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Keeping Service Transition on track

Steve Straker attended our recent Service Transition seminar at Silverstone. Here he reflects on a very useful and thought-provoking day.

 

Our day started off with most (if not all!) delegates staring out onto the Silverstone track watching a plethora of expensive and very noisy road cars being driven around for someone else's corporate hospitality day . Oh how we wished we had turned left instead of right at the gate!

Back at the seminar, proceedings quickly got under way, with an overview from our chair for the day, Dr Don Page, followed by an itSMF update from acting CEO Rosemary Gurney. The key message from both of these sessions was that itSMF UK is run by its members for its members, so it really is up to us all to contribute where we can and help shape the future of this forum. One key point - book now for Conference 2010 - places are going fast!

Dave Whapples from TeamUltra opened the formalities with an excellent positioning presentation on where and how Service Transition (ST) came into being , making the audience think about why they may be facing challenges and whether ST has become a dumping ground where we are expected to 'fix' all things. Some of the slides posed questions that were hard to answer, or perhaps we didn't like the answers. For example, do we make ST harder when others take actions elsewhere? and does the introduction of ST make others take their eye off the ball? It was clear that ST sits third in the lifecycle production line and it becomes increasingly hard to undo some of those earlier decisions. Finally, Dave rounded off by asking the audience, why have you implemented ST? Is it as a short-term fix or to add value without additional costs?

The morning break arrived with much talk about how well each organisation felt they were doing, a nice baseline approach interrupted now and again by more petrol heads roaring around the track.

I was up next, standing in for Vawns Guest, the chair of the itSMF UK Transition Management Special Interest Group. My presentation centred on the various UK member surveys, teasing out their challenges and their successes. Key points of note are that the role of the transition manager is not clearly understood and we need to offer guidelines identifying, say, the eight attributes and characteristics such an individual must possess to make a success of it. The next meeting of the SIG is on November 26th in Chippenham for those members who wish to attend free of charge.

Keeping us away from our lunch was Jonathan South of RSA, who gave a very comprehensive case study of Service Transition and lessons learned over a twelve-month period. This was one of last year's Project of the Year finalists and the information and detail in the presentation showed why it was so highly regarded. Jonathan explained the six-stage process he uses, reminding us that exiting a service is something which often gets overlooked. The not-too-exhaustive criteria list of 120 requirements made a few of us sit up and take notice, a gateway tool for the very complex and sensitive services they bring into Operations. Evidencing success was high on the agenda with a mixture of traditional and innovative KPIs to make sure that ST remained at the forefront of 'gate guarding' poor services, from entering into early lifecycle and business as usual. It was interesting to note that customer satisfaction had risen substantially over the last twelve months of ST introduction, and during his 'lessons learned' section the speaker emphasised how important supplier relationships are to making this work. Jonathan also made reference to Service Introduction and asked whether the terms are interchangeable? This was a very good appetiser as we headed into lunch and more posing by members on the F1 podium stand!!

After lunch Anna Crowther and Julie Lunan (Steria and Cooperative Financial Services) provided a double act, and what a treat we had in store. Opening up with a joke about singing so that those at the back could hear, we were then taken on a journey of two companies with a long and successful partnership. We were introduced to a transformation project called bTp, the largest ever undertaken in 40 years. It involved teams from India to Skelmersdale and was even the subject of a Radio 4 programme. Key points of interest included the heat map which visualises RAG charts, nine key success factors in Benefits Management, and the four-quadrant score carding of People, Process, Customer and Finance. The mantra of 'we are one IT' struck a chord with most of us and the parallels drawn between working in IT and Disneyland made us all smile. Setting up two early life support phases was certainly something new and innovative, and meant that a set of conditions had to be met to get past one, and a lighter touch (a sort of cooling off period) was required for phase two before the service finally went live. A very good handout was provided and a discussion on a monthly review of the skills register made us all realise this transition was never going to fail, the detail of each step being well thought out and carefully managed.

Last but not least, Claire Agutter from IT Training Zone took us through a series of highlights to understand the benefits and pitfalls of Knowledge Management. With lots of repositories in place, where do we look for that elusive gem? Introducing 'Bob' as the man who knows everything struck another chord, and thankfully Bob was missing from the audience that day. A nice scenario about everything being in his head "but at least it wouldn't be left on a bus, like many a laptop and USB" put everything into perspective. Key points to note from this session were to reduce the costs of re-discovery and the need for ownership. This is a process which is not a luxury but mandatory across the board. Organisations need short-, medium- and long-term knowledge strategies, a point that was illustrated by an interesting business case. The lingering thought and observation was left to the end - we have a new generation of people who live their lives in real time and on-line. They are used to sharing knowledge via the latest technology.

A short round-up of the seminar was conducted, feedback forms were completed, and we were off into the blue sky and the roar - still - of Caterhams and Aston Martins. Do they want any advice on Service Transition at Silverstone, I wonder?

Some quotes that I picked up in conversation included: "A really good day blending theory with practice." "It was great to see such interest in Service Transition." "A great opportunity to network and learn from others." "The location made it that bit special." "Service Transition appears still to be in the transition stage itself, but the advice and guidance given yesterday not only by the speakers but by the assembled audience will hopefully move organisations along their journey."

Steve Straker is process architect at Fujitsu Services and chair of the itSMF UK Services Executive Sub-Committee.