Maxine Hubbard & Stuart Beale share the story of how their service desk planned, implemented and measured their improvements using the Service Desk Standard to achieve certification.
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'Step Into the Light' - Leicestershire County Council
1. 1
“Step Into the Light”
A Story of SDI Certification
Maxine Hubbard & Stuart Beale
11th
April 2016
2. 2
First Steps
•Difficult environment economically
•Uncertainty for staff
•General absence of good news
•Excellent IT Services
•Needed positive goals
•Needed positive focus
3. 3
Chose SDI certification
•Recognised world-wide
•Understandable standard
•Positive when selling services
•Previous experiences of other
accreditations
•We wanted to include all of ICT in the
process
8. 8
How has it changed our working day?
For the Service Desk
•ICT Service Desk a major voice in all changes
•Its authority recognised in Major Incidents
•The Service Desk is recognised and accepted as
the voice of the customer
•Service Desk requirements are embedded in day
to day operations
9. 9
How has it changed our working day?
For our team spirit, ICT wide
•Service Desk careers offered
•Staff satisfaction monitored
•Shared accolades – inclusive for all of IT Operations
•Social responsibility focus – also brings people together
•Central information store on SharePoint has built a sense
of inclusion and community
10. 10
How has it changed our working day?
For performance
•Understand performance collected and use it
• Demand management
• Process improvement
• Business cases for investment
•Customer experience understanding
•Regular DR tests
•BC used in real situations
•Slick Change Process globally understood - only 6 failed changes in
last year out of 861
11. 11
How has it changed our working day?
For continual service improvement
•Team service plans, objectives and activities all lead on to
our annual audit
•Continual service improvement has been embedded in
everything we do including:
• incident process
• problem management process
• customer satisfaction analysis
12. 12
How has it changed our working day?
For customers
•We engage our customers by publishing the service
improvements that they have contributed to – this is being
used as a model throughout LCC
•Our communications work with standard templates and
user friendly language has brought appreciation
•Standards being replicated across organisation
•Working better with partners – customers and suppliers
14. 14
Benefits & Achievements
•Consistent quality
•Attitude to change
•Pre-populated annual service and improvement plan
•Motivated, enthusiastic team
•Focusing on core services
•Commendations from senior officials
•Recognised in corporate achievement awards
•Vision targets exceeded and the team have set new
challenging ones
15. 15
Benefits & Achievements - continued
Since first certification
•Raised £340K income from selling services
• Made circa £230k savings
• Raised £5587.90 for sponsored charities
•IT Service Week (SDI) 2012
• Voted by own customers
• Service Desk of the Year - 2nd
• IT Superhero of the Year Winner
17. 17
Benefits & achievements - continued
•Savings = reduced resources + full use of target
tolerances
•Many performance metrics have increased as a
result
•However:
• Staff satisfaction from 76% to 90%
• First Contact Resolution from 60% to 85%
• Customer satisfaction from 80% to 95%
18. 18
Why we are continuing along this journey
Still need:
•Quality service
•Strong drivers for business change
•Focused staff who take responsibility
•Potential to sell services
•To develop staff in difficult labour markets
•Culture of continued service improvement
•Satisfied customers
What we did
How we did it
How its changed our daily life
What benefits we have out of it
Maxine
Work environment – grim
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION – who recognises this?
As management, we needed to re-focus
From the outset we needed to change how we worked
We didn’t want to do a project and then have the good practices fall by the wayside.
We talked about the concepts of the SDI certification
We wanted a long alliance with SDI so that we could keep our service improving in line with that standard
We knew that all the improvements we made had to be embedded in our day to day business and not done as projects just before an audit.
Maxine - slide
Stuart – talk about the nine concepts
1. Leadership
e.g. How we inspire and promote continual service improvement
e.g. How we promote the service desk
2. Policy & Strategy
e.g. How we have embedded our goals and ideals into our formal policy
e.g. How our strategy is reflected in our operational plans
3. People & Management
e.g. Our job design and how we value our staff
e.g. how we monitor our staff satisfaction
4. Resources
e.g. What tools we have
e.g. Our environment
5. Processes
e.g. ITIL processes
e.g. Communications
6. People satisfaction
e.g. How we maintain morale
e.g. How we develop our staff and help them build careers
7. Customer satisfaction
e.g. Business relationships
e.g. Customer experience
8. Performance
e.g. Collection and understanding of performance information
e.g. Use of knowledge to improve service performance
9. Social responsibility
e.g. Community integration and ethics
e.g. Environmental and health and safety considerations
Maxine
The journey itself was hard
We had to firstly understand the standard – SDI do some training courses here such as the Service Desk Analyst and the Service Desk Manager and these are excellent preparation
Then we made our plan of all the realistic elements that we could meet
We chopped it up and everyone in the team owned a piece
We kept it in small chunks so that team members could be motivated by progress
We brought in people from wider ICT so that it was a concerted effort
Tight deadlines focused the work
We communicated well to the team, to IT and to customers
We were clear about our deliverables
Sustainable processes
Reduced waste
Better efficiency
All aligned with the cash-strapped situation we were in
We got buy in at all levels – so our marketing machine did well
We had the work project managed so that we could keep track of it
We kept the customer in mind at all times
And then our first audit arrived
And so with all our evidence provided
Our auditors arrived
Maxine
And like Jamie Vardy here – they miss absolutely nothing!!!
They interview the team members
Watch them working
interview other IT colleagues
interview your customers
look at your documentation
your tools – they do a thorough job.
