As we’ve described over the previous few articles in this series, Business Service Management (“BSM”) represents a radical departure from traditional methods of managing IT operations. This is primarily because the focus is shifting from measuring and managing IT from a purely technical standpoint, to a financial and business impact perspective. As a result, implementing BSM requires a change in the mindset of IT operators, as well as new processes and solutions to support the realization of BSM. This may seem daunting, but don’t let it scare you away just yet, the value this brings to the business is far too important. Please note: this post is not to be all-inclusive but a high-level primer.
Creating the Mindset for BSM from C-level to System Administrators
The first step to a successful BSM strategy should be building consensus from the Executive suite down to the Network Operations Center (“NOC”), this consensus will help get everyone thinking and positively contributing to the project. This positive momentum is crucial as you will be asking many of these people to change the way they manage the IT operations from a reactive, siloed nature to a proactive real-time environment. This change is not trivial and should be addressed from the start. As the old adage goes “We built a paperless environment and made it mandatory, yet most everyone is back using their old paper-based processes.” This is true for many technologies…so be pro-active…because if you get buy-in and implement correctly you environment will be.
A key ingredient to this mindset is to start considering everything from the perspective of the business. At the onset of every IT project, every IT incident, every change plan, the first question that should be answered is “How will this impact the business?” This isn’t just for the CIO to answer; every member of IT needs to understand their role in supporting the business as a whole.
Planning your IT/Business Strategy
When planning your strategy be sure to define the Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”), so that you can gauge the results and value of the project on an on-going basis. This will allow you to measure and address any shortcomings or capitalize on any potentials opportunities. One thing about BSM; if it is implemented effectively…more people and business areas will want inclusion as it should deliver highly visible results that are clear to members outside of IT. So, including capacity planning is another important component during your planning stage. Additionally, it is important to change the way you talk and describe your service management capabilities, as it is a different paradigm…it is important to describe the benefits and evangelize them to your organization.
Traditional IT metrics have focused on the negative: number of outages, incident response times, policy violations. With BSM, the focus needs to change to how IT is driving the business and enhancing revenue. This will create a positive image of you and your IT Operations team as you begin to see the positive results and report using the KPIs on the positive benefits being derived through your correctly deployed BSM solution.
If you are using a Configuration Management Database (“CMDB”) for the storage of your Assets/Configuration Items (“CIs”), it would be advantageous to integrate and pull the CI information describing the assets connected to your network from the CMDB and integrate into your BSM product, thereby ensuring the latest information and any changes to those assets are reflected in your KPI(s). BSM rules the day!
Model Your Services
This is one of the most important steps in a successful implementation as it provides the baseline for success. By modeling and logically grouping services, you can have all of your assets grouped geographically because each location is managed by a different group of people. Or, you may combine disparate systems that interoperate to provide a single business service. There are numerous ways to logically group assets or CIs, so they can reflect dependencies and/or have SLA(s), as well as, other guidelines associated with the logically grouped service thereby reducing complexity and ensuring expanded availability, performance and security. Be sure that you model each service as completely as possible so no unexpected issues arise. An ideal starting point for modeling your services is ask members outside of IT to describe how they consume IT and identify what IT assets are required to deliver these services. Strong modeling = Great results!
Implement tracking and reporting
It is important that whatever BSM solution you go with delivers full tracking and auditing, so any changes that might affect or may have impacted a given service can be reviewed or captured accordingly. The importance of this capability cannot be overstated…don’t buy a BSM solution without it. Buyer’s remorse is the worse sort of Scorn! ☹
In today’s world anything other than AJAX-enabled real-time reporting is just not acceptable. Having reports that continually update themselves so the latest information is available to augment your decisions or enhance your reporting needs is the key to making you’re the king of your domain. There is nothing worse...than going to a meeting and having your peer or boss legitimately question the integrity and validity of your data. May times it is due to expired or outdated information based on report creation or inability to retrieve the latest updates prior to going to a meeting or presentation. Be a star…go real-time!
Btw…our head of marketing co-authored this post…as he needed to contribute on feels strongly about this subject. It is greatly appreciated…enjoy!
