Chapters 1-4 Flashcards
(155 cards)
1
Q
Key components of the ITIL 4 framework
A
ITIL service value system (SVS) and the four dimensions model
2
Q
Core components of ITIL SVS
A
•the ITIL service value chain
•the ITIL practices
•the ITIL guiding principles
•governance
•continual improvement.
3
Q
The ITIL service value chain provides an operating model for the …
A
creation, delivery, and continual improvement of services
4
Q
What is the connection between ITIL service value chain and ITIL practices?
A
Each ITIL practice supports multiple service value chain activities.
5
Q
Draw the service value system
A
Opportunity/Demand
- Guiding Principles
- Governance
- Service Value Chain
- Practices
- Continual improvement
Value
6
Q
What are the guiding principles used for?
A
The ITIL guiding principles can be used to (1) guide an organization’s decisions and actions and (2) ensure a shared understanding and common approach to service management across the organization.
The ITIL guiding principles create the (3) foundation for an organization’s culture and behaviour from strategic decision-making to day-to-day operations.
7
Q
Four dimensions model - What are the four dimensions of service management?
A
•organizations and people
•information and technology
•partners and suppliers
•value streams and processes.
8
Q
What is service management?
A
A set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value for customers in the form of services.
9
Q
What is the purpose of an organization?
A
To create value for stakeholders
10
Q
What is value?
A
The perceived benefits, usefulness, and importance of something.
11
Q
What is an organization?
A
A person or a group of people that has its own functions with (1) responsibilities, (2) authorities, and (3) relationships to achieve its objectives.
12
Q
The service provider is external to the customer’s organization or is part of the same organization?
A
Both are possible
13
Q
What specific roles exist for service consumers?
What needs to be known for these roles?
A
Customers, users, and sponsors.
They can be separate or combined.
14
Q
What are the roles customer, user, and sponsor?
A
•Customer The role that (1) defines the requirements for a service and (2) takes responsibility for the outcomes of service consumption.
•User The role that uses services.
•Sponsor The role that authorizes budget for service consumption.
15
Q
AWK has signed a contract with a mobile phone company for services for employees. In the company, who is the customer, user, and sponsor?
A
Customer: Chief Information Officer: Analyzes the requirements, negotiates the contract, monitor’s the mobile company’s performance against contracted requirements.
Sponsor: Chief Financial Officer: Approved cost of negotiated contract.
User: All employees (including CIO and CFO)
16
Q
User. sponsor, customer, in the case of an individual who holds a contract with a mobile phone provider, who are the users, sponsor and customer?
A
The individual is the user, sponsor, and customer.
17
Q
Stakeholders other than the providers and consumers (5)
A
Partners and suppliers
Investors and shareholders
Government organizations such as regulators
Social groups
Employees of the company
18
Q
What are examples of resources of a company?
A
People
Information and Technology
Value Streams and Processes
Partners and Suppliers
These are (almost) identical to the four dimensions.
19
Q
What is a product?
A
A configuration of an organization’s resources designed to offer value for a consumer.
20
Q
What are services?
A
A means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve, without the customer having to manage specific costs and risks.
21
Q
What is a service offering?
A
A formal description of one or more services, designed to address the needs of a target consumer group. A service offering may include goods, access to resources, and service actions.
22
Q
What is the connection between service offerings, service and products?
A
Service providers present their services to consumers in the form of service offerings, which describe one or more services based on one or more products.
23
Q
Service offering may include goods, access to resources, and and service actions.
Give an example for each.
A
Goods: Mobile phone
Access to resources: Access to internet, mobile network
Service actions: User support
24
Q
To create value, an organization must do more than simply provide a service. What else does it need to do?
A
It must also cooperate with the customers in service relationships.
25
Service relationships are established between two or more organizations. What for?
To co-create value.
26
In a service relationship, organizations will take on the roles of...
Service providers and service consumers.
27
When services are delivered by the provider, what two options exist regarding resources?
Service providers
1) create new resources for service consumers
or
2) They modify existing ones
28
What is the core statement of the service relationship model?
