Net.works and Evergreen are merging!!

Well this is very big news for us.  You often hear of mergers of equals, and you don’t believe it.  Well you can believe this.  Both companies are the same size and are in highly complementary market spaces.  

Both company names have strong brand equity within the HP customer and partner community, but the executives of both companies decided to trade as Evergreen Systems given its stronger brand recognition in the market at large (marketing dollars and blogs at work).  But the real question is…what value does this bring to you, our customers? 

To answer that let’s look at what is happening in IT operations.  For many organizations, ITIL principles are well on the way to being adopted, and a strong focus / desire exists to run as IT as one organization, not many distinct silos.  This focus on IT service management / delivery across IT has led to an uptick in technology buying to enable the new enterprise processes.  

But still, improvement is often slow and hard to measure.  Why?  We have service catalogs to streamline IT services ordering but executing those orders is still difficult.  We have improved change process management but executing those changes end to end is still laborious and largely manual.  We have the same detailed actions occurring in every IT silos thousands of times each year, and yet these actions are sill largely manual.  We are trying to respond from request to outcome—and yet we still have not done simple business process re-engineering from start to finish on repetitive requests.  

It is time for another big leap.  It is time to dig into the high volume processes underneath ITIL best practices, re-engineer them, and truly automate them end to end.  We must put the work into the technology. 

Our merger powers this idea.  Evergreen brings the ITIL experience, the process re-engineering, the IT service management experience, the service catalog (demand management), and the change management.   Net.works joins us at change management, bringing the configuration management experience, the end client management and automation, and the data center (server) management and “run book” automation.

Together we believe we can truly lead our clients to measurable, quantum leaps in productivity, agility, accuracy, proactivity, compliance, security, and quality—along with a significant reduction in risk.  

So how about…Let’s Automate!  Its now time.   

Don Casson

CEO Evergreen Systems, Inc.

Joel your question about unsuccessful ITIL implementations is a good one.   Although I can’t really provide any specific customer detail for a case study due to confidentiality, yet I can provide some overall insight and opinion based upon experience and other guidelines I’ve seen through industry analysts, scar tissue and the wisdom of others

In my opinion, the only real failures are those companies who choose “NOT” to adopt ITIL best practices.   Success improves from there.  That said, some companies embarking on this journey only achieve minimal levels of success.   In my view, ITIL implementations can struggle in a couple of key areas: 

1. Overall Program Management
2. Focus to Technology as the Solution  

Program ManagementITIL implementations are usually large and complex and solid Program/Project Management discipline is required.  Some companies start the struggle with grand plans based upon a huge scope and unreasonable expectations – then lack the organizational maturity (People & Process) to deliver to the expectations.  The desire for real, quick value can be overwhelming and must be balanced with the realization that this is a “journey”, not a “sprint”.   Getting strong sponsorship up front is critical.  Beginning with a true assessment, needs/gap analysis and identification of how to  lay a solid foundation while achieving quick wins with real business value can help  to avoid that “period of blame” that can quickly set in.  It’s kind of like building a house – or more specifically – like a large renovation and expansion project.   In the first year, you are laying a new/additional foundation with a huge amount of new or altered processes and changes in the culture.  Yet, you are living in the house at the same time, so you have to face up to the challenge to achieve/maintain  business value and sustain momentum until the roof is on, the carpet is in and the new areas are “livable”.    Your new foundation could possibly be a simple start in the area of things like “asset management” & then extending that to “Configuration Management” or by enabling some key wins in the areas of configuration management and incident/problem management with vision to move next  to release and change.    Bottom line:  start with a real baseline/foundation and build quick wins and value on that.    

Solid Program/Project Management with focus to project initiation (scope, sponsorship, communications) is a real help in this area.   Yet, sometimes, even those who drink the cool-aid and apply best project management practices struggle.   The best guidance I could provide for those struggling with current projects is:  revisit your roadmap, limit your scope and extend your project as best you can and always deliver with a business value mindset.  Even if you have a “failed” project in your lap, it may still be salvageable through recognition of the value you have already achieved, resetting expectations, re-aligning scope with business value, and re-visiting your tools, roadmaps and next steps.    

Technology Mindset - The root causes of failure to achieve expectations in ITIL implementations can be often be a misplaced focus to the “technical” rather than the people and processes.   It is not uncommon for the tool selection and purchase to come first (hey, there’s a glut of very good software sales teams out there).  While software plays a huge role in ITIL, a tool first approach can actually impede success.  To me, ITIL is not using best practices to use or manage technology - It’s about planning, executing and continuously improving a core set of processes to affect business outcomes.  The technology simply supports that.    I’ll sum it up like this…”would you buy a $10,000 lawn mower (tool) before you executed the process of obtaining financing, house-hunting and determining what type of property you even want.  Probably not… but it you did … would you then allow your lawnmower (tool) to drive the process of purchasing your home (location, financing, funding, etc…)?  What if you decide you want a condo?   Hello Craigslist! 

