Service and Support as Production in I.T

Service and Supportas Production

On-demand Value in Corporate I.T.

The Scenario

Corporate I.T. is expected to know what business needs from technologies, but in particular to have industrial-strength capabilities of its own for handling certain classes of requirements.

In covering those classes, less mature I.T. organizations may be managed more as clearinghouses or hybrids, without a set of services and support sufficiently distinguished to be recognizable by the business.

The penalty for failing to address the distinctions is an inability to consistently anticipate and respond to the four most prevalent business issues in practical IT utilization: objectives; transformation; innovation; and economy.

Conversely, being able to address the distinctions properly gives the organization a more reasonable expectation of handling those issues successfully as they are shaping demand.

Production of Practical I.T. Corporate I.T. is expected to have industrial-strength capabilities for producingpractical business utilization of IT.

The intent of a technology user “makes sense” in accordance with the user’s circumstances, but the intent is viable only as a combination of things that make pursuing it supportable.

With I.T., the supportability of user intent comes from translating the attributes of the technologies into the capability of the user. That translation produces many intermittent forms of engagement along the way. Those forms of engagement , or modalities*, become areas of management responsibility driving progress on demand and towards the demand.

Key value for Demand

Technology content

Technology usability

Reliability of usage

Intent of the customer

presence systems process implementation business event

capability functionality platform projects requirements

relevance quality resource education options / permissions

practicality availability knowledge access fulfillments

Producing user capability * Modality: a particular mode in which something exists or is experienced or expressed. – from Google “define modality”

Progressive Enablement

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Business-facing IT Roles

When we start with the “demand” perspective of the user of a service, we readily accept that a customer wants technology not because of what the technology can do but instead because of what the user can do with it.

That makes it easier to appreciate the difference between the “technical” arena and the “user” (or customer) arena – and also between service and support. The service must support the user; but something must support the service.

Yet in management, it is still unlikely to see departmental functions segmented as “customer support” and “service support”.

Instead, a typical segmentation of IT’s business role is any of these four groupings: technical support, user support, technology services (aka technical services), and customer services (aka customer service).

Accountabilities and ResponsibilitiesThose areas differ for a reason, mainly reflecting a company’s idea of what kind of accountability is required to establish and justify plans.

But what always distinguishes each area is its primary responsibility for certain minimum necessitiesto assure the on-demand production of the customer’s intended usage.

• Support for users puts users as close as they will be allowed to directly deciding how IT will be used and why.

• Support for technology determines what kind of technology will be available and from where.

• Technology services make technology usable as designed.

• Customer services make usage appropriate to the demand.

Each area must address its distinctive issues strongly enough to assure that expected final value is generated in the customer’s utilization.

Defects, omissions or errors in these areas create discontinuities that prevent technology from reliably enabling the customer on demand.

The potential overlap of the areas means that they may collaborate or compete in their management and accountability. For that reason, is important to have a clear view of their respective required influences. They should be related (intersecting) without being confused.

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INTERSECTIONS

Services

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©2015 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra Research

Production Organization & ScopeCorporate I.T. must make choices about what must be under its direct authority and why. It needs to declare and justify its domain in both support and services.

User Support

Technical Support

Customer ServicesTechnology Services

Business Event:Requirements

Options/PermissionsFulfillments

Implementation:Projects

EducationAccess

Process:PlatformResource

Knowledge

Systems:Functionality

QualityAvailability

(Catalog)(Service Lifecycle)

(Provision)(Configuration)

• Support for users puts users as close as they will be allowed to directly deciding how IT will be used and why.

• Support for technology determines what kind of technology will be available and from where.

• Technology services make technology usable as designed.

• Customer services make usage appropriate to the demand.

Sup

po

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Services

Minimum viable coverage, by area


Sourcing

Strategy

Engineering

Operation

CORRESPONDING MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTABILITY

CUSTOMERTECHNOLOGY

FOCUS OFPRODUCTION DESIGN

PLANNING

Sup

po

rt

Services

USER

TECHNICAL

USER

TECHNICAL

CUSTOMERTECHNOLOGY

ProcessSystems

Business EventImplementation


CORRESPONDING ALIGNMENTTO BUSINESS DEMAND

ProcessSystems

Business EventImplementationUSER

TECHNICAL

CORRESPONDING ALIGNMENTOF THROUGPUT

ALIGNMENT

Sup

po

rt

Services

CUSTOMERTECHNOLOGY

ProvisionConfiguration

CatalogService LifecycleUSER

TECHNICAL

CUSTOMERTECHNOLOGY


Solving The Right ProblemCorporate I.T. must continually adopt and leverage important technologies and methods internally, while navigating continual changes in and changes to its business environment.