Service consumers obtain resources from service providers and create its own products to address the needs of another consumer group, thereby becoming a service provider.
29
What three components includes service relationship?
1) Service provision
2) Service consumption
3) Service relationship management
30
What is included in service provision? (4)
•management of the provider’s resources, configured to deliver the service
•ensuring access to these resources for users
•fulfilment of the agreed service actions
•service level management and continual improvement.
Service provision may also include the supplying of goods.
31
What is comprised in service consumption? (3)
•management of the consumer’s resources needed to use the service
•service actions performed by users, including utilizing the provider’s resources, and requesting service actions to be fulfilled.
Service consumption may also include the receiving (acquiring) of goods.
32
What is service relationship management?
Joint activities performed by a service provider and a service consumer to ensure continual value co-creation based on agreed and available service offerings.
33
Service providers help their consumers to achieve outcomes, and in doing so, take on some of the associated ...
Risks and costs
34
When are Service relationships are perceived as valuable?
(Supported outcomes + Costs removed + Risks removed) > (Affected outcomes + Costs introduced + Risks introduced)
35
What is the difference between output and outcome? Elaborate based on an example of a wedding photography service.
One output of a wedding photography service may be an album in which selected photos are artfully arranged.
The outcome of the service, however, is the preservation of memories and the ability of the couple and their family and friends to easily recall those memories by looking at the album.
36
From the service consumer’s perspective, there are two types of cost involved in service relationships. Which?
•costs removed from the consumer by the service (a part of the value proposition). This may include costs of staff, technology, and other resources, which the consumer does not need to provide
•costs imposed on the consumer by the service (the costs of service consumption). The total cost of consuming a service includes the price charged by the service provider (if applicable), plus other costs such as staff training, costs of network utilization, procurement, etc. Some consumers describe this as what they have to ‘invest’ to consume the service.
37
Definition of risk
A possible event that could cause harm or loss, or make it more difficult to achieve objectives.
38
As with costs, there are two types of risk that are of concern to service consumers. Which are these?
•risks removed from a consumer by the service (part of the value proposition). These may include failure of the consumer’s server hardware or lack of staff availability. In some cases, a service may only reduce a consumer’s risks, but the consumer may determine that this reduction is sufficient to support the value proposition
•risks imposed on a consumer by the service (risks of service consumption). An example of this would be a service provider ceasing to trade, or experiencing a security breach.
39
How can the consumer contribute to risk reduction? (3)
•actively participating in the definition of the requirements of the service and the clarification of its required outcomes
•clearly communicating the critical success factors (CSFs) and constraints that apply to the service
•ensuring the provider has access to the necessary resources of the consumer throughout the service relationship.
40
What is a critical success factor?
A necessary precondition for the achievement of intended results.
41
What is assessed to evaluate whether a service or service offering will facilitate the outcomes desired by the consumers and therefore create value for them?
Utility and warranty.
42
Definition of utility
The functionality offered by a product or service to meet a particular need. Utility can be summarized as ‘what the service does’ and can be used to determine whether a service is ‘fit for purpose’.
43
To have utility, what must a service do?
To have utility, a service must either support the performance of the consumer or remove constraints from the consumer. Many services do both.
44
Definition of warranty
Assurance that a product or service will meet agreed requirements. Warranty can be summarized as ‘how the service performs’ and can be used to determine whether a service is ‘fit for use’.
45
What is a service level?
One or more metrics that define expected or achieved service quality
46
What term is warranty often related to?
Warranty often relates to service levels aligned with the needs of service consumers
47
What areas does warranty typically address?
Warranty typically addresses such areas as the (1) availability of the service, its (2) capacity, (3) levels of security and continuity.
48
When is a service to be said to provide acceptable assurance, or ‘warranty’?
If all defined and agreed conditions are met.
49
The assessment of a service must take into consideration what to generate a complete picture of the viability of the service?
Impact of costs and risks on utility and warranty
50
Explain warranty and utility using the example of a theme park
A theme park may have many rides (utlity), but when they are constantly being repaired (warranty), customers do not get their expected value.
