9 Reasons Why Building Blocks are Important to Successful Service Management
When you were young and a more curious builder, you were infatuated with building materials. Interlocking building blocks made sense but Velcro, glue, and cement somehow eluded you. Your models were pretty awesome but scaling up from your Lego houses and sandcastles to mapping IT work flows and systems required you to rethink your process, slightly. Even though you’re now a builder of information processes, does not mean that you should forget to think about what kind of adhesive you’re using to make your information stick.
Here are the 9 reasons why building blocks matter for successful service management:
1. House in the Clouds or On-Site? Choosing your Real Estate
How important is it to have your data on-site and how much does it cost to maintain and implement updates? The best real estate is in the clouds. With Software as a Service (SaaS) your home never goes out of style. Updates are automatic and you add an incredible element of flexibility to your workforce.
2. Where do you want to Live Long Term? Scalability and Data Migration
How big do you want your house to be? It’s important to consider how much room you have to grow with your current system. Moving every year is just not practical.
3. Are your Blueprints Clear? Building Transparent Processes
Having a clear set of blueprints that clearly establishes role responsibilities and the flow of communication necessary to fulfill any given task will enable you to easily build your blueprints into any well designed system.
If you automate the wrong process, you get to the wrong result faster Chris Dancy of ServiceSphere
4. Do you have a Good Foundation? Focus on Future Growth
A sturdy home starts with a solid foundation. If you don’t feel comfortable building on it, you certainly won’t feel comfortable working in it.
5. What are the Relevant Tools for the Job? Minimize Errors and Manual Effort
You could build everything with your hands but Manual labour is hard and prone to error. By automating what you can, you save a great deal on the opportunity costs associated with bottlenecks and errors. Plus all of the data you will need can be made available conveniently where you left it and not be left idle in someone’s inbox.
6. How do you Educate your Builders? Learning Curve and Indirect Costs
New building materials come with indirect costs such as hours associated with training so it’s important to have a model and culture that supports learning and to enable your workers to be effective.
7. How do you Secure your Architecture? Disaster Recovery Plan
Even the greatest systems are capable of failing so it’s important to have Home Security and a backup plan. In a recent Gartner CIO Survey,
87% of respondents had recovery time objectives (RTOs) of four hours or less for their mission-critical applications and services.
Backup and Disaster Recovery Modernization Is No Longer a Luxury, but a Business Necessity Published: 11 August 2011. Analysts: John P Morency | Donna Scott | Dave Russell
This means that quick recovery is critical to keeping customers and staying competitive.
8. How do you position your furniture? Harmonize Information with Clear Process
This is the IT Feung Shui of your house. By establishing clear parameters that define and dictate workflow, your employees and co-workers will enjoy the look of the room and know exactly what’s to go on in it to get the most efficient results.
9. Keep your House Clean
After you’ve built your house, be sure to keep it clean by reacting to reports on problem areas and making all necessary changes, that way everyone can stay healthy.
Keep your childhood curiosity alive and think about IT in terms of these building blocks. If you build it right, you just may earn some new friends on the global playground.
