Staffing and retention

Champions

ITSM projects and the resulting ongoing practice (performed by Service Operation staff) are often more successful if one or more ‘champions’ are forthcoming who can lead others through their enthusiasm and commitment for ITSM.

In some cases these champions may be senior managers who are leading from the top. But champions can also be successful if they come from other tiers of the organization. One or two junior staff can still have a significant beneficial influence on a successful conclusion.

Champions are often created or heavily influenced through formal Service Management training, particularly at more advanced levels where the potential benefits to an organization, and to the individuals who make a career path in Service Management, can be fully explored.

It should be noted that champions emerge over time. They cannot be created or appointed. Often it is user s or customer s who provide the most help in creating good Service Management processes as they are acutely aware of needed improvements from a business perspective. It is important to recognize that these are usually highly motivated staff who often voluntarily take on the greatest workload s. If their input is to be most effective they must be given time to work as the champion.

Having the appropriate number of staff with the appropriate skills is critical to the success of Service Operation. Some challenges that need to be overcome include the following.

• Project s for new services are usually quite good about specifying required new skills, but often underestimate the number of staff required and how to retain the new skills. See paragraph 9.2.1 for some ideas on how to facilitate better communication about requirement s.
• Scarcity of resource s who have a good understanding of Service Management. Having good technical people is necessary, but there needs to be a number of key people who are able to move between technology issues and service issues.
• Since these resources are fairly scarce it is quite common to train them, only to have them resign and join another company for a better salary. Clear career paths and good incentives should be part of every Service Management initiative.
• Attempting to assign too much, too soon, to existing staff. Achieving efficient Service Operation will take time, but if approached correctly it will be achieved. Unfortunately, some managers try to expedite the savings by assigning the interim work of implementing the new processes and tools to existing, very busy, staff. Invariably either the project fails, or service suffers and sometimes valuable staff will leave. Successful Service Management projects often require a short-term investment in either temporary staff or contractors, and this should not be underestimated.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23