Similarly, the rides might be running constantly (warranty), but they might not be exciting at all (utility), leaving customers not getting the expected value.
51
What is the objective of an organization?
How is it achieved?
To create value for stakeholders.
Through the provision and consumption of services.
52
What are the four dimensions of service management?
•organizations and people
•information and technology
•partners and suppliers
•value streams and processes.
53
What are the six external factors that are often beyond the control of the SVS?
Political
Economic
Social
Environmental
Legal
Technological
54
What happens if the four dimensions of service management are not addressed?
Services become undeliverable
Services do not meet expectations
Services do not meet efficiency
55
To what do the four dimensions of service management apply?
To all services being managed
To the Service Value System
56
In the organizations and people dimension, who are the people?
Customers
Employees of suppliers
Employees of the service provider
Any other stakeholder
57
Key message for organizations and people
It is important to ensure that the way an organization is (1) structured and managed, as well as (2) its roles, responsibilities, and systems of authority and communication, is well defined and (3) supports its overall strategy and operating model.
58
Key message for information and technology dimension
The dimension includes the (1) information and knowledge necessary for the management of services, as well as the technologies required. It also incorporates the (2) relationships between different components of the SVS, such as the inputs and outputs of activities and practices.
59
The information architecture of the various services needs to be well understood and continually optimized.
What criteria have to be considered?
Availability
Reliability
Accessibility
Timeliness
Accurancy
Relevance
Of information
60
Key message for partners and suppliers
The partners and suppliers dimension encompasses an (A) organization’s relationships with other organizations that are involved in (6) the design, development, deployment, delivery, support, and/or continual improvement of services.
It also incorporates contracts and other agreements between the organization and its partners or suppliers.
61
What relationships between organizations exist?
1) Goods supply
2) Service delivery
3) Service partnership
62
What is the main difference between goods supply, service delivery, and service partnership in terms of responsibility for the outputs and for the achievements of the outcomes?
For goods supply and service delivery, the responsibility for the outputs lies with the supplier/provider. The responsibility for the achievement of the outcomes lies with the customer.
For service partnerships, the responsibility for the outputs and for the achievements of the outcomes are shared between the supplier/provider and the customer.
63
What are seven factors that may influence an organization’s strategy when using suppliers?
1) Strategic focus (using internal resources vs. outsourcing non-core support functions)
2) Corporate culture (historical bias)
3) Resource scarcity (shortage of skills)
4) Cost concerns (internal cheaper vs. external)
5) Subject matter expertise (less risky to use supplier)
6) External constraints (government policy)
7) Demand patterns (seasonal)
64
Key message for value streams and processes
The value streams and processes dimension is concerned with how the various parts of the organization work in an integrated and coordinated way to enable value creation through products and services.
65
Definition value stream
A series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver products and services to consumers.
66
In regard to value streams, what should organizations do?
Why?
Organizations should examine (1) how they perform work and (2) map all the value streams they can identify.
This will enable them to (3) analyse their current state and (4) identify any barriers to workflow and non-value-adding activities, i.e. waste. Wasteful activities should be eliminated to increase productivity.
67
Why is value stream optimization important for AWK?
Value stream optimization may include (1) process automation or (2) adoption of emerging technologies and (3) ways of working to (A) gain efficiencies or (B) enhance user experience.
68
What should value streams be defined for?
For each product and service in an organization.
69
What is a process?
A set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs. Processes define the sequence of activities and their dependencies.
70
Which three parts does the ITIL SVS describe?
Inputs into the system
Elements of the system
Outputs of the system
71
The key inputs to the SVS are opportunity and demand.
What are opportunity and demand?
Opportunities represent options or possibilities to add value for stakeholders or otherwise improve the organization.
Demand is the need or desire for products and services among internal and external consumers.
72
What is the outcome of SVS?
Value
73
What is the difference between guiding principle and practices?
Guiding Principles: Recommendations that can guide an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure.
