on everything” syndrome which meant that progress was slow.
QHID soon developed a mantra of “progress not perfection”
after recognising that 80 percent completion is a great start and
that the other 20 percent can be completed through continuous
improvement. This modus operandi resonates with one of Brown
and Vessey’s [3] success factors concerning the “satisficing
mindset in which 80 percent solutions are accepted as good
enough” (p.67).
The change management issues faced by the agency are
formidable in view of the scope of the Transformation Program
which calls for a drastic reduction in the number of position
descriptions and operational areas in QHID’s new organisation
structure. To alleviate the anxiety of the staff, QHID took pains
to build transparency into the project execution by disseminating
relevant information through corporate newsletters and the
intranet, and team briefings. Senior user managers represented
in the Operations Board were also provided with performance
reporting on QHID’s accomplishments so that they could relay
the results to their departments. Most QHID staff completed
the ITIL Foundation training course, some progressing to the
advanced level, to provide a common ITSM language of communication.
In terms of benchmarking, QHID commissioned Gartner to
conduct annual Customer Satisfaction Surveys to gain better
insights into the perceptions of the customers and gauge their level
of satisfaction. As shown in Figure 2, the users judged support
availability and support responsiveness as the two most important
criteria. In the 12 months from 2006 to 2007, the satisfaction level
increased for all eight criteria.
The complexity and diversity of QH’s ITSM requirements
rendered it difficult to rely on a single centralised tool to manage
all processes. Fortunately, the agency was able to engage the
assistance of HP, a major ITSM tool vendor, to customise an
integrated and automated toolset that is consistent with the
ITIL framework and to advise QHID on the technical implementation.
Challenges and breakthroughs
QHID experienced two failed attempts at the beginning of
the ITIL project. To begin with, although the project had strong
endorsement from QH senior management, the commitment
was not manifest in the project implementation. For instance,
process owners were not staffed at the right level but were
instead arbitrarily allocated. The project was also conducted on
a “business as usual” approach to the extent that schedule, resource
and expertise issues were not given due attention. A comment
from one of the project team members aptly summarises
the situation: “We just can’t do it anymore. We’ve got to keep the
lights on as well!” Furthermore, the initial decision to integrate
ITSM and Quality Management System processes blurred the
focus of the project and it was abandoned. Crucial change management
issues arising from the reorganisation of the IT function
were not accorded priority and subsequently led to pockets
of resistance and an atmosphere of negativity and scepticism.
To compound the problem, the effort to obtain buy-in from staff
through extensive consensus-seeking proved to be counterproductive
as their new roles in the restructured organisation were
not resolved.
Once the teething issues from the two false starts were
addressed and appropriately rectified the project began to show
dramatic results.