveries, as well as cutting off negative attempts, screening events and methods that led to less successful results, errors and failures. At the same time, we try to save ourselves not only in the automation zone, but also in part of the theory - design documentation, instructions, techniques.
')
At some point, there was an urgent need for a global understanding of all applicable best practices to form an expert approach (both in technical and theoretical areas), leading to effective processes for the provision and support of services. And here the use of case-management basics served as a good help. This story will be in part about the results of our recent experiments in dynamic process control.
Panacea
Repeated passage of the project path by customers with large and even gigantic scales in terms of the implementation of the same basic processes gave us the groundwork for research and analysis. Every time we come to a customer who is experiencing the pain of an absent / inefficient / unmanaged process, we pick up this virus. Viruses are different, complex, simple, mutating and migrating. Each time, testing them for ourselves, we diligently invent healing formulas. Over the years, symptoms began to recur in the processes being implemented, and the formulas also began to be reapplied. We came to the realization that one day we will have a single formula (or some business rules) that allows us to receive various input conditions at the entrance, including previously unexplored conditions, to adapt to them and act effectively.
That feeling was stretched in time and space, and the question did not stand up. Until the moment when we stepped into the territory of a single enterprise, where all the pains suddenly suddenly made themselves felt, and they had to be defeated by the same magical means.
For example, you can highlight some of the implementation tasks that caused the greatest concern:
- It is necessary to quickly teach about 10,000 employees to use and manage the system in part of their area of ​​responsibility.
- It is necessary to provide an interface that allows you to monitor contractors, the number of existing contracts with which are dozens and contain their own agreements in terms of control, methods of interaction (integration), settlement of contracts.
- It is necessary to automate the unique parameters for the fulfillment of various needs, both in the field of IT and far beyond its borders.
- It is necessary to adapt to the local specificity of the regions in terms of determining the routes and time of the execution of certain works.
To effectively address these challenging tasks, a single conceptual approach was needed, the principle of which can be explained on fingers by specialists of any level of competence, and the scope should not be limited to either territorial or organizational features or maturity levels of current processes and practices.
Principle
The uniqueness of services (services) and the unification of processes . On the one hand, each service organization has its own list of services offered, with nuances, features, unique specifics of support, its own corporate culture, and there are also a lot of individual constraints due to the ornateness of territorial, managerial, and organizational structures. On the other hand, there are processes that provide these services. Many methodologies almost ultimately require the unification and standardization of service delivery processes, thus promising the possibility of more efficient management of activities, as well as the possibility of certification and increasing the maturity of the company, and as a result, the company's extensive growth horizons, its volumes, popularity, and profits.
It was a good decision to cross these two contradictory areas and to organize activities at their intersection.
Thus, the configuration of the Naumen Service Desk works on the interaction of two conceptual areas of the service and process approach, where:
- Services - settings area, which reflects all the unique specifics of the company;
- Processes are a zone of unification for ease of implementation and management of all types of ITSM activities.
At the same time, the list of processes is basically constant — it is fixed, and the service catalog is designed and created based on the needs of a particular company.
Service approach
Loudly declaring that the service catalog is completely free from restrictions, a certain substance in the configuration, which gives an uncontrollable cast of all the nuances of the service organization, we are a little cunning. The composition of the service catalog can be of arbitrary depth and coverage, but its structure is formed taking into account Naumen’s project experience, as well as recommendations of world methodologies that allow one to settle in the ITSM industry, communicate with its followers in the same terminological language, and have the opportunity to freely share knowledge and skills.
Thus, in the Naumen Service Desk configuration, for each service there are certain platforms for fixing its settings with any thematic content, but the number of sites, their subject matter and structure are strictly regulated and controlled by a specialized process. This process provides a single point of control and contributes to the development and improvement of the service catalog.
What settings are defined in the service:
- Information: name, description, purpose, restrictions, reference books.
- The structure of the service and its components (components).
- Determining the location of the service in the resource-service model (communication services with supported services, as well as those that provide the current services).
- Determination of the scheduled service time (SLA), support schedules, time zones on which the service is conducted.
- Determining the parameters of planning and maintenance work on the service.
- Determination of the role model for the service (managers, performing, coordinating, etc. roles).
- A set of possible activities to provide and support a service (types of requests and what processes can be executed as part of the service).
When fixing the key settings data in the system in terms of the services provided, an exact impression of the company's features appears - a catalog of services centrally managed as well as convenient for scaling.
Process approach
After all aspects of the company's cultural and technological values ​​are identified and fixed, it is logical to proceed to the design of activities that help in achieving specific goals. And there is an acute problem of modeling ITSM processes.
Process design is always a difficult, painful and high-risk area of ​​activity.
But how would you look at taking processes that take into account the maximum number of known needs and risks, and use them without unnecessary suffering and labor?
As part of the configuration of the Naumen Service Desk, the main processes that are most in demand in Russian companies have been developed, helping companies easily adapt to ITSM and get quick results. In the painful design of processes is no longer necessary. In the Naumen Service Desk, they are already prepared, combed and run-in at many stages of trial operation of various projects. Thus, in the configuration now it is possible to activate up to 10 of the most common processes.
The composition of the main processes
For each of the processes defined:
- Goals;
- Politicians;
- Activities;
- Interfaces with adjacent processes;
- Roles and responsibilities for activities;
- Metrics.
Example of process steps
The processes turned out concise and transparent. As a result, it is not difficult to train new members to work in them, as well as to manage and control.
“Any multi-way, complex and branching sequence of activities can be built in the form of pyramids of services and requests. At the same time, the execution of each of the requests is very simple and does not cause difficulties for specialists, ”said Alexander Nagorny , ITIL Expert, head of the process design team.
