- Management Reference Guide
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Strategic Management
- Establishing Goals, Objectives, and Strategies
- Aligning IT Goals with Corporate Business Goals
- Utilizing Effective Planning Techniques
- Developing Worthwhile Mission Statements
- Developing Worthwhile Vision Statements
- Instituting Practical Corporate Values
- Budgeting Considerations in an IT Environment
- Introduction to Conducting an Effective SWOT Analysis
- IT Governance and Disaster Recovery, Part One
- IT Governance and Disaster Recovery, Part Two
- Customer Management
- Identifying Key External Customers
- Identifying Key Internal Customers
- Negotiating with Customers and Suppliers—Part 1: An Introduction
- Negotiating With Customers and Suppliers—Part 2: Reaching Agreement
- Negotiating and Managing Realistic Customer Expectations
- Service Management
- Identifying Key Services for Business Users
- Service-Level Agreements That Really Work
- How IT Evolved into a Service Organization
- FAQs About Systems Management (SM)
- FAQs About Availability (AV)
- FAQs About Performance and Tuning (PT)
- FAQs About Service Desk (SD)
- FAQs About Change Management (CM)
- FAQs About Configuration Management (CF)
- FAQs About Capacity Planning (CP)
- FAQs About Network Management
- FAQs About Storage Management (SM)
- FAQs About Production Acceptance (PA)
- FAQs About Release Management (RM)
- FAQs About Disaster Recovery (DR)
- FAQs About Business Continuity (BC)
- FAQs About Security (SE)
- FAQs About Service Level Management (SL)
- FAQs About Financial Management (FN)
- FAQs About Problem Management (PM)
- FAQs About Facilities Management (FM)
- Process Management
- Developing Robust Processes
- Establishing Mutually Beneficial Process Metrics
- Change Management—Part 1
- Change Management—Part 2
- Change Management—Part 3
- Audit Reconnaissance: Releasing Resources Through the IT Audit
- Problem Management
- Problem Management–Part 2: Process Design
- Problem Management–Part 3: Process Implementation
- Business Continuity Emergency Communications Plan
- Capacity Planning – Part One: Why It is Seldom Done Well
- Capacity Planning – Part Two: Developing a Capacity Planning Process
- Capacity Planning — Part Three: Benefits and Helpful Tips
- Capacity Planning – Part Four: Hidden Upgrade Costs and
- Improving Business Process Management, Part 1
- Improving Business Process Management, Part 2
- 20 Major Elements of Facilities Management
- Major Physical Exposures Common to a Data Center
- Evaluating the Physical Environment
- Nightmare Incidents with Disaster Recovery Plans
- Developing a Robust Configuration Management Process
- Developing a Robust Configuration Management Process – Part Two
- Automating a Robust Infrastructure Process
- Improving High Availability — Part One: Definitions and Terms
- Improving High Availability — Part Two: Definitions and Terms
- Improving High Availability — Part Three: The Seven R's of High Availability
- Improving High Availability — Part Four: Assessing an Availability Process
- Methods for Brainstorming and Prioritizing Requirements
- Introduction to Disk Storage Management — Part One
- Storage Management—Part Two: Performance
- Storage Management—Part Three: Reliability
- Storage Management—Part Four: Recoverability
- Twelve Traits of World-Class Infrastructures — Part One
- Twelve Traits of World-Class Infrastructures — Part Two
- Meeting Today's Cooling Challenges of Data Centers
- Strategic Security, Part One: Assessment
- Strategic Security, Part Two: Development
- Strategic Security, Part Three: Implementation
- Strategic Security, Part Four: ITIL Implications
- Production Acceptance Part One – Definition and Benefits
- Production Acceptance Part Two – Initial Steps
- Production Acceptance Part Three – Middle Steps
- Production Acceptance Part Four – Ongoing Steps
- Case Study: Planning a Service Desk Part One – Objectives
- Case Study: Planning a Service Desk Part Two – SWOT
- Case Study: Implementing an ITIL Service Desk – Part One
- Case Study: Implementing a Service Desk Part Two – Tool Selection
- Ethics, Scandals and Legislation
- Outsourcing in Response to Legislation
- Supplier Management
- Identifying Key External Suppliers
- Identifying Key Internal Suppliers
- Integrating the Four Key Elements of Good Customer Service
- Enhancing the Customer/Supplier Matrix