Practices: Sets of organizational resources designed for (1) performing work or (2) accomplishing an objective.
74
The ITIL SVS includes the five components. What are they?
•Guiding principles
Recommendations that can guide an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure.
•Governance
The means by which an organization is directed and controlled.
•Service value chain
A set of interconnected activities that an organization performs to deliver a valuable product or service to its consumers and to facilitate value realization.
•Practices
Sets of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective.
•Continual improvement
A recurring organizational activity performed at all levels to ensure that an organization’s performance continually meets stakeholders’ expectations. ITIL 4 supports continual improvement with the ITIL continual improvement model.
75
What is the purpose of SVS?
The purpose of the SVS is to ensure that the organization continually co-creates value with all stakeholders through the use and management of products and services.
76
What does the ITIL SVS describe?
The ITIL SVS describes how all the components and activities of the organization work together as a system to enable value creation.
77
What are organizational agility and organizational resilience?
Agility: Ability to support internal changes.
Resilience: Ability to withstand and even thrive in changing external circumstances.
78
What triggers activities within ITIL SVS?
Opportunity and demand.
79
What is a guiding principle?
A guiding principle is a recommendation that guides an organization in all circumstances, regardless of changes in its goals, strategies, type of work, or management structure. A guiding principle is universal and enduring.
80
What are the 7 guiding principles?
Focus on value
Start where you are
Progress iteratively with feedback
Collaborate and promote visibility
Think and work holistically
Keep it simple and practical
Optimize and automate
81
How do the guiding principles help organizations?
The guiding principles encourage and support organizations in continual improvement at all levels.
82
Guiding principle: Focus on value.
Key message
All activities conducted by the organization should link back, directly or indirectly, to value for itself, its customers, and other stakeholders.
83
In what forms can value come? (4)
This value may come in various forms, such as revenue, customer loyalty, lower cost, or growth opportunities.
84
Guiding principle: Focus on value. What is the important first step?
Who is the service costumer?
What constitutes value to the service customer?
85
What is customer experience?
CX can be defined as the entirety of the interactions a customer has with an organization and its products. This experience can determine how the customer feels about the organization and its products and services.
86
Guiding principle: Start where you are. What is the key message?
In the process of eliminating old, unsuccessful methods or services and creating something better, there can be great temptation to remove what has been done in the past and build something completely new.
This is rarely necessary, or a wise decision. This approach can be extremely wasteful, not only in terms of time, but also in terms of the loss of existing services, processes, people, and tools that could have significant value in the improvement effort. Do not start over without first considering what is already available to be leveraged.
87
What is Goodhart's Law?
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
88
Guiding principle: Progress iteratively with feedback
Key message
Resist the temptation to do everything at once. Even huge initiatives must be accomplished iteratively. By organizing work into smaller, manageable sections that can be executed and completed in a timely manner, the focus on each effort will be sharper and easier to maintain.
89
Implementing a feedback loop is critical for the guiding principle progress iteratively with feedback.
What does a feedback loop facilitate the understanding of?
•end user and customer perception of the value created
•the efficiency and effectiveness of value chain activities
•the effectiveness of service governance as well as management controls
•the interfaces between the organization and its partner and supplier network
•the demand for products and services.
90
Working in a timeboxed, iterative manner with feedback loops embedded into the process allows for what? (4)
•greater flexibility
•faster responses to customer and business needs
•the ability to discover and respond to failure earlier
•an overall improvement in quality.
91
Guiding principle Collaborate and promote visibility. Key message.
When initiatives involve the right people in the correct roles, efforts benefit from better (1) buy-in, (2) more relevance (because better information is available for decision-making) and (3) increased likelihood of long-term success.
92
The guiding principle Collaborate and promote visibility mentions something that Roche could learn from. What is it?
Collaboration does not mean consensus It is not necessary, or even always wise, to get consensus from everyone involved in an initiative before proceeding. Some organizations are so concerned with getting consensus that they try to make everyone happy and end up either doing nothing or producing something that does not properly suit anyone’s needs.
93
ITIL says what about decision making based on data?
