INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT – Part 1

 This is first of the series which I am discussing on IT AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT

What is Service?

“A service is a mean of delivering values to customers by facilitating outcomes that they want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks”

Now few things comes up in your mind by reading the above definition is that what does facilitating outcomes means and what are the effects and how does it relates to IT industry, what is meant by delivering values.

By facilitating outcomes I mean to say that it will enhance the performance and reduce the effect of constraints. It also increases the probability of desired outcomes. And it also affects the resources and their capabilities and also performance of the customer tasks. Now with the service there is service management comes up.

Service Management idea or rather we can say that the theme comes up with the idea of service providers. The origins of service management are in traditional forms with the businesses likes of airplanes, banks, telecommunications providers, hotels etc. so as the IT industry grows up the concept and adaption of service management grows as well and it now the most lethal part in any IT organization.  As IT organization has adapted the service- oriented approach for managing IT applications, infrastructure and processes. Business Problems and support for business models, strategies and operations are increasingly dependent upon the service management.

The service management according to me 

“A set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services”

Now with the service management the standards come up in our minds which are being followed all around the world. ITIL service management concept is one of them. In the next following parts and in this write up I will go into the detail of ITIL service management concepts

What is ITIL?

ITIL is the abbreviation of Information Technology Infrastructure Library which gives us the framework or rather we can say that standards sort of stuffs by following it we can implement the best practices being followed in the IT industry related to service management. ITIL is basically owned by UK Government and not by any commercial proprietary solution or practice.

ITIL is basically comprises of the following characteristics

Ø  Non- Proprietary — which tells us that ITIL Service Management Best Practices are being put on i.e. applicable in any  industry which have the concerns of IT Service Management because they are not based on any particular technology platform or industry type.

 

Ø  Non Perspective — ITIL offers robust, mature and time valued and times tested best practices that have applicability to all types of service organizations. Helps the organization determine where it is today, and where it wants to be. It continues to be helpful in public as well as private organization to its  internal and external customers whether they belong to SME’s or Large Organizations or within any technical environments

 

Ø  Best Practices — ITIL Service Management practices represent the learning experiences and thoughts leaderships of the world’s best in class of service providers. The approach to an  understanding that has already been proved to be the most effective by the leading organizations and it is derived  from the practices of the most  effective and successful people in the field

 

Ø  Good Practices — By good practices means that what everybody is doing as it’s seen as complete with no gaps, and often referred to as the most appropriate  and also the fact that there is always a continual search for improvement as well know nobody is perfect so we can imply this rule in here.

 

Ø  Systematic Usage — it is the systematic usage of the Service Management practices that are responsive, consistent and measurable and this also defines the quality of the service provider in the eyes of their customer.

 

Ø  Continuously Analization — it is the provider’s ability to continuously analyze and fine tune the service provision to maintain stable, reliable yet adaptive and responsive services that allows the customer to focus on their business without the concern of IT service availability.

 

The ITIL service management practices are comprised off three main sets of practices and services

 

Ø  ITIL Service management  practices — Core Guidance

Ø  ITIL Service management practices — complementary

Ø  ITIL Web support

 

Now In my next write up I will go into the details of ITIL Service management — Core Guidance

Working in IT … Is it good or bad?

Now don’t think that being an IT Professional myself I am giving suggestion to the upcoming IT professional that do think again to work in the field of IT … That not the case for all of you . As being working in the IT field from past 10 years I have realized that it’s kind of “Thankless Job” … because when there is some problem occurred in the software or hardware at some critical moments fingers always pointed out towards IT and people think that they(IT) must have done something wrong which might be not the case and people think that being in IT they are doing nothing. They are just keep on resting and playing games. But from my experience being working in IT its kind of stressful job as you have to always on your toes to keep the systems running at their 100% and if something goes wrong I know how hard it is to face the management and tell them what went wrong . But as being service provider department or vendor or organization or consultant we have to face and ready for these kinds of situations.

But on the other hand there are cases where we have been appreciated and being rewarded also by putting up some marvelous efforts as in the case of ERP implementation in my current working organization, at the time of implementation 9/11 thing happened and the Consultants went back to their homeland … the project seems to be at stake as all the efforts being put on by the team and trainings have been done because at that point we cannot revert to the old things, but let me clear one thing the implementation team have the support from higher management for the implementation which is really helpful for us, by having support from them we have implemented the ERP which is now being running ALHAMDULILLAH successfully from past 7 years and now we are in testing phase of its new version and business process re-engineering / business continuity/ IT Governance.

Being in the field of IT you have to be well aware of all the current market trends and happenings around you, I know that its really hard to keep yourself update with the market trends and happenings around you related to the field of IT but you have too because if you don’t then you will be outdated related to IT knowledge. At times too keep yourself updated you have to spend the money form your pockets because it’s a sort of risk always related to it that management might ask you “DO YOU HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE CURRENT IT TRENDS” and if you say “No” then be prepare for listening anything from them .. You need to re-train yourself as much as you can. As myself , I have to be updated all the time what is going on, which hardware is currently on the rising phase and which is out dated. What kind of software products we have in the market which can help us out and what not useful to us. As the things are so much rapidly changing in the field of IT that you will never knew what will come up next and by whom in this field.