A solid CMDB is the key to any successful ITIL journey and there can be numerous speed bumps along the journey to a successful implementation.  Try not to think of a CMDB as a technology and definitive reference repository.  Rather consider it an overall set of processes, technology and culture designed to provide information to deliver business decisions and outcomes.   Some software vendors may try to espouse their CMDB as the definitive repository.   Try not to think of your CMDB as a single database.  Successful CMDB systems usually contain a variety of information and data in various repositories across your organization (known as “federated” data).    Relying on a single point of information sets you up for a slew of “data integrity and credibility” issues the first time your replicated data delivered from the single CMDB fuels incorrect decisions.  The key success factor here is to enable a comprehensive CMDB systems and processes that provide referential integrity and “metadata” pointing to the real,  “trusted sources” of the data where it resides – not trying to get it all in one place. 

Once you know where to get the real, trusted data and are able to refine your contextual mapping to business services, the challenge is to make transform the data to information and knowledge -  actionable to the decision making processes that consume it.

There are many other reasons that ITIL projects struggle… continue reading through Evergreen’s blogs, whitepapers and I’m sure you’ll find more… Hope this helps! 

Scott M. Davis Process Consultant

Evergreen Systems

512 983-6492

scott.davis@evergreensys.com

We’ve talked a lot in the last year about ITIL practice areas, ‘real world’ ITIL business problems and ITIL implementation challenges.  Now my question to all of you ITIL professionals out there is, are you ready to rock and roll?

 We’re experiencing incredible growth here at Evergreen and we’re actively recruiting all types of ITIL, ITSM, ServiceCenter and AssetCenter professionals.  We’re looking for:

• Senior ServiceCenter Solutions Architect
• ServiceCenter Consultant
• AssetCenter Consultant
• ITIL Consultant
• Project Manager
• IT Software Sales Consultant, SE
• IT Software Sales Consultant, SW
• Director of Professional Services

If you’re interested you can check out all of our new positions at:

http://www.evergreensys.com/company/careers/openings/

 As an HP Software ‘Gold’ partner, we’re developing our staff towards increasing capabilities in HP’s comprehensive suite of BTO (Business Technology Optimization) products that include all of the legacy Peregrine ServiceCenter and AssetCenter products, as well as the powerful legacy Mercury applications.

We know that good ITIL professionals are sought after right now, so sometimes candidates ask me, “Why should I work for Evergreen?”  This is what I tell them:

• We have an open and honest environment where we share the truth with our employees.  We hold an all hands “Town Hall” meeting every quarter to share our progress and challenges. Employees can ask any question — and get a straight answer.
• We have a culture of collaboration where we foster teamwork and deliver excellence. Our technical staff shares their knowledge and works together to meet tough challenges. 
• Our professionals focus on excellence and press the envelope to improve results for our clients. For proof you can just look at our website and the kinds of “real” research our team delivers.
• You can work on your career, doing what you like and growing your skills.  We’ll make sure your skills stay current, by maintaining your certifications at the latest levels.
• You can have a work/life balance at Evergreen. Travel is part of life in consulting, but we constantly strive to balance the needs of clients with what is best for our team so you can do what you enjoy and still have a life.
• We have excellent compensation and benefits.

I encourage you to check us out more on our web site ( http://www.evergreensys.com ) and if you think your skils match our requirements email us at careers@evergreensys.com

I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Don

We’ve been talking about change lifecycle management lately, so I thought it might be interesting to dissect the components of Change.

Key improvements in Change Management can be found in four phases – planning, approval, execution and review.  Most organizations tend to spend all their time in execution but there are valuable opportunities for improvement in other areas that are often overlooked.

In the area of Change Management planning, typical improvements come from:

• raising the bar for change approval (saying no to changes that are not justified).
• empowering those requesting the change to plan it.
• matching level of effort in change planning with the materiality of the proposed change.
• clarifying and communicating expectations related to change submission completion and lead times.

Most potential for gain in the Change Management Approval area will be uncovered by discussing the Change Approval process with those handling the IT Change Approval process.  Typical improvements come from:

• streamlining and routing approval processes based on risk and materiality.
• reducing approval activities by screening out unqualified requests.
• reducing time required by standardizing and improving the quality of the requests.
• planning work more efficiently by raising compliance with submission lead time standards.

Execution changes most often involve improving efficiencies by breaking down organization, process and communication barriers around ‘silos’ in IT. Typical improvements come from streamlining and reducing complexity by grouping similar workflows and reducing them to a manageable number. For example, all server upgrades are ‘essentially’ the same, yet many organizations have completely different workflows for each type of server platform.

Executing via common workflows makes the work of IT less customized and more replicable. Gains in efficiency, simplicity, accuracy and service quality are common, along with reductions in cost and risk. These improvements come from

• filtering approval processes based on the risk and materiality of the proposed change.
• reducing approval activities by screening out unqualified change requests.
• reducing work time required by standardizing and improving the quality of the requests.
• planning work more efficiently by getting staff to comply with change submission lead time standards.

