« Risk Management 101 Roundup
Critical Path Mapping with Activity Network Diagrams »

An IT Service Management Implementation Project

April 28, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: ITIL

An IT Service Management Implementation Project (#7 in the series Implementing ITIL® using the PMBOK® Guide in Four Repeatable Steps)
By Lawrence Cooper, PMP, CPM, ITIL Service Manager

Now let’s apply what we have talked about so far at a typical company. A very common starting place is a maturity assessment of the processes in the existing IT operations environment. A maturity assessment of existing IT processes helps an organization understand in clear terms how its processes stack up compared to the best practices for each ITIL process and function. This helps identify the biggest pain points and leads to a determination of what should be handled in what sequence. The assessment should include all areas of IT operations, as well as key business and IT resources. Getting everyone on-board and engaged early are key ingredients to eventual implementation success.

A key tenet of project management practice is to break work down into more manageable chunks via a work breakdown structure. What follows is how an ITIL implementation project can be broken down into easily understandable and executable chunks of work.

Project Initiation and Implementation

An IT Service Management Implementation project typically follows a sequence of basic project implementation steps:

1. Initiate Project

During this step, the Project Team:

  • Develops the project charter and scope statement and gets it signed off by the CIO
  • Conducts ITIL awareness sessions for everyone who will be interviewed as part of the maturity assessment.
  • Conducts interviews with key IT and business stakeholders for each ITIL process and function
  • Does a gap analysis based on the IT process interviews and ITIL best practice
  • Uses the gap analysis results to determine the sequence for when and whether each ITIL process/function
    should be implemented individually or in clusters (see side bar for clustering based on ITIL V3)
  • Defines the deliverables for each grouping, determines resource requirements, applies estimates, and
    builds a schedule for implementation

2. Implement each process/function or cluster according to the schedule

Using the schedule that was developed based on the gap analysis, the implementations can begin. The gap analysis will identify the biggest “pain points” within IT, as well as help clarify the best sequence to build momentum, as well as a solid foundation for future success. Each implementation involves some sort of training, whether certification-focused in the relevant ITIL Practitioner clusters, ITIL Foundation, or ITIL Service Manager, or skills-based in a hands-on workshop setting. A key to success is getting the IT staff to understand the parts of ITIL that are relevant to their work.

3. Do a post implementation review following each process/function or cluster implementation

It is important to understand what worked well in each implementation and what did not in order to make each successive implementation more efficient and effective. It is also an opportunity to make resource changes that can revitalize the implementation team, which will increase knowledge transfer and improve take-up of the new way of doing things throughout IT.

4. Put each implemented process/function or cluster into a Continual Improvement Program state

Implementing IT Service Management (ITSM) through ITIL is a journey not a destination. Turning ITSM on in an IT Operations environment is the beginning of the rest of the journey. As such, as each process/function or cluster is turned on you should move into the continual program improvement (CIP) state.

About the Author

Larry Cooper is the CEO of ITSM Canada, an Authorized itSM Solutions® provider and a VAR for Touchpaper’s ITBM Suite of products. Mr. Cooper has spent more than 28 years in IT in the public and private sectors where he has held roles such as a Software Developer/Programmer Analyst, Manager of Operations, Lead for Business Process Re-engineering, various Project Manger roles on projects upwards to $100M, and A/Director, Business Technology. He has written and been published in books and industry articles on a variety of technology, IT Service Management, and Project Management topics. He holds three project management certifications including a PMP, an IT Service Manager certification, and is an EXIN-accredited Master’s level trainer. He resides in Ottawa, Canada with his wife and two children. He can be reached at Larry.Cooper@ITSMCanada.ca.

This article was originally published in Global Knowledge’s Business Brief e-newsletter. Global Knowledge delivers comprehensive hands-on project management, business process, and professional skills training. Visit our online Knowledge Center at www.globalknowledge.com/business for free white papers, webinars, and more.

© Copyright 2008, Global Knowledge. All rights reserved.

Share this article:
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb
  • blogmarks

Related Articles

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 and is filed under ITIL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

No comments yet.

feel free to leave a comment

Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

All fields marked with " * " are required.

Project Management Categories