To continue what I discussed in my last post, “learning at the speed of change” is a reference to the fact that change is the only constant and the speed of change is increasing. The speed with which an organization learns collectively and individually will determine their fate in the coming years.  Information overload is only going to get worse for everyone. We need to find a way to ensure that our focus in learning is on two things: quality of communications and our ability to extract value from massive amounts of information. Learning is not so much about pouring massive amounts of information into our brains all at once. It is about optimizing our social/professional networks and accessing new information JIT/JET – Just-in-time/Just-enough.

Does your learning strategy incorporate enough focus on innovative tactics for training people JIT/JET? I often find that many academics frown at the simplicity of this concept. Yet the Gen Y’ers are demanding only a JIT/JET learning strategy and have very little patience for the information dump that occurs in sessions that last much longer than 20 minutes.  They want to know, what they need to know, as they recognize the need to know it.  Get it?

ITIL is about constant and never-ending improvement.   ITIL “depends”.   Your ITIL/ITSM education strategy needs to focus on JIT/JET blended approaches through internal community sharing, eLearning nuggets or “coursels”, mentoring, classroom “coursels” and job sharing.  Sending your IT team to consecutive classroom training sessions is not the answer.   Don’t fall for the “bums in seats” marketing of classroom training.

Find out what the learner group needs now, deliver it rapidly in an educational and fun way, and determine when the learning modules have outlived their usefulness.  Store all of the learning assets centrally, maintain version control, seek collaboration with as many relevant subject matter experts as possible and continuously improve. You can do all of this and fast. Reducing costs and improving learning delivery. Find the right systems and put the processes in place.

Computer Economics recently published a research paper which states that 28% of companies outsource their Help Desk. This number is line with the overall outsourcing of IT functions of 28% as well. Human Resources are next in line for outsourcing at 15%, followed closely by sales and marketing at 14%.

Given the fact that these three business functions are primarily people driven we can safely say that IT is more aggressive as a business unit to outsource than the rest of a company. Actually, let me restate that for those of us in the IT business: The Help Desk is two times less strategic and valuable than those other functions!

Why should companies view the Help Desk as more important and strategic than Human Resources, or Sales & Marketing? What has IT done in the last 5-10 years to put strategic value on the Help Desk? Training? Not so much; as ask any Help Desk Manager if they are spending more today than five years ago on training their support staff.

Ah, it must be technology that IT is spending money on for support. Don’t think so, just look at the overall IT spend over the last 3 years, as the downward trend continues. I know, it is more resources! Again, ask any Help Desk Manager if they have increased their staff to meet the business demand?

Yet in all of this most Help Desk Managers will tell you that work has increased, and volumes are up. With the exception of this “little recession” we are in, year over year volume increases exist in most support organizations. Ask any Help Desk Manager how the last upgrade went or configuration change in the network over the weekend…

I often ask, will it ever get better for the Help Desk? Here are a few reasons why it doesn’t look good;

1. At a macro level we are shifting to a contractor based workforce. By 2016 it is estimated that over 40% of the workforce will be contactors. All commodity based positions will be outsourced or eliminated (If you didn’t figure this out, most Help Desk work is considered commodity based by the business) and only Knowledge Workers with specific skill sets will work within companies. Don’t believe me? Ask where your receptionist is. Most mid-sized and small companies have eliminated that position already.

2. Gartner estimates that over 40% of IT budgets will be controlled by the business in the next couple of years. Hmmm, if I am a business unit leader am I going to spend money on Help Desk that even IT hasn’t invested in (see my points above), or am I going to find someone else that can do it better and cheaper so I can use my time and money better? Take a guess!

3. The Help Desk value to a company has remained finite for over a decade. Ask a Help Desk Manager what their service level agreements were 5 years ago, and what they are today. Chances are they are same. While the metrics may have increased and the Help Desk answers the phone faster the reality is that most Help Desks have not updated their service level commitments to match what the business needs. Case in point: why doesn’t the Help Desk answer 80% of their emails within 30 seconds? They do this for their phone calls, and even chats.

Whether you are for or against outsourcing you have to be objective and look at other factors affecting companies today. The reality is that in most companies the Help Desk continues to drift further from the center of the organization.  There really is no Single Point of Blame (SPOB) as this is really the evolution of business more than the Help Desk having a target on its back. Don’t worry Help Desk managers; the CIO right now has a bigger target on their back, as most analysts have them extinct within companies within five years.

