How to Improve your IT. Part 3 - A better IT Management Model

A series of posts on how to improve the performance of your IT

The Traditional IT Management model

The majority of IT Departments are managed following the Traditional management model, that is, a hierarchical, command and control structure first introduced during the Industrial Revolution and still in use today. For IT, this Traditional model looks something like this:

This is a standard hierarchal model shown as an Organization Chart view, with the CIO as the department head and an Executive Management team made up of IT Managers each of whom manages a specific IT Function (an IT Function is an IT Team).

This model has some significant failings:

This Traditional, hierarchal way of managing has not changed since the beginning of information processing in the 1960s, this approach also strongly influences the management practices in use, most of which are now outdated.
This model tends to be focused on technology first and a customer’s second approach with either little or no consideration of staff needs.
It traps the CIO into focussing too much on operational matters as against just focussing on business/strategic needs.
The model’s biggest problem is that communications between people and teams follow the hierarchical lines of the model, this then supports IT Functions as silos.
It fails to adequately provide the IT Management Executive with a macro view of IT performance.
It reinforces that IT Managers are only responsible for their own IT Function, that is, they are blinkered, siloed, having only a micro view of departmental performance until forced to look outside of their operational boundaries.
IT team activities tend to be chaotic under this model.
Staff and Customer Satisfaction levels are predominantly low.
It does not support tight IT Teams integration, the single most important thing that makes IT work.
Performance metrics tend not to be in use due to the siloed nature of the IT Functions.

A better IT Management model

The model I prefer and the one I have always implemented is an IT Performance Management model. I always moved quickly to implement this model which is a hybrid of the older Traditional and newer Transformational management models. The model looks like this:

It is still a hierarchical model but for the purposes of reporting lines only. All that has changed is the perspective or view of the IT department. The CIO is still the department head with an Executive Management team made up of the IT Managers. The model is designed to emphasize Performance Management at a macro or whole department level. It is also designed to improve communications, create a shared Executive Management responsibility for all IT Functions, help implement Transformational management practices, help with High-Performance Team development and finally to fully separate the management of projects away from operational activities.

This model has some significant benefits:

The Performance Management focus is on customers first, staff second and technology third. It frees up the CIO to concentrate on business and strategic needs. This model is designed to produce performance and operational excellence.
The Key Performance metrics are Customer satisfaction, Staff satisfaction, Job completion rates, Failure rates, Quality, Service Delivery and Process adherence.
It provides the IT Executive Team with a macro view of IT performance and forces all IT Managers to share in the responsibility for delivering departmental performance outcomes.
Under this model, each IT Manager is responsible for all IT Functions, that is, management responsibility is shared.
New communication lines are opened at inter-team touchpoints which improves integration.
The value and quality of information exchanged at these touchpoints is dramatically improved and silos are broken down.
IT teams are highly organized under this model and performance is measured.
This model can produce operational (day to day activities excluding projects) human resource savings of up to 30%.
Displaced operational human resources are redirected to business/strategic projects as dedicated resources paid for by the business with associated IT cost savings.
Staff and Customer Satisfaction levels are considerably higher under this model.

Service Desk - You can’t manage what you can’t measure

As can be seen, the Service Desk is a central feature of the Performance model. I refer to the Service Desk as the Executive Management teams personal CIA. A well-managed Service Desk with an appropriately structured database is all that is needed to manage Performance across all of IT (excluding projects). Even a basic service desk setup is sufficient to satisfy the Performance Management needs. (ITIL improves the management capability but is not essential). Most Service Desk applications can satisfy the Management Reporting needs (metrics), those that cannot only need to add a fairly simple program to interrogate the Service Desk database. In around 50% of cases, the database will require restructuring, this is due to poor design at the implementation stage due to the database being designed around the information needs of the Job Ticket and not around the needs of Management Reporting. In other words, the databases fail because they are back to front.

This work I get underway asap and treat as a high priority, the work is highly justifiable as the Management information the Service Desk provides underpins the entire Performance Management model and its management practices.

I have been constantly amazed over the years to see Service Desks managed as second-class citizens, viewed mainly as a Job ticketing function and not of particularly great value. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have come to learn that the Service Desk is one of the most important of all IT Functions if for no other reason than it gives you a direct insight into your Customers IT experience.

Using the Service Desk database and work request queues as information sources, a basic (manual process) Workload Management system is put in place consisting of Gating, Work Management, Work Classifications and Management reporting. The Service Desk is then able to provide a macro view of all Work across IT. Metrics by ‘Job Type’ are then introduced to report on things such as Average and actual Job Completion times, Backlogs, Hold-ups, Repeated jobs, Failed jobs, Recurring jobs and more. Only metrics that can be actioned and improved on are reported on.

The IT Executive Management team now has a view of each teams’ performance against the other teams. The degree of inter-team integration can now be measured. Inter-team integration consisting mainly of workflows and touchpoints is the single most important thing that makes IT work. The objective here is to achieve the highest integration level possible. That is, as most jobs in IT need the input of multiple teams, having a seamless workflow, with no hold-ups between the teams maximizes performance outcomes across the board. This allows SLAs to be achieved with happier customers and staff, it is also a first step to reducing IT spend as a result of reducing and better managing resource needs. There are more steps required to reduce IT spend and improve Performance, changing the management model is a structural change that acts as a foundation for future changes. It also changes the way the IT Executive Team and all staff view their work – a critical success factor that I will build on.