Too many leaders spend most of their time in fire fighting mode. I like to say, “if you’re spending all of your time fighting fires, you really need to change your building codes.” In other words, you’re fire fighting because things are not working the way they should because you either lack sufficient standards or you don’t enforce them. Fix (or create) your processes and insure that they are followed.
That’s where the ITIL framework can help. A great way to get started with ITIL is by reading and following the 4 steps in The Visible Ops Handbook. The four steps are:
- Stabilize production assets and modify first response
- Inventory production assets
- Create a repeatable build library
- Continual improvement
We will examine these steps individually in future posts, but the goals of the project are:
• Higher service availability
• Higher rate of successful changes – greater than 90%
• Less time spent on unplanned outages – less than 10%
• Reduced MTTR
• Staff spends more time helping the business generate revenue
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Increased value to the organization
Think about processes you would like to improve, and follow along as we review each step in a weekly installment.
Related Posts
- 4 Steps to Stop Fighting Fires and Start Leading: Introduction
- 4 Steps to Stop Fighting Fires: Step 1 Stabilize the Patient
- 4 Steps to Stop Fighting Fires: Step 2 Identify Fragile Artifacts
- 4 Steps to Stop Fighting Fires: Step 3 Create a Repeatable Build Library
- 4 Steps to Stop Fighting Fires: Step 4 Continuous Improvement
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
A fellow Visible Ops adherent, it’s great to read about your experience. I’ve been having varied success at customer sites whilst working at VMware – as I’m viewed as a technology expert, what the hell do I know about Operations?
I’ve just started following you on Twitter thanks to @kevinbehr’s tweet, and hope you might visit my blog if you have time, then maybe catch up about visible ops.
Best regards
Steve
Steve, thanks for the comment and I look forward to hearing more about your experience. That’s my main goal for this blog, to learn from each other. We’re out there on the front lines, often with our heads down all day, and I wanted to create a place where we can share experiences and learn how to improve our professional lives.
{ 1 trackback }