Blog - IT CSI

On a day to day basis our attention is consumed by events and incidents to which we react.  In response to some of these, we drill down and do root cause analysis to ensure that an incident does not recur.  Somehow it does not cross our minds that whilst we are doing the right things, we are only doing so reactively based on what has already happened.  We are in a perpetual cycle of fire fighting!

"It's not that they can't see the solution. They can't see the problem." - G.K. Chesterton

According to the Standish Group, a successful project must be completed on time, on budget and deliver the promised quality.

Of the many Standish Group reports published since 1994, two of the top five causes for failed IT projects have been given as:

• > Incomplete Requirements
• > Lack of User Involvement

Now that we have identified these two causes for failed projects, let’s examine what can be done. We could look at the project from a proactive or a reactive perspective but as the title of the blog is “Rescuing IT Projects,” the assumption is that we are looking back on faults/incidents that have occurred

Dealing with end user incidents dominates service management environments.  Once the incidents are resolved, the service environment relaxes.  Resolving an incident implies less pressure from users, because no problem exists. 

IT Service Desks have a primary responsibility to “Maintain End User Satisfaction with IT Services”. Think of internet banking services: if the end user could not use the service at the time they wished to do so, it would be unacceptable to him/her.  The end user never accepts that “we met Service Level Requirements and are therefore performing well.” If the desired service is not available and functionally working, we are simply not meeting end user client requirements.

The foregoing is a dilemma; our service management can never be fast enough and we need to continually find ways to deliver faster without compromising quality of work.  Unless we become blazingly fast, the end user client will not only lose faith in us, but in this day and age will be very vocal about it, possibly causing reputational damage to the service provider.  

“We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.”

 Edward de Bono

What Edward de Bono had to say rings very true with a high percentage of the problems that we are presented with, if the right questions are asked at the outset of the process it can save you a great deal of time and a lot of unnecessary tears and frustration.