Data should support decision making, not replace it.
94
Guiding principle Think and work holistically
No service, practice, process, department, or supplier stands alone. The outputs that the organization delivers to itself, its customers, and other stakeholders will suffer unless it works in an integrated way to handle its activities as a whole, rather than as separate parts. All the organization’s activities should be focused on the delivery of value.
95
The "four dimensions" refer to what?
Four dimensions of service management
96
How are services are delivered to internal and external service consumers?
Through the coordination and integration of the four dimensions of service management.
97
When applying the guiding principle Think and work holistically, there are parallels to Ender's Game. Which?
•Recognize the complexity of the systems (swarm)
•Collaboration is key to thinking and working holistically
•Where possible, look for patterns in the needs of and interactions between system elements (swarm)
•Automation can facilitate working holistically (drones)
98
Keep it simple and practical guiding principle key message (3)
(1) Always use the minimum number of steps to accomplish an objective.
(2) Outcome-based thinking should be used to produce practical solutions that deliver valuable outcomes.
(3) If a process, service, action, or metric fails to provide value or produce a useful outcome, then eliminate it. Although this principle may seem obvious, it is frequently ignored, resulting in overly complex methods of work that rarely maximize outcomes or minimize cost.
99
Optimize and automate key message
Organizations must maximize the value of the work carried out by their human and technical resources.
100
Optimize and automate guiding principle
What should be done as the first two steps?
Simplify and/or optimize before automating
Define your metrics
101
Optimize and automate
What other guiding principles should be used in conjunction with this principle?
•Progress iteratively with feedback
•Keep it simple and practical
•Focus on value
•Start where you are
102
Do the ITIL guiding principles act in isolation?
No, they interact with and depend upon each other.
103
What is a governing body?
A group of people who are accountable at the highest level for the (1) performance and (2) compliance of the organization.
104
Governance is realized through which three activities?
Evaluate, direct, and monitor.
105
Governance: What do governance bodies do when evaluating? When?
The evaluation of the (1) organization, (2) its strategy, (3) portfolios, and (4) relationships with other parties.
The governing body evaluates the organization on a regular basis as stakeholders’ needs and external circumstances evolve.
106
Governance: What do governance bodies do when directing?
The governing body (1) assigns responsibility for, and (2) directs the preparation and implementation of, (A) organizational strategy and (B) policies.
107
What is the difference between strategy and policy?
Strategies set the direction and prioritization for organizational activity, future investment, etc.
Policies establish the requirements for behaviour across the organization and, where relevant, suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders.
108
Governance. What do governing bodies do when they monitor? What is the purpose of this?
The governing body monitors the performance of the (1) organization and its (2) practices, (3) products, and (4) services.
The purpose of this is to ensure that performance is in accordance with policies and strategy (direction).
109
What does the the role and position of governance in the ITIL SVS depend on?
How the SVS is applied in an organization.
110
ITIL guiding principles are absolute (i.e., not changeable) to the governing body. Is that correct?
No. The governing body can adopt the ITIL guiding principles and adapt them, or define its own specific set of principles and communicate them across the organization.
111
Who maintains oversight over the SVS?
The governing body.
112
How do both the governing body and management at all levels maintain alignment?
Through a clear set of shared principles and objectives.
113
Each activity transforms inputs into outputs. What does this refer to?
This applies to all six value chain activities.
114
What are the six value chain activities?
The six value chain activities are:
•plan
•improve
•engage
•design and transition
•obtain/build
•deliver and support.
115
What do the six value chain activities represent?
These activities represent the steps an organization takes in the creation of value. Each activity transforms inputs into outputs.
116
Four rules when using service value chain in regard to engage, obtain/build, plan, and improve.
•All incoming and outgoing interactions with parties external to the value chain are performed via engage
•All new resources are obtained through obtain/build
•Planning at all levels is performed via plan
•Improvements at all levels are initiated and managed via improve.
117
To carry out a certain task or respond to a particular situation, what do organizations do?
Organizations create service value streams.
