What is Customer Focus? Part Two

In my previous post I began the story of how my quest to use a wireless connectivity feature in my notebook computer gave me a new perspective on how the IT Service Management framework can add value to the IT service organization and, ultimately, to the business as a whole.

While trying to activate and use the built-in broadband wireless connectivity in my new notebook computer, I have ping ponged between the technical support lines of the computer manufacturer and the wireless carrier.

Several days, phone calls and web chat sessions followed before a different technician on the manufacturer’s Service Desk asked if I had activated my wireless phone number. He described the process and that’s when I found out that the telephone service carrier’s online process hadn’t provided all the information necessary to actually use the service. I thanked the technician and once again called technical support number at the wireless carrier.

Thanks to the computer company’s technician I learned that I needed to contact the wireless provider to get an activation code and MSID to activate and configure the preinstalled software. A technician at the wireless carrier heard my problem and quickly provided the missing pieces of information. Foolishly confident, I opened the software and attempted to enter the activation codes following the simple prompts provided.

The result was an error that had me right on the phone and web with the computer manufacturer’s Service Desk. Three simple steps, executed in order, and still no connectivity. Computer support, apparently not having read the open ticket tried to have me reinstall software a second time. We went through the same process again and got the same result… no connectivity. The computer manufacturer’s technician suggested that the wireless carrier had given me bad numbers. The score: 14 days, 7 calls, 6 e-chats and still no connectivity. On day 14 I gave up and cancelled the wireless broadband account because neither side could make it work.

As a customer of this partnership between computer manufacturer and wireless provider, I have a poorer opinion of both companies than before. They did not follow even the simple Deming PDCA level of quality management. A customer focused organization would not have stopped until my problem was accurately diagnosed, the root cause identified and the problem resolved to my satisfaction.

How could a framework like ITSM have helped in this situation? One, clear unambiguous escalation processes would have brought more technical expertise to bear on my question before I was bounced back and forth repeatedly. Two, a central knowledge repository would have made the history of my contacts available to all the technicians I spoke with allowing them to get more information from me rather than asking the same questions over and over. Three, a customer focus would have trained the Service Desk staff to listen and probe to assure that the customer problem or desire was fully and accurately captured before a course of action was taken. Four, mature problem management processes would have focused on assuring that my problem was completed resolved and full functionality of computer broadband capability restored.

This story is not quite over as I took the next logical step as a consumer and wrote a letter via “snail mail” to the Chief Marketing Officer of the computer company to let them know how unhappy I am with the service I received.

Rhane Thomas

What is Customer Focus?

Lots of books and whitepapers have been written about customer service and the ‘customer focus’, what does it mean in practical terms? As a consumer of products and services myself, I can share what it means to me.

First, and foremost, it means listening and attending to what the customer is saying. Too often, service desk and call center staff go through a standard set of questions by rote that do not get them the information needed to accurately understand the customer’s concern. The active listening ideal suggests asking open-ended questions and rephrasing the customer’s comments to be sure that real communication has taken place.

Second, customer focus means assuring that the customer is satisfied both with the service received and with the form and style of delivery.

In IT Service Management, the Service Desk is the single point of contact (SPOC) for customers consuming IT services. As the first and maybe only direct experience a customer will have with service provider, a customer focus is essential for building and maintaining a positive reputation for quality. Active listening is one of skills that is essential for Service Desk staff.

In service provision the customer’s perception of quality is everything. A recent experience with the Service Desks of two large technology companies spotlighted the value that a framework like IT Service Management can bring to service provision and to managing the customers’ perceptions. My personal journey to realize the value of a product and service I purchase illustrates some very common pitfalls that good processes might avoid.

The notebook computer I use for teaching my classes was purchased with a built-in broadband modem. One month of free service with a national carrier was offered as an incentive for purchasing that particular model. While on the road, I needed connectivity and decided to accept the trial offer. I followed a preinstalled web link and completed an application for service with the wireless carrier. At the end of the self-service web application process, I had a phone number and a message saying I had completed the application process. Unfortunately, that was not enough to actually use the broadband feature.

Blissfully ignorant, I tried to connect using the broadband feature the next day and was unable to complete the wireless connection. I contacted the notebook manufacturer’s tech support site and began to explain my problem to the technician. He directed me through an exhaustive and totally unnecessary process of removing and reinstalling drivers and programs that did not ultimately resolve my problem. He suggested that I contact the wireless carrier.

