CFN Service Bazaar
To celebrate their 10th anniversary CFN people organized a unique, innovative ‘Service Bazaar’.
70 delegates attended an event which was billed as ‘0’ powerpoints (….apart from err…..1….but a very small one). International and local Danish subject matter experts held a series of interactive workshop ‘sprints’ covering a range of relevant topics. Delegates had 4 chances throughout the day to attend a preferred sprint session.
Christian Nissen introduced the event and announced that at the workshops delegates would practice what they learnt. The workshop facilitators and the subjects being dealt with were:
I facilitated 3 workshops using the ABC of ICT cards. At the start of the event we were given two minutes to ‘pitch’ our workshop. I announced that delegates would attend ‘best practice’ workshop sessions by renowned experts, delegates would capture key learning and action points to take away to implement……and then? Then they could attend MY workshop to discover the hidden ABC (Attitude, Behavior, Culture) Iceberg of ‘resistance’ that would stop or derail their initiatives.
I performed 3 ABC workshops. Below are the captured top types of resistance discovered using the cards as an assessment instrument. Delegates also worked in small teams to then define concrete , visible ‘behavior change’ they would need to see from ‘The CIO’, ‘The Management team’, ‘Line managers’, ‘Process managers’ and ‘employees’ to address the top types of resistance. Have a look at the top chosen cards and see if you recognize these in YOUR organization and then engage with the relevant stakeholders to agree a ‘behavior change’ to address these.
Top ABC results
Attitude:
- IT has too little understanding of business impact & priority
- Neither partner (Business & IT) makes) an effort to understand the other
- ITIL never work here
Behavior:
- Process managers without authority
- Throwing solutions (ITIL) over the wall and HOPING people will use them
- Never mind about following procedures…..just do what we normally do
Culture:
- Plan, Do, Stop…..no real continual improvement culture
- Not my responsibility
- Them and Us culture (internal SILOs AND between business & IT)
To round off the top 10 scoring cards chosen – ‘No management commitment’ was the fourth highest scoring card. One CIO came up to me afterwards and said that he now recognized why his ITIL initiative was struggling and how he would now need to address ownership, responsibilities and mandate authority to process managers.
Findings:
Once again I asked 48 delegates if they knew the definition of Service according to ITIL – (more than 90% were doing or using ITIL). Two people knew. It is all about Value, Outcomes, Costs and Risks (VOCR). Delegates also confirmed my findings that the majority of people attending ITIL training DO NOT KNOW WHAT VOCR THE ORGANIZATION HOPES TO (OR NEEDS TO!!!!!!!) ADDRESS USING ITIL which clearly is symptomatic of the top 2 chosen Attitude cards.
Once again I asked how many people had read the OGC book ‘Planning to Implement service management’ (or even KNEW of its existence!!!!). Again only 2 hands went up, which is symptomatic of the 3 top behavior cards which all relate to poor ‘implementation’ practices. (I think this publication should form some mandatory part of the ITIL Expert certificate!)
The top culture card is also symptomatic of the fact that people do not read the above named publication which stresses the need for embedding CSI – not simply starting an Implementation project and throwing solutions over the wall and HOPING that they will be followed.
The above cards also show the gap and lack of understanding between business & IT. We are still too internally focused in IT.
Top tips for delegates:
I asked the workshop facilitators (who had not seen the results of the ABC workshops) to give one key tip to delegates. What is the one thing they should take away from YOUR session. These were their quotes – which are clearly aligned with addressing the top ABC issues.
David Canon: ‘Start measuring value from a CUSTOMER perspective’.
Colin Rudd: ‘Focus on delivering “Appropriate” quality of service. First understand and agree BUSINESS needs’.
Stefan Brahmer: ‘Be aware of the PEOPLE side and pitfalls – adopt a clear, structured approach to desirable behavior’.
Majid Iqbal: ‘It is all about framing value propositions from the CUSTOMER perspective’.
Lise Dall Eriksen: ‘Start preparing your Service Request catalogue – ‘Involve’, ‘engage’ with your USERS.
Reni Friis: ‘Think more about identifying root causes of problems and not simply addressing symptoms’
Peter Ravnholt: ‘Start practicing improvements instead of just talking about them – practice CSI’.
I found the event highly innovative, interactive, engaging and valuable. Delegates were enthusiastic about the hands-on approach, focusing on translating theory into practice.
My tip is to the itSMF chapters. ‘Adopt a similar approach in conference streams – more hands-on interactive workshops’ to help solve these top 10 ABC issues which are year in, year out the top issues.
I finished by showing my Service Bazaar cartoon and challenged delegates. Would they now go back and address these ABC issues or display one of the global top 10 ABC issues ‘Not my Responsibility’?