The most potential for gain in the area of Change Management Review is usually uncovered by discussing the Change Review process with those performing the review work. For most organizations, effective change review is the most neglected change activity.

Changes that do not fail, but don’t perform well for some reason or other are rarely reviewed. Changes that fail during execution or illustrate themselves as software failures are obvious and should be considered separately. More subtle changes need to be examined separately and root causes examined. Changes that cause serious failures, often evidenced by unplanned downtime or worse, usually do receive in-depth analysis. These often result in major systematic course corrections, but only after the fact, when high costs have been incurred. Red flags should go up for changes that fail during initial execution, but more subtle changes should be investigated thoroughly as well. Many IT organizations operate reactively and thus ignore these more subtle changes, spending the majority of their time on reactive analysis.

Typical improvements come from better change review activities that reduce the number of failures and also reduce the number of changes that fail in execution, thereby reducing the number of ‘near’ failures.

Analysis of the findings in Change Management from the perspectives of basic re-engineering of key, high-volume workflows and key improvement points in each of the four phases of the Change Management lifecycle should point out clear opportunities for business value improvement. These include improvements in service quality, efficiency, accuracy and agility, and reductions in risks and costs.

Register for Evergreen Systems’ Change Management Webinar: Take Change Management from Firefighting to Fire Prevention.

- Don

One of the best places to start ‘changing change management’ is through classic business process re-engineering. These efforts show the greatest gains when looking at workflows that are more complex (have a greater number of steps and approvals) and cross three or more areas (silos) in going from start to finish. Organizations that have not base-lined and re-engineered the top five to six high-volume workflows in IT can see efficiency gains of up to 25-40%.

To calculate the value of re-engineering, select three high-volume workflows crossing three or more areas. Examples may include IT security approval processes, medium-level software programming changes (such as 20 to 40 hours of code development), IT procurement actions and server operating systems or database upgrades:

• Using a spreadsheet, interview those involved from end to end to create the ‘as-is’ process state. Review the workflow for unnecessary steps, duplicative activities, excessive manual activities, excessive delays and rework caused by inaccuracies and errors due to poor end-to-end understanding and communication.
• Build the desired state by devising the most simple, streamlined approach to meet the business requirements and assume the use of basic Change Management technology to automate communications and workflow.
• Measure the expected change in efficiency and elapsed time.

This kind of measurable gain can go a long way in convincing executive management to invest in re-engineering change management in your IT organization.

I’d love to hear how you calculate business gains from re-engineered change processes in your organization.

Also, Don’t forget to register for Evergreen’s change management webinar: Take Change Management from Firefighting to Fire Prevention

Joe

We hear a lot of talk these days about KPAs and ITIL process areas. KPAs (Key Process Areas) are used to help develop and measure the benchmarked standards of ITIL and are a good way of measuring your organization’s ‘maturity’ level within an ITIL process area (such as Configuration Management

KPAs apply to a repeatable maturity level. In the Infrastructure Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a repeatable maturity level means that the most important processes have been introduced and the effective structure of the IT process in question is predictable, and the provision of its IT-related services is repeatable.

So what about KPAs associated with Configuration Management? The main purpose of Configuration Management is to establish and maintain the integrity of products that are subject to or part of IT services. Configuration Management involves the identification of the relevant hardware and software components that need to be put under configuration control. Changes to the configuration are evaluated with respect to the service level agreement and with respect to possible risks for the integrity of the configuration.

A Configuration Management plan covers the Configuration Management activities to be performed, the schedule of the activities, the assigned responsibilities, the resources required (including staff, tools and computer facilities) and the CM requirements and activities to be performed by the service delivery group and other related groups

With all these things in mind, you may be able to develop and benchmark your Configuration Management KPAs using the following questions. Remember that each question has three possible answers of (1) consistently (2) inconsistently (3) never. Which category your answers fall into will quickly steer your assessment of configuration management maturity as either consistent (repeatable), inconsistent or having no organized approach

Try your hand at some of these questions and see how your organization ranks against best practices.

Keep up the good work until next time.

Also, Don’t forget to register for Evergreen’s change management webinar: Take Change Management from Firefighting to Fire Prevention

Don

• Is a Configuration Management plan prepared for each service according to a documented procedure?
• Is a documented and approved Configuration Management plan used as the basis for performing the Configuration Management activities?
• Is a Configuration Management library system established as a repository for the configuration base lines?
• Are the products to be placed under Configuration Management identified?
• Are action items for all configuration items/units initiated, recorded, reviewed, approved, and tracked to closure according to a documented procedure?
• Are action items for all configuration items/units initiated, recorded, reviewed, approved, and tracked to closure according to a documented procedure, by an automated process or toolset?