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Deming and ITIL
February 8, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: ITIL, Quality Management, Techniques
Deming and ITIL
By Danielle J. Baker
(”Plan-Do-Check-Act”) Cycle is an iterative four-step problem-solving process typically used in quality control. It was made popular by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who is considered by many to be the father of modern quality control.
Plan
Establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the specifications.
Do
Implement the processes.
Check
Monitor and evaluate the processes and results against objectives and Specifications and report the outcome.
Act
Apply actions to the outcome for necessary improvement. This means reviewing all steps (Plan, Do, Check, Act) and modifying the process to improve it before its next implementation.
The fundamental principle of the scientific method and PDCA, is iteration - the idea is that once a hypothesis is confirmed (or negated), executing the cycle again will extend the knowledge further. By repeating the PDCA cycle we get closer to achieving our predefined objective with every iteration.
This iterative approach and focus on continuous improvement is the basis of IT Service Management as defined by the ITIL set of best practices.
Accordingly, the cornerstone of any successful best practice IT process improvement project are the answers to the “4 Questions.”1
Answering these 4 questions helps to clearly define the purpose and objectives of the project. Additionally, the questions help to provide a basis for creating a baseline and conducting a gap analysis between the current situation an the desired goal. And finally, progress can be measured more accurately because milestones and metrics are carefully considered in advance and regularly monitored throughout the project lifecycle.
No Service Management implementation or improvement project should be undertaken without first giving serious and thorough consideration to these very important questions.
1The four most important questions for any ITIL process implementation project:
- Where do we want to go?
- Where are we now?
- How do we get there?
- How do you know when we’ve arrived?
The answers to these questions are essential to begin every successful ITIL program. Without these answers, all efforts will be in vain and it will be almost impossible to measure value.
Danielle J. Baker
IT PROCESS IMPROVEMENT PROFESSIONAL
Master Certified ITIL Service Management Specialist with advanced knowledge and practical experience in leading the end to end design, delivery and management of customized ITIL based best practice solutions for Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries.
Danielle’s blog can be found at: http://itsmspot.blogspot.com/
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Good description of Deming. Deming was an advocate of scientific experiments, a statistical method which I studied in university.
I think that originally he said: plan an experiment, do it, check the results and act accordingly. In scientific experiment many variables are changed in a systematic way and effects of different variables and the combinations can be analyzed with the method of Variance Anaysis.