Two worlds colliding or collaborating?

Megan Pendlebury, Head of Service Management at itSMF UK, looks at the increasingly popular world of Agile systems development and considers whether it can join forces with IT Service Management

A lifecycle approach to business considers all aspects from strategising through to day-to-day running of operations. The ITIL® V3 Lifecycle model is recognised within Service Management, but in fact this type of model has been used for many years throughout the rest of the business. In the past the IT focus has existed in silos, with the Application Development and Project teams completing their work and then handing over to the Service Management teams for support with the applications going forward. This often resulted in the more complicated incidents and problems being passed back to the Application Development teams to resolve as they were the ones with a true understanding of how it all actually worked.

Due to the need for increased efficiencies in terms of saving money and also customer patience, this model will simply not work anymore; there is an absolute need for the Development teams and the Service Management teams to work together. An obvious step perhaps, but surprisingly over the last few years, discussions have taken place as to which process set was the best to take forward and use across the entire IT department – Agile or ITIL®. Yet if you look at the basic fundamentals of both ITIL® and Agile they are in fact complementary, both in the way they are used and the principles upon which they were built.

Agile and ITIL® both recognise that the people carrying out the tasks are key to the success. Agile sees that technical and organisational success needs to be matched with a feeling of personal success, ensuring that staff remain motivated and focused. Meanwhile ITIL® considers the people as service assets both as organisational capabilities and resources, meaning that the service cannot run successfully without them.

Value is key to both frameworks. ITIL® values relationships and partnerships over less flexible contracts and highly bureaucratic following of rules; even within an outsourced (and so contracted) service, the concept of an SLA allows for this level of working together. The agreement between the customers and the service provider is intended to ensure the services delivered to the business are fit for use (warranty) and purpose (utility).  It is by both utility and warranty being considered and worked towards that value can be delivered to the customers. Agile is built around a manifesto which is based on a number of basic principles; one of these principles focuses on customer satisfaction through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

ITIL® and Agile also both agree that requirements and needs will change throughout the lifecycle of an application or service. Both have processes built in to handle change rather than stopping it from happening. To manage change in a controlled way allows flexibility without allowing the scope to creep outside of project tolerances. The above examples of value and control are just two of many principles where the approaches can be seen to have similar goals.

Becoming Agile

Agile development was put together on the basis that small, highly motivated teams could carry out all the steps of development (define, design, develop, test and deliver) in a ‘rapid’ way, meaning that all the stages are carried out in one go rather than having stringent sign-off gates between each stage. In ITIL® terms, rather than carry out a ‘big bang’ approach to implementing the processes all in one go, an Agile implementation project team would work closely with the customers to ensure an understanding of the goals, and would then use an iterative, not over-engineered  process to implement what was needed. 

As this diagram illustrates, by using a ‘Traditional’ approach much more time has passed before the customers themselves are able to appreciate any value (the value is only seen in the Operate phase of any lifecycle) whereas, when using the Agile approach, value is delivered periodically.

The iterative approach could be aligned to a maturity scale or CMMI. You may be starting from a maturity level of 0 or the ‘hero culture’, but then you would move through the levels until you have a fully matured and improved service. To use an example in order to illustrate this, we can consider the implementation of Change Management; the first stage may be to write the processes down and implement the infrastructure needed to run the process; the second phase may see the controls being put in place, and the third would be about improving what was there. At each stage there has been a strategy, design and a transition through to operating the Change Management process.

The Agile approach lends itself to using virtualised models to allow for quick implementation and expansion rather than installing infrastructure for each implementation. Many organisations are moving towards a virtualised model for both cost savings and environmental reasons, but are not necessarily embracing the fact that it allows them to redesign their approach to development and other projects. An Agile IT department is additionally likely to utilise technologies for self-service, allowing the user base to not only log their own requests and incidents but also to manage the process themselves. The fact that users manage these processes themselves for the more common requests or incidents, results in the IT staff being able to concentrate on development or troubleshooting the less frequent or complex issues. This should help to increase staff morale and hence increase the feeling of personal success which Agile strives to achieve.

Conclusion

In summary, an IT department working in silos can take longer to fix incidents and problems, can suffer from over-engineered projects that are poorly implemented, and then cause frustration within the IT Service Management team. Alongside this, rigidity around processes can lead to poor IT performance and ultimately poor customer service to the business.

An Agile IT department focuses on the customer needs and satisfaction, is flexible, delivers value in a shorter time period, has a happier staff base and can also save money and be more environmentally friendly. From a CIO’s viewpoint, and from that of an individual within the team, it is clear which of these two models is far more likely to be the most effective.

itSMF UK Conference

If you are interested in the delivery and support of IT services and the essential concepts behind service management you should be attending this year’s itSMF UK conference and exhibition. For more information go to www.itsmf.co.uk/conference2010