Change closures by implementing analyst - carrot or stick?

[Neil_123]

Hi all,

Just looking for some quick advice/experience from other ITIL Change Managers out there.....

In my organisation, Technical staff are allowed to raise their own RFC in our service tool (other non-tech staff send in the RFC to Change Management to raise on their behalf). At present we are having "difficulties" persuading people to close off their RFC once implemented, with an appropriate closure code (successful, failed, rolled back etc).

I have tried to explain that we require the failure stats for month-end reporting, and that it could even be beneficial to the analysts themselves as we can perform trend reporting to spot inconsistent approaches to similar Change implementations or reasons for failure etc. Sometime RFC are left for days, even weeks before the analyst will think to close it. By this time, some of them are simply closed as successful because the analyst can't recall whether it was rolled back or failed!

Do any of you have any suggestions (preferably positive reinforcement rather than negative) to encourage analysts to either close off RFC or at least provide a timely update to Change Management once an implementation has taken place?

Many thanks

Neil

[UKVIKING]

Neil

There is something that I recall exists in a company ..

I dont know whether it is in your company or even enforced through various means

It is called Management

The CM goes to the individual once
The CM goes to the team lead and the individual once
The CM goes to the Team Mgr and team lead once
and so on

And the CM uses the stats to beat up the team failing to follow process by geting the seniorist mgr to attach such statistics - hey KPIs and KGIs - to performance statistics for team - tieing to promotions and pay raises

That is called management

also know as carrot and stick or MBF or MBDWITY
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[Neil_123]

Thanks for the reply John, this is what we are trying to introduce as part of a larger "compliance" piece across the company. Any other "quick win" advice would also be gratefully received...

Regards

[UKVIKING]

There really is no quick win here

You need to write the policy to clean up the tickets.
You need to tell MGMT that this is the planned process
get them to agree to lean on those who fail

Spend a month or so educating the masses. and then bring the hammer down after a grace period - as it will take time to deal with the stuck work

If the individuals start moaning I am too busy.... Then tell their respective boss to assign one of them to do, otherwise assign the work to the boss of the team.

I see that sometimes works when the boss of a team gets 200 tickets that he has to close and the system nags him

But dont do it with letting hm know that the team is not doing what is requried
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[UKIT]

Some excellent points raised by UKVIKING
I'm in a similar position, with some changes not being implemented to the time frames as stated within the RFC.
Departmental work load,standard operating procedure's and service desk tickets being subject to SLA's sometimes deemed to be more important are the reasons given.
Certainly an area of change management that can be time consuming and frustrating at times.
Better departmental working practices and time management is going to be my suggestion.
Just need to deliver my suggestion in a diplomatic way.

[Murphysbone]

Run management reports
Highlight to Line Managers
Create 'league tables' for repeat offenders and publish at Snr level
Stop excessive offenders from raising subsequent (new) changes
Educate, educate, educate, this is part of the overall process and WHY !?

Failing all of that, physical violence may work ?

[viv121]

Physical violence should be approved by CAB. Neil, you have the answers in your question. It has to be carrot and stick approach. If you don't have a 'working' change management, use the Incident management to get it working. Helpdesk and the Incident management are normally amongst the first function and process to be established in IT Service Management. Implementing Incident management is seen as doing the ground work to have other disciplines. When you say change management, it goes with assumption that you have an Incident management in place. By design, the Incident management should be able to crib, should be able to point fingers and have more disciplines established. Have KPIs around the change management. Have something like changes not closed in X number of days. Changes bypassed you folks etc etc. Get physical violence appeoved in emergency CAB.
_________________
regards,

Vivek
"the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself"
Winston Churchill

[DYbeach]

Is physical violence an emergency change? Something like a break-fix?
Actually I would have thought that physical violence was part of Knowledge Management
_________________
DYbeach
ITIL V3 Release, Control & Validation,
ITIL V3 Operation SUpport & Analysis
PMI CAPM (R)

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell

[Diarmid]

As I never tire of saying, with such activities as physical violence it is less important (and often incorrect) to establish them as uniquely belonging to any particular management area, than to ensure that they are properly planned, applied for a specified purpose, appropriately executed and that a post-violence review is enacted. They should also be under a continuous improvement program.

I feel the need to emphasise this because many inexperienced practitioners are under the misapprehension that physical violence is an end in itself. This is false, as is the assumption that it is an essential ingredient of any management system. It is at least theoretically possible to design a system in some circumstances that functions correctly without the use of physical violence.

[call me a peacenik if you will]
_________________
"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

[viv121]

I can't agree more with you DYbeach. I too agree that physical violence is part of knowledge management. Non-believers can read 'Art of War' by by Sun Tzu ( forgive me if sic, I meant some Chinese guy with medieval name or medieval guy with a chinese name). This is amongst the most established books for the peacetime. Diarmid would relish if this peacenicking is not coming from ITIL and not from Art of War. Diarmid, I am sure you'll kill for a noble prize for peace. Can you please justify how CSI is applicable in physical violence. Does it mean that there should be 'lessons learnt' session after breaking nose and this should be followed by breaking jaws?
_________________
regards,

Vivek
"the only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself"
Winston Churchill

[Diarmid]

Viv,

ideally, moving on from nose to jaw should be spelt out in your escalation process. It is essentially a policy issue.

As far as CSI is concerned, I believe Gil Grissom is your man, but I'm not sure if he frequents this forum.

I suggest it depends on your circumstances whether you review each violent action or simply conduct a periodic review to ensure that the process remains effective.

Despite the fact that everybody believes they are an expert in this field it may be worth while using trained operatives to ensure a consistent approach.
_________________
"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

[UKVIKING]

some one said

Violence never solves anything

quite true...but when else can you have fun

Seriously, while we are 'joking' about applying physical violence to the miscreants who fail to follow the CM process

mgmt can use the similar sounding - fiscal violence - if the process is not followed

things like pay raises, bonuses can be impacted if the process is not followed especially if failing to do the process results in major outages
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[Diarmid]

Salvor Hardin said "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent", but I'm not letting that spoil a decent joke.

I must read that book again soon. I'd forgotten his name and had to google the quote to get it. Well I could have thumbed through the book, but it was printed about forty years ago and needs gentle handling.
_________________
"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

[DYbeach]

Does a slap on the wrist count as physical violence?
Enough of the argy bargy, I say.
Bring on the ecky thump
_________________
DYbeach
ITIL V3 Release, Control & Validation,
ITIL V3 Operation SUpport & Analysis
PMI CAPM (R)

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell