9   Challenges, risks and critical success factors

9.1     CHALLENGES

Every organization has its unique set of challenges. As with implementing any type of change within an organization, one of the major challenges is managing the behavioural changes required.

Another issue is that continual service improvement (CSI) often requires adequate tools for monitoring and gathering the data, analysing the data for trends and reporting on the data. CSI does not happen only through automation but also requires resources to be allocated to CSI activities. Those allocating resources need to understand their roles and responsibilities and have the correct skill sets to execute the CSI activities.

These are some of the common challenges you may encounter when implementing CSI:

  Lack of management commitment

  Inadequate resources, budget and time

  Lack of mature service management processes

  Lack of information, monitoring and measurements

  Lack of knowledge management

  A resistance to planning and a reluctance to be proved wrong

  Lack of corporate objectives, strategies, policies and business direction

  Lack of IT objectives, strategies and policies

  Lack of knowledge and appreciation of business impacts and priorities

  Diverse and disparate technologies and applications

  Resistance to change and cultural change

  Poor relationships and communication, and lack of cooperation between IT and the business

  Lack of tools, standards and skills

  Tools too complex and costly to implement and maintain

  Over-commitment of resources with an associated inability to deliver (e.g. projects always late or over budget)

  Poor supplier management and/or poor supplier performance.

9.2     CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

These are some critical success factors (CSFs):

  Appointing a CSI manager

  Adopting CSI within the organization

  Management commitment – ongoing, visible participation in CSI activities such as creating vision for CSI, communicating vision, direction setting and decision-making, when appropriate

  Defining clear criteria for prioritizing improvement projects

  Adopting the service lifecycle approach

  Having sufficient and ongoing funding for CSI activities

  Resource allocation – people dedicated to the improvement effort not as just another add-on to their already long list of tasks to perform

  Technology supporting the CSI activities

  Adopting processes – embracing service management processes instead of adapting it to suit their own personal needs and agenda.

9.3     RISKS

These are some risks:

  Being over-ambitious – don’t try to improve everything at once; be realistic with timelines and expectations

  Not discussing improvement opportunities with the business – the business has to be involved in improvement decisions that will impact it

  Not focusing on improving both services and service management processes

  Not prioritizing improvement projects

  Implementing CSI with little or no technology

  Implementing a CSI initiative with no resources – this means that people must be allocated and dedicated to this

  Implementing CSI without knowledge transfer and training – this means educating first (acquire knowledge), then training (practise using the newly acquired knowledge); training should be undertaken as close to the launch of improvement as possible

  Not performing all steps of the seven-step improvement process – it is important that all steps of the improvement process are followed; missing any one step can lead to a poor decision on what and how to improve

  Lack of making strategic, tactical or operational decisions based on knowledge gained – reports are actually used; people see that the reports are being used

  Lack of management taking action on recommended service improvement opportunities

  Lack of meeting personnel in the business to understand new business requirements

  Lack of communication/awareness campaign for any improvement, or it is late or missing altogether

  Not involving the right people at all levels to plan, build, test and implement the improvement

  Removing testing before implementation or only partially testing so all aspects of the improvement (people, process and technology) must be tested, including the documentation.

9.4     SUMMARY

Implementing CSI is not an easy task: it requires a change in management and staff attitudes and values that continual improvement is something that needs to be carried out proactively and not reactively.

Identifying the risks and challenges before implementing CSI is a critical first step. A SWOT analysis (examining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) can help identify these items. It is important to define mitigation strategies for the risks and identify how to best overcome challenges that an organization may encounter.

Knowing the CSFs before undertaking CSI implementation will help manage the risks and challenges. Don’t try to change everything at once.