These are specific combinations of activities and practices, and each one is designed for a particular scenario.
118
What five practices do companies have in thier software development value chain? (easy)
•business analysis
•development
•testing
•release and deployment
•support.
119
What is the purpose of the plan value chain activity?
The purpose of the plan value chain activity is to ensure (A) a shared understanding of the (1) vision, (2) current status, and (3) improvement direction for (B) all four dimensions and all products and services across the organization.
120
How are the six value chain activities connected?
They all have inputs and outputs and those are received from and delivered to other value chain activities.
121
What is the key output for the plan value chain activity?
Strategical, tactical, and operational plans
122
What is the purpose of the improve value chain activity?
The purpose of the improve value chain activity is to ensure continual improvement of (1) products, services, and (2) practices across all (A) value chain activities and (B) the four dimensions of service management.
123
What are the key outputs for the improve value chain activity used by all value chain activities?
1) Improvement initiatives for all value chain activities
2) Improvement status reports for all value chain activities
124
What is the purpose of the engage value chain activity?
The purpose of the engage value chain activity is to provide a good understanding of (1) stakeholder needs, (2) transparency, and (3) continual engagement and good relationships with all stakeholders.
125
What is the purpose of the design and transition value chain activity?
The purpose of the design and transition value chain activity is to ensure that products and services continually meet stakeholder expectations for (A) quality, (B) costs, and (C) time to market.
126
What is the purpose of the obtain/build value chain activity?
The purpose of the obtain/build value chain activity is to ensure that service components are available when and where they are needed, and meet agreed specifications.
127
What is the purpose of the deliver and support value chain activity?
The purpose of the deliver and support value chain activity is to ensure that services are delivered and supported according to agreed specifications and stakeholders’ expectations.
128
Where does continual improvement take place in organizations?
Continual improvement takes place in all areas of the organization and at all levels, from strategic to operational.
129
To support continual improvement at all levels, the ITIL SVS includes which three elements?
•the ITIL continual improvement model, which provides organizations with a structured approach to implementing improvements
•the improve service value chain activity, which embeds continual improvement into the value chain
•the continual improvement practice, supporting organizations in their day-to-day improvement efforts.
130
ITIL refers to ITSM. What is ITSM and what is the difference to ITIL?
IT Service Management is a strategic approach for designing, delivering, managing, and improving the way information technology (IT) is used within an organization.
IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) refers to a group of documents that provide a framework and best practices for building an IT Service Management (ITSM) solution.
131
Is ITSM a software solution?
IT Service Management (ITSM) is sometimes mistaken as a software solution. In reality, ITSM is about process, people, and technology. Software is one component of an ITSM solution.
132
What can the ITIL continual improvement model be used for?
The ITIL continual improvement model can be used as a high-level guide to support improvement initiatives.
133
ITIL Continual Improvement Model - What is the key question? What are the six (chronological) sub-questions? What are the resulting actions?
Key question: How do we keep the momentum going?
1) What is the vision? -> Business vision, mission, goal, and objectives
2) Where are we now? -> Perform baseline assessments
3) Where do we want to be? -> Define measurable targets
4) How do we get there? -> Define the improvement plan
5) Take action -> Execute improvement actions
6) Did we get there? -> Evaluate metrics and KPIs
134
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 1: What is the vision?
Each improvement initiative should support the organization’s goals and objectives. The first step of the continual improvement model is to define the vision of the initiative. This provides context for all subsequent decisions and links individual actions to the organization’s vision for the future.
135
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 1: What is the vision? What are the two key steps here?
This step focuses on two key areas:
•The organization’s vision and objectives need to be translated for the specific business unit, department, team, and/or individual, so that the context, objectives, and boundaries for any improvement initiative are understood.
•A high-level vision for the planned improvement needs to be created.
136
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 2: Where are we now?
The success of an improvement initiative depends on a clear and accurate understanding of the starting point and the impact of the initiative. An improvement can be thought of as a journey from Point A to Point B, and this step clearly defines what Point A looks like. A journey cannot be mapped out if the starting point is not known.
