Sunday 26 May 2013

Top 10 Considerations for your ISO 20000 Certification Journey

Many Customers that I have consulted across the globe are quite apprehensive of the fact that ISO 20000 consumes laborious effort and investment to achieve the milestone. In reality it is not a difficult proposition, if you have the basics and fundamentals right. This blog talks about some key aspects one has to take control to lay a strong foundation.
  1. ISO 20000 Certification is a Journey & not a Destination
    Getting an organization certified on ISO 20000 is not the end destination. It is a journey that requires continual service improvement & sustenance. So the buck does not stop once you reach the certification. Hence do not burn yourself for getting certified. Collectively as a team, plan for it and continue to strive for improved business outcome and consistent delivery for your customers.
  2. Focus on why you need to get ISO 20000 Certification
    The number one reason, organizations fail to deliver value even after ISO 200000 is lack of purpose. Obtaining a certification, just for means of satisfying your customer is nothing but digging your own graveyard. The culture of the organization must be tuned to the intended purpose of delivering against customer expectations and bring about true business value.
  3. ISO 20000 goes beyond ITIL V3
    Though ISO 20000 has a fair share of processes picked up from ITIL V3, it contains elements of ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 that cannot be ignored. Also your existing Quality Management System has a great bearing to help you on your certification journey. So have them accountable to drive the initiative within the organization. Start leveraging from your existing quality management frameworks and documentations instead of reinventing collaterals.
  4. Embark on management of organizational change program (MoC)
    This is a critical element to start from the beginning to get the Communication & Engagement Process appropriate for the organization. Everybody in the organization have a role to play, but the important question is “why should the people change ? “and “what do they get by institutionalizing the change”?. So design an appropriate MoC program understanding the culture, value and behavior of the Implementing organization. If your people do not participate, you are not going to make it happen. It is important to work as a team, identify gaps and work towards a consensus.
  5. Start with small number of services
    Organizations are ambitious to have all the services added to the scope for certification and this is humongous task and likely to fail. It is recommended to start with 4-5 services first and have them ready for your first certification. You can always expand your scope of services in the surveillance audit that happens once a year.
  6. Operationalize the processes in phased manner
    It is recommended that processes are logically grouped and operationalized before moving to the next set. E.g) Incident, Problem, Request Fulfillment & Configuration can be done as batch 1 to get them not only operationalized but also identify areas for improvement and take remedial action.
  7. Assess maturity of processes
    After operationalization of processes, it is recommended to do an Independent Assessment of maturity of the respective ITIL Process in terms of effectiveness and efficiency rather than documentation. This gives the ground reality and road ahead to accomplish your milestones.
  8. Do not underestimate the Power of Internal Audits
    The Internal audits serve as your magnetic compass to guide you in the right direction of compliance. These internal audits are recommended to be done by the quality management/Service excellence team which does not have vested interest in your compliance. The internal audits have to be stringent and apply draconian measures to get you geared up for the actual audit. The Idea being, if the Internal audit has captured all the possible areas that goes wrong, your organization stands a great chance to face the external audits with more ease and confidence
  9. Enablement using training & Interview sessions
    It is recommended that process owners and service managers are trained and certified on the respective ITIL processes, preferably at intermediate Level. This will enable them to create the right value proposition. Rigor has to be built through awareness session, scenario based discussions and Interviews to get the task force ready to face audits.
  10. Reasonable Time Frame & Tracking Progress
    Based on the process Maturity of the organization, the whole effort of getting certified might take anywhere between 10 to 24 months. So it is critical to manage the project with buy-in from stakeholders with a reasonable time frame and measure and report progress against schedule and cost variance.
In my experience, I have seen these steps lay a solid foundation for Customers to gain the Certification be it 2005 or 2011 standard and would love to hear from others to enable customers achieve this important milestone. So what has been your experience with customers?

This article was published at www.itsmportal.com on 22nd Jan 2013
http://www.itsmportal.com/columns/top-10-considerations-your-iso-20000-certification-journey

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