Applying Lean to ITIL Event Management

to theApplying LEAN

ITIL V3 Event Management ProcessitSMF UK Conference 2008 – Driving Real ValueRohit Nand I Subbarao Chaganty

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Agenda

1 ITIL V3 Event Management & Lean Principles1

1 Event Management Process & Business Case2

1 Approach for Waste Reduction3

1 Waste Reduction Scope and Benefits4

1 Summary & Other Opportunities within IT Service Management5

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Agenda






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Event Management gets its due with ITIL V3

• I monitor my servers. What else do I need to do?

• Isn’t this a part of the Incident Management process?

• I support and manage Applications. Does this still concern me?

• Whose ownership and responsibility is it?

• Where can I find best practice guidance on Event Management?

Questions Questions before ITIL V3before ITIL V3

• Impact of proactive event monitoring and management on IT stability

• Key enabler for proactive Service Desks

• Improve efficiency through Automation

Outcome Outcome AreasAreas

Event Management is the backbone of IT Service Management playing a significant role in Service Operations and Assurance

55

LEAN originated with the Manufacturing industry but its principles are now being successfully applied to Services

The complete elimination of waste so all activities create value for the customer

Our initiative focused on elimination of waste in Event Management to reduce manual efforts by ~ 44%

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We mapped the Lean Principles of Waste Reduction to Event Management to achieve optimization…

1. Inventory Waste

2. Processing Waste

3. Waste due to Waiting Time

4. Transportation Waste

5. Waste of Motion 6. Waste from

Over-Production7. Waste due to Product Defects

Mapping the redundancies and duplication existing in

the current Event Monitoring and Alert

scenarios

As-Is To-Be

Building an optimized Event

Management system

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The Event Management process in question mainly depended on pre-configured Alerts which needed to be responded to and resolved …

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Alert volumes and over crowded monitors are distracting for the analysts and challenge the analysts focus

Risk of missing a critical alertwhile dealing with such a huge number of alerts

Cleanup the monitoring system and ensure only genuine alerts

Hot Spots for Waste Reduction

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Case study – Business Case & Drivers

A focused initiative was kicked off to analyze the alerts and reconfigure and cleanup to ensure following outcomes:

Reduce cost of monitoring activitiesOptimize Service Desk monitoringEnsure accurate priority classificationAutomate manual activitiesImprove team moral

Service Desk operations involved significant efforts towards monitoring alerts triggered by specific application related events:

Batch jobsLog files for key wordsSystem and database spaceKey business processesFile arrivals

• Non-value adding monitoring efforts

• Probability of missing critical alerts• Crowded alert interface

• Reduced monitoring efforts• Ability to detect & address critical

alerts • Cleaner alert interface

We applied waste reduction practices from LEAN on Event Management to improve efficiency and reduce costs

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A data collection drive followed by intensive analysis and validation with the application support groups strengthened the business case…

Analysis Business Case Implementation

• Establish 2 week baselineperiod

• Collect/download alert reports

• Categorize alerts into waste and identify resolutions

• Validate redundancieswith application groups

• Develop the business case (Effort/$aving$)

• Determine implementationrequirements

• Identify risks and mitigation

• Seek agreement and go-ahead from Leadership

• Setup implementation team• Recalibrate the baselines

2 weeks (retrofit changes)• Implement identified

resolution• Validate the reduction

goals for each category

1. Analysis report2. Waste categories

3. Business Case4. Implementation plan

5. Recalibrated baselines6. Realized benefits

Key

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The Solution enables the Service Desk to continually remove alerts they believe to be redundant & aid in further optimization of the process

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Inventory Waste – 32% of alerts warranted “No Remediation Action”

Significant number of alerts configured to prompt manual activities like releasing space, kicking off processes and/or jobs manually

Notification or informational alerts

Prioritization & classification of alerts (Informational, Minor,

Major & Critical)

Alerts as triggers for manual processes

Automation of manual activities significantly reduced this waste. Alerts should be configured to trigger specific ACTION

Automate manual tasks to alert on exception only

Revisit prioritization and clearing of informational alerts

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Processing Waste – 24% of alerts were “Redundant” in nature !!

Alerts for same or related events, e.g. Both Parent and Child jobs triggering alerts within embedded batch job scenarios.

Redundant alerts for embedded jobs

Different monitoring systems creating duplicate alerts

Lack of co-relation between related events

Redundancies identified and eliminated such that ONLY meaningful alerts appear in the system

Co-relate alerts and remove duplicates

Identify relation patterns within events and alerts

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Waste due to Waiting Time – 13% of alerts were performing “Reminder Service”

Alerts that are prime candidates for automation – move from a “Reminder Service”mode to “Alert on Exception only” mode

Lack of Service Desk empowerment

Log file alerts & file arrival alerts

Reminder service alerts for manual jobs

Empower Service Desks; Move towards “Exception Based Alerting”

Eliminate manual task reminder alerts

Automate manual tasks and configure exception alerts

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Few other categories of Alert wastes were identified and marked for either reconfiguration or decommissioning

• Alerts created by new or changed functionality

• Missing alerts for key changes

• Lack of release management & coordination

• Duplicate alerts due to incorrect configuration

• Alerts configured for scheduled downtime

• Misfired alerts – sent to wrong teams / configured to wrong teams

• Lack of proper training or event handling procedures

• Orphan alerts – no clear resolution defined

• Lack of clear event handling procedures

• Crowded alert radars – capturing insignificant events and alerts

13% of the total alerts eliminated belonged to this category. Periodic review of Alerts is a critical activity to maintain optimum alert levels

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By addressing the waste types to remove redundancies and duplication – we were able to achieve effort reduction by 44% (~USD 600,000)

Event Mgmt Efforts reduced by

44%

Some practical considerations

Develop Ability to detect redundant alerts for analysts

Build and maintain a continuous improvement program

Identify opportunities for automation and integration

Consider breaking up vertically aligned support and moving towards a shared services model

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Potential areas within IT Service Management where LEAN based Waste Reduction can be applied to considerably optimize VALUE

Service Transition

Change ManagementConfiguration ManagementTransition PlanningKnowledge ManagementTesting & ValidationRelease & Deployment Mgmt

Service Operations

Event ManagementIncident ManagementProblem ManagementAccess ManagementRequest Fulfillment

Service Design

Service Catalog ManagementCapacity ManagementAvailability ManagementService Continuity MgmtSecurity ManagementSupplier Management

Continual Service Improvement

Service MeasurementService Reporting7 Step Improvement Process

Service Portfolio

Financial Management

Service Strategy

Demand Management

2020

Lessons from Economics and Psychology in managing the “Change” …

Look within the organization for Positive Variance

Build Partnerships

Measure and Communicate Success

Self-funding of Continuous Improvement initiatives

Design IncentivesAssign Ownership

Thank you

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“© 2008 Infosys Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Copyright in the whole and any part of this document belongs to Infosys Technologies Ltd. This work may not be used, sold, transferred, adapted, abridged, copied or reproduced in whole or in part, in any manner or form, or in any media, without the prior written consent of Infosys Technologies Ltd.”

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Applying Lean to ITIL Event Management