How do you know that you know? Measuring performance is a lot trickier it may sound.
We all know what metrics are. These are parameters that describe whether whether certain criteria were met or not. In services (and especially IT!) we use number of common metrics like: Number of calls answered in certain time Percentage of calls fixed at the first line Percentage of calls logged in the system that were...
Do we have a problem, Houston? Are you doing enough to eliminate problems from your Services?
In the theme of ‘going back to the basics’, here’s some observations and views on Problem Management in current Customer environment triggered by the recent BrightTalk Summit. So here are some definitions to start with: Problem is an ‘unknown’ of one or more incidents. The objective of Problem Management is to minimise the impact of...
Service Management in basic principles – bit about teaching by example and tasting my own medicine…
The rewarding moments when finding out someone is actually reading this blog, can be a bit bitter sometimes. So, I had my lesson when a friend send me the Dilbert strip saying he feels very much like this guy while reading my blog: Meaning: too much jargon! And not enough detail… It immediately reminded me...
“More people have access to mobile phones than clean toilets”. The world has changed – so need you.
A Recent webcast: Customer Service in a fast changing environment was an excellent summary of approaching changes in your business live. Even such an old school term as ‘Customer Service’ has gone through a complete transformation and now we need to help ourselves to grasp that change. ‘Why should it concern me?’ you might ask....
Get social! And re-think the way to connect to your Customers
“Facebook doesn’t exists’ – my friend said the other day. Which started an argument whether you can actually say that. I could easily say ‘greenhouse effect doesn’t exist’, but that wouldn’t make the global CO2 over-emission to go away, wouldn’t it? How naive and oh, how less glamorous than famous ‘there’s no spoon…’. We can’t...
It’s a lot easier to give advice than it is to carry it out.
Apparently, Tony Blair said it. Prime minister or not it is a well known truth many of us try to avoid. So, do you want to drive business to cut costs? Do it yourself! Do you have a Service Desk function within your IT? Make if efficient and cheap! A recent webcast from BrightTalk, is...
Potatoe or potato? It does make a difference!
Ah, improvements. Management love them, Operational teams hate them. The drive for improvements often comes about following a significant SLA failure or financial initiative to drive operational costs down. In reality, it usually means a response to a poorly managed situation after which the customer demanded changes under the threat of leaving. But you also...
Happy Birthday to …us! Something different for our 1 year anniversary
I can’t believe it’s been a year already! Time flies, especially when you’re so busy …erm… making changes! Within the last 12 months, we (agITILity team) have not only launched this blog, but also made it better. And by ‘we’ I mean people who hugely contributed to (what I will modestly call) the success of...
How to stick to your New Year resolutions and manage changes effectively
Ah, January. The time of endless lists of resolutions, plans, changes that we’re hoping to implement (this time for sure!) before we get caught by yet another New Years Eve party. This made me thinking about Change Management in general and it’s biggest flaw – bureaucracy! The webcast – Streamlining Change Management gives a nice...
Finding sense in the madness of Christmas preparations and ITIL processes…
Interesting times, I must say. The usual almost-end-of-the-year / the-last-thing-before-xmass madness causes many of us spinning in the wheel of way to many meetings / workshops / processes to be completed, agreed and signed off. All in the naive belief that just because it would be completed within the calendar year, we’d get away with...
Do your own thing! And why ITIL has been discussed since the eighties
It’s been good 25 years and people are still debating whether ITIL framework is good for IT services or not. To me, just the fact it’s been around for so long and has been revised number of times to adapt to the new world speaks for itself. According to Service Providers ITIL is a set...
It’s time to let go the past. Service Catalogue teaches to get rid of old habits
Controversial? No. Just inconvenient. We are all stuck in our ways a bit. As a consultant I know better than others that embracing change is not easy. It takes time and most of all you need to believe this will bring more benefits than effort to implement it. First of all, we need to face...