Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The objectives of this book are to achieve an operational posture that is based on mature processes and an organizational structure that is efficient and delivers value to the business.
The authors take a pragmatic approach by making the distinction between best practices from an industry-wide perspective and selective use of best practices to ensure that only those that make sense in the pursuit of your organization are chosen. The three fundamental steps that are addressed by this approach are (1) determine your current operational posture, (2) define quality goals and (3) examine the gaps between where you are and where you want to be. The book is organized to lead you through these three steps in great detail, starting with a definition of best practices (Chapter 1) and laying the foundation by defining tasks and processes and how to move from task- to process-driven methods (Chapter 2). Gap analysis are process refinement are the topics of Chapter 4, which will provide the level of operational maturity to move to the most efficient model proposed in the book called centers of excellence (COE). The collection of COEs are comprised of groupings of core processes that are found in mature IT organizations. By grouping these processes in COEs you can achieve end-to-end service delivery as well as economy of scale. On paper it looks logical, but in practice it is not easy to achieve. In addition if COEs are not carefully structured there can be gaps of responsibility and accountability, which the authors note and provide advice about how to prevent these gaps. Chapter 5 provides a thorough discussion of metrics, while Chapter 6 ties together the concepts in the previous chapters.
The most valuable parts of this book are Chapter 7, which is a complete catalog of core processes ranging from application optimization to workload monitoring (31 processes in all) and Chapter 8, which gives eight COE catalogs. The processes in Chapter 7 are depicted with two scales ranging from 1 to 10 for automation and stability, with the following 8 characteristics: (1) tasks, (2) skills, (3) staffing, (4) automation technology, (5) best practices, (6) metrics, (7) process integration and (8) futures. The COE catalogs are slightly different and are structured as follows: (1) attributes, (2) processes, (3) skills, (4) automation, (5) best practices, (6) metrics, and (7) futures.
While I think this is a 5-star book that makes an important contribution to IT operational excellence, it isn't without a few flaws. I noticed a few minor problems as the book leads you through a typical process-oriented structure to a COE-based one, such as system administration not being placed in one of the COEs. This is a possible editing error in the book. I also thought that the 1 to 10 scales for automation and stability were defined too ambiguously and the scales are too fine grained given the arbitrary definitions assigned. Many of the illustrations were too busy and misleading. However, the material in this book is so well thought out and supported by compelling value propositions that the flaws are easy to overlook. Overall this book represents a major contribution to the small--but growing--body of knowledge about IT operations management.
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This book shows IT managers exactly how to assess their own organizational processes, and then improve those processes to "best practice" levels -- starting today. Drawing on META Group's worldwide enterprise consulting experience, it introduces a new way to understand IT processes, and a step-by-step approach to defining goals, filling in gaps, eliminating weaknesses, and achieving excellence. This book focuses on five core areas of IT management: operations, engineering support, finance, security, and customer relationship management (CRM). The authors introduce Centers of Excellence (COEs): clusters of interrelated IT tasks that, when properly sequenced, can be the building blocks of "best practice" processes. Building on this concept, they show how to define IT processes that optimize efficiency and effectiveness across the IT organization; integrate and automate similar tasks and processes; improve accountability and correlate IT processes with service-level agreements; assign costs more accurately; and -- above all -- provide a consistent, excellent customer experience. For all IT managers seeking to improve the quality, timeliness, and value of the services they provide.
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