Going for the Gold: Continual Service Improvement

During the Summer Olympics of 2008, swimmer Michael Phelps made history by winning eight gold medals, the most ever won by an athlete in a single Olympics.  You may ask yourself, “How is this possible?”  In a sport where the difference between a gold-medal performance and a last place finish in the final heat is a mere 5 seconds (or less), Michael Phelps demonstrates the kind of vision and relentless pursuit of excellence that continual improvement requires.

What does a relentless pursuit of excellence in Continual Service Improvement mean for organizations?  It means constantly finding and implementing ways to improve service delivery for users and customers.  Continual Service Improvement transcends the entire service lifecycle within ITIL v3, which includes: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition and Service Operation.  Continual Service Improvement within all service lifecycle processes results in significantly more robust services and better service delivery.

When developing a Continual Service Improvement Plan, the following key questions can assist an organization in obtaining an excellent start to service improvement:

1. What is the vision?   Business vision, mission, goals and objectives
2. Where are we now?  Self-assessments, internal and external audits
3. Where do we want to be?  Realistic and measureable service targets
4. How do we get there?  Service and process improvement
5. Did we get there?  Measurements and metrics
6. How do keep the momentum going?  Service Management as a program

Asking these questions will assist in laying a strong foundation for a Continual Service Improvement Plan. In addition to these key questions, ITIL v3 recommends that an organization implement the following seven-step improvement process, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Seven-Step Improvement Process

For example, here’s how you might apply these steps to develop a medal-winning swim coaching service

Define what you should measure

Each swimmer must get specific in understanding the exact tasks and metrics associated with the racing process: the timing for diving into the pool, the time for each lap, and the total race completion times, measurements of his speed and distance at specific points in time, etc.  The coach and swimmer must answer the following question, ‘Where are we now?’The same is true for an organization; you must determine where the organization initially stands in service delivery to determine what you should measure and when you should measure it.

Define what you can measure

Once the coach and the swimmer define all possible performance measurements that should be tracked, next they further fine tune what realistically can be measured and managed effectively. This will assist the swimmer and the coach to answer the question, ‘Where do we want to be?’ and offer a realistic way to define the performance goal.Organizations should also realize the need to focus on metrics that can be measured instead of trying to measure metrics that are not possible to measure or provide little or no value to supporting and improving the service. If you can’t measure it, then you will not be able to manage it, and if you cannot manage it, then you cannot improve it.

Gather the data

Each swimmer and his coach need to gather at least three months of data so they can properly answer the question, ‘Did we get there?’ This data will eventually become meaningful information that will assist them in determining the factors that can improve the swimmer’s overall performance. The data serves as a baseline to reference and compare at specific points in time for the service, but at this point, the data is raw and no conclusions are drawn.

Process the data

All data for the past three months of the swimmer’s performance is processed, rationalized and organized, so it can eventually provide meaning and value.For organizations, you need at least six months of data before proceeding to step five, analyzing the data, in order to create any valid trending information that can be of use for the organization and that will realistically identify actionable steps for execution to improve the service.

Analyze the data

Analyzing the data will be essential to identify trends and factors that influence each swimmer’s swimming performance. It will also assist in determining what factors are instrumental during his six months that improved his performance, such as eating, training and resting habits.The same is true for an organization that is interested in identifying factors that hinder or improve the service performance being delivered by the organization.

Present and use the information

The coach presents to the swimmer the information from a six-month period in a very useful and powerful manner so both the swimmer and the coach know what factors need to be executed to achieve superior swimming performance to achieve world records and gold medals. Here the answer to ‘Did we get there?’ is formatted and presented in the most appropriate manner to convey an accurate picture of the results of the improvement efforts.

Implement

The coach and the swimmer then implement corrective action by eliminating factors that hinder swimming performance and executing the key factors that lead to superior performance.  When executed well, the results of this relentless pursuit of excellence and continual improvement process (combined with some talent and a bit of luck) can make history!Once an organization identifies all factors that lead to superior service it can then execute its service strategy and achieve unsurpassed satisfaction and superior quality service for its customers.  Like a well-trained athlete, organizations can implement corrective actions to improve services and establish a new, improved service baseline from which it can repeat the improvement cycle to improve service even more.

Alex Hernandez is a qualified ISO/IEC 20000 certified consultant and ITIL Expert at Plexent, an IT service management (ITSM) company and leading provider of ITSM-focused intellectual property.  www.plexent.com