More on Lean

Lean IT is not about IT subject matters. It is a generic improvement approach with a strong focus on behavior and attitude. Lean IT is applied on the entire IT domain, from requirements to maintenance, and involves the entire management and all the employees

Moving further, one might be tempted to ask, so what is the difference between the traditional Lean we have in manufacturing, and this new “Lean IT”? If we carefully look at IT and IT services we would notice that there major differences. They are as follows:

• IT Services are intangible. Manufacturing is about physical shape and size. A product with “touch and feel”.

• IT Services are Un-predictable. IT is more about impact. You can predict at each stage in the manufacturing process where you are. The same is not applicable in IT. The impact happens only in the end. One small change, one server out, one bad cable which can’t be predicted and “boom”.

• IT Services are not measured as a whole. IT invariably is put together as Hardware, Software and services. The measurement points are different.

• People are the main focus and not just Hardware. Manufacturing is about products hence the focus on hardware. Since IT has to rely on the human element, people running the systems, designing them, working on coding and designing systems which could be unique to their own requirements, people become the main focus in IT.

• Definition of Waste is not restricted to productivity. It is easy to enumerate loss in manufacturing by the number of pieces accepted or lost. The same does not apply in software development for example. One day of coding, a missed line, may have an impact much later, so while the waste could be quantitatively just a few minutes the impact could be much worse. The loss could be from time, to end outcomes

Applying Lean to IT is thus a far different task. In its essence it means applying Lean to people which means raising the level of professionalism of the people involved. This means improving their ability to solve problems, their ability to work autonomously and in a team, and improving their mastery of the subject matter. Aside of skills training, this means creating a new mind-set focused on value, value streams, flow, pull and perfection.

Dimensions

The Lean principles have far‐reaching consequences for all organisations that wish to integrate the principles into their daily work.  The dimensions of Lean are:

• Customer: Deals with all aspects of understanding the customer and the value they are seeking. It includes tools such as “Voice of the Customer” and “Critical to Quality”

• Process : Looks at how value is delivered through Value Streams, integrating the principles of flow, pull and perfection. The tools used are SIPOC (Supplier‐Input‐Process‐Output‐Customer) and Value Stream Mapping (VSM). This is to ensure that a process is correctly scoped and detailed.

• Performance: This is about defining Key Performance Indicators, understanding and measuring the use of time within an IT organization and determining the skills and knowledge of the workforce.

• Organisation: It is about determining  how to organize people for maximum value delivery to customers.  

• Behavior and Attitude: Setting expectations and understanding the key characteristics of Lean behavior for everybody within the organization and for the people from top down.

Lean IT - An introduction

The growing complexity of IT infrastructure, rising number of services, the rising consumption of services and increased cost of service support has meant that IT is asked to handle more services. This is against the backdrop of a contrarian situation of reducing costs. Improving service quality going up; and managing costs going down.

We have seen that IT has often been unable to deliver services in a manner required despite improvements driven through many processes based approaches. Years of growing IT best practises like ITIL and CMMi SVC have seen impact; however there has always been felt that an approach towards leaner IT departments is a growing need. With the many years of application of Lean principles in production industries which have seen consistent improvement in their performances, there has been a growing desire for applying similar Lean principles to IT.

So what is Lean IT?

“Lean IT is the extension of lean manufacturing and lean services principles to the development and management of information technology products and services. Its central concern, applied in the context of IT, is the elimination of waste, where waste is work that adds no value to a product or service.” - Wikipedia – 2011,

The essential features of Lean were provided by a Landmark publication by Womack and Jones, in 1996, “Lean Thinking”.

Lean is about delivering value to customers with the ability to continuously improve. The principles can be encapsulated through the following:

• Value is defined by the customer. It is about the requirements that a customer has regarding the product or service to be delivered.  Thus the service’s value is seen by the benefit it brings to a customer.
• Value is delivered through a Value Stream. This is the complete process that ensures delivery of value, in a short; time frame.  
• Flow. This is a logical next step for charting the Value stream and implies that the activities involved in providing a service must follow a logical sequence, with minimal interruptions and minimal intermediate stockpiles
• Pull. This implies that the customer has the ability to trigger the value stream in accordance with the need of the value. 
• Perfection. Perfection is about each participant in the value stream is aware of his or her required quality requirement. The concept of continuous improvement comes into play.

