Introduction
In previous posts, I outlined high-level ideas about how the
tenets of the Agile Manifesto map to IT operation, including:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
Today I will offer a specific example of how a common IT
operations challenge can be addressed using an Agile mindset in general, and the
first and third of those Agile concepts specifically.
Circumventing the process
“If I need something from IT, I never submit a ticket. It
will just go into a black hole. I go to John’s desk and get him to help me.”
Sound familiar? Circumventing the process in IT is more common
than following the established procedure in many organizations. Does your IT
operations department suffer from non-standard request vectors?
Rather than getting frustrated and locking down how your
customers are permitted approach your IT operations department for help, turn these
non-standard approaches into inputs to help you understand your customers’
behavior. Use objective measures
(metrics) and subjective measures (retrospectives) to find solutions that will
drive the kind of behavior you would like to see in your customers.
Determine the goal
Start with the goal. What behavior you would like to see in
your customers? How would that behavior support the needs of your IT operations
team?
Once you know what you’re trying to create, gather the
information you need about your customers’ behavior so you can see the gap
between current behavior and the goal.
Get metrics
Start with objective measures. As a team, decide how to
record the different ways work is requested from your team. Once you have
recorded the data for a reasonable length of time, you can dig into it for
details and trends. For example:
- Who are your customers?
- How are they contacting your team?
- What work is being requested?
- How consistent are the data points you’re collecting?
- Where are they trending?
Subjective measures
To find out why your customers are behaving in a different
way from what would best support your team, invite your customers to a
retrospective. Their input during the retrospective can outline the “feeling”
responses that can’t always be derived from objective measures.
For example, during a recent retrospective, the IT
operations team discovered that several internal customers chose to ask for
help face-to-face rather than through email (that operations group’s preferred
communication channel) because the auto-response email was phrased in a way
that made these customers unhappy. This isn’t a piece of information that could
have been easily derived by examining metrics.
As a result of this finding, the team rephrased the
auto-response email, communicated this change with their customers, and
increased the percentage of contacts made through email rather than in person.
Find solutions
This brings us to finding solutions with your team. After
you have gathered objective and subjective information about how your customers
contact your IT operations team, work as a group to determine what you can
change that will affect your customers’ behavior.
Although teams usually identify “document the process” and
“train our customers” as the first two solutions they want to try, those are
often the least useful responses. Instead, look for solutions that are specific
to your customers’ needs and your team’s situation. The friendlier
auto-response email is a case in point. Something as small and simple as
rephrasing an email can prove to be more effective than time- and
resource-consuming training sessions.
Summary
Agile concepts help IT operations teams remove the “us vs.
them” attitudes that put up walls between the team and its customers. When your
team is wrestling with specific issues, start by reviewing the 4 Agile tenets.
Leverage those ideas to create solutions.
Jen Stone Browne
@jenstonebrowne
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