CIO discussion, Steve O'Donnell

?? What are your thoughts on the strengths and limitations of current Service Management best practice approaches?

This was the question I asked leading CIO and Transformational Specialist, Steve O'Donnell, in our discussion last week, and here are Steve's views on the subject based on his own personal experiences.

"As a starting position, I think it’s mostly a bit dated and doesn’t work well with modern ways of working".

The past.

"Let’s start by moving away from the Service Management arena and into software delivery. In the past, everything was waterfall based where there was a project plan, clearly defined phases, roles and outcomes, and several parties involved. The Programme or Project Manager was accountable, and their job was to essentially tell people, particularly the developers, what to do. No flexibility, just a firm, rigid plan. Dates, times, quality, cost. Furthermore, Project Managers, who, mostly aren’t software developers, are usually bad at delivering software designs, often coming up with impractical solutions. This is usually because the customer doesn’t entirely know what they want or need.

The whole process is demoralising for those involved, as they were working to requirements, budgets and a timeline that could never be met".

The present.

"Fast forward to the present, and the solution to these problems has been Agile. However, this has had a massive impact on Operations as they are still following old world approaches, that require a lot of detail, approvals and paperwork, and aren’t designed for automation, quick decision making and delivery at speed. Companies have ended up with a structured and centralised Service Management approach that conflicts with the approaches used by the developers. In the development world, the guys on the front line are now empowered and responsible for everything and are facing off against a Service Management approach that is at odds with what they are trying to do.

The developers know what needs to be done, come up with a sprint plan and can articulate what they are doing in clear, concise language. In the Service Management world, the Service Director now doesn’t have to have complete control of what is happening, and the front-line Service Delivery guys need to work closely with the developers to make things happen and be empowered to do so. This is why traditional ITIL/ITSM approaches must evolve to meet the needs of an Agile/SRE world, so that there aren’t methodologies and approaches in place that oppose and contradict each other. The old guard protecting their domain defeats the objective of Agile and adds politics to productivity. SRE has the same objectives as ITIL/ITSM, for example pro-active Problem Management and good Change Management practices, but the delivery methods conflict with each other.

The whole situation is made more challenging still in a hybrid environment with external suppliers and vendors are working to old models and contract structures. The question is, how do you package SIAM with SRE? A human orientated yet automated world is needed to be successful. You need to recognise that SIAM and SRE, just like Waterfall and Agile, are different, and an adaptation layer is needed to make everything work together".

In conclusion.

"All in all, pragmatism and adaptation are vital to ensuring that all requirements can be met simultaneously".

Hopefully everyone who reads this has enjoyed it, and a big thanks to Steve for providing some excellent and very useful insights.