Contributions for the October Issue of The Best Practice Magazine
Submit your article about (EDP) Engineering and Developing Products; (TS) Technical Solution & (PI) Product Integration for next month’s issue of The Demix Best Practice Magazine.
Send your Articles / Presentations / Tools to info@demix.org
(DMS) Delivering and Managing Services – (SDM) Service Delivery Management & (STSM) Strategic Service Management
This CA focuses on developing the capability to deliver agreed-upon services, deploying new or modified services, and establishing a portfolio of services.
(SDM) Service Delivery Management:
Intent Deliver services and manage the service delivery system.
Value Increase customer satisfaction by delivering that meet or exceed customer expectations.
Additional Required PA Information This includes:
*Delivering services in accordance with service delivery approaches and agreements *Managing changes to the service delivery system *Receiving and processing service requests *Maintaining service delivery performance when changes occur
(STSM) Strategic Service Management:
Intent Develop and deploy standard services that are compatible with strategic business needs and plans.
Value Increases likelihood of meeting business objectives by aligning standards services with customer needs.
Additional Required PA Information This includes:
*Analyzing capabilities and needs for services that can span multiple customers and agreements. *Developing and keeping updated standard services, service levels, and descriptions that reflect these capabilities and needs.
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Agile – (DMS) Delivering and Managing Services – (SDM) Service Delivery Management & (STSM) Strategic Service Management
Try searching the internet for Agile Service Delivery and you will find pages and pages of learned papers, blog posts and channel articles.
It is certainly a much written about topic for MSPs and service organisations. Everyone pitching in with how you can take the “Agile Manifesto” and related frameworks, terms and methods developed for software development and apply them to service delivery.
Great, but actually much of this stuff reads in a surprisingly abstract way, underpinned of course by strict adherence to the use of the approved terminology so loved by agile practitioners.
So, rather than add to the body of esoteric and quite frankly, often quasi-religious, writing on the subject, we thought we’d summarise Agile Service Delivery into a cookbook of basics that are simple to understand. Plus, as this is a PSA blog, we identify what you need to look for in a PSA tool that will underpin your becoming more agile in your service delivery.
So for those who don’t have this memorised, the Agile Manifesto can be summarised as:
Value individuals and interactions over process and tools; Value working software over perfect documentation; Value customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and Value responding over planning
Software development is a difficult business where certain misunderstandings in communication can cause a lot of problems. Everyone who has ever worked in this industry has made certain rookie mistakes that they’re not proud of. Especially when it comes to agreeing on project specifics with the client and setting up deadlines.
Technical know-how is rarely an issue in this business. In most situations, software development companies have (or know how to find) skilled personnel that are able to overcome all tech-related obstacles and produce working prototypes based on the info they receive from their managers or directly from clients. Most of the problems in software development arise when the project team lead/manager doesn’t do a good enough job of locking down all the details with the client and ensuring that they fully understand all the elements and phases of the development process. If these two parties don’t find a common tongue and agree on all the details, the project is destined to fail.
Most organizations today are in a constant state of flux as they respond to the fast-moving external business environment, local and global economies, and technological advancement. This means that workplace processes, systems, and strategies must continuously change and evolve for an organization to remain competitive. Change affects your most important asset, your people. Losing employees is costly due to the associated recruitment costs and the time involved getting new employees up to speed. Each time an employee walks out the door, essential intimate knowledge of your business leaves with them.
WHAT IS EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT? A change management plan can support a smooth transition and ensure your employees are guided through the change journey. The harsh fact is that approximately 70 percent of change initiatives fail due to negative employee attitudes and unproductive management behavior. Using the services of a professional change management consultant could ensure you are in the winning 30 percent.
In this article, PulseLearning presents six key steps to effective organizational change management.
In a highly competitive market, service-based businesses need to capitalize on any opportunity to set themselves apart from their (often very similar) competitors. While implementation, system details, and service management are all important, perhaps the best way to distinguish your business is to foster strong customer relationships based on the quality of your service. Below we outline a few ways to drive growth in your company by re-committing to exceptional service delivery:
Err on the Side of Communication When it comes to customers, there’s no such thing as over-communication — your clients feel more comfortable when they know what’s going on. That being said, the amount of communication is not so imperative as the timeliness, its context, and its ability to clearly identify the value addition to the client. In a world of constant connectivity, your ability to cut through the flood of subpar information with quality and timely answers can go a long way.
Define Everything Service definition is vital to service management. You need to make sure that you and your customer are on the same page regarding what to expect (or not expect) from your service offerings. This includes what your services do and don’t encompass, eligibility, potential limitations, costs, how to get assistance when needed, and more.
This level of definition shouldn’t stop with the customer — the best service organizations also clearly delineate any internal efforts needed to provide and support their service.
“How can we do more with less?” This was one of the big questions that many attendees were asking at the recent HDI Conference and Expo, which focuses on IT service and support.
In the opening session of the conference, HDI—which provides related research and services—shared its research findings regarding the top 10 goals and challenges of support organizations.
Three of the top 10 findings were about optimization:
No. 1: Managing an increased workload with existing staff (doing more with less)
Please utilize the free tests at https://demix.org/tests to assess your or your ATMs’ knowledge of CMMI. We are now using it to help our Certified CMMI Associate applicants prepare for their tests. Any suggestions for improvements will also be appreciated (send to info@demix.org)
Attention all Lead appraisers
Send us an email with the Subject: Appraisal Plan and we will send you the Demix Appraisal Plan.XLSX tool. It provides wonderful features to simplify your appraisal planning.
