Efecte Blog

It was a dark and stormy morning… itSMF 2011 in Dipoli was about to begin. The topic of this year’s conference was delicious. It was evident that also the guest speakers had been inspired by the Holy Cow –theme. There were entertaining sessions about the psyche and traits of successful CIOs, heated debate about ITIL’s contribution to IT, and breath-taking views of the future. The most exciting part of the program were the real-life stories from different IT organizations: Tieto-Tapiola, Wärtsilä, Sanoma-Data, and Enfo to name a few. One IT leader was heard exclaiming, how refreshing it was to come out of one’s own cave to hear from others in similar situations, and find out they were not alone with their challenges.

Riitta Raesmaa and Timo Hyvönen

Efecte’s own stand was busier than perhaps ever. And we didn’t even offer champagne this time! It must have been the large screen TV with ICT WebShop ’s colorful icons and the charm of our people at the stand. More seriously though, it seems that IT is truly interested in making the end users happy and allowing them to take control in the form of self-service. It’s a win-win situation for both sides.

Efecte’s Sampo Pasanen had an opportunity to hold a workshop on end user IT service catalogs and self-service to a room packed to the rafters with IT professionals. What set this workshop apart was the lively discussion, which had nothing to do with technology. The questions posed during the discussion inspired Sampo to write a blog series with the answers. The first blog post in the series will be published next week, so remember to check our blog then again.

It was heartwarming to hear Efecte referenced in so many places. We, of course, had our own session, but we were also mentioned by the ITSM guru Aale Roos, by the very successful Tieto-Tapiola in their case presentations, and as a cherry on top ex-Efectian Riitta Raesmaa received the itSMF 2011 award. This year you couldn’t get away from Efecte, even if you tried.

To finish an already great conference, Alf Rehn blew us away with his Dangerous Ideas. At least all the cob webs around my brain and thinking were blown away for sure – if just for too short a moment.

Simplify

There’s a clear message from management to all IT leaders: simplify. 

We’ve met a number of top officers from both G2000 companies and mid-sized organizations during the last few months. Management is totally fed up with the growing number and complexity of IT systems, and (not surprisingly) the costs that follow. Here are some direct quotes: 

“No more IT stuff !!!” – management board member in a G2000 company.

“I’ve given tens of millions to IT. It’s not about resources, it’s about getting the job done.” – management board member in a company of 5000 employees.

“Enlighted CIOs bring light to the organizations through simplification.” – Kati Hagros, CIO, Kone (blog post in Finnish). 

And the list goes on. 

This often results from the following

• No real vision exists for IT development and IT is developed from inside out, not from outside in
• No knowhow in generating user friendly solutions –> unnecessary complexity in the actual implementations and processes
• IT is full of management and leadership is missing –> big changes that would be needed to make a real impact aren’t implemented

This leads to IT being developed in silos and big picture is missed. Who suffers? Users, and eventually business. Luckily, first signs for customer centric outside-in development have started to form. Now it just takes will, effort and stamina to build a simpler IT. The change won’t happen overnight: start from quick wins but don’t forget the long-term development.

Efecte’s role is to simplify the interaction between employees and IT with self-service solutions. What are you going to simplify next?

Stinkies from the Moomin board game.

I watched my kid play Moomin board game the other day. He had removed all the Stinkies from the game that could potentially lower his score in the end, and got huge points in the game. Ingenious.

He was (unknowingly, I have to admit) following Finland’s State IT Director and CIO Yrjö Benson’s guideline for IT projects: “The best eGovernment initiatives are not the ones where the traditional services are put online, but the ones where the services are made completely obsolete or significantly simpler”. He referred to the tax return form filing process that was made completely obsolete for most citizens. They tweaked the whole game.

So how does this apply to your organization?

I was recently involved in a customer project for providing ICT services online for internal users. The project was a huge success because:

1. Customer had the courage to greatly reduce the amount of software, types of workstations, types of printers, types of accessories available etc, which simplified the ordering for end users and request handling for ICT personnel.
2. They eliminated unnecessary steps in the process by completely bypassing first line support for service requests that can’t be handled there anyway. They reduced options in printing services because it became cheaper to provide the better alternative as a standard. Now they a) don’t spend time on the phone explaining the customer all the options and what it means, b) number of mistakes in the orders dropped and c) there are fewer configurations to maintain.
3.  They got rid of many unnecessary forms and drastically simplified the rest

The result? End users love it. Delivery is faster. Costs are lower.

Get rid of Stinkies in your organization. Tweak the game for your end users.