I visited one of the wireless carrier’s store fronts and was sent to a second location that I was told provided hardware technical support. A short drive across town and I learned that the wireless carrier does not service the module in the notebook computer. They could not offer any help with my connectivity issue, but did ask me to set up a PIN number for my, thus far useless, wireless account. The very pleasant service person suggested I call the notebook manufacturer.

To be continued…

Posted by Rhane Thomas

It’s the people. . .

Lately I’ve been teaching ITIL v3 Foundations Boot Camps. One theme has occurred again and again in the comments and questions from participants, “Where and how do you start?” My advice is to start with the people. Both the people who work in IT and the people in the larger business have to be considered when planning for the organizational changes that an ITIL implementation can bring. Although ITIL is focused on transforming how Information Technology is delivered, sustained and perceived within the larger business context, the framework clearly assumes that changes will be required on both sides of the relationship.

While books and experts are often quoted saying that ITIL cannot be implemented piecemeal, it is fairly clear that sweeping organizational change cannot be accomplished in an instant. The key to understanding the assertion is in the interrelatedness of the five ITIL domains. Within each domain and across all the domains an output of one process is a necessary input to another.

Businesses considering an ITIL implementation are most often well established and unable and unwilling to suspend operations to completely change their organization and ways of doing business over night. Thus, the move toward an IT Service Management mindset most often starts with Continual Service Improvement (CSI). At the most basic level, ITIL provides a shared vocabulary and set of assumptions to help IT and business collaborate on improving processes and IT support of them.

CSI is the ITIL domain that concerns itself with transforming the way in which business interacts with its Information Technology assets and resources. This is where the people come in. People are what makes processes live. In order to effectively transform an organization, you have to win the cooperation of the people who will ultimately do the work. In order to move people out of their comfort zones, it is imperative that the introduction of Continual Service Improvement be done in a way that makes the benefits of CSI to both the business and the individual clear.People envision the work, set the value of work and actually do the work of business both inside and outside IT. ITIL stresses the importance of clear and unambiguous accountability for processes, i.e., ownership. Empowering people to own business processes and be instrumental in the success of business initiatives that depend on them, makes the benefits of Continual Service Improvement clear. The establishment of accountability and ownership arguably lead to process documentation if for no other reason than having justification for actions and an audit trail. Documentation of current practices, or how business gets done, become the jumping off point for CSI. A CSI implementation can begin with very small incremental improvements, providing a series of small “wins” which may increase acceptance of the CSI concept and demonstrate the value of increased process rigor. Although ITIL is focused on transforming Information Technology, the concept of process ownership and accountability is equally applicable to non-IT business concerns, and the value of good documentation as a business case for planned, controlled change applies enterprise wide.

Posted by Rhané Thomas

Fine WBS Tool

Fine WBS Tool

I would like to share a software tool with you, my fellow project managers and consultants, which I have found to be very helpful. I am not getting paid by any company to endorse certain products (wish I were!), but when I find a good tool, I like to share. This particular tool helps create easy and professional Work Breakdown Structures, and is called WBS Chart Pro by Critical Tools. You can find it at http://www.criticaltools.com/.

What I like about this tool is that it allows me to fully utilize the benefits of the WBS. For example, I was hired to oversee a project recently where it was estimated that the work would take 3 months with 5 people, including me, working on it part-time at approximately 25% or less of their time. After meeting with them and brainstorming what the project work would entail, we had a pretty good list of activities. I suggested we start with ‘quick hits’ to show progress and generate excitement about our project, and then move on to other activities. So far, so good.

After breaking out the work behind the so-called quick hits, I listed the activities in MSProject. The neat thing about the WBS Chart Pro software is that it automatically takes what you have in MSProject and it creates a diagram that looks like an organizational chart, except that instead of people’s names and positions, it shows the work of your project hierarchically. This happens with literally the push of a button, which is the icon that the software loads onto your MSProject screen. Sure, Visio will create a WBS, but it is manually intensive, and certainly won’t automatically update itself if the list of activities changes. Here, if you update MSProject, the WBS is automatically updated as well. You can even make changes in WBS Chart Pro and they will be reflected back in MSProject, although I personally choose not to do that. You can choose from various views in WBS Chart Pro, showing as much or as little detail for each activity as you like.

