CASE STUDY: Conducting ITIL self assessments
Trish, you conducted two
ITIL self assessments, one in a classroom setting and the other with
individuals completing the assessment remotely, what were the pros and cons of
the two formats?
With the classroom session
they’re a captive audience. They have immediate access to having questions
answered. The only limitation is the number of people you can fit in. So if
you’re going to use the group situation it’s useful to think about booking two
or three sessions, rather than one.
With the remote session I was able to get more people to participate and
everyone to complete within the allotted time, but it did involve some chasing
up.
How many people were
involved in both assessments?
As I was restricted by the size of
the room for the first one, there were fifteen people. With the remote method I
had thirty-three participate. The change from classroom to remote had no
particular methodology behind it other than I could increase the number of
people involved and collect more data.
Did you notice any
difference in data quality from one method or the other?
I think the process being
assessed has more influence than the method. For example, in the classroom we
assessed the Incident Management process. If these people were doing the
assessment at their desk they could be called away at any time. Having them in
the classroom helped them focus without that distraction. Where with financial
management and capacity management I don’t think it would make any difference.
It seemed more comments were recorded in the classroom session. All though I
think it comes down to the individual.
How did you select people
for the self assessment?
We already had initiatives
underway to improve Change Management and Incident Management. The people
involved in those were invited participate in the assessment. Managers were
also asked to nominate two to three people from each area. I also involved a
couple of customers.
How did you engage people?
The approach was couched in “we’re
trying to improve these processes and this self assessment will help support
that”. When you get people that are familiar with the processes, the majority
of them love to give you the benefit of their knowledge if they’re invited to
so.
Did you do anything different
moving from the classroom to remote?
Based on feedback from the first
assessment in the classroom, I put together a more comprehensive hand out
sheet. When people did the assessment remotely, the hand out covered off a lot
of the questions they would’ve asked. I found if people have questions and
can’t get hold of you immediately they lose momentum and put off completing it.
The more information you can provide them up front the better.
How long did you give the
remote assessment group to respond?
I gave them two days rather than a
week. My thinking was if you give them two days they more likely to do it
straight away rather than leave it to the end of the week. For the remote
assessments I did a number of conference calls, keeping the numbers small,
making sure everyone could log into measureITIL and run them through some of
the questions. What I found is if people logged on and selected the process
they were going to assess, they often just continued and filled in the
assessment while they were there. If they couldn’t log in, or they had some
other issue, they were the ones I had to follow up.
How many people completed
the task?
Everyone in the classroom setting
completed the assessment while they were there. Out of the thirty three people
that did the remote assessment, only one person didn’t complete it. I did have
to do some chasing up though.
Any changes you’ll make
next time round?
I’ll stick with the remote format
because of the ability to include a larger number of people in the assessments.
As there is no restriction, I would increase the numbers even more. I would
still give people only two days to respond, as the tight timeframe gets their
attention. I would also start chasing up people sooner.
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