Why is maturity within your service delivery function important?

There are many factors that impact on the value derived from ITSM tooling solutions. The cost of the solution, the maturity of underlying processes, the capability of the people working with the tool and technical implementation all combine to influence how well an organisation is served.

But how do you appropriately gauge, successfully and accurately, which area/s of your business are less mature than others? Perhaps you’ve an idea already and maybe this is evidenced by poorer outputs than anticipated in areas, poor customer service experience, slow to implement change, agent inefficiency, or business siloes without end to end workflows or analytics. Or perhaps you simply don’t know, yet you do understand the value that an independent evaluation will give so that you can then address these areas and reap the rewards!

What is a maturity assessment?

Well, it’s not massively dissimilar to an audit, in fact, it IS an audit, but more specific to processes (either some or all) that relate to your service delivery function and how these operate against and measure up besides predefined industry standards (think ITIL and assc’ best practices). So, you’d typically expect a crack team of ITIL commandos to abseil … wait, no, that was the film I watched the other night.

You’d typically expect an experienced individual (or in some cases, a team), who is well versed in operational service delivery and certified accordingly to undertake a series of interviews and operational engagements with key stakeholders, on all sides of the process, as well as observing present operations end to end to gain insight on (and document) where there are areas of strength and weakness. That’s the v short version!

There is significant planning, scoping, review of existing processes and a series of ‘under the microscope’ evaluations that take place to really understand what’s actually taking place.

So I’ve assessed my maturity, what now?

You’ve had the playback presentation, got the in depth report in hand, alongside the (extensive?) list of recommendations… gulp!

Firstly, you should see that you’re significantly stronger in some areas than others, this is great news as that means you can dial in to the areas that have flagged up as requiring improvement!! What you should also have (and any assessor worth their salt will have provided this) is an outline plan of action upon which to build (this goes hand in hand with the recommendations) and there will be suggested activities, actions and approaches for all of the areas identified.

Now, either working with an organisation to assist you in implementing these recommendations or doing it yourself, a more structured change plan needs to be drawn up and agreed upon. It’s noteworthy that this aspect should be factored into any budgetary conversations at the start, imagine taking your car to be MOT’d, you also need some funds available to be able to fix whatever the garage might identify to ensure that you continue to be roadworthy! Just thought I’d slap an analogy in there for S&G sake!

Perhaps you’re solely interested in assessing a particular business area or process stream?

100% doable and quite often the approach we see as there will be areas you have already identified as “improvement needed” (for whatever reason) maybe it’s your Change Management, possibly Release isn’t quite as you’d like it to be, what about <seriously, pick any area> and that can be honed in on for a detailed evaluation and improvement plan.

Wise words...

Well, so what?

Conducting an Service Management maturity check yields a multitude of valuable outcomes for any organisation. Here are 5 as a starter…

Improved Service Quality: Assessing your ITSM maturity helps identify areas where improvements are needed. By addressing weaknesses, organisations can enhance the quality of their IT services, leading to greater customer satisfaction and better alignment with business needs.
Efficiency and Cost Reduction: A maturity assessment can uncover inefficiencies in IT processes and workflows. By streamlining and automating these processes, organisations can reduce operational costs and optimise resource utilisation.
Risk Mitigation and Compliance: A higher ITSM maturity level often correlates with better risk management and compliance adherence. A maturity check can help you identify gaps in security and compliance, enabling you to proactively address potential vulnerabilities as well as maintaining your status with industry regulations.
Business Alignment: One of the key goals of ITSM is aligning IT services with business objectives. A maturity assessment can highlight areas where this alignment needs improvement, enabling you to more rapidly adapt your IT strategies and services to better support the overall business strategy.
Continual Improvement Culture: Conducting regular maturity checks promotes a culture of continual improvement within your organisation. It encourages IT professionals and wider teams to regularly assess their processes, services, and performance, leading to ongoing enhancements and adaptability to changing business needs and technological advancements.