ISO 20000

ISO/IEC 20000 is the first international standard for IT Service Management. It was developed in 2005, by the ISO and revised in 2011. It is based on the earlier BS 15000 which had been developed by BSI. Like BS 15000 it was originally developed to reflect best practice guidance contained within the ITIL framework. It also supports other IT Service Management frameworks and approaches including Microsoft Operations Framework and components of ISACA's COBIT framework.

IT service management deals with providing efficient IT services to help meet business objectives.  “Service" in an IT perspective is typically viewed from the prism of IT Operations.   ISO 20000 covers "the design, transition, delivery and improvement of services that fulfil service requirements and provide value for both the customer and the service provider. This thus requires an integrated process approach when the service provider plans, establishes, implements, operates, monitors, reviews, maintains and improves a service management system (SMS)."

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world’s largest developer of voluntary International Standards. International Standards give state of the art specifications for products, services and good practice, helping to make industry more efficient and effective. These standards are developed through global consensus. The ISO, (http://www.iso.org/iso/home/about.htm) based out of Geneva, Switzerland has published more than 19500 standards.

The importance of ISO standards is that they ensure that products and services are safe, reliable and of good quality. For business, they are strategic tools that reduce costs by minimizing waste and errors, and increasing productivity. They help companies to access new markets, level the playing field for developing countries and facilitate free and fair global trade.

The difference between ITIL and ISO 20000 is essentially in that ITIL provides guidance, and adherence to the guidance is not mandatory; while adherence to ISO 20000 documents is mandatory and failure to comply would lead to loss / cancellation of the certification for the organization.

The 2011 version (ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011) comprises nine sections:

• Scope
• Normative references
• Terms and definitions
• Service management system general requirements
• Design and transition of new or changed services
• Service delivery processes
• Relationship processes
• Resolution processes
• Control processes

The ITIL Qualification Scheme

The increasing and widespread use of ITIL has encouraged the “Cabinet Office”, the owners of the trademark to continuously update and structure the supporting schemes in collaboration with various stakeholders within the IT service management community. The latest release of ITIL 2011 was released in June 2011. 

 

Within the ITIL Qualification scheme, there are three distinct stages:

1. Foundation Level
2. Intermediate Level
3. Expert Level (Followed by Masters)

For each module successfully completed by a candidate, certain academic credits are given. To be certified the ITIL Expert, a candidate needs to have attained 22 Credit points and completed the capstone module, called MALC. Currently a candidate can only begin from the ITIL 2011 Foundation as the ITIL V3 Foundation and all associated training from the “ITIL V3” series have been withdrawn.  

So a student would attain 2 credits for successfully completing the Foundation Exam. Progress to the next stage of the Intermediate Level, involves clearing this exam.  On completion of the foundation exam the student can take two distinct tracks for the next level for becoming a certified expert.

Capability Track: This course is suitable for those who are involved in executing and improving existing ITIL processes in an organization such as the Process Manager, Operational Staff, Process Consultant and IT Practitioner. There are 4 modules in this track, successful completion of which gives a candidate 4 Credit points:

PPO: Planning, Protection and Optimization
SOA: Service Offerings and Agreements
OSA: Operational Support & Analysis
RCV: Release, Control, and Validation

Lifecycle Track: This course is suitable for IT managers, process owners, ITSM implementation teams, consultants, stakeholders, and anyone else involved in the ITSM project. There are 5 modules in this track, successful completion of which gives a candidate 3 Credit points:

SS: Service Strategy
SD: Service Design
ST: Service Transition
SO: Service Operation
CSI: Continual Service Improvement

A candidate could also do a combination of the lifecycle or capability modules depending on his work profile. After completing the Lifecycle or Capability track or a combination of courses through which a student has earned a minimum of 17 credit points, the candidate goes to the next level, of completing the “Managing Across the Lifecycle” or the MALC certificate. Successful completion of this course would provide the candidate with the additional 5 credits giving the minimum of 22 credits, which leads to receiving the ITIL Expert Certificate. 

