Just Starting

[Jos]

Help...!

I am the first cog in the wheel to start the ITIL ball rolling in a medium size Government department.

I have completed the Foundations of ITIL course and am slowly getting others to also complete this.

I am a little lost where to go now. Business plans, strategies, processes, starting points.... I am reading everything I can...!

Management is on my side - so I have their backing.

There seem to be a lot of people out there with a lot more experience than me, I would appreciate any pointers - so..
* where did you start?
* how did you get quick wins on the board?
* Did you do it on your own or did you get an expert in.?


Thanks - I'd appreciate any pointers you can give me.

[ozz]

Think about what problem are you trying to solve..
Look for pain , take away pain, easy gain. Folks like the idea of making the pain go away..

What is the vision ? _ High level biz objectives
Where are we now ? - Assesment
Where do we want to be ? - Measurable targets
How do we get where we want to be ? - Process Improvement
How will we know when we get there - Metrics and Measurements

You will embark on a Continuous Service Improvement Program . I like to add Customer so you have a Continuous Customer Service Improvement Program. Makes it an easier sell and not many folks want to tell "those who must be obeyed" that they will NOT participate in a CCSIP.

Get the Planning to Implementation Service Management otherwise known as the green book..

Learn the Pareto Law find that 20 %
Look under stuff at call4tech the spreadsheet may help you

Oz

call4tech.com/itil

[matrejekm]

ozz is right,

after you have it,
plan to implement processes - not all at one time.

After ITIL books I would recommend to start implementation from 3 elements - Service Level Management (contact to Customer), Service Desk (contact to User) and Incident Management. These three element will give you a scaffolding and you can attach other processes to it.

Find details in ITIL books and set more detail questions on the forum.

[Stormflagflying]

Found this really useful, I am right at the very beginning of the journey with a FTSE 100 company, taking them from reactive to pro-active and then Service Desk and I agree finding the starting point is not easy…I guess at the lowest level I chose the “Spoc” as my starting point and will now radiate from there. I found it very easy to get torn between “this or that” starting point but once the line was put in the sand then the work can start. I also found that the Practitioners Certificate in ITSM Service Desk and Incident Management gave me a more in depth understanding of what’s required for this element of the ITIL.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, no doubt I will be back to read some more.

[smichaeld]

There has and always will be debate around the question of "which process to do first..." You have received some good advice from previous posters, but I would add a recommendation for another book to look at as well. It's called "Visible Ops" and is a short, relatively inexpensive handbook. Instead of being strictly prescriptive and answering this question, it suggests you divide the project into steps which are not necessarily dictating which processes to do first. The first stage they recommend is called "Stabilizing the Patient," meaning, first do something about the weakest links in the service management of the organization.

Upon thought, and IME, this is almost always translates to activities in Service Support. Depending on budget constraints, there are some things you may not be able to do such as implement a full blown Service Desk.

Since ill advised changes are responsible for as much as 90% of incidents, some measure of activity around Change Management is almost always called for. It is relatively inexpensive to implement and while the pain will come in the compliance the returns will come quickly also in the form of usually dramatically reduced Incident counts.

I usually see some combination of Incident, Problem and Change as starters. A lot of people would swear SLM should be first (and there is logic to that argument) but you need quick wins in order to gain momentum and they come from these areas mentioned. SLM can always be approached in parallel.

I have no interest or affiliation with the authors or publishers of the handbook I mention.

[Ed]

Hi smichaeld

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with your point of quick wins from implementing Change as a first step (We did exactly that on a paper-based system and got fantastic results) the down side is that without a CMDB the potential for Failing Changes is immense. If I could start again with a pot full of money I would implement Change, Config and Release (expecting there will at least be a rudimentary Help desk) together and go from there. We have suffered severely from the lack of a CMDB and it has got extremely painful at times. As posted elsewhere by the ever erudite RJP implementing CMDB is a huge step, is not to be undertaken lightly, can cost astronomical amounts of cash, etc. etc. etc. But I think that biting the bullet early whilst the pain still exists for everyone is preferable to waiting until later when the urgency has gone.

Regards

Ed

[smichaeld]

[taiger]

my prefferences;

first setting up a service desk ( introducing single point of contact )
implementing incident management
implementing configuration management ( may be you'll already have asset management )
implementing Service level management ( identifying business needs and metrics for incident management )
implementing change/release management ( scope change man is scope configuration man )
implementing problem management
implementing financial magement ( convincing the business of the benefits of service management )
implementing capacity management
implementing availabilty management
implementing continuity management

if i could choose... this would be it...

in real life, we're 3 years bussy implementing itil, and we have implemented
service desk
incident management
problem management
configuration management
change management
release management

from the processes we didn't implement we miss service level management the most, we need the business to be involved

Frank
_________________
"if you aim at nothing, that's what you're likely going to hit"