ITSM Maturity Development

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 16:34:52 GMT

I would be interested to hear about how other organisations undertake the analysis of the maturity of their ITSM environments and how that is used then to improve performance and quality.

This could be using external 'audit type' maturity analysis companies which might appear to be more objective in their analysis or internal 'continual measurement' which might prove more acceptable and less intrusive.

Is focusing on just those processes/services which are appropriate to your business (e.g. FitSM) the way forward or is a broad-brush approach covering all possible processes, even though they may not yet be implemented, better?

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Mark

Mon, 4 Oct 2021 13:14:18 GMT

Hi Mark,

Great question, and "maturity models and assessments" is a topic which we plan to cover as the Strategy and Planning Community of Practice in the near future.

There isn't a one sized fits all approach to this, just as there isn't a single framework or set of processes that will work for every size and type of organisation or business. Your question mentions FitSM which would feel a good place for smaller organisations to start their ITSM journey with.

In theory a maturity assessment completed either self service or as an external assessment should bring a clear view of current maturity and areas where improvements can be made.

My experience is this can tend not to be the case unless there is a clear link from improving maturity to improving business outcomes (and realising the organisation's strategy and vision). An internally focused view of maturity can become self serving, where getting to a given maturity level is given priority over the business value of this.

An external assessment can be useful, but my advice is watch out for that being used as an opportunity to sell tools or consultancy projects.

If a maturity assessment does add value to your business, then I'd suggest focusing it on the processes which add most current or potential value by covering those in detail. The remainder can then be a less thorough review, to highlight future improvement areas and opportunities.

What should also come out is the relationship and dependencies between processes and practices. So your assessment may say Configuration and a CMDB is a gap, but are the other processes and practices mature enough to populate, fully utilise and maintain this in their current state?

Hope that helps,
Mark