Getting out in front of application rollouts and changes.

[Ibeeivy]

I am a technical expert at a service desk for a medium sized company and I am looking for some advice on getting out in front of application rollouts.

Background:
The company has serveral "Entities" or "Pillars." The entities consist of company that were once stand alone companies, that have been bought up and brough under one umbrella company. The umbrella company has is going through serveral changes. The problem the service desk is having is trying to keep up with these changes.

Does anyone have any suggestion on how to get the importance of keeping the service desk involved in these changes out to the company.

I am creating an email to send out to all of the IT managers within all of the pillars that lists the benifits for involving the Service Desk in new application roll out and changes that effect the end users.


Here is a short list of what I have come up with
Lower customer frustration
Lower Incedent escalations
Provide for a faster mean time to repair
Greater customer confidence in IT

Anyone have any suggestion in general or for the email?
_________________
Brad Iverson
QBE the Americas

[Diarmid]

Ibeeivy,

forget about benefits. Think about costs and risks and spell them out big time.

Is there a governance issue here? Where lies the authority and responsibility for working together? Should you be raising an issue with higher management? Should there be an improvement project to secure integrated service management? while people have to work co-operatively, this is not a sufficient basis for a management system.

"Dear senior IT management (cc board of directors),

Many changes, including strategic processes are occurring in IT without the service desk in the loop. With the best will in the world, someday something will go pear shaped, at a bad time for everyone and especially the business. You can wait until this happens and then redesign the change processes under incredible pressure, or you can look at getting things fixed now with a well thought out improvement plan.

Sincerely,

A Wellwisher"
_________________
"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718