ITIL has been adopted and implemented in organizations across the world. Successful implementations often have a lot of planning, and research in the background before the actual adoption process starts. One such background work is gap analysis. You need to find out where your organization stands against the goals you are striving to achieve. On the basis of this analysis, find out the areas that need attention and should be interfered with by adopting ITIL principles.
However, it is not the best idea to implement ITIL principles within your entire organization as this will inflict a humongous amount of changes shooting up costs. Additionally, when implementing ITIL within your organization, plan to hire a few ITIL-certified professionals, or train among your existing team members so that the staff is aware of the principles and their benefits. They will also have a clear vision regarding what the organization is striving to achieve by means of the best principles. The awareness will make the implementation process easier.
ITIL and PDCA
An organization’s leaders should communicate their support for the team for ITIL implementation in a formalized manner. It can be in the form of the ITIL Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). It is one of the most crucial ITIL principles that should be adhered to when implementing the best practices within your organization.
What is Plan Do Check Act Cycle?
ITIL in its Continuous Service Improvement (CSI) section, talks about the PDCA cycle. It is widely used across organizations for quality improvements. While implementing ITIL within your organization, you should make effective use of the PDCA cycle. It lays down a few key improvement approaches. Let us take a look at each of the Plan, Do, Check and Act principles separately.
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Plan:
Clearly understand and document the goals set and the steps to be followed to get there.
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Do:
The intended steps (plan) that need to be executed
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Check:
The outcomes should be measured to determine where the actual achievements stand against the plan.
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Act:
Identify gaps that stand in the way of the execution of the plan and figure out opportunities for improvement.
After each stage of the cycle, a phase of consolidation is recommended in order to ensure that improvements are embedded within the system and benefits are not lost. The goal of ITIL is to ensure that the PDCA cycle is an ongoing activity so that continuous improvements can be facilitated.
Read other posts on ITIL implementation below:
Seven Step Improvement Process
The key purpose of the seven-step improvement process is to identify and manage the steps required to identify, define, gather, analyze, process, implement, and present improvements. The seven steps form the backbone of CSI and are recommended to be consulted when implementing ITIL within your organization.
1. Identify the Improvement Strategy:
This step involves identifying the business goals and assessing the steps identified to achieve the goals.
2. Define the Steps:
CSI in its seven-step improvement process talks about conducting a gap analysis in order to identify improvement opportunities and addressing the question of how to get there.
3. Collect Data:
The next step involves collecting data. In this stage, the data is raw and collected from various sources as per the set goals and objectives. At this juncture, no conclusion is drawn from the data.
4. Process Data:
This simple step comprises comparing the data collected from various sources post which analysis will be carried out.
5. Analyze Data:
After processing, data is ready for being analyzed.
6. Present Information and Use:
This is the step where the question, ‘Did we get there?’ is answered. The data analyzed, is presented to stakeholders. The aim is to present to stakeholders the results of the improvement methods. The results are presented in a manner so that stakeholders get an accurate picture of the consequences of implementing the improvement methods.
7. Implement Improvement:
The knowledge should be used in the right manner. The changes required for bringing in improvements need to be undertaken. This is the step that helps to improve service and the same is explained and communicated to the stakeholders.
Next, CSI combines the PDCA cycle and the seven-step improvement process. The integration process is as follows:
Plan:
Two key steps under ‘Plan’ include:
- Identifying the improvement strategy
- Defining what needs to be measured
Do:
Two steps under Do include:
- Gathering data and
- Processing data
Check:
Two steps under Check include:
- Analyzing information
- Presenting and using information
Act:
Two steps under ‘Act’ include:
- Implementing improvement
Implementing ITIL and PDCA
When implementing ITIL within your organization, the first and perhaps the most crucial step to be taken is, to communicate about ITIL to stakeholders at all kick-off meetings. This step will ensure that staff is aware that the integration of ITIL within the existing system has support from leadership. Following the kickoff meeting, the ‘Do’ aspect of PDCA is established. In this case, the ‘do’ part will involve the executives setting an example of how ITIL needs to be established within your organization to achieve the set goals, and the same will be followed by the rest of the staff.
In order to ensure that the ‘check’ portion of the PDCA is running as expected, the leaders should establish a culture where the status quo will be questioned. This is not as easy as it sounds as staff members may not be comfortable with the whole idea. Leaders must instill the belief among teams that it is perfectly alright to express their views and question the decisions taken by the leadership. This brings about a lot of cultural change within the organization.
Implementing ITIL is not only about replacing the existing processes with those based on ITIL principles. It is about changing the mindset of your staff members who may believe in traditional principles and may not welcome the change. The PDCA helps you in this regard as it is a step-by-step process that first identifies improvement areas and then chalks out the steps to achieve improvement goals. The practical and well-structured method helps the implementation process become smooth and clean.