Going back to the project I was describing, after loading the work behind only the quick hits, the WBS that popped up was 7 pages wide and 2 pages deep. Only then was it painfully obvious to the team that our schedule and resources were extremely unrealistic. The quick hits alone turned out to be their own project, and would themselves take longer than the 3 months and need more attention than the 5 part time people.

After showing the WBS to the sponsor to help him visually understand our predicament, we then scaled back the number of quick hits yet again to better reflect reality. We called this the Focused Phase I. The new WBS of this focused effort fit on one page. Now, visually, everyone could see that we finally had a realistic list of activities and schedule.

In this case, the tool helped us communicate with a well-intentioned but absent sponsor. It also helped some of the more ‘rosy estimators’ on the team face reality. They could no longer say, ‘Sure we can do it all’ when the graphic so plainly said otherwise.

Critical Tools also has a product called Pert Chart EXPERT which will display a PERT chart in fewer pages than MSProject will. I bought that software package, too, and it does work well, but I have to say that I haven’t really used it like I do WBS Chart Pro.

Have you tried WBS Chart Pro? What do you think of it? Have you found other helpful tools? Please share them with us. Together, we are all better. Thanks!

Vicki Wrona, PMP®is the founder and President of Forward Momentum, LLC, an 8(a) consulting and training company found at www.forwardmomentum.net. She has been managing projects and mentoring project managers for the past 20 years in both the private and public sectors, in manufacturing, service, and IT. She is an instructor and course director for Global Knowledge, and developed GK’s PMP® Exam Prep Boot Camp course, which is part of the program that won the Project Management Institute’s® Professional Development Product of the Year Award in 2007. She has trained over 3,300 professionals, including over 1,600 on the PMP® exam. Currently, she is serving on PMI®’s PMBOK® Guide 4th edition creation and review team in general, and a content reviewer specifically on the Communication and Procurement knowledge areas.

Lately I’ve been teaching ITIL v3 Foundations Boot Camps

Lately I’ve been teaching ITIL v3 Foundations Boot Camps. One theme has occurred again and again in the comments and questions from participants, “Where and how do you start?” My advice is to start with the people. Both the people who work in IT and the people in the larger business have to be considered when planning for the organizational changes that an ITIL implementation can bring. Although ITIL is focused on transforming how Information Technology is delivered, sustained and perceived within the larger business context, the framework clearly assumes that changes will be required on both sides of the relationship.

While books and experts are often quoted saying that ITIL cannot be implemented piecemeal, it is fairly clear that sweeping organizational change cannot be accomplished in an instant. The key to understanding the assertion is in the interrelatedness of the five ITIL domains. Within each domain and across all the domains an output of one process is a necessary input to another.

Businesses considering an ITIL implementation are most often well established and unable and unwilling to suspend operations to completely change their organization and ways of doing business over night. Thus, the move toward an IT Service Management mindset most often starts with Continual Service Improvement (CSI). At the most basic level, ITIL provides a shared vocabulary and set of assumptions to help IT and business collaborate on improving processes and IT support of them.

CSI is the ITIL domain that concerns itself with transforming the way in which business interacts with its Information Technology assets and resources. This is where the people come in. People are what makes processes live. In order to effectively transform an organization, you have to win the cooperation of the people who will ultimately do the work. In order to move people out of their comfort zones, it is imperative that the introduction of Continual Service Improvement be done in a way that makes the benefits of CSI to both the business and the individual clear.
People envision the work, set the value of work and actually do the work of business both inside and outside IT. ITIL stresses the importance of clear and unambiguous accountability for processes, i.e., ownership. Empowering people to own business processes and be instrumental in the success of business initiatives that depend on them, makes the benefits of Continual Service Improvement clear. The establishment of accountability and ownership arguably lead to process documentation if for no other reason than having justification for actions and an audit trail. Documentation of current practices, or how business gets done, become the jumping off point for CSI. A CSI implementation can begin with very small incremental improvements, providing a series of small “wins” which may increase acceptance of the CSI concept and demonstrate the value of increased process rigor. Although ITIL is focused on transforming Information Technology, the concept of process ownership and accountability is equally applicable to non-IT business concerns, and the value of good documentation as a business case for planned, controlled change applies enterprise wide.

Rhané Thomas
Senior Consultant
Public Sector Consultants, Inc
1124 15th Street, Suite A
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916)715-9661
rhane@psc-inc.biz