Economic Recession – Right Time for Training and Certification

In boom time, training and certification may lead to salary increase. Obviously, the direct impact of training is improved or higher skills for the person and hence leading to higher productivity in their job. Higher productivity and job performance often leads to promotion to a more senior or responsible position and that implies more salary.

However, in an economic downturn, salary is often frozen or cut. That does not mean a person should not invest in training and certification. In fact, it may be even more important! Training and professional certifications, like IT certifications, provides better job security. If the worst should happen and a person needs to look for a new job, IT certifications make the person more marketable in the talent marketplace.

Having a recognised certification can be your differentiator to clinch that job. IT training and certification like PMP, ITIL Foundation or ITIL Expert is widely recognised. Some employers actually specify PMP or ITIL certification in their job advertisements. For new or fresh graduates without relevant job experience, this could be your differentiator over your cohort and makes you stand out from the rest.

A good example can be seen in Singapore. The Singapore government truly recognises the importance of training and certification, more so in an economic downturn. Hence the introduction of initiatives such as SPUR and CITREP. CITREP (Critical Infocomm Technology Resource Programme) is a training incentive programme to equip Singapore infocomm professionals with critical and emerging skills, thus enabling them to enhance their employability and to improve their organisations' competitive advantage. ITIL trainings, leading to approved ITIL certification, are included in this programme. Up to 80% of training and certification fees are reimbursed to the students when they complete the trainings and obtained their certifications.

SPUR (Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience) is an enhanced funding support scheme that help employers cut cost and save jobs, allows workers to upgrade their skills so that they become more employable and able to convert to new jobs and lastly to prepare workers and companies for the economic recovery that will eventually come. Employers are given funding when they send workers for relevant trainings.

So, don’t let this downturn pull you down. Go sign up for the relevant trainings and get your IT certification. The best form of investment is to invest in your own self.

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ITIL V3 Intermediate courses (Lifecycle modules) available in Singapore

ITIL V3 Intermediate courses (Lifecycle Modules) are now available through Hewlett Packard Education Service across Asia Pacific. These are in addition to the Capabilities Modules (OSA, RCV, SOA) available now.

There are 5 ITIL V3 Intermediate Lifecycle courses namely, Service Strategy (SS), Service Design (SD), Service Transition (ST), Service Operations(SO) and Continual Service Improvement. ST and SO are available now, with the rest of the modules planned for later.

Duration for the Lifecycle Modules course: 4 days each (including sitting for EXIN certification examination).

Prerequisite : ITIL V3 Foundation certification (Holders of the V2 Foundation Certification can take the V2 to V3 Foundation Bridge course to sit for the V2 to V3 Foundation Bridge exam)

Registration is through ITIL Center or HP Education Singapore. Similar courses are also available in other countries. ITIL Center partners with Hewlett Packard to deliver ITSM / ITIL Training and Workshops across Asia Pacific, namely in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Indonesia. The team of trainers from ITIL Center and HP are amongst the first in the world to be certified as ITIL EXPERTs.

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Planning and Conducting an IT Service Management Assessment – Steps Involved

Planning and conducting an IT Service Management (ITSM) assessment is a key activity undertaken when an IT organisation aims to improve its IT service effectiveness and business value. The key steps involved are highlighted below:

Step 1: Understanding the purpose, scope and expected outcome of the assessment

At this stage, it would be good to confirm the scope of the assessment, what is the objective and expected outcome and define what information is to be collected. The assessors (especially if they are not internal staff) would need to understand the business goals, IT goals, vision and mission and IT strategy. This is normally done through looking at documented IT strategy and plans and also interviews with the project sponsor to get his vision and goals.

Step 2: Planning and Preparation

Various factors would need to be considered when planning the assessment. A copy of the organisation chart should be obtained. The organisation chart provides useful information that helps the planners identify who are the key managers and stakeholders and who may have the information needed. Meeting and interviews will have to be planned and scheduled at least one or two weeks ahead of the actual event. Meeting or interview rooms would need to be booked. Any visits to restricted sites should be highlighted and authorisation obtained. The output is usually a fairly detailed project plan. A typical assessment would have duration of two to three weeks.

Step 3: Kick Off Meeting

A kick off meeting is recommended. The kickoff meeting starts the assessment formally. Invited attendees may include process managers, interviewees, data providers, stakeholders and external consultants involved in performing the assessment. It is a good practice to invite the project sponsor or most senior of the stakeholder to this meeting and say a few words to define the purpose of the assessment, show management support and to introduce and empower the assessors. Depending on the culture, the sponsor may have to set expectations that the purpose of the assessment is not an audit and all staff should collaborate with the assessors fully.

Step 4: Data Gathering

The scope of the assessment would often cover only the key Service Operations and Service Transition processes. Data are gathered though interviews, workshops session, reviewing of documentation and site visits. Visits to the service desk and data center may be necessary.

A checklist of questions is often used. A maturity-based assessment would aim to determine the level of maturity of each ITIL processes. Other data to gather includes availability of tools, skills, organisation role and responsibilities, availability and quality of documentation, evidence of continual improvement, metrics and reports, circulation and usage of the reports.

Step 5: Analysis

Based on the responses to the questions gathered, the scores are tabulated using a spreadsheet tool and presented. A maturity-based assessment may use the 5-level ITSM maturity model to rate the individual process.

 

Spider diagrams or bar charts can be used to compare current state with desired state and highlight key gaps and deficiency areas.

 

Benchmarks with the maturity levels of other companies in same industries are useful and that is one advantage of engaging external consultants to perform the assessment instead of conducting a self assessment.

Gaps, issues, constraints should be identified as compared to the vision, mission, goals and objectives. The analysis should include highlighting potential risks to the quality and reliability of current service delivery.