Working long hours is usual in the field of IT as now become AN ENIGMA with it. So its not become un usual with most of IT professionals to work long hours but the thing is that working for long hours is not sort of routine jobs but yes it does at month ends or year ends when there will full load of work where you have to take the backups when all the work have been done or when there are least users connected with the application, make surety of the all the systems available. Most of my friends to whom I know are always on call basis including myself , if god forbidden something goes wrong we will be remain in touch. That’s why companies do realize our importance and they pay us too and give incentives as well, and also that some time we have to run the tasks that we have to really take care off like off server service packs or server up gradation or backup routines or system health checks for which we have to plan about the time days & strategy because these sort of tasks will be not be done in haphazard way.

People also assume that we all know about the IT stuff but that’s not the case because we all have some expertise related to the IT field. From system administration to Development to Networks to security to IT governance etc etc. all people working in those division have their working expertise related to it so its better to ask them those type of question on which they are working on . but not like that if you ask some software development person that what kind of router we are using in our organization or if you asked network person that how this software developed and what software technologies used in the development of it …… perhaps you get the reply “NO I DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT” . So it’s better to ask the person who worked on them by creating awareness about it amongst the people of your organization and around your peer network.

IT always be considered as the “Cost Centers” and hardly as the “Profit Generators”. IT department who are well mannered and established their benefits will remain unhidden which is not good so as being IT manger you need to point out what are you offering to the organization and how you are doing it . Add this with is that there is a lack of healthy respect for the technology that runs most businesses and what we get in return is not in the eyes of the management which being IT managers we have to point them out which is a constant uphill task for us thats where “Business Intelligence” comes up.

At times there were queries being generated by the HR departments that to list down the works being done by you being in IT and when you end up with it by listing down the whole work which is being done by you it gets into some lengthy work that those HR guys don’t feel bothered to read about them (that happen with me hehe). Also I observed that everybody’s job was urgent. If five people come to you in the morning each with a different problem, what can you do? Each one cannot continue their work until the “tiny” problem is solved. As they don’t know why the problem has occurred and what are the causes of it. I know it’s hard to say “No” to any one like that because all of them have priorities and workload so we have to tackle them with tips and tricks likes off on which position the user is and how much work load it have.etc etc. Some times its hard for the user to convey about his/her problems so being in IT my experience is that we have to listen them carefully what they are trying to say and then help them out being giving them some information about the problems and gathered the data about the problems and solved them as soon as possible in the prescribed manner.

In the end I can say that I may be missed out points that which I can not think of but do share with all of us and for new comers in the field of IT … all of you are always welcome so cheer up and wish all of new comers good luck and bright future. If you need any help of mine do contact me …..

The Power of Perception & IT

IT still has a perception problem. In some organizations, we continue to be seen as geeks that play with expensive toys. Sure, these toys power the business, but their necessity is often not indicated in a way that’s “business friendly.”Reality and perception are very different animals. Well-chosen words and a positive demeanor are keys to successful requests and professional interactions with the rest of the business. Although IT continues to gain ground in visibility and potential impact, much of what we do is, and probably always will be, behind the scenes work that no one really understands, nor do they want to understand it, nor do they need to. Like the folks that maintain your office, a lot of people consider the behind-the-scenes work that IT performs as “electronic maintenance.” These are critical tasks that need to be done, but the CEO isn’t going to stop by each morning complimenting the team on doing a great job changing last night’s tapes. Quite honestly, if your CEO actually does do this, he or she may need a little more work!

Rightly or wrongly, some IT organizations have managed to move into the “PITA” category for some executives. That’s not to say that these executives don’t understand the value wrought by IT, but they have begun to tire of hearing the same story over and over again told in the same way. These executives may feel that IT has enough resources to do its job and they don’t understand why they keep complaining about small budgets and small staffs.

Why does this happen? First, look inward. When you make a pitch to the executive team for a new initiative, how do you approach the task? Do you say “We simply have to replace our old, outdated router. It keeps acting up. The new router supports IPv6 and has GigE ports, so we’ll never run out of addresses and stuff will be faster than with the old router, which is no longer supported” or do you say “Our existing router, which is the lynchpin for our connection to the Internet, is no longer supported by the manufacturer. If it fails, there is the potential for an extended outage, which would cost the organization $XXX per hour until the unit is repaired. From a risk perspective, a new router would pay for itself after only xxx hours of downtime.”