Throughput On-demand

When an I.T. Organization produces on demand for the business customer, it approaches the challenge with some combination of a “solution” and method that guides its activity.

The combination makes the solution effective, but it must be aimed at the right kind of problem.

The successful solution is usually not monolithic. Taking an automated single-minded approach risks driving too much attention and activity towards a defined problem that may not be the right problem to solve.

Normally, multiple perspectives must be applied and reconciled. Synchronizing many variables, they collectively determine the right way to do the right thing for the given situation. The synchronization is likely to be an ongoing effort.

OBJECTIVESTRANSFORMATION

ECONOMYINNOVATION

CORRESPONDING ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES TO ACCOMODATE

SOURCING

STRATEGY

ENGINEERING

OPERATIONCORRESPONDING CAPABILITY OF MANAGEMENT

CATALOGSERVICE LIFECYCLEFOCUS ONPRODUCTION PROVISIONCONFIGURATION

As a reconciliation of the perspectives, they can be modeled hierarchically, bottom up, as throughput: production that underlies a sustained capability to take on various and variable influences of the business environment. The key factors map to services and support.

KEY SOLUTION FACTORSMAJOR PERSPECTIVES


OBJECTIVESTRANSFORMATION

ECONOMYINNOVATION

Brokering

Strategy

Engineering

Operation

CORRESPONDING ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES TO ACCOMODATE

CatalogService Lifecycle

SOURCING

STRATEGY

ENGINEERING

OPERATION

CORRESPONDING CAPABILITY OF MANAGEMENT

ProcessSystems


CATALOGSERVICE LIFECYCLE

ProvisionConfiguration

FOCUS ONPRODUCTION

PROVISIONCONFIGURATION

Throughput to current target Business State


Production CapabilityCorporate I.T. must map its decided and evolving capabilities into the appropriate areas of support and service, while remaining focused on actual demand.

ProcessSystems


CATALOGSVC LIFECYCLE

FOCUS ON DECIDEDBUSINESS ENABLEMENT


CATALOGSVC LIFECYCLE

CORRESPONDING FOCUS ONMANAGEMENT CAPABILITY


DevOps

Design Thinking

Sourcing

Strategy

Engineering

Operation

ServiceIntegration

EXAMPLE EVOLUTIONS OF SOLUTION METHODOLOGY

Open Source

USER

TECHNICAL

CUSTOMERTECHNOLOGY


AUTOMATION PRACTICE MODELS SOCIAL/MOBILE

governancedata

securitydevelopment

portfolios learning

integration orchestration

marketing

evaluationlean

procurement

KEY INDEPENDENT INFLUENCERS & INFLUENCES ON CAPABILITY

SOURCING

STRATEGY

ENGINEERING

OPERATION

SOURCING

STRATEGY

ENGINEERING

OPERATION

SOURCING

STRATEGY

ENGINEERING

OPERATION

(technologies) (management) (users)


Producing I.T. ValueCorporate I.T. production, through support and service, gains and keeps its value through its relationship to current demand.

presence

capability

relevance

practicality

Organizing IT

Corporate IT enables users to achieve their intent by systematically generating availability, visibility and usability of technology in practical forms for engagement.

Corporate IT production should be able to identify and fulfill demand that is constantly being reshaped by independent influences outside of corporate IT, including objectives, transformation, innovation and economy.

The IT organization itself must continually evolve by adopting tools, practices, and user cooperation that allow its production to have agility and resiliency in the face of constant change.

Organizing IT’s production

Business recognizes, assists, and underwrites the capabilities of corporate IT through recognizable services and support.

Corporate IT uses services and support to synchronize its internal evolution with the evolution of the external environment of the business.

Corporate IT maintains its ongoing importance to the business users by applying newer and better abilities – of technology, management and users – within support and services.

©2015 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra [email protected]