CMMI SVC Maturity Levels

CMMI – SVC has in total 24 Process Areas aligned to Levels 2 to 5 on maturity. The maturity levels for an organization are as follows

Maturity Level  2              : Managed

Maturity Level  3              : Defined
Maturity Level  4              : Quantitatively Managed
Maturity Level  5              : Optimizing

The process areas within CMMI SVC are aligned to the maturity level of an organization and are given below: 

Maturity Level 2 - Managed

CM - Configuration Management

MA - Measurement and Analysis
PPQA - Process and Product Quality Assurance
REQM - Requirements Management
SAM - Supplier Agreement Management
SD - Service Delivery
WMC - Work Monitoring and Control
WP - Work Planning

Maturity Level 3 - Defined

CAM - Capacity and Availability Management

DAR - Decision Analysis and Resolution
IRP - Incident Resolution and Prevention
IWM - Integrated Work Management
OPD - Organizational Process Definition
OPF - Organizational Process Focus
OT - Organizational Training
RSKM - Risk Management
SCON - Service Continuity
SSD - Service System Development
SST - Service System Transition
STSM - Strategic Service Management

Maturity Level 4 - Quantitatively Managed

OPP - Organizational Process Performance

QWM - Quantitative Work Management

Maturity Level 5 - Optimizing

CAR - Causal Analysis and Resolution

OPM - Organizational Performance Management

CMMI SVC

CMMI® (Capability Maturity Model® Integration) models are collections of best practices that help organizations to improve their processes. These models are developed by product teams with members from industry, government, and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). They are administered and marketed by Carnegie Mellon University.   

The CMMI-SVC model provides guidance for applying CMMI best practices in a service provider organization. Best practices in the model focus on activities for providing quality services to customers and end users. CMMI-SVC integrates bodies of knowledge that are essential for a service provider.

The objective:

“Guide all types of service providers to establish, manage, and improve services to meet business goals.”

Like every CMMI model, CMMI-SVC helps to set process improvement goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a point of reference for appraising current processes which:

• Can be applied internally or externally
• Work well with other frameworks
• Represent the consensus of thousands of practitioners about the essential elements of service delivery
• Can be used in whole or in part

Service providers deserve a consistent benchmark as a basis for process improvement that is appropriate to the work they do and is based on a proven approach. The need for CMMI SVC:

• Demand for process improvement in services is likely to grow: services constitute more than 80% of the U.S. and global economy. Poor customer service costs companies $338 billion annually and services constitute more than 54% of what the US DoD acquires.
• CMMI-SVC addresses the needs of a wide range of service types by focusing on common processes.
• Many existing models are designed for specific services or industries.
• Other existing models do not provide a clear improvement path.

ITIL 2011, an Update, Not a New Version

ITIL is a best practise and as such is in line with constant reviews and updates in response to changing environments. The last major version of ITIL release was ITIL V3 which was released in the year 2007. Since then there have been various suggestion and reviews to remove ambiguities and provide greater focus and clarity. With this in mind, an ITIL update was released in July 2011. In the words of the www.Best-Management-Practice.com the updates were designed to:

• Resolve any errors or inconsistencies in the text and diagrams, both in content and presentation.
• Improve the publications by addressing issues raised in the Change Control Log, as analysed and recommended by the change advisory board (CAB) and approved by the Cabinet Office, part of HM Government. These are largely to do with clarity, consistency, correctness and completeness.
• Address suggestions for change made by the training community to make ITIL easier to teach.
• Review the Service Strategy publication to ensure that the concepts are explained in the clearest, most concise and accessible way possible. There is no notion of simplifying the concepts; rather, improving the exposition of the ideas.

The important points to be considered are:

• ITIL 2011 an “Update” not a new Version
• OGC is now part of “Cabinet Office”, with all copyright now under the “Cabinet Office”
• Primary Changes in Service Strategy with the introduction of 3 Processes
• Design Co-ordination process added in Service Design
• CSI register Concept introduced in CSI

In terms of Processes, the changes are as follows:

1. Service Strategy: Three new processes added, viz Demand Management, Business Relationship Management, Strategy Management for IT services
2. Service Design: one new process added, viz Design Coordination
3. Service Transition: Evaluation process renamed as "Change Evaluation".