How to select an ITSM Tool from the ITIL® Chief Architect

ITSM Tools – Making the right choice the first time Sharon Taylor – President Aspect Group Inc Chief Architect - ITIL

Your Speaker Today . . .
Sharon Taylor
President, Aspect Group, Inc. since 1999
CIO for 14 years
CEO for 10 years
Author, thought leader
Dedicated to the ITSM industry
Chief Architect ITIL V3
Chief Examiner ITIL V3
Chair, itSMF International
ISM, Fellow
Strategic Advisor, ICSM
www.aspect360.net

Agenda
Common aches and pains
Filtering out the noise
Assessing requirements
Tools as your strategic partner
Decision factors
Advice

Common aches and pains

Aches and pains
Too late to say goodbye?
Reluctance to write off old investment
Failure to realize that this can cost more in the long run
Heavy customization and configuration
Innovation past its time
Grandma’s quilt
Comforting but full of holes
Patchwork of solutions stitched together
Array of tools that don’t work together as needs mature

Aches and pains
Analysis paralysis
Too much to choose from
Unclear on how to filter the noise
from the music
Stalled requirements building
Keeping up with the Jones’
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Before the tools...

Place the horse before the cart
Get processes, adoption, workflow in place first, THEN think about tool requirements…
Define outcomes that you need from tools that relate to these
Talk to the business and listen to their view of what QoS means
Be realistic about what you can automate with tools
Plan beyond the horizon
Think of what is possible from 3 perspectives
Strategic
Tactical
Operational
Use your maturity path as a guide
Incident, Change, Config, etc.
Go back to the service lifecycle

Innovative thinking first
Look beyond the obvious things to push your
idea of need to the next level
Tools as strategic partners
Analytical, trending, patterns of service use, capacity and demand intelligence
Portfolio management, portfolio and investment management
Self help for customers and IT staff
Cost and risk avoidance
Return on investment
Risk and reward
Vendor relationships
Tool delivery models: SaaS, provider-hosted, trial subscription, procurement partnering
Post-sales needs for implementation, training, support
Rate of organizational change
Migration and integration needs
Architectural constraints or opportunities

Defining needs

Establishing Requirements
Defining Mandatory and Desirable functionality
A Mandatory requirement should be a tool function or capability that a process activity cannot be executed efficiently without OR which provides a significant benefit or cost saving
Example: automatic population of customer data in a record
A Desirable requirement should be a tool function or capability that provides an automation benefit but would not exclude a tool from consideration if absent
Example: a graphical representation vs. a sorted data view
Mapping process use to tool requirements
Walk through the way each process works and document the flow, listing tool functions that can automate or support it (building a workflow map will help)
Determine which are Mandatory and which are Desirable
List the points of integration to other processes, hand-offs and triggers that require additional functions
Check that each service lifecycle stage is covered
and linked

Establishing Requirements
Building the requirements list
Classify requirements by priority of need weighting them accordingly during an evaluation
Organize by process area and lifecycle to check that you cover all areas
Categorize requirements to organize your needs intuitively
Consider both Performance (easy? Fast?) and Functionality (How?) requirements
Accessibility
Security & audit trail
User defined or system generated
Execution flow eg.; Detecting, logging, filtering, transferring, escalating, tracking, monitoring, closing, etc.
Reporting
Archiving

Common pitfalls

Avoid the tricks and traps
✗  Complex and comprehensive are synonymous
an educated balance between best-fit or overkill
✗ You have unique requirements
core requirements are all similar
✗  Ram and refine for quick wins
Never try to correct a non-technical problem with a tool
✗  Upgrading is cheaper than replacing
Hidden upgrade costs will surprise you
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Dollars and sense

Determining ROI Number of users Number of PCs Number of IT Staff Number of s/w licenses Cost per Incident IT Budget First-time fix rate Cost per incident Cost per change Cost per problem Service Downtime User TCO Service Desk cost Request Fulfillment times Request Fulfillment costs Cost savings reductions in operational costs through improved automation Future state operational costs Project costs Current Operational costs

Tips
Don’t rush in no matter how pressured
Make the vendor choice as critical for best-fit as the tool is
Avoid short-sighted vision about needs
Talk to experts, customers, vendors
Choose technology that fits you – not solutions that you have to fit into
Question the obvious and look for the not-so-obvious automation opportunities

Additional Resources
Axios Systems Details:
www.axiossystems.com
[email_address]
http:// twitter.com/axios_systems
ITSM Tooling Resources:
Sharon Taylor Webcast Recording: http:// www.axiossystems.com/en/resources/detail.php?webcast =44
Sharon Taylor White Paper:
Coming Soon!
Axios ITSM ROI calculator:
Submit your request for the ITSM ROI calculator here: http:// www.axiossystems.com/en/contact/contact.php
Alternatively, you can email [email_address] with your request.
Axios Systems provides numerous other ITSM-related resources on our website, including:
White Papers: http://www.axiossystems.com/en/resources/itil-white-papers.php
On-Demand Webcasts: http://www.axiossystems.com/en/resources/itil-webcast-on-demand.php
Solution Datasheets: http://www.axiossystems.com/en/resources/itil-datasheets.php
Case Studies: http://www.axiossystems.com/en/resources/itil-case-studies.php
Thanks to our partner for co-sponsoring webcast:

Over 21 years of focused and organic growth to become a global leader in IT Service Management delivering a best in class solution
Axios assyst and ITIL® ‘grew up in the same neighbourhood’ – assyst technology has been designed from inception and built from the ground up around the ITIL framework
Development of assyst is very customer focused
The assyst core product supports, automates, and integrates all ITIL v2 &v3 ® processes – in single application
Main areas of differentiation – Service Catalog, Service Design, Workflow Engine, Workflow & Process Design and Self Service – All driven by very easy to use GUI drag & drop tools
Additional Areas of differentiation – Ease of Use, Ease of Admin and Seamless upgrades
The Axios Commitment to ITSM Innovation…

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How to select an ITSM Tool from the ITIL® Chief Architect

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