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 IT Service Management has increased in its importance, as more organizations are requiring CIO and their IT organizations to do more for less. Janco has identified a series of best practices which are followed by successful CIOs as they continue to address infrastructure issues with reduced staffs and budgets:
Have an IT Infrastructure that supports IT Service Management. Customers (users) evaluate Information Technology based on their perception of the service provided and its associated costs. This perception of service quality depends upon a number of soft factors such as timeliness of responses, impact of service outages, and quality of communications and between IT and users. Best practices include:
- Metrics for aimed to show productivity of IT Service Management function
- Service Level agreements that are tied to enterpriser operational performance
- Documented policies and procedures which are followed
- Diagnostic processes and tools to provide early warnings when things start to go wrong
Have a cost tracking (charge back) system that is understood. While reliability is a key measure of IT Service Management, cost is a close second. In addition to understanding the cost structure of IT, CIO must be able to explain the cost drivers and what you are doing to improve productivity and reduce costs while maintaining quality and reliability. Best practices include:
- Defined system development and operation methodology which includes change control and version control
- Quality assurance function and responsibilities defined
- Change and version control management tools
Have the ability to change the organizational and application infrastructure while continuing to provide quality service. IT operations must provide consistent stable operations - networks, servers, applications, workstations, email, and telephony systems must be up, functional, and be invisible to the operation of the enterprise. Best practices include:
- Clear organizational responsibilities and accountabilities
- Review processes (meeting and reports) with IT and users to discuss performance
- Published service level definitions with expectations
Have defined policies and procedures in place for change management and service management. Users need a clear and understandable set of rules of how to work with IT: how to request services, who is responsible for the quality of the services, and what information and status they should expect from you? Best practices include:
- Documented policies and procedures which are followed
- Feedback loops which highlight strengths and weaknesses
- Open approach that allows for changes to policies and procedures and unlocking new ways to get thing accomplished
Have a courteous and well trained IT staff. In these troubled times it is easy to overlook the quality of your staff as a factor in your continuing success. Best practices include:
- Formal training program for both users and IT staff that has as its focus change control, version control, IT Service Management
- Adequate staffing levels during periods required by users
- IT staff that can communicate effectively with users using user terms not IT scripts
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