Hey, look at the bright side… Airline companies today outsource 67% of significant maintenance work of their aircraft. Hey Help Desk, you are over two times more strategic in value than those useless Ten ton tin cans in the sky! Enjoy your next flight, and for some comedic relief on outsourcing, click on this video.

I have noticed a recent trend in my discussions with IT Service and Service Desk Managers. In addition to a renewed focus on Customer Service  (see my blog here), they are all focused on the challenge of using timely, relevant learning to reduce call volumes.

After Password Resets, Email and Calendaring seem to come up as the most frequent offenders for call volumes followed by one to three mission critical applications.

So what’s the solution? In a nutshell, “learning nuggets”.  I’ve been kicking around the IT and corporate learning industries for more years than I care to admit, but never have a seen a more opportune time to use technology and innovation drive learning that generates immediate R.O.I.

It’s not difficult. Identify the what knowledge or skills are missing in your client base that drive the bulk of your calls by answering this question: If our clients only knew xxx our calls would drop by yyy.

Focus on keeping the learning short and direct to the point.

1. Take advantage of rapid development tools to create the learning in a format acceptable to your organization.

For example, in every meeting I’ve been to recently our clients end up asking for a demonstration of our SHIFT learning development tool. It creates e Learning quickly and affordably that can be maintained and updated as needed. The outputs can be simple stand alone HTML courses or full SCORM compliant courses compatible with a corporate Learning Management System.

2. Launch the learning and get your analysts and self help sites to direct people to it.

3. Track the results. (reduced calls by type)

4. Modify the training as needed.

Last, publish the results, it never hurts to toot your own horn and you deserve it!

It can be challenging, it can be difficult. But what is the most intensive aspect of an IT Business Process Improvement Plan?

One customer told me, “Education of course! I learned my lesson the hard way. I once rushed into making an improvement in an IT process without thinking about an Education Best Practice Framework. Consequently, it backfired because I failed to take the time to properly deliver the message to my team and this led to chaos!”

Educating your team is a critical step in building a successful IT Business Process Improvement Plan. It is often something we think about after the process has already been improved – which is far too late. Try thinking about the education component long before the process change has been implemented.

Here are a few important questions to ask before jumping into a process improvement plan.

1. Have I allocated enough time to educate my team and the stakeholders involved?
2. Do I have the resources required to educate my team and stakeholders?
3. How will I educate my team in an engaging way that will keep get them up to speed?
4. Can I educate them via eLearning (online)? It need not be expensive; our customers are creating their own, media rich, animated, voice-driven eLearning on their own like this one.

Ask these questions first and you might just sidestep a lot of potential problems.

Want Behavior Change in Support of ITIL? Check out Malcolm Fry’s solution – the “corporate slapper”. In advance of my blog next week discussing some proven methodologies for influencing/changing behaviors in the workplace (or for that matter, anywhere), I couldn’t resist posting this video.

After you laugh (or wince), really listen to the message. We need to stop allowing for the negativity, the destructive language and the naysaying that clutters many organizational interactions.  It prevents progress, stymies creativity, inhibits creative energy …. I could go on. The point is this: “slap” it out of your culture (or just start with YOUR team). The “slapper” analogy is about zero tolerance for this destructive behavior. Your team, your organization and YOU can’t compete in a world where we are competing with everyone, for everything, everywhere, if the “slapper” needs new batteries every day.

To paraphrase Malcolm’s main message, you can be the “corporate slapper.” But you don’t have to slap.  Identify those who are being disruptive and negative, and let them know the score. If that doesn’t work, do something about it. Don’t tolerate it. Don’t work around them, face the problem head on.  Emphasize that you all work for the same company. You could get a 40% improvement right away if the new mantra was “hey, let’s become productive.”  We all work for the same company, and have the same objectives (or should) so let’s make sure we achieve.

It is difficult for many IT Leaders to acknowledge that these communication issues are the root cause of a majority of the problems in moving to a sustainable process improvement model (ITIL).

I have watched the video 3 times. I am still laughing, mostly because through his satire, the broad challenges that we often face with moving ITIL forward become so obvious. We can figure out the technology. We can document the process. We can hire skilled people. Now, if we can overcome some of the personal, political and negative nonsense, we have a better chance of implementing positive and sustainable change.

I have found numerous discussions forums dealing with the challenges of behavior change and buy-in on the road to sustainable process improvement with IT. But Malcolm is the first to introduce the “slapper!”