Getting past “the computer says no”

Linda Davidson highlighted in her presentation at UCISA14 that IT continues to have a very negative image. There are many reasons for this but we have all had the “The computer says no” experience where IT is blamed for a lack of information or for the inability to respond to a question. It is a response borne of poor processes and is symptomatic of an uninterested and disengaged support service. The impact of the negative image is such that the services’ customers are also disengaged – they don’t even bother to ask the question as they expect a negative answer – but also it is often applied to all IT services.

Confidence in the reliability of the service underpins any efforts to build good customer relations. It is vital, therefore, to get the core services right to ensure that the service is regarded as a trusted partner and in order to be in a position of influence with key stakeholders and decision makers. All members of staff have a role to play – it is important for staff to be consistent in delivering the services message, becoming respected within their spheres of influence and to engage with the department’s customers.

The Service Desk is often the first port of call. It was encouraging, therefore, to hear Sally Bogg quote from the HE Service Desk Benchmarking report that professional standards are being adopted widely for service desk operation. As one delegate pointed out, “Service operation where is users get value from IT – get it wrong, people will think IT is rubbish”. However, many institutions are at the start of the journey; the absence of formal service catalogues and service level agreements are key indicators that the processes that underpin those standards are some way from maturity. Continued investment and continual improvement is needed to ensure that the people and processes continue to deliver quality service.

It isn’t just about changing one aspect of a service – the whole department needs to reflect the service and have a strong customer ethos. This may require a shift in attitude amongst some staff who may be set in their ways and views. Changing culture, as Chris Day observed, is never an easy journey but is necessarily the first step to improving customer service. All members of the department need to be able to engage with your customers – particularly as they may offer less formal routes to key stakeholders.

Where there is more formal contact, it is important to ensure that the individuals involved understand the needs of the customers they are talking to. That way, trust and credibility will be built. This was seen as a particular issue when talking to researchers and some have sought to address this by employing staff with a research background specifically to talk to researchers. There were, however, few examples of such a specialist role – in many instances account management is tacked on to some jobs as an afterthought or in some cases is not acknowledged at all.

It is important to remember that all staff in IT service departments are essentially account managers. They each have their own sphere of influence, through formal and informal contacts and so all have the potential to influence customers and key stakeholders in the university. They need to deliver the services message and there needs to be consistency across the piece. The difficult part is getting them all to recognise their account management role and so play their part in IT services being a valued and trusted partner so that the computer says “yes”.

 

Standards rule OK?

There has been a growing move towards adopting accredited standards when delivering services. Use of the standard for information security (ISO27001:2005, latterly BS7799) and the Prince 2 project management methodology are now commonplace. There is growing use of the ITIL standard for service management within the higher education sector but adoption thus far has been patchy although many institutions are following the principles of the ITIL framework.

I met with the current Chair of ITSMF today to talk about the potential for collaboration between ITSMF and UCISA. The two organisations have common aims – both seek to promote best practice and both lobby other bodies on behalf of their members. UCISA has established a working group to look at developing a toolkit for ITIL with the broad aim of improving the quality and professionalism of service management in the sector and ITSMF is represented on the Steering Group for the project.

There is scope for collaboration. ITSMF has access to service management experts across both public and private sector; UCISA can draw on that expertise to expedite the adoption of sound service management principles in the sector. If more service departments adopt formal service management practices then there is the potential for more members for ITSMF. So there should be benefit for both parties. However there is also an opportunity for IT service departments in the sector to again lead in service provision and development. Prince 2 has become the standard methodology for all projects; there is scope for ITIL to become the standard for all service management. There is growing emphasis on customer focus and the student experience in universities and colleges. Clearly adoption of standards which improve the quality of the student experience at service points and result in more professionally operated services will benefit both the students and, in the long term, the institutions themselves. The challenge will be selling service management standards outside of the IT service department.

ITIL or not ITIL?

A couple of presentations at the conference looked at ITIL. One, from Noel Bruton suggested that it is time to replace ITIL; the other from Barry Corless highlighted the benefits of ITIL v3. The two came from different perspectives – Noel was focussing specifically on service desk whereas Barry was taking a more corporate view. And that is perhaps the difference between versions 2 and 3. The move to ITIL 3 really goes beyond the service desk into really institutional IT governance. Perhaps suggesting that ITIL 2 was just service focused was something of a mistake from the service management community. That focus may not have been the intention but it was certainly my perspective and I suspect may be the view of many others in the sector.

So is there a real answer? It is really a horses for courses sort of question. If I was to take a corporate view then I would look to promote ITIL version 3 throughout the organisation. There are clear advantages to the IT Director if ITIL was adopted as an institutional standard – there is so much in the new standard that concentrates on the corporate business rather than just the IT department. It makes sound business sense to look to push an institution’s executive in that direction. What are the key business drivers? Well portfolio management is one – I’m not convinced that many institutional executives understand what the business priorities are when making a decision. Understanding the impact of business constraints is another – how many executives understand the impact of their decisions on a project? What are the real corporate boundaries of a project? Is there really the understanding that a decision made on ethical grounds may have a real financial implication?

But that is all about ITIL 3. The conference here is focusing on the service desk and support function. Is there anything that version 3 offers over and above version 2? Probably precious little but the nub of the matter is that, in order to deliver a quality service, you need to have a prescribed methodology – if that is ITIL 2 or (a perception of) ITIL 3, that really doesn’t matter in my view. Provided you are delivering a quality, defined service your customers will be happy in the main. Where I think the challenge is to UCISA is looking to get ITIL version 3 implemented beyond the IT service – there is a lot here that focuses on IT as a delivery mechanism. Could this be the audit tool that drags senior institutional managers towards Dearing’s type 42 manager? Should this really be our real focus for getting senior management engaged?