I've discussed before how "Lean" principles could be applied to IT services. Lean.org has some texts about Lean as applied to services, and there is a LOT of material about Lean in Healthcare--but I haven't seen any material so far about Lean in IT specifically.

Recently I've been reading "Seeing the Whole," a book about getting upstream and downstream companies in your value stream to work together, which has gotten me thinking again about Lean. I've got three things on the mind:

1. request fulfillment seems like IT's "engine," the process by which IT provides much of its value.
2. defects are problems, and ITIL's service lifecycle could learn from Lean's "stopping the production line" when defects are found
3. you must have accountability for all your services

This week I have been taking the Operational Support and Analysis support ITIL capability module class from taruu.com. This class essentially covers Service Operation. Specifically, the main areas include event management, incident management, request fulfillment, problem management, access management, and the Service Operations functions such as the Service Desk.

One of the neat things about the second-level classes is that they can focus more on how to apply ideas. The class is primarily exercise-focused rather than lecture-focused: for example, we roleplay how you would talk with a CEO about Service Management. The classes are almost as much about leadership and presentation as they are about the material.

Predecessors/Before You Begin

"Request fulfillment" is an ITIL v3 concept. In ITIL v2, it was considered part of Incident Management. However now the two are separate: incidents are for things that are breaking or about to break, and service requests are for new things.

Request fulfillment is tightly coupled to service catalog management--request fulfillment is when services are actually ordered from the service catalog.

Request Fulfillment

People talking about "Lean" principles can mislead their audience, because often "Lean" to the speaker means something very different (e.g. that "Lean" means holding kaizen improvement sessions, and that's it). So, take what I'm going to say with a bit of salt, because I have no Lean credentials.

In reading about Lean manufacturing (through "Lean Thinking," "Getting the Right Things Done," and now "Learning to See"), I have been working through how Lean concepts might apply to an Information Technology environment. One of Lean manufacturing's focuses is to create pull-based processes that minimize inventory on-hand, for example. By minimizing inventory you free up cash for new things and can respond more quickly to changing demand.

So--how does this relate to IT? Inventory, in a value-stream mapping, is the stuff waiting between groups. The two ITIL processes that seem to relate the best to the inventory concept are incident management and request fulfillment. Here's my thoughts:

Below are notes from today's itSMF USA Higher Education SIG round table conversation.

I just watched the NewScale webinar on service request fulfillment. The presentation helped explain the connection between service catalogs and request fulfillment, and was intended for people already familiar with ITIL v3 concepts.

The bulk of the presentation was Rodrigo Flores, founder and CTO of newScale, talking about the "eleven secrets of successful service request fulfillment." These 11 tips are very specific to how you deploy a web-based portal that allows end users to order services themselves.