Archive for year: 2022

In this multi-sourced, multi-partner environment we are in today, we need to focus on outcomes. The contracts, SLAs, and every communication has to be focused on outcomes.

The process must be identifying customer outcomes working backward toward the partners.

When we see poor experience, both from the consumers and employee point-of-view, it is usually due to the lack of alignment with outcomes.

The same is true for establishing an ITSM/ESM program, implementing an ITSM tool, implementing a CMDB, and everything else.

If your organization is not yielding the success you desire, contact Service Management Leadership to hear how we can help your organization.

We are in a time when the basic fundamentals are overlooked and remain underappreciated.

People are anxious about all that is going on.

Companies are striving to show value via Digital Transformation. The focus is on innovation, not doing the current things better.

In a time when executing well is overlooked and underappreciated, I want to encourage you to focus on doing a great job (executing) and improving your skillset + capabilities.

Incremental improvement is like compound interest. It will grow and build off the previous improvement. This will yield much better results than trying to hit home runs.

There are many non-IT examples of Experience Management I love to use to illustrate concepts.

One such is the issue of the walk to baggage claim in the Houston Airport. See link below.

The airport was getting a lot of complaints saying they had to wait too long for their baggage.

Instead of addressing the underlying issue (Experience), the airport re-routed foot traffic the MUCH LONGER way so that the bags would arrive soon after the passengers (bag owners) arrived.

Complaints plummeted.

Which this may be a good short-term way of looking at the problem, how do you think the passengers feel now after the cat is out of the proverbial bag?

Did the airport properly address the Experience problem?

Of the Service Management processes/practices, Change Management/Enablement is usually guilty of being the most bureaucratic.

The rules and order are necessary to reduce risk.

However, there are ways to follow the stated process and still deliver better outcomes.

Let’s face it, even with the heavy reliance on rules and compliance, we still do a relatively poor job at Change success rate. We should be above 98%, but most companies and organizations are well below that. This results I’m a lot of money lost and wasted.

The answer is to:
1. Understand how the consumers and stakeholders consume your process and improve their Experience
2. Execute the process

Consumers of IT services want one thing: outcomes.

For far too long, we’ve measured process and steps when we should have measured the outcomes.

This is where Service Management and Experience Management join to improve the services.

If you walk into a deli or sandwich shop, you order, then wait for your food.

Take the analogy to IT services.

As the consumer, you are concerned only with the sandwich and the Experience.

As the provider, the deli obtains the ingredients and builds the sandwich, delivers to you, then ensures the rest of the restaurant is clean.

Imagine if we only measured the deli metrics. They’d be incomplete.

But, a combination of both Experience and Service Management leads to an optimal outcome.