ABC of ICT wins award
With the theme “We Share Innovation” this year´s IT Innovation Award took place in Germany, organized by “Initiative Mittelstand” (initiative for medium-sized businesses). The awareness and assessment instrument ’ABC of ICT’ from GamingWorks convinced the jury of its value and has been awarded Best-of-Solution in the category “Consulting”.
..among the outstanding and prominent solutions that represent the missing-link between the IT function and the businesses they support.
“Supporting medium-sized businesses and stimulating innovation is the mission of our initiative”, explains Rainer Kölmel, founder of the Initiative Mittelstand. With the commendation of Best-of-Consulting product at the “Innovationspreis-IT 2013” the ABC of ICT is among the outstanding and prominent solutions that represent the missing-link between the IT function and the businesses they support.
GK” Consulting in Düsseldorf was the first partner and a pioneer of GamingWorks’ business simulations and tools in the DACH countries. Gustave Käller and his team uses the ABC of ICT primarily as an analysis tool and catalyst in its performance improvement programs for IT teams and organizations. The objective is to eliminate barriers to change, create pro-active behaviors and develop genuine value systems that last. As soon as the setting, key issue(s) and objectives are clear three steps follow:
- Plan and conduct ABC Workshops to uncover the Worst Practices and discuss possible solutions.
- Produce and present an ABC Analysis Report with workshop outcomes and specific recommendations.
- Decide – e.g. during a session with senior management – on concrete measures that promise the greatest impact with the least time and effort.
The main benefit of this approach is that within a short period of time a roadmap for change is developed with concrete measures that are transparent and comprehensible to all involved – an important prerequisite for the success of any change initiative. The following examples illustrate two different situations in which GK” Consulting applied the ABC of ICT.
A company for data and information processing in Bielefeld, Germany serving more than 100 external customers in different industries started a project to improve internal processes and the quality of IT services using ITIL® and ISO20000 as standards. The main objective of the project was to get the increased organizational and technical complexity under control. Instead of implementing ITIL head-on, it was decided to solve the Worst Practices first in order to create a working culture of continual improvement. Nine ABC Workshops with approx. 8 participants each were conducted. The resulting ABC Analysis Report formed the basis for several measures and management workshops. The comprehensive insights enabled GK” Consulting to deeply understand and help the customer quickly.
An international multi-vendor IT service provider in Vienna, Austria decided to reorganize and integrate a major acquisition in order to strengthen its market position. In this process the ABC of ICT was deployed to create a clear view on the actual organizational capabilities and to identify short-term actions. In order to make maximum use of the collective knowledge, two large-group ABC Workshops with approx. 25 participants each were conducted. Although this is a highly successful company, the ABC Analysis uncovered five major fields of concern. The countermeasures focused on changing specific (written and unwritten) rules for behavior with predefined results and had to be implemented within the next 12 months.
Based on these and many other experiences GK” Consulting developed a five-step approach to change, combining the ABC of ICT with the concepts of Viral Change™ and GamingWorks´ well-known business simulation Apollo 13 – an ITSM case experience™. Viral Change is an unconventional change management method based on the principles of epidemiology, looking at organizations as living adaptive networks. New ideas and processes are spread by behaviors within the internal social network like an infection – similar to fashion trends or tech-gadgets.
For more information visit the website of GK” Consulting or use the contact form here.