The itSMF USA Higher Education SIG is holding its first meeting today. We are attending virtually. David Cannon, one of the authors of Service Operation, presented on "ITSM on a Shoestring." He talked about how IT cost cutting can be misdirected, such as how IT shops are now running into "virtualization sprawl" from virtualizing servers for immediate cost without considering the longer-term costs of managing virtual machines' configuration. He emphasized that Universities don't care about ITSM: they care about outcomes they want to achieve. The #1 outcome people typcially want to achieve, that ITSM can help with, is improving the quality of service. IT budgets go up when IT is delivering on University outcomes--when IT is creating value. When IT tries to justify infrastructure costs, it typically comes across as being like a protection racket: pay me $X, or your services won't work any more. Focusing on infrastructure shrinks budgets; focusing on business value increases budgets. For example, a configuration management implementation stalled until a company realized that it could not justify millions of dollars of tax write-offs without configuration management. At that point, IT could easily demonstrate business value. ITSM implementations are all about people. People bring politics, personalities, misunderstandings, conflict, resistance, and relationships to the table. Process improvements must be rooted in an understanding of people! Stakeholder analysis can be very helpful--by understanding the background of each person, and their goals, process improvement can be more effective. Tools do not save money on their own--they enable change. ITSM improvements can create 20% cost savings in the first year, but you have to spend money to transform IT. Cost savings can be realized through
Performance metrics (e.g. 99% uptime) don't mean anything to customers. IT must always look to the value the business wants, and justify itself in terms of the business value IT can create. Individual site contributors are solely responsible for the content of this web site.
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