- Voice Over IP, Part One — What VoIP Is, and Is Not
- Voice Over IP, Part Two — Benefits, Cost Savings and Features of VoIP
- Application Management
- Production Acceptance
- Distinguishing New Applications from New Versions of Existing Applications
- Assessing a Production Acceptance Process
- Effective Use of a Software Development Life Cycle
- The Role of Project Management in SDLC— Part 2
- Communication in Project Management – Part One: Barriers to Effective Communication
- Communication in Project Management – Part Two: Examples of Effective Communication
- Safeguarding Personal Information in the Workplace: A Case Study
- Combating the Year-end Budget Blitz—Part 1: Building a Manageable Schedule
- Combating the Year-end Budget Blitz—Part 2: Tracking and Reporting Availability
- References
- Developing an ITIL Feasibility Analysis
- Organization and Personnel Management
- Optimizing IT Organizational Structures
- Factors That Influence Restructuring Decisions
- Alternative Locations for the Help Desk
- Alternative Locations for Database Administration
- Alternative Locations for Network Operations
- Alternative Locations for Web Design
- Alternative Locations for Risk Management
- Alternative Locations for Systems Management
- Practical Tips To Retaining Key Personnel
- Benefits and Drawbacks of Using IT Consultants and Contractors
- Deciding Between the Use of Contractors versus Consultants
- Managing Employee Skill Sets and Skill Levels
- Assessing Skill Levels of Current Onboard Staff
- Recruiting Infrastructure Staff from the Outside
- Selecting the Most Qualified Candidate
- 7 Tips for Managing the Use of Mobile Devices
- Useful Websites for IT Managers
- References
- Automating Robust Processes
- Evaluating Process Documentation — Part One: Quality and Value
- Evaluating Process Documentation — Part Two: Benefits and Use of a Quality-Value Matrix
- When Should You Integrate or Segregate Service Desks?
- Five Instructive Ideas for Interviewing
- Eight Surefire Tips to Use When Being Interviewed
- 12 Helpful Hints To Make Meetings More Productive
- Eight Uncommon Tips To Improve Your Writing
- Ten Helpful Tips To Improve Fire Drills
- Sorting Out Today’s Various Training Options
- Business Ethics and Corporate Scandals – Part 1
- Business Ethics and Corporate Scandals – Part 2
- 12 Tips for More Effective Emails
- Management Communication: Back to the Basics, Part One
- Management Communication: Back to the Basics, Part Two
- Management Communication: Back to the Basics, Part Three
- Asset Management
- Managing Hardware Inventories
- Introduction to Hardware Inventories
- Processes To Manage Hardware Inventories
- Use of a Hardware Inventory Database
- References
- Managing Software Inventories
- Business Continuity Management
- Ten Lessons Learned from Real-Life Disasters
- Ten Lessons Learned From Real-Life Disasters, Part 2
- Differences Between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity , Part 1
- Differences Between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity , Part 2
- 15 Common Terms and Definitions of Business Continuity
- The Federal Government’s Role in Disaster Recovery
- The 12 Common Mistakes That Cause BIAs To Fail—Part 1
- The 12 Common Mistakes That Cause BIAs To Fail—Part 2
- The 12 Common Mistakes That Cause BIAs To Fail—Part 3
- The 12 Common Mistakes That Cause BIAs To Fail—Part 4
- Conducting an Effective Table Top Exercise (TTE) — Part 1
- Conducting an Effective Table Top Exercise (TTE) — Part 2
- Conducting an Effective Table Top Exercise (TTE) — Part 3
- Conducting an Effective Table Top Exercise (TTE) — Part 4
- The 13 Cardinal Steps for Implementing a Business Continuity Program — Part One
- The 13 Cardinal Steps for Implementing a Business Continuity Program — Part Two
- The 13 Cardinal Steps for Implementing a Business Continuity Program — Part Three
- The 13 Cardinal Steps for Implementing a Business Continuity Program — Part Four
- The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
- The Origins of ITIL
- The Foundation of ITIL: Service Management
- Five Reasons for Revising ITIL
- The Relationship of Service Delivery and Service Support to All of ITIL
- Ten Common Myths About Implementing ITIL, Part One
- Ten Common Myths About Implementing ITIL, Part Two
- Characteristics of ITIL Version 3
- Ten Benefits of itSMF and its IIL Pocket Guide
