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« In many cases, the way a LEAN

management approach is put in

place, to improve IT organisations,

is quite questionable»

M-Files Serie

Optimize the IT department operation with Lean management

by Emmanuel Jaunart

Optimize the IT department operation

Nowadays and far more than in the past, organizations are looking for more efficiency and agility when one speaks about restriction and budget cuts. Emphasis is often put on the IT department for providing better services allowing the business to better perform on their markets.

Therefore, acquiring an enhanced IT performance becomes a critical success factor for many organisations, large or smaller. And the IT manager’s position becomes more and more complex.

An approach frequently used for improving the IT department is to deploy tools and/or processes in the field of service management. It is often an action coming from the IT board with a relative enthusiasm. in the field.

Recently, a new way for improving the IT department operation has been introduced within several organisations. The approach is based on “kaizen” initiatives directly inspired from the LEAN tooling.

Lean has been recently introduced into the IT world because it is a bottom-up approach focusing on people empowerment and delegation. The benefits are a better involvement into the transition and a rather pragmatic way to solve operational problems, compared to a traditional top-dowm process implementation approach.

The concept is not that new indeed.

Most of the time, the LEAN introduction means rather intrusive audits, quite theoretical recomandations, 12 weeks waves with a low level of coaching for the IT teams, … In a few words: the continuous improvement culture

proposed by LEAN has been forgotten. A new “data collection driven dogmatism” (SixSigma approach) has just replaced the ITIL framework. This does not provide an added value to the IT operations if applied bluntly as it is often the case.

Aware of those implementation issues, Mielabelo has built an integrated system aiming at improving IT departements efficiency. The framework is built upon best of both worlds:

• Best practices and standards (ITIL, CobiT, CMMI, Agile, ....),

• Lean tooling.

LEAN tooling

LEAN management is a quality management system including tools frequently deployed in the manufacturing and logistics domains. LEAN management purpose is to:

• Identify and highlight inefficiencies and wastes,

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• Bring operational solutions based on multi-domains analysis (Fishbone, 5M, Pareto, …),

• Get teams autonomous by coaching them and leading by example.

Stricto sensu, the LEAN management approach is not that straightforward for IT environments because:

• IT activities are not as repetitive as manufacturing ones, by example,

• The IT department is a services factory, • Agility requirements and needs fluctuations

reach a very high level due to business constraints and an increasing dependency to IT solutions,

• IT workflows are more complex and less standard than in manufacturing or logistics for instance.

It is therefore mandatory to deploy the lean way to manage IT operations with a sound expertise in IT service management contexts Mielabelo combines three major pillars:

• A “Cause-Effect” analysis approach based on the traditional 5M/Ishikawa tool but adapted to the IT context (known as COMPAS),

• Workflows and activities management according to a Kanban sequencing,

• Primary visual display and Obeya room implementation for piloting improvement initiatives and kaizens through KPIs control,

• Value Stream Mapping for operational processes based on ITIL v3.

On top, it is of paramount importance to strongly involve operational teams at the very beginning of the initiative: it will definitely help to involve people and increase the success rate of the improvement plan. That is the preferred method used by Mielabelo consultants.

Roll-out approach

More and more, Mielabelo introduces LEAN management for improving IT operations efficiency. Generally, it is required to perform an “AS IS” analysis based on an Ishikawa based COMPAS method. It is about meeting operational IT and Business people and speaking about their pains. “TO BE” targets are then defined and ranked in priorities. Operational teams are then exposed to the lean management principles and tools. This is the

« Revisiting Lean management tools and adapting them to the IT context is

required to better fit to operational and human constraints. »

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Do not forget:

• Lean management implementation results strongly depend on the management involvement and its quality culture maturity

• Without such a quality driven attitude at the IT department level, those efforts will be lost • One key success factor is to train IT teams and expose them to practical cases solving with a

professional and adapted coaching.

preliminary approach for developing the future IT quality teams. Specific kaizens or more complex initiatives are then deployed with IT members using a coaching mode, over short periods (1 to 3 months). The IT team itself will run those improvements (under some guidance) and get autonomous for applying the Lean concepts.

Application domain

Such a LEAN implementation approach may be applied to several areas ranging from very broad and complex subjects (like building an IT strategic plan) up to very specific problems (as improving relations between operations and development teams)

The analysis phase is a key step in order to correctly identify and address actual pains. This is why Mielabelo has developed an IT specific “5M” method to do so. This is the COMPAS variation around the Ishikawa/Fishbone diagram.

It is quite a powerful tool allowing for diagnosing actual pains and inefficiencies (based on revealed symptoms) but also for building a team spirit and federating the stakeholders throughout the continuous improvement program.

The beauty of the method is to be able to: • Rapidly work with operational stakeholders

on their daily worries, • Directly address pains identified on the field, • Build the start of a solution with IT members

and therefore, • Facilitate the transition process and increase

people’s enthusiasm for changes. The following topics can be easily addressed with the COMPAS approach:

• Optimize the IT projects portfolio by fitting to the specific business and regulatory requirements, sticking to management priorities and aiming at producing an IT strategy. This also includes reference to the CobiT framework,

• Organize a software factory and put applications development projects under control (in-house, near/off shore teams) and creating a quality driven SDLC (based on Kanban, Obeya, Vmodel/Agile/Scrum, GMP)

• Improve the service level of a contact center by insuring a better follow-up of tickets (major incidents, problems, change) and a more adapted communication towards end users (based on Kanban, obeya and ITIL).

More information ?

Emmanuel Jaunart, Mielabelo, + 32 496 55 65 81 emmanuel.jaunartmielabelo.com

Register at www.mielabelo.com

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