Numerous discussions and questions after presentations have led me to ponder the title of this post. Namely the request of customers asking “How does Microsoft do it?”. Well, that’s the thing, it’s a philosophy that make sense and begins to become easier once it is put into practice and adhered to. Operations management not just in the Wintel space, but across platforms is big business. We at Microsoft adhere to the concept of the Dynamic Systems Initiative which is a vision for what an agile business should look like (see here for more). But that is from a technology management perspective, and as you know changing process on a system is easier than changing the habits of an individual.

IT agility to meet the needs of business to become adaptable is a journey. IT needs to continuously improve and not remain stagnant. Everyone in the industry knows that we operate at a dizzying speed; constantly learning and trying to improve our knowledge of the plethora of technologies available. But how do we translate that to a value that business can reap? How do we take what we have learnt and go to business with something that will enable business? We have used IO (see here for more) to assess your environment and provide guidance and try to underline what needs to change to become better whether it be People, process or even technology. But sometimes this change is not as easily accepted as we would like. People, by nature, are habitual and sometimes change is not a fluid process.

Organizations have invested in staff to become ITIL certified and even Microsoft has Microsoft Operations Framework (see here for more). Operations is not a not a new phenomenon and neither is getting the most out of your investment. But the difficult to attain is the “how”. How do we manage? How do we cut costs without retarding our agility? How do we balance what we are spending with the value we are showing? I believe that continuous improvement in management across platforms, systems and teams is needed. Continuous improvement is as much a mindset as anything else. It is the acceptance of the idea that improving the delivery of an IT service or services is not something that is performed once and is then forgotten, but is instead an ongoing process.

Continuous improvement, then, is the ongoing process of taking advantage of successes, actively building on them, and adding necessary service and business-impacting improvements.

In responding to a growing dependency on their services and the expectation that they should do more with less, many successful IT departments have shifted from just operating the IT infrastructure towards providing solutions and services that are more directly linked to providing business value.

In essence, they have moved toward a business-needs–focused service management orientation. An essential component of a service management orientation is the concept of a managed services portfolio, which, in its simplest form, is the recognition that IT service providers are responsible for providing a catalogue of IT services. Some of these business-supporting services are delivered using service level agreements (SLAs), while others are component services that support the business service itself.

The benefits of organizing around services rather than technology include:

•        Cost efficiency

•        Quality assurance

•        Compliance enablement

Given the pace of change in IT and business, consistently achieving these benefits requires an approach that is clearly not a one-time effort, but rather something that is ongoing—in other words, continuous improvement.

To be successful, continuous improvement requires a philosophical change: a change in mindset that leads to changes in how day-to-day work is done. It requires an environment that encourages proactive improvement of a managed service portfolio and the IT customer experience, one that is framed in business value and business benefit, and which considers the requirements of market regularity and the business needs regarding compliance and governance. Success at continuous improvement requires consideration of not just the technology, but also the people and processes that make up IT services.

These are my thoughts on operations management and am more than happy to discuss this further should you want Microsoft to provide assistance in reaching a state of Nirvana or close enough ;-). Difficult I know and probably a painful exercise. But I am sure will be worthwhile in the end.

Many thanks and kind regards,

Yusuf