Also like Jamie, they are top of the league
Maxine
When you are operating in a busy IT unit it is hard to fit in this type of additional work
It took commitment
And some parts of the standard were hard for us
We can’t provide bonuses, company cars or vouchers for a job well done.
So rewards and recognition is hard for us to gain points in
Although we can collect and trend the 100 plus measurements in the standard, it is very time consuming to do
And can we use all of those measurements? Hard to justify the time spent.
Our organisation does not want customer SLAs
One customer worked with us on developing one and we report against it
But these are just not wanted
Integration is time consuming and expensive.
While it has undoubted benefits, it is very hard to prioritise this above customer projects
With social responsibility, we cannot release staff, paid for by public money to do community work.
Therefore we have had to draw creatively on what else we do:
Raising money for our sponsored charities
Working with schools and colleges on work experience and sandwich course places
Work with apprentices developing them to go on to get full time jobs
Being environmental champions
So challenges – but over the 9 concepts, not too much of an issue
We have continuing budget challenges which means we have got to think carefully about what level of certification we are targeting
And we have a huge list of organisational priorities that we have to consider
For the Service Desk
3 main concepts were in play on this one
Leadership
Policy & strategy
People Management
e.g. we promoted the service desk
e.g. we ensured our leadership was inspiring and had full buy in to our aims
e.g. We ensured that our policy and strategy reflected the authority of the Service Desk
e.g. The way we applied the people management concept promoted staff and raised their profile
So much so that other teams recognise and respect the service desk
And include them in delivering their own priorities
We ultimately made the service desk role critical to the organisation
Maxine
People satisfaction and social responsibility concepts played a big part in building a culture of empowerment for the service desk
With job design and responsibility we were able to build a service desk career that people could move through if they wanted
WE measured staff satisfaction to make sure the basics were being done
And we broke down barriers by making sure that we shared our accolades with the rest of IT
We used our social responsibility activities to form unlikely alliances across IT and to bring people together
And we formed a sense of community by setting up a central sharepoint site that contained all our tools, information and notices about what was happening with services
Maxine
In the performance concept, we needed to get to a stage where we were the early warning of any changes in the organisation
We needed to collect the information, understand it and proactively use it for trend analysis
We managed this and used the information to bring down our demand – even though we are an organisation reducing in size, we have not seen that so far in terms of IT User head count
We also used it to examine our processes
e.g. we had information that customers were finding it difficult to use a particular process for starters and leavers
So we applied some lean thinking and reviewed the form they were using and made life a lot easier for them and for us
And also, we can use the information to boost business cases for investment
E.G. we made the case for a self-service product to reset passwords and have made it mandatory
And you will see that we have used this information to be able to
Improve our understanding of the customer experience
Improve our disaster recovery tests
And use our business continuity plans in real situations
An example of how we have been able to use our information to build a really mature process is our change process
Out of 861 changes this year, we have had 6 failures.
Stuart
Performance – this is the key to success
The Performance Results concept requires that you collect an awful lot of data and this can take quite a lot of resource if done manually. Thankfully there are tools on the market available that automates much of this work. Two reasons for metrics – (1) to provide data with which to plan improvements and (2) to provide the business with confidence we are doing what we said we would.
By following the requirements of this concept I have all of the metrics I need to plan improvements
Maxine
In the process concept there is a requirement for continual service improvement
The improvement plan that we get after each SDI audit forms a set of entries on our annual team service plans
These are translated into objectives for the team and lead up to our next surveillance audit
In everything we do we have embedded CSI
Stuart
I thought I was being invited to a Snooker tournament today…!
As a Service Desk Manager I have no hiding place from angry customers – They will hunt you down and stake you out.
I decided long ago to turn turtle and instead of ducking and diving I endeavored to seek out customers, in particular the grumpy axe grinders.
This is why I wear these colourful waistcoats – When I walk about the council offices I want my 6500 customers to point and say “there he is – the Service Desk Manager – grab him quick”
By becoming recognizable and instantly available to my customers I am able to manage and mitigate developing situations - This approach allows me to set expectations correctly.
Maxine
So against the customer concept
Read from the slide
Communications improved
Our standards are being used across the organisation – demand management
Working better with partners – both customers and suppliers
In the 12 weeks leading up to our first audit, we published weekly newsletters to our staff and customers
Here you can see those newsletters
You may notice the name of our IT Service management tool supplier here…
They have sponsored our customer satisfaction survey and we can draw prizes each month for customers taking the time to feedback to us
this lady here is accepting her prize
The newsletters were fun too
To get people to read them, we incorporated other competitions such as this one where we hid song names in the articles.
Maxine
So benefits
We have been able to improve our consistency
The Service Desk Team are the most open team to change in the organisation
We have that ready made service improvement plan from our surveillance audits
We have a motivated and very enthusiastic team
We focus on our core services – supporting end users with their IT needs
We have commendations from senior officials and have received certificates for outstanding service, team work and going the extra mile in corporate achievement awards
Our vision has been met, exceeded and the team have set the new targets for the next year
Maxine
Use the slide
And here he is
Maxine – read from the slide
Stuart
Now LCC have the Standard along with ITIL as guiding and enabling frameworks we no longer need the Certification? Or do we?
We still have the same drivers as you can see here
The SDI certification is an external independent affirmation of quality
It helps us celebrate our success
Internationally recognised selling point
Quality services – greater reliance on IT
Stuart
Here is my team
Very proud
Very happy
Any questions?