To manage services effectively and efficiently, you have to start at the end and reverse engineer the outcome.

Over this past Holiday season I hosted our family Christmas dinner for 18 people. It was a complete success, and “I beat the odds” of family members betting against me. The secret was to apply an approach we promote within ITIL: to start with the outcome and work it back backwards. With this in mind, I used the simplest of aides (a spreadsheet) with a service goal of “sitting down to eat” at 4:00pm. Enter all tasks into the spreadsheet along with estimated prep and cook times, and subtract these times from the target. Sort it and set your watch for appropriate reminders.

It’s simple, but highly effective - which is what we want in business.

If nothing else, then here’s another turkey dinner plan for next year!

As a result of North America’s aging population, there has been much written and debated about the challenges facing companies due to the demographic pressures on the North American labour force. As the argument goes, we have too many people retiring and not enough young workers to fill their shoes. Logically, this should mean easy pickens’ for the millennials (those under 30). Hold on. Throw into the mix two somewhat opposing forces to this logic - the slowing of the global economy and the globalization of labour. Most of us reckon that the global economy will turn around at some point. We still can’t be sure what that means for North America. An aging population beyond their peak spending years could result in a prolonged period of adjustment for this economy. Maybe, the slow down is just what the doctor ordered to slow the “war for talent” and the two factors - aging workforce and slowing economy- will balance each other out. Stay tuned.

Let’s say the impact of the Baby Boomer’s exiting the North American workforce does offset the economic slowdown. Millennials still have another challenge. Let’s consider the fact that labour is going global faster than anyone ever imagined. The 20-30 year olds in Costa Rica, Mexico, China, India, {insert developing nation here}, etc. are very hungry and very educated. They have sat on the sidelines for decades watching developed nations achieve a fascinating quality of life. They are hungry for their chance. With the globalization and the virtualization of the skilled worker, it is now a global competition for jobs in most industry sectors. Companies can now truly search the world over for the best people.

North American workers are going to need a combination of desire, incentives (government or other), innovation and, yes, wage equalization to compete in many professions. It could prove to be an interesting transition for many developed nations worldwide. War for Talent or War on Talent. The jury is out.

Often times when things aren’t going quite right in IT, people are quick to blame technology rather than the people or the existing process. In my experience, most mid to top tier ITSM tools can be modified to meet business requirements, rather than investing in new technology.This brings me back to the original question which comes first, the tool or process? In order for an ITSM tool to function effectively, it must enable a robust process. ITIL, Cobit, Six Sigma…..it doesn’t matter, it just needs to follow a best practice framework that is applicable to the organization.

Once the process is defined, then start planning the tool implementation or upgrade (rip and replace isn’t always the answer). Remember to start with reporting requirements first. Often times, if the data isn’t going to be diplayed in a management report, it doesn’t need to be captured in the tool.

Last but not least, in the spirit of continual service improvement, process always needs to be reexamined for improvements. When process is updated, don’t forget the tool!

We are in for an interesting ride in 2009 that’s for sure. The economic slowdown, while not unprecedented, certainly has some unique attributes. The confluence of the financial sector breakdown, aging North American population and wildly fluctuating oil prices makes instability a certainty. So what do we do?

The world continues to turn; the sun comes up each morning.

We need to make the best of the situation. Look for the silver lining and the opportunities. Sure, there will be some dramatic changes for some of us. Many North Americans have been living a life style which needs to change. Clearly we can’t go on consuming the world’s resources at will, expecting others to do the heavy lifting. It’s time to go back to work and be responsible global citizens.

At B Wyze and MindMuze we’re excited by this challenge. We head into 2009 eager to launch new, cost effective and environmentally friendly solutions to our clients around the world.

The technology exists now for us to effectively delivery ITIL Assessments and consulting to our clients around the globe without the need for extensive travel. These services combined with our blended learning ITIL Foundation and ITIL Service Operations certifications can help companies continue down the path of IT process improvement in cost effective and environmentally efficient ways.

Our MindMuze products and services leverage the world of online delivery in ways never before possible. The future holds some truly exciting prospects for Web 2.0 learning communities and Web 3.0 immersive training in virtual worlds such as Second Life. MindMuze will be a leader in bringing these solutions to our clients.

There is no doubt that 2009 will be a challenge for all of us. We look forward to tackling the challenge head on!

What gets measured gets done is a phrase I learned in my Service Marketing fourth year university course. This phrase can be applied to improve processes in the IT industry. If a process does not get measured, it cannot be managed. If the process cannot be managed than nothing can be done to improve the process.

Once a process has matured, it is fairly easy to just leave it as is.

Instead, IT services should always be looking at making continual service improvements to their processes which will better align IT with the goals of the business. ITIL Best Practices suggests using the continuous Deming Cycle process to improve processes. This Deming Cycle consists of - Planning (Planning for improvement initiatives), Doing (Implementation of the improvement initiative), Checking (monitor, measure, review services and processes), and Acting (continual service and service management improvement).

Some of our clients have recently implemented a change management team and they follow the deming cycle process weekly. The change management team is responsible for meeting bi-weekly to measure their success rate from the past weeks change. By measuring improvements the team can plan ahead and make new changes to make the process even better.