Plus! The Standard+Case Approach

I hope this can add more light to this fascinating and really game-changer thread. Academics are likely the worst about splitting hairs and defining terms, however I am not sure that the term meta-process is required. In the operations management literature, processes are recognized as being more structured versus less structured. Hence a less structured process is still a process. I do not think that we need to discard a process orientation at least not completely to process cases.

The Standard+Case approach to response management

I wonder if our emphasize on BPM and SOA have distorted some of the long term thinking about and learning about process management. I'm not sure exactly where your thinking is at John, and I know you think deeply about this, having read a draft of your new book: At a crude level where I always operate we abandon process completely for the resolution phase of a Case ticket - one where by definition there is no predefined model - because:. We may choose to dynamically assemble process fragments at runtime but that's not the same as having a process.

We use the same process for both Standard and Case responses for all steps except Resolution. I guess I still have a problem with "no process" although we might just be wrestling with an issue of granularity in our definitions. I have long been in the data networking business ugh, even before internet. Working for the DoD, we were highly reliant on technical control facilities to troubleshoot transmission media failures. One of the worst things that can happen is when young technical controllers on both ends of the circuit would start throwing in loopbacks all over the place, sometimes introducing more errors, sometimes restoring service before they knew what was wrong, i.

In many case-based activities, there are still steps. Almost certainly, you want to diagnose problems before you start throwing fixes into the system. Depending on the type of incident that you are addressing, the diagnosis process may be more or less structured. Under change management, or certain SLAs, the service provider may need to include steps that ensure impacted parties are notified of outages or changes. I have neither been a lawyer or medical Dr. But my experience is that even doctors and lawyers will have some degree of standardized routine so they can efficiently get down to the actual management of the case.

Granted, the actual diagnostic and resolution processes may be more or less, perhaps even completely unstructured.

But that is not my personal experience. All a process is is some type of input, transformation and output. I certainly will not argue the fact that the transformation may be more or less structure cloudlike and that we err when we try to over-structure an inherently unstructured activity. But I just hate to throw the baby out with the bath and I think there is at least a tiny baby that can be spared by maintaining a some degree of a process orientation.

Yes there are any number of procedures we can use as resources and assemble as needed. Some of those procedures one might glorify with the title of "sub-process" but I don't like that term when there is no parent process. And there is no parent process. The case changes state in response to information uncovered and external events, and actions taken. We also have checklists of certain things that must happen in the case before it is done, and of things that should or could happen. We also list input and output data artifacts that must, should or could be included.

That's the whole point of Case: We get locked into this thinking in IT that process provides controls. It is only one way and it doesn't work in unfamiliar situations. All our receive, record, diagnose and categorise steps are unchanged before we get to Resolve. To throw a little bit of oil on the Service request vs Incident fire, I do think there is a difference between the two that justify different processes or different handling. The key distinction I typically make is that Service Requests can and should be planned, and can sometimes even be forecasted frequency or period.

Service Requests that are similar, could be grouped for more efficient execution. Focus is on planned, efficienty and timely implementation. Incidents occur ad-hoc and should always be resolved ASAP, as it is impacting the end-user from using an already existing service. However, any approach is fine with me: My motto is 'to make a clear decision, communicate it, and ensure you act upon it'. Too often these decisions are not taken, or not implemented, leaving all layers in the organization confused and acting differently.

The only grounds I can see for separating incidents and requests is where one adopts ITIL's wacko concept of an incident without a user or even a service interruption. To me an incident is a failure or perceived failure to deliver the expected service levels to a user or users.

Lots of request classes have a unique workflow and lots of classes are unplanned. There is nothing special about incidents. Rob - Would you agree that there's no difference between walking into a store and buying something perhaps asking a clerk where the item is located , and returning an item that is broken or which doesn't fit?

But, from a customer perspective why do I care? Its a request for service. Sometimes, as a customer, I don't even know I have a problem sometimes. I've entered the Apple store numerous times with what seemed a simple question, only to uncover a potential issue resolved by a patch or update. This is why I have always positioned an incident or whatever you want to call something that is out of the norm not delivered or operating as expected as a service request, type equals There is of course a difference.

Great q, I blogged the answer. Just a quick comment on ACM - and its 'recent discovery' here. Its a good thing.

I'd urge my fellow IT professionals reading this blog to check out other service provider 'best practice', especially healthcare, which has a long history of 'case management' thinking. At the core of ACM thinking and use is the recognition that the responder to a situation - a 'case?

The responder, or agent, must be able to adapt to circumstances, interactions, and additional information, and leverage and extend existing knowledge.

ITIL Is Wrong: Non-Standard Cases Are Normal

The procedure used in the response must be able to be adapted to the specific conditions encountered, and therefore prevailing governance who is allowed to do what and under what circumstances is a critical factor. It was my experience working with healthcare case managers, combined with the thinking of luminaries such as Graban, Shaw, and Bitner, that led to how the USMBOK addresses the key discussion of service support and service request management and how in each practitioner guide we discuss the consumer scenario and need to focus on how key interactions are handled.

For ACM to succeed it must respect the DNA of a service request response, which include both a consumer and provider view - pathways, as suggested in the latest Lean and customer experience management writings. Else it will provide yet another inside-out set of thinking and methods. These are just the type of conversations and discussions the service management profession should be having to ensure we are aware of and exploiting the very best proven guidance we can. Trying to make ITIL fit, or to argue that one framework is superior to another is a total waste of everyone's time.

