ITILv3 Continuous Service Improvement - How moving from Deming to CEMM™ can greatly enhance customer service © Theo Priestley 2009

ITILv3 completely redefines Service Management concepts as a cycle of management best practices which interestingly includes Continuous Service Improvement. This specific area within the new framework looks to drive improvement throughout the service management lifecycle, encompassing the other 4 disciplines rather than being tagged on at the end as an afterthought.

However, throughout the five publications are concepts which have been around in Change Management and Business Transformation for some time (for example, the V-Model is originally a Testing concept and incorporated in the ISEB framework for years) and certainly in the CSI tome Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle have survived for over 60 years since post-war Japan.

But for 21st century Service Management is it still relevant ? I would argue not.

Whilst much of the world has moved on and embraced newer methods, this represents a step back for Service Management methods. Examining the 7-Step Improvement Process in some detail reveals that it's focused to the point there's very little mention at all of the end-user or 'internal' customer we're trying to service. In fact, the CSI publication itself is 308 pages long and contains so much information, archaic examples and without an overarching framework for support it there's a risk of analysis-paralysis and any improvement efforts likely to be abandoned because of the amount of effort required for a small efficiency gain.

If we take CEMM (Customer Expectation Management Methodology) as a concept to replace Deming's PDCA cycle, there's a proven set of techniques which rapidly gives up to 60% efficiency and productivity gains by concentrating on the most important aspects of ANY service: achieving a Successful Customer Outcome (the SCO).

There is no need for numerous reports for stats on performance or productivity. CEMM concentrates on examining those common factors which lead to inefficiency. Break Points, Moments of Truth, Business Rules are all there to slow down a process, create points where the process will fail and generate additional work which simply is not necessary to fulfil a service request.

CSI suggests looking into Six Sigma, Lean, CMMI and other concepts to continually improve the framework. But these methods require years of training and experience, not to mention significant cost to implement or buy in resource (who will be trained in these disciplines but not in ITIL!)

CEMM is a proven rapid deployment improvement method. It focuses on business goals and the Customer and as such does not require technical understanding of Minitab or statistical tools like Six Sigma does. Because of this, CEMM takes a business person and trains them on a business discipline which improves business processes.

IT Service Management exists to support the business satisfy a Customer request. By improving the service and tools with which it resolves issues impacting someone else fulfilling their SCO, in reality proves that ITSM is as important as any other customer-facing process, supporting the enterprise goal by achieving the SCO which starts from deep within the organisation.

Contact Theo at theopriestley@mac.com

Theo's Web Site : http://www.processmaverick.com/Process2010.html

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