It is available - saving time on design, allowing us to use it to form a more accurate catalog of services.
Scaling
When companies come to an effective automated management of their activities, rapid growth does not take long to wait. Therefore, even at the first approximation to the design of processes and systems, it is very important to think about how it will scale:
- What will happen when we go to deploy in regional branches?
- What will happen if, starting with the new year, a new organization with its own structure, directory, politicians, culture appears in our structure, how do we divide the system and processes into two / three / seven / hundred ...?
- What if there is a need to introduce new processes?
- What if there are many new contractors with their ITSM-systems?
There are several aspects that ensure the intensive and smooth development of ITSM in a company in direct proportion to its growth:
- Considering the growth prospects, it is important to abstract from the IT prefix from the first stages of implementation.
As the saying goes, “a bad soldier who does not dream of becoming a general,” therefore, we recommend not to waste resources on isolating their activities with restrictions (for example, terminological), which later, with a rapid growth in volumes and coverage, will be resource-intensive. Thus, initially thinking about the growth and expansion of automation in all business processes, including getting used instead of "IT services" to use the term "services", instead of "IT structure" - "service structure", not "user" , and “recipient of services”, etc.
And at that moment, when AHO, accounting or engineering services will be ready to switch to the service management model, it will be easy to integrate their processes with an exclamation: “Well, we were waiting for you!”. And there maybe production will be tightened ... - It is necessary to accept the fact that for effective management there must be a single center for making the final decision on processes and services at the head of the entire ITSM system.
Let it be the service catalog manager (a group of participants can play a role, it doesn't matter). After this key role appears, you can localize role-based management models for services and processes in the configuration to account for local management features in branches and subsidiaries. Thus, the functions of management are delegated to local managers with the greatest competencies, expertise and experience in the area of ​​their location.
Service settings can be localized to division and location
Additionally, the configuration provides the ability to restrict access to view and for parallel branches of the structure. In order to avoid excessive display of untargeted information for participants in the processes, as well as to ensure information security. - It is important to avoid customization processes. Let the processes be uniform and transparent for all participants of all divisions, locations, legal entities and structures. Let all the specifics remain at the level of the service catalog, which can be customized to single locations.
These key points help make scaling possible, understandable, and timely.
We have identified three important aspects on which the automation of service processes is based. But for the organization of their clear interaction you need a link. As a link, governing business rules are used.
Business rules are the main formula for universal adjustment of mechanisms for dynamic management of business processes of an enterprise, taking into account the specifics of locations and nuances of technological processes in certain services.
A key role is played by business rules when processing requests. Initially, they are laid sets of conditions that accompany the appeal, and options for reactions to these conditions. Thus, upon receipt of appeals, the system, based on the information received, automatically selects the most suitable option for its processing, according to a business rule.
Examples of situations in which business rules are used:
Determination of the responsible for processing requests
For example: 1. If you are an employee of the Moscow office and your computer is faulty, then a specialist from the Moscow support service unit will help you to restore your working capacity. 2. If you are an employee of the Moscow office, but you are in a business trip to St. Petersburg, then a specialist from the local unit will come to the rescue.
In these examples, the executor is determined by pre-configured business rules based on location, service, and the essence of the request.
Definition of participants and sequence of approvals
For example: 1. If you need to get a laptop on a business trip, then be kind, agree on such a decision with your manager. 2. If you need to receive the unloading of information from one of the systems, then one manager cannot do. In coordination, both the leader and other participants, whose opinions should also be taken into account, will participate, sequentially or in parallel. This can be either the owner of the system or representatives of the security service.
Determining the sequence of work
For example: 1. When organizing a workplace, a new employee in Moscow needs to perform a sequence of work, for example, install equipment, connect to the Internet, create an account. Based on the business rule, requests will be created in parallel or successively to perform the relevant activities. 2. But in Yekaterinburg, the service catalog is not limited only to the IT field, representatives of the PMS are also involved in the process, therefore, electricians will be connected in a similar situation to check or arrange connection to the power grid.
In these examples, due to the pre-configured business rules, depending on the location, the composition of implementation steps is determined.
Determining the regular execution time of requests
For example: The technical support service is centralized and located in Moscow. We can promise to replace the cartridge in the printer in 2 hours of astronomical time to employees of departments that are located in the same office. But the employees of the branches from the Moscow region - guaranteed time for performing work - at least 8 working hours, or even 16.
In these examples, due to pre-configured business rules depending on the unit, the execution time and the maintenance mode are determined.
In general, we shift all the conditions and decisions to the rules - and the happiness of the human-loving service management will come!
Afterword
The basic configuration principle of the Naumen Service Desk is a single concept based on adaptive control business rules. This is the desired “KEY” to success and effectiveness.
This configuration will suit you if:
- You have a tiny organization with only one support specialist serving all processes and services, but a lot of big ambitions and desires for development and growth;
- You have a huge enterprise, distributed around the world, with multiple restructurings, outstaffing and outsourcing. You know what continuous improvement and optimization is, and strive for maximum efficiency in achieving goals.
The configuration features of the Naumen Service Desk are that:
- Any specifics of the organization can be implemented through a flexible catalog of services.
- Unification and standardization is ensured through the use of single interrelated processes that are simple and understandable to participants.
- Scaling is provided at any stage of development of the organization through the use of adaptive management in business rules.
- The principle of delegation of functions helps to accurately determine the optimal role model, with maximum use of local expertise.
- Convenience of self-service portal, which increases the mood and satisfaction of service recipients to the maximum!
The use of Naumen Service Desk as a universal tool has allowed many companies to successfully implement a service approach taking into account their needs, bring order to the management of processes and the provision of services, providing an opportunity for continuous improvement and efficiency growth.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/445290/
All Articles