- Translating the Goals of the ITIL Service Delivery Processes
- Translating the Goals of the ITIL Service Support Processes
- Elements of ITIL Least Understood, Part One: Service Delivery Processes
- Case Study: Recovery Reactions to a Renegade Rodent
- Elements of ITIL Least Understood, Part Two: Service Support
- Case Studies
- Case Study — Preparing for Hurricane Charley
- Case Study — The Linux Decision
- Case Study — Production Acceptance at an Aerospace Firm
- Case Study — Production Acceptance at a Defense Contractor
- Case Study — Evaluating Mainframe Processes
- Case Study — Evaluating Recovery Sites, Part One: Quantitative Comparisons/Natural Disasters
- Case Study — Evaluating Recovery Sites, Part Two: Quantitative Comparisons/Man-made Disasters
- Case Study — Evaluating Recovery Sites, Part Three: Qualitative Comparisons
- Case Study — Evaluating Recovery Sites, Part Four: Take-Aways
- Disaster Recovery Test Case Study Part One: Planning
- Disaster Recovery Test Case Study Part Two: Planning and Walk-Through
- Disaster Recovery Test Case Study Part Three: Execution
- Disaster Recovery Test Case Study Part Four: Follow-Up
- Assessing the Robustness of a Vendor’s Data Center, Part One: Qualitative Measures
- Assessing the Robustness of a Vendor’s Data Center, Part Two: Quantitative Measures
- Case Study: Lessons Learned from a World-Wide Disaster Recovery Exercise, Part One: What Did the Team Do Well
- (d) Case Study: Lessons Learned from a World-Wide Disaster Recovery Exercise, Part Two
One of the best ways to ensure excellent customer service is to consistently meet or exceed the expectations of your key customers. While this may sound like an obvious and almost trite statement, it incorporates some valuable aspects of customer service that IT professionals often overlook or choose to ignore. The statement touches on three separate but highly critical activities:
Knowing who your key customers are is an identification activity.
Agreeing on expectations of your customers is a negotiation activity.
Consistently meeting or exceeding expectations is a measurement activity.
Each of these activities requires different skills and disciplines. The identification activity is the topic of this section. The upcoming section on service levels covers the subject of negotiation. That section, in concert with the section on process metrics, describes measurement activities.
In transitioning to a service-oriented environment, infrastructure professionals sometimes struggle with identifying who their key customers are. These IT professionals frequently rationalize that since most company employees in one way or another use IT services, then all company employees must be their key customers. There is an inherent problem of practicality with this approach. The best method to know and understand who your customers are and what they expect is to personally meet and interview them. But it simply is not practical or even possible to meet with hundreds of individuals on a regular basis.
But one technique can give you almost the same results as interviewing large numbers of customers: identifying key, representative customers of your services. These key customers can then provide you with meaningful information about the quality of services you provide; the services they truly need; their expectations of your services; and to what degree you are meeting, exceeding, or missing their expectations.
Usually just a small number of key representative customers can serve as a barometer for good customer service and effective process improvements. For example, an operations group responsible for restoring files that users may have accidentally deleted doesn't need to interview every user to gauge the quality of their needs. Knowing how to identify a small, representative group of users can save time and effort in measuring the true value of what an IT department provides.
I developed this key customer identification process while heading up the main IT infrastructure department at Northrop Grumman. The process evolved into what we called a customer/supplier matrix (CSM). It was so effective and successful that it eventually became a corporate standard for the entire company.
TIP
In defense contracting, this is no small accomplishment. Standards at defense contractors are firmly set by defense department auditors, military specialists, and corporate compliance people.