137
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 2: Where are we now? How should current statements be done ideally?
Current state assessments should be done through objective measurement whenever possible.
138
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 3: Where do we want to be?
Just as the previous step (Step 2) describes Point A on the improvement journey, Step 3 outlines what Point B, the target state for the next step of the journey, should look like. A journey cannot be mapped out if the destination is not clear.
139
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 3: Where do we want to be? Improvement opportunities can be identified and prioritized based on the gap analysis. What other three things can be set?
Improvement objectives can be set, along with critical success factors (CSFs) and key performance indicators (KPIs).
140
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 3: Where do we want to be? Improvement opportunities can be identified and prioritized based on the gap analysis. Agreed objectives, CSF, and KPIs need to follow which principle?
The agreed objectives, CSFs, and KPIs need to follow what is known as the SMART principle. They should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
141
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 4: How do we get there?
The plan for Step 4 can be a straightforward and direct route to completing a single simple improvement, or it may be more involved. The most effective approach to executing the improvement may not be clear, and it will sometimes be necessary to design experiments that will test which options have the most potential.
142
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 5: Take action
In Step 5 the plan for the improvement is acted upon. This could involve a traditional waterfall-style approach, but it could be more appropriate to follow an Agile approach by experimenting, iterating, changing directions, or even going back to previous steps.
143
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 5: Take action. During this step, which 3 things need to be considered?
During the improvement, there needs to be continual focus on
1) measuring progress towards the vision and
2) managing risks,
3) ensuring visibility and overall awareness of the initiative.
144
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 5: Take action. Once this step is completed, what will have been reached?
Once this step is completed, the work will be at the end point of the journey, resulting in a new current state.
145
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 6: Did we get there?
Too often, once an improvement plan is set in motion, it is assumed that the expected benefits have been achieved, and that attention can be redirected to the next initiative. In reality, the path to improvement is filled with various obstacles, so success must be validated.
146
Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 6: Did we get there? For each iteration of the improvement initiative, what needs to be checked?
Both the progress (have the original objectives been achieved?) and the value (are those objectives still relevant?) need to be checked and confirmed.
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Steps of the continual improvement model: Key question: How do we keep the momentum going?
If the improvement has delivered the expected value, the focus of the initiative should shift to (1) marketing these successes and (2) reinforcing any new methods introduced. This is to ensure that the progress made will not be lost and to build support and momentum for the next improvements.
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Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 7: How do we keep the momentum going? How do we ensure that the improvements and changed behaviours are not at risk of reversion?
The (1) organizational change management and (2) knowledge management practices should be used.
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Steps of the continual improvement model: Step 7: How do we keep the momentum going? What must be done if improvements could not reach the results?
(1) Stakeholders need to be informed of the reasons for the failure of the initiative. (2) This requires a thorough analysis of the improvement, documenting and communicating the lessons learned. (3) This should include a description of what can be done differently in the next iteration, based on the experience gathered. Transparency is important for future efforts, regardless of the results of the current iteration.
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What can the Theory of Constraints tell us?
How is it linked to continual improvement?
According to the theory of constraints (ToC), the weakest link in the value chain determines the flow and throughput of the system. The weakest link must be elevated as much as possible (sometimes revealing a new weakest link), and all the other steps in the value chain must be organized around it.
When planning improvements, it is crucial to focus on the work that is the highest priority.
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How can the weakest link of a value stream can be determined?
Which theory does this practice stem from? (Agile, DevOps, Lean)
The weakest link of a value stream can be determined with value stream mapping. This is a Lean practice that examines the stream, quantifies its waste (for example, a delay), and in so doing, identifies its weakest link.
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What is a practice?
A practice is a set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective.
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What different practices does ITIL SVS include?
14 general management practices, 17 service management practices, and 3 technical management practices
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How are the different practices from ITIL SVS relate to the 4 dimensions of service management?
They are subject to the 4 dimensions of service management.
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What is the difference between a practice and service management?
Practice: A set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing a service.
Service management: A set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value for customers in the form of services.