Step 6: Action Planning

Having understood the current state versus the desired state and armed with the information obtained in the earlier steps, viable solution approaches would need to be identified, including products and services that are needed. An IT service improvement initiative may require multiple sub-projects to address what needs to be done at each step of way. Each project should be defined with a possible project scope or charter, estimated timeline and costs, products and services.

Step 7: Presentation

The presentation should not be a lengthy session to discuss the details of the assessment or findings. Instead, it should be a high level, executive presentation focusing on key pain-points uncovered, business implications and what are the recommended solutions and next steps. The desired outcome is to seek sponsorship and approval from the management team to proceed with service improvement action plans.

Step 8: Produce the Assessment Report

A formal assessment report should be produced. The aim of this report is to document the objectives of the assessment, key findings, issues uncovered and solutions proposed. This document is important as it serves as the baseline upon which comparisons of the "before" and "after" snapshots of the situation can be made subsequently.

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Planning and Conducting an Initial IT Service Management Assessment - Factors to Consider

There are many types of IT Service Management (ITSM) assessments that can be conducted. They could range from quick and inexpensive self-assessments to complex, detailed and expensive investigations led by ITSM consultants or experts. They can also be also classified as a compliance-based assessment or a maturity-based assessment or combination of both.

Compliance-based assessments are aimed at evaluating whether an organization meets some type of external or internal criteria. Examples of external criteria are ISO 20000 standard or some proprietary ITSM frameworks like HP ITSM Reference Model or Microsoft's MOF. Internal criteria could be the organisation's policies or documented procedural requirements. Compliance-based assessments are usually conducted by organisation that has already some degree of ITSM implementation.

Maturity-based assessments evaluate where an organization is located on a journey from one state or level to another. The areas being assessed are usually scored between maturity level of 0 and 5. Maturity level of zero means nothing is in place and maturity level of 5 means everything that needs to be done is in place and is working perfectly and there are mechanisms in place for adaptations to changes and continual improvement. Each level of maturity contains a list of criteria for each of the five levels above. The criteria could include vision and leadership, process, people, tools and overall environment factors or culture.

Most organisations would not be aiming to reach the highest level of maturity but would instead focused on defining what level of maturity is needed to meet their business goals and determining which level of maturity they are currently at and what they must do to progress to the next level. Maturity-based assessments are useful for creating a known starting point for the planning and implementation team.

The following further describes what would need to be assessed:

Vision and Leadership

Prior to the start of the ITSM assessment, the assessors would need to understand the business goals, IT goals, vision and mission and IT strategy. This is normally done through looking at documented IT strategy and plans and also interviews with the project sponsor and key executives.

Processes

Since IT Service Management is a process-based approach it is important to determine which processes are defined, documented and how much of it is in being practiced or followed currently. That is where best practice guidelines like ITIL, standards like ISO 20000, ISO 27001 or even proprietary frameworks like Microsoft's MOF and HP's ITSM Reference Model comes in handy as a reference or basis for comparison. Questionnaires or checklists to determine adequacy of the existing processes are usually derived from them and used.

Although external references are used for comparison, it is important to keep in mind that the assessment is not an audit. It aims to reveal which processes are in place or defined rather than to determine the degree of compliancy of existing processes to ITIL or ISO 20000. The assessment is usually focused on determining process maturity and gaps so that the findings can be used for service or process improvement planning.

Organization and People

Managing changes in organisation and people is the most difficult part of an ITSM implementation. The focus includes assessing organisation and people on areas that can help in planning the ITSM project and management of change activities later on. It should also identify what the constraints are so that the project can be more successful.

The assessment should check that roles and responsibilities are defined (e.g. RACI charts) for each process activity. It should also covers people’s understanding of their roles, how they contribute to the organization’s objectives and how they are measured and rewarded.

It is good to check on the availability of existing HR processes for performance management and development planning. The assessment could helps to identify the availability of skills and competency to perform the required tasks, the skills and experience required for the project as well as who has them.

The organisation charts will provide information of organisation structure, decision-making structure and authority levels that would be useful for project planning. It also identifies key stakeholders and potential supporters and resistors to change.

Technology

Technology is also a key factor in the project’s success. When planning and implementing an ITSM strategy and defining end-to-end processes, technology and tools would play an important role. Tools are needed to support and enable the processes as well as for monitoring of the IT infrastructure and reporting. The aim is to determine what tools are needed to support the existing and future processes and infrastructure.

A good initial ITSM assessment should also take into account several technology factors, such as:

• Which processes and functionalities can be effectively supported now and more importantly, for the future.
  
• The level of process integration that should be available in the tool (e.g. the ability to link incidents to problems records, the availability of event monitoring tools and the ability of he event monitoring tools to automatically log specifically defined events as incidents).
  
• Need for a tool that supports easy knowledge capture, storage, searching, sharing, presenting and reviewing of knowledge and information.
  
• Need for a tool that supports easy data analysis, reporting and circulation of reports

The aim of an initial ITSM assessment is to understand gaps and key issues and top priority areas which need to be addressed first and foremost to improve IT Service effectiveness and business value. Hence an initial ITSM assessment would usually be a maturity-based assessment, with a little of compliance-based assessment included as needed, especially in areas or processes that is found to be already in placed or matured to some degree. It is also usually done at a fairly detailed level.

For organisations new to ITSM, it should be conducted or led by experienced ITSM consultants. The ITSM consultants should have the aid of ready-made assessment tools with well-specified criteria and reporting features and would be expected to add value by suggesting viable solution approaches, possible project scope, estimated timeline and costs, products and services to address what needs to be done at each step of the ITSM project.

For more information and tools on conducting an ITSM Assessment, check out this IT Service Management Self-assessment Workbook.

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