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Customer/Supplier Matrix |
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Key Customers |
Key Services |
Key Processes |
Key Suppliers |
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Customers whose use of IT services is critical to their success and whose expectations are reasonable |
Described in the section "Service Management" |
Described in the section "Process Management" |
Described in the section "Supplier Management" |
One of the reasons that the CSM is so successful is its simplicity. It basically directs you to learn all of the following:
Who your customers are (key customers)
What services they need (key services)
What processes provide these services (key processes)
What suppliers feed into these processes (key suppliers)
Key customers are customers whose use of IT services is critical to their success and whose expectations are reasonable. Key services and processes pertain to both external and internal customers, just as the key suppliers pertain to both external and internal suppliers. (I'll focus on key customers here, and discuss key services, processes, and suppliers in later sections.)
The next part of this section describes criteria that can be used to identify key external customers. In this case, external customers are defined as users of IT services that reside outside the IT department. These individuals may be within or outside of the company, but in either event they aren't a direct part of IT.
Criteria for Identifying Key External Customers
There are various criteria to help in determining which of your numerous customers qualify as key external customers. While these criteria are applicable to most IT environments, an IT department should determine those criteria that are most suitable for identifying the key customers in their particular environment. The following criteria are useful in most IT environments for identifying the key external customers of an IT organization.
Someone whose success critically depends on the services you provide. Infrastructure groups typically serve a variety of departments in a company. Some departments are more essential to the core business of the company than others, just as some applications are considered mission-critical and others aren't. The heads or designated leads of these departments are usually good candidates for key customer status.
Someone who, when satisfied, assures your success as an organization. Some individuals hold positions of influence in a company and can help market the credibility of an infrastructure organization. These customers may be in significant staff positions such as those found in legal or public affairs departments. The high visibility of these positions may afford them the opportunity to highlight IT infrastructure achievements to other non–IT departments. These achievements could include high availability of online systems or reliable restorations of inadvertently deleted data.
Someone who fairly and thoroughly represents large customer organizations. The very nature of some of the services provided by IT infrastructures results in these services being used by a large majority of a company's workforce. These highly used services include email, Internet, and intranet services. An analysis of the volume of use of these services by departments can determine which groups are using which services the most. The heads or designated leads of these departments would likely be good key customer candidates.
Someone who—or whose organization—frequently uses your services. Some departments are major users of IT services by nature of their relationship within a company. In an airline, it may be the department in charge of the reservation system. For a company supplying overnight package deliveries, the key department may be the one overseeing the package tracking system. During the time I headed the primary IT infrastructure groups at a leading defense contractor and later at a motion picture studio, I witnessed firsthand the key IT user departments—design engineering (defense contractor) and theatrical distribution (motion picture company). Representatives from each of these groups were solid key customer candidates.
Someone who constructively and objectively critiques the quality of your services. It's possible that a key customer is part of a department that doesn't have a critical need for or high-volume use of IT services. A non-critical and low-volume user may qualify as a key customer because of a keen insight into how an infrastructure could effectively improve its services. These individuals typically have both the ability and the willingness to offer candid, constructive criticism about how best to improve IT services.
Someone who has significant business impact on your company as a corporation. Marketing or sales department representatives in a manufacturing firm may include key customers of this type. In aerospace or defense contracting companies, it may be advanced technology groups. The common thread among these key customers is that their use of IT services can greatly advance the business position of the corporation. For many other companies, particularly those involved with e-commerce, these customers are the actual buyers of the products or services marketed by the company.
Someone with whom you have mutually agreed-upon reasonable expectations. Most infrastructure users, both internal and external to either IT or its company, may qualify as key customers if the customer and the IT infrastructure representative have mutually agreed-upon reasonable expectations. Conversely, customers whose expectations are not reasonable should usually be excluded as key customers. The old adage about the squeaky wheel getting the grease does not always apply in this case—often just the reverse turns out to be the case. In many cases, managers understandably dismiss customers with the loud voices who insist on unreasonable expectations. These managers appropriately favor listening to the constructive voices of more realistic users.
These seven criteria apply to any IT environment, regardless of size, scope, platforms, locations, or maturity levels. The primary issue in applying any of these criteria is to couple the identification of these key external customers with the services they use.
References
IT Systems Management: Designing, Implementing, and Managing World-Class Infrastructures (Prentice Hall PTR, 2002, ISBN 013087678X), by Rich Schiesser.