Best Practice...
The gap filled
ITIL is global best practice for IT Service Management (ITSM) with a ticket-focused approach to support. Tickets are not what is important though - not what teams must do. Support activity is.
It's a pivotal fact: Support has been focused on the wrong thing.
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Flow Management differentiates 12 types of activity. When prioritised, sequenced and presented for teams to work through one-by-one, nothing could be simpler or achieve better results.
Without it, in ITIL standard practice, just two types are covered. The rest is the ITIL gap​, harbouring many operational issues.
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Why does the gap exist?
ITIL is a framework. Framework processes are minimum operational requirements: best practice at the most basic level. The ticket-focused approach is support's minimum requirement, provided as standard in all ITSM tools, thereby embedding its shortcomings worldwide alongside those of other ITIL processes.
Most ITSM tool processes are fit for use. They can be built-upon through configuration to be made fit for purpose, assisted by good governance and management where necessary.
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The ITIL gap means that ITSM's foundational processes, Incident and Request Management, are the exception. No matter how well they are configured and assisted, it is impossible to meet support's primary purpose of providing always timely, attentive service.
As globally accepted best practice that's "baked-in" to use in every organisation, process issues are not identified as the root cause. Instead, untimeliness is tolerated, presumed to be unavoidable because best practice is in use. Concern for it is minimised by ticket-focused metrics that are as unhelpful as the process that they gauge, shielding awareness of the degree to which untimeliness causes harm.
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Legacy issues
The Focus Framework raises awareness of support's operational issues that hide behind embedded best practice. The issues shed light on why it is imperative to advance beyond the ITIL approach:
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​Issue #1. Teams generally approach new tickets first and foremost.
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Issue #2. Activity for the progression of older tickets isn't just secondary, it is completely unguided.
Inappropriate delay and inertia is normal. Of particular harm, support conversations do not flow:​​​
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Questions emailed to support customers are service tool (system) notifications, prone to not being read. Unanswered questions must be followed-up promptly and with success, but with no process, they are not.
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Replies must receive focused attention similar to a ticket's first response, but even when quickly seen, onward activity is easily skipped, causing inappropriate delay still.
All types of ticket update are affected, either unseen or ignored, including sensitive comments - those that are time-critical, or a chase on progress.
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Prone to failure at both ends, communication barriers are a primary cause of lost work time and needs failing to be met. Resulting frustration is where perception of service is at its weakest.
In total, 21 "mid-lifecycle" support situations arise in all IT organisations, completely unguided: unidentified, unprioritised and unmanaged, all contributing to delay and inertia.
Issue #3. Ticket progression relies on the ticket owner alone. Being a "single point of failure" devoid of any cross-queue-cover, ownership silos substantially worsen untimeliness and unreliability in IT support.
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Issue #4. Ticket-based measures of performance (e.g. the ticket SLA) provide the false impression of acceptable service quality, serving little or no real purpose.
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Flow Management removes a further seventeen operational issues intrinsic of ITIL's ticket-focused approach.
IT support is the ITIL exception: For success, the process must be improved
Where governance and close management was needed the most, adding Flow Management means it is not needed at all.
Teams unify with a systematic focus primarily on high priority activity. Managers intervene simply by exception when monitors show that help is needed recovering back to the expected service experience. Team size can be adjusted with confidence.
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Business lost work time is minimised, absolutely.
More on the ITIL status quo...
To understand ITIL shortcomings and the status quo in more detail, please request our white paper on the subject: "The ITSM breakthrough was always just two small steps away". Included is the top nine unmanaged support situations and detail in where IT Experience Management is positioned - overly challenged - without Flow Management.
Realising that status utilisation can improve the ITIL way of working, some ITSM tool software has advanced status-based functionality added. Not to the point of AP breakthrough though.
The breakthrough: Success for 12 ITIL practices
Realising that something was acutely wrong and with a "digital transformation" lens to the problem, Opimise was formed in 2019 to modernise and advance IT support, to establish true best practice dedicated solely to it.
Following years of in-practice research and development, the result is the Support Ops Focus Framework (SOFF). SOFF has two practices: Support Lifecycle Management (aka Flow Management based on AP), and its entirely complementary Team Performance Management centred on Contribution Recognition.
All twelve SOFF capabilities across both practices are more than ITIL-aligned. They bring twelve ITIL practices to life. An optimal methodology and standard for up-most service quality against which IT organisations can be accredited.
12 ITIL processes / practices improved by Flow Management
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Service Desk - All operational needs are met | Enablement of the Digital Channel Service Desk.
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Incident | Request - With AP, focus switches to what matters - timely activity for attentive service.
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Workforce & Talent - Fully supported teams who benefit from accurate achievement knowledge.
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SLM | Measurement & Reporting - Flow Metrics gauge support's primary experience factor - attentiveness.
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Continual Improvement - Every procedural shortcoming is identified, coordinated to develop lean service.
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Knowledge Management - Form Knowledge Centred Service | Swarm to avoid escalation and delay.
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Supplier Management (SIAM) - proactively manage supplier provision, ticket-by-ticket and at a service level.
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Problem Management - identify "Problem" Incidents much earlier, and more of them.
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Relationship Management - expose where business conversations are needed.
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IT Asset Management - maintain CMDB accuracy.
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