Michael Jagdeo is a Director at B Wyze Solutions. In this blog, he describes an experience creating a modular ITIL v3 education plan to drive Service Desk improvements in a bare bones, non-certification driven, practical way…

Story Highlights:

• Problem: The client needed a way to encourage their Service Desk Analysts to suggest and operationalize Continual Service Improvement (“CSI”) initiatives before the end of the year. They also needed to train them on ITIL v3 best practices relevant to the Desk’s 18-month plan.
• Modular ITIL v3 education: Instead of having them attend 2-3 day Foundation courses, or even have them go through an entire eLearning course, we work with the Team Lead to choose the relevant ITIL v3 function/process modules.
• Instructional Design: Instead of throwing the training at the Analysts, we devise a detailed, practical strategy to get them actively involved in the training, in a timely manner, and promote active thinking around CSI initiatives.

 
SITUATION

• 5 service desk agents taking 20-25 incidents per day.
• 1,200 end users at the corporate office
• All of the analysts have been working on the desk for over 1 year.
• None of the analysts have a background with ITIL best practices.
• They are short-staffed, and so taking time away from the desk is next to impossible.

TASK

Each staff member in the company must come up with one continuous improvement initiative by the end of the calendar year. Therefore, we needed to encourage the analysts to identify and implement CSI initiatives by providing them with training relevant to:

1. Their role.
2. The 18-month Service Desk Plan as set by management.

Notice that the task is not, ‘Get them ITIL Foundation certified’ or ‘Have them take a 2-3 day course.’

The goal, now and forever, is to improve the service that the service desk provides to the end user community. All activities that the desk engages in must be aligned with this goal in mind.

ACTION

A. Initial Assessment

I met with the Service Desk Team Lead on Thursday, July 9^th 2009 thinking that, at the very least, the analysts should go through our Service Desk, Incident, Problem, and Change Management eLearning modules given that they were so busy. I felt the analysts would be more engaged in learning that related to processes that they carried out every day (as opposed to learning about the intricacies of other processes like Demand Management).

B. Additional training priorities

After discussing the Team Leader’s goals, we realized that Configuration Management, Access Management, Service Catalog Management (and therefore Service Level Management), were other relevant eLearning modules given their 18-month Service Desk Improvement Plan.

C. Instructional Design

Now that we decided which ITIL v3 process training would encourage the analysts to come up with CSI initiatives, we had to design the delivery of the learning to ensure that CSI initiatives were suggested and operationalized before year’s end.

We came up with the following strategy:

• We created a briefing session for the analysts, which included a(n):
  • Overview of the ITIL v3 modules they’d be specifically focusing on.
  • Emphasis on the ultimate goal: to provide them the training they needed to suggest and implement CSI initiatives.
• We instituted dated milestones for each module (i.e. finish Service Desk and Incident Management in the first 15 days). To simply tell the analysts that they had X number of days to complete the course was out of the question. We couldn’t afford the training to take more than 45 days because the CSI initiatives had to be suggested and implemented before the end of the year. Keep in mind that they Analysts would be doing the training on their own time.
• We created a simple document with two columns to encourage the analysts to actively think about how to apply the knowledge. On the left-hand side of the page, we had the name of the process/function. On the right side, the analyst had space to jot down CSI initiatives/ideas that popped into their mind based on what they learned in the module. I cannot stress this enough: this training would prove ineffective if the analysts didn’t operationalize these best practices by changing the way they did their job AND suggest ways to improve the service desk as a whole.
• Agreed to have multiple staff meetings after the training to consolidate the list of suggestions, prioritize/schedule the ensuing tasks/projects, and get a feel for the ITIL v3 ROI.

RESULT

To be determined (this meeting occurred on Thursday, July 10th 2009 and I wrote this on the Friday!)

REVIEW & ANALYSIS

Applied Science – one of the theories behind this approach

Applied Science states that learning occurs when behavioral change is realized. The steps to realizing behavioral change are as follows:

1. Teach the Learner the material.
2. Ensure Learner comprehension.
3. Let the Learner test out the material/ideas in the real world to see if they work or not.
4. Have Learners participate in a Community of Practice where they share what worked, what didn’t, and what they would modify.
5. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until the desired result is smooth and frothy ;-) .

When we talk Education, ROI is realized via Behavioral Change

ITIL education is not about getting certified. It’s not about going to a 3-day course. It’s about changing the way we deliver service to the business in a way that supports their initiatives.

Folks, let’s get back to training 101.

Michael Jagdeo (HDI SCM, ITIL v2/v3, cool guy) has an extensive background as an ITSM/ITIL enthusiast.  He has worked on placements in Singapore, Dubai, London, and across North America.  As Director at B Wyze Solutions, he manages relationships with clients like Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, Maple Leaf Foods, and the Government of Ontario. Follow him on Twitter!

Related Posts

• July 7, 2009: Implementing ITIL - Insight from Head of ITSM (Part 1: Education)
• July 7, 2009: Implementing ITIL - Insight from Head of ITSM (Part 2: Outsourcing)
• July 7, 2009: Implementing ITIL - Insight from Head of ITSM (Part 3: Tool Implementation & ITIL Adoption)
• June 10, 2009: Maintaining Momentum for Your ITIL Program vs. The Service Catalog
• May 26, 2009: Interpreting ITSM Metrics Isn’t Always Straight Forward