I’d argue that the second approach will get you closer to your goal and possible kudos from senior management for being proactive in the face of possible failure. You’ll be seen as understanding the business rather than wanting a new toy, even though the result would be the same from a technical perspective. The second approach gives executive management some meat, too. They get to make a decision based on some real information that they can sink their teeth into. Sure, you could still get shot down, but bear in mind that most organizations have priorities beyond IT needs that must also be addressed and your executive management team may feel that the loss of the router is an acceptable risk for the time being.

When you really think about it, most departments in an organization have thankless jobs that no one thinks about until something goes wrong. Just as you expect your paycheck on time every month, the marketing department has the perfectly reasonable expectation that their database will be well maintained, kept current and kept available. In fact, these folks probably want all of this without having to ask for it. After all, it’s IT’s job to be proactive in keeping these things in working order, and they probably won’t bring you a gift from the Keebler elves every time you apply a patch that keeps their data secure.

The takeaway: Even though the tales of woe are sure to make any IT professional cringe, people outside IT just don’t care about them. They know that something is broken and it needs to be fixed… and now. Understanding this fact and eliminating the complaining within earshot of non-IT staff is critical to maintaining a professional organization. Likewise, understanding how to pitch IT needs in a way that make sense for the business is critical to the CIO’s success.

Challenges in IT Industry of Pakistan

Pakistan and its Industry… hmmmmm… Pakistan being the sixth populated nation but on the education wise we are really far behind from the other countries of our region. As I was going through the article on the Internet I get to know that Pakistan has lagged dangerously behind other regional countries in

exploiting Information Technology as a catalyst for economic revival. Yet though in the past 8 years or so the steps have been taken by the earlier governments on the setup of IT industry but still we are lagging behind. We all know that which steps have been taken by reducing the Internet bandwidths rates, Deploying SMEs, students going for PHD’s abroad and coming back. But still we are on the development phase.

As being IT Professional myself , and what ever experience I had and observed that we are very much talented as nation but we are lagging the integration between are educational sectors and industrial sectors. As I have faced this situation by myself. As in 1999 I have graduated from the one of the most prestigious university of my country and when I go for job interviews the person sitting there asked me do you know what is this and when I said never been thought they said then you are of no use , I do ask them what is wrong with me they told me that you didn’t know what we are asking , but I told them and you being sitting in the industry it is the responsibilities of personnel like yours to collaborate with the EDUCATION sectors to help young graduates to learn the leading technologies and guide them what they need to do when they passed out and ready to enter in the market. However I got the chance in one of leading automotive manufacturing of PAKISTAN where I have learned a lot with great zeal. THANKS TO ALMIGHTY ALLAH I got the boss of such a kind who is True Professional , he turned me into one of his kind , HATS OFF TO MY BOSS – THANKS ONCE AGAIN ALMIGHTY ALLAH … He told me that look if you want to be successful in you career do your work with full passion and commitment and never loose your interest in that work , if you loose then all the hardwork which you do will be lost. And learned the good set of practices which are current and being followed in IT Industry and share them with your fellow peers and by the grace of ALLAH I am following his advice , my boss is in Canada now but still I keep bugging him to know what is being followed there and when he told me what is nbeing followed I searched and learned about it and tell my fellow peers too,

I have observed few of the stuffs which I like to share all of you. I feel that the explosive growth of the Internet and the coming tidal wave of E-Commerce still provide immense possibilities for Pakistan to exploit their potential and use these for accelerating its economic revival. As far as I know MCB is the first in Pakistan who exploit these conditions and even went to London Stock Exchange to get registered to become first Pakistani Organization to be registered there. By implementing the Huge investments in the IT side. Do keep in mind that IT is not just used for Personal computers only. It also covers the machines like which tells you the data how much bank balance you have which we used to say ATM Machines . Now after hugs investments in IT side we are getting results of it by the private sectors. And utilizing it as people getting to learn about it day by day its all because of the awareness thing.

I also feel that we are agonizingly conscious of the fact that the hyper speed of change in the Information Technology domain means that the IT year is equivalent to one month in conventional terms. This fact dictates that any meaningful action or decisions for the IT industry in Pakistan has to be implemented immediately. Pakistan and similar countries hoping to exploit the inherent potential of Information Technology must act immediately and decisively to restructure their domestic Information Technology industries to become effective role players within the global IT scenario.

· Any meaningful IT scheme in Pakistan will necessarily have to be a PRIVATE-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP. Bold but unconventional and strategically corrective actions and decisions are needed because we all that what needs to be and cater down so that we donot get influence by others to implement any sort of decision.

· We need to have such kind of managers with the right mix of vision and managerial competence that help us out to implement the decision (IN THAT AREA WE ARE LAGGING AS BEING PAKISTANI WHICH IS MY OBSERVATION).

· Huge amounts of financing are needed in domestic resources and foreign exchange.

· Above all, the will to prevail will be needed from the government of Pakistan to chart the right course for the national Information Technology initiative and then stay the course in spite of innumerable hurdles which are sure to bedevil the path to success.

This is the part of series of my writing