Wil LeBlanc, currently from Safeway but previously with the Army, gave this presentation. This presentation was very similar in concept to the itSMF Fusion 2009: IT Strategy--the Key to Getting Executive Support and itSMF Fusion 2009: Planning Business Manager and Customer ITIL Induction presentations. Wil related his experience at the Army and at Safeway in implementing service management.
With the army, the CIO controlled under 50% of IT spend. Gartner did a baseline of bases and found that Wil's base was doing well, so he was moved to report to the Pentagon's CIO and do the same thing for the whole Army.
My primary takeaway from this talk was actually what the other presenters were saying, too: the IT strategy is a communications tool.
At the Army they created a (large format) one-page plan for what was going to happen. They put in technical data plus pictures, and their user types e.g. family members and retirees. From the Army he learned that you need strong executive support, road shows are effective, technical detail in a strategy can be a double-edged sword, and a single view of the strategy was essential. You could lay the roadmap on someone's desk.
At Safeway, they had had difficulty implementing service management. He focused on 10 core processes (I'm not sure which ones), and had wins with incident, problem, service asset & configuration management, and limited success with service level and release management. With the economy they have a narrow focus now on incident, change, release, IT Service Continuity Management, and service level management.
They have four groups of projects/"workstreams:"
- service support process improvement,
- service delivery process improvement,
- tooling projects (e.g. Remedy implementation), and
- enabling projects (e.g. training).
He recommended having an ITIL training class to help people, even those who have gone through foundations, to ensure everyone is on the same page with the purposes of each process in your organization.
He created an ITSM maturity model with four areas:
- Measure/Monitor
- Institute/enforce process discipline
- "Leverage maximum automation"
- Business service management
He believes a "visual picture of the future" is better. You need specific goals, like a stake in the ground, that people understand.
Overall the things that worked best were
- Executive support
- The roadmap is valuable for communication
- Education and simulations are good
- Strong business case & "clear legacy" (I think this means knowing how you have improved but I'm not sure)
He noticed that visionaries become champions, and champions become experts.
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