Shaping Your Service Management Transformation Programme

Shape a service management transformation programme by first aligning leaders on clear objectives, then establishing real governance, and then working through five phases: discovery, planning, deployment, consolidation and optimisation. John Sansbury stresses that this is a continuing journey rather than a project with an end date.

• Start with objectives. Align the leaders, then the implementation group; when this is underestimated, participants go in their own directions and the programme fails amid disagreement. Much of the journey needs redirected rather than new resources.
• Make governance real. Where no framework exists, use a capital expenditure board, portfolio committee and programme board, and give the board genuine directing work rather than tedious status updates so it does not become box ticking.
• Discover and plan carefully. Discovery analyses the current state across four dimensions, including a CMMI-based maturity analysis of six to twelve initial processes such as incident and change management. Planning defines workstreams, the business case, training, Process Owners and a service catalogue.
• Do not rush deployment, which may take several years, then consolidate to stop old habits returning and optimise through continual improvement. Seven critical success factors, including committed leadership, breaking down silos and staff empowerment, all matter; missing even one risks failure.