Example. One large company started with the implementation of all service management processes

One large company started with the implementation of all service management processes. Senior management never answered the question why all these processes should be implemented. It sounded like a good thing to do: ‘Everybody else is doing service management so why don’t we?’. After two years the whole project had to be stopped because customers were complaining about poor service. It was decided to restart the service management project. This time senior management decided to implement only a part of service management (the processes where the pain was most felt) and there was an assessment conducted to provide a baseline of results for future comparison.

Benchmarking techniques can be applied at various levels from relatively straightforward in-house comparisons through to an industry-wide search for best practice. It comprises four basic stages: planning, analysis, action and review. Or better yet, let’s apply the improvement process to benchmarking.

• What should we measure?
• Select the broad service or service management process or function to benchmark (such as Service Desk) in relation to stakeholder needs.
• Draw up a preliminary list of potential benchmarking partners (these may be within the organization or outside).
• Identify possible sources of information and methods of collection to confirm the suitability of potential partners.
• What can we measure?
• Within that process, define the activities to be benchmarked (such as incident lifecycle).
• Identify the resources required for the study.
• Confirm the key performance measures or indicators to measure the performance in carrying out the activity.
• Document the way the activities are currently completed.
• Agree the plan and its implementation.
• Gathering:
• Collect information to identify the most likely potential benchmarking partner to contact.
• Processing
• Analysing:
• Confirm the best potential benchmarking partner and make a preliminary assessment of the performance gap.
• Establish contacts and visits, if appropriate, to validate and substantiate the information.
• Compare the existing process with that of the benchmarking partner to identify differences and innovations.
• Agree targets for improvement that are expected as a result of adopting the benchmarking partner’s ways of doing things.
• Presenting and using:
• Communicate the results of the study throughout the relevant parts of the organization and to the benchmarking partner.
• Plan how to achieve the improvements.
• Taking corrective action:
• Review performance when the changes have been embedded in the organization.
• Identify and rectify anything which may have caused the organization to fall short of its target.
• Communicate the results of the changes implemented to the organization and the benchmarking partner.
• Consider benchmarking again to continue the improvement process.

Ideally, benchmark reviews should be built into an ongoing service management lifecycle so that regularly scheduled review s or benchmarks are conducted. The formality and rigour with which they are conducted will vary depending on the environment, the rate of business change, the complexity of the environment and the elapsed time since the last review. Conducting these reviews regularly provides valuable metric s and trend analysis with which to judge improvements (or lack thereof) and take corrective action as early as possible to maximize performance gains.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-02