We have been told for years to 'adopt and adapt' any guidance to make sure it works for a given situation. ACM reminds us we need to take an 'adaptive service management' approach Thanks Charlie and Skep for finding, reminding and sharing. I can see some parallels between your blogpost and an article I read advising to use existing BPM tools to give form to Case Management via Slideshare: Especially when starting with the cut between Standard and Case it seems appropriate to use the tools that staff already know and use.

They'll be able to get their heads around the notion of Standard versus Case without the burden of having to learn how to use a new tool. They'll get to adapt their existing tool for as long as it is useful. Only after modifying it to the breaking point should a new tool be implemented.

See a Problem?

My guess is that many tools will be able to accommodate such constructs. Thanks for the reference to that paper. I only just got around to reading it. Unfortunately, just like the "Adaptive Case Management" book, it looks to technical solutions to non-technical challenges: Tools help they don't solve. Also the Cap Gemini paper seems unable to let go of a process-centric perspective: I guess if you want to use existing process tools you have to see it that way, but I found it uncomfortable.

I user think I've got a case but you realize it's a standard request. In this situation I want to be treated differently than when I specifically ask for a standard solution. Therefore I'd add an optional pre-process that I've given a very concise name: Conversely, I might mistakenly ask for a standard solution while I actual need case-treatment.

To ensure customer satisfaction, it's worthwhile applying judgement and assessing my level of competence then asking a couple of questions to verify that I'm on the right track. Preferably not leaving me with the impression that you think I'm an idiot. Which I may actually be. I might even be a case.

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• The Standard+Case approach to response management | Basic Service Management?

It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings. On the other hand, this change to ACM may put considerably more stress on the people working these "tickets. If the overall outcomes are not obviously improved, and there is, at this point, little evidence to demontrate that, and the costs go up by requiring more training and better personnel, then we might want to consider examining the relative tradeoffs.

I look forward to evidence of how this approach might relatively improve the results enough to overcome the rather obvious increase in costs. In my experience in tier 2 and 2. Example constructing and interpreting a confidence interval for p. Calculating a z interval for a proportion. Interpreting a z interval for a proportion.

Determining sample size based on confidence and margin of error. Sample size and margin of error in a z interval for p. Video transcript In a local teaching district, a technology grant is available to teachers in order to install a cluster of four computers in their classroom. From the 6, teachers in the district, were randomly selected and asked if they felt that computers were an essential teaching tool for their classroom. Of those selected, teachers felt that the computers were an essential teaching tool. So let's just think about the entire population.

We weren't able to survey all of them, but the entire population, some of them fall in the bucket, and we'll define that as 1, they thought it was a good tool. They thought that the computers were a good tool. And we'll just define a 0 value as a teacher that says not good.

And some proportion of the total teachers think that it is a good learning tool. So that proportion is p. And then the rest of them think it's a bad learning tool, 1 minus p. We have a Bernoulli Distribution right over here, and we know that the mean of this distribution or the expected value of this distribution is actually going to be p. So it's actually going to be a value, it's neither 0 or 1, so not an actual value that you could actually get out of a teacher if you were to ask them. They cannot say something in between good and not good. The actual expected value is something in between.

Now what we do is we're taking a sample of those teachers, and we got that felt that the computers were an essential teaching tool. So in our survey, so we had sampled, and we got said that it is good, and we'll say that this is a 1. So we got 1's, or we sampled 1, times from this distribution. And then the rest of the time, so what's left over? There's another who said that it's not good. So said not good, or you could view them as you were sampling a 0, right?

So what is our sample mean here? We have 1 times , plus 0 times divided by our total number of samples, divided by It is equal to over You could even view this as the sample proportion of teachers who thought that the computers were a good teaching tool. Now let me get a calculator out to calculate this. So we have divided by is equal to 0. So our sample proportion is 0. Now let's also figure out our sample variance because we can use it later for building our confidence interval.

Our sample variance here-- so let me draw a sample variance-- we're going to take the weighted sum of the square differences from the mean and divide by this minus 1. So we can get the best estimator of the true variance. So it's 1 times-- no, it's the other way actually around-- we have samples that were 1 minus 0.

Section 5: The Epidemiologic Approach

Plus the other times we got a 0, so we were 0 minus 0. And then we are going to divide that by the total number of samples minus 1. That minus 1 is our adjuster so that we don't underestimate. So minus 1. Let's get our calculator out again. And so we have we put a parentheses around everything-- I have times 1 minus 0. The extra bonus about the book is the sources for the content.

Plus! the Standard+case Approach: See Service Response in a New Light by Rob England

As an example, it recommends the checklist Manifesto which I've just finished and really enjoyed too. And, it makes me want to learn more about adaptive case management. So, it is a great bridge to other knowledge in this area. Although it introduces case management to IT, it also brings clarity on how to go about reviewing cases to identify new standard models and shows how the 2 sides feed each other.

• Confidence interval example (video) | Khan Academy!
• Como piensa el ser humano (Spanish Edition)!
• Chapter 025, Guinea Pigs as Experimental Models (American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine);
• ITIL Is Wrong: Non-Standard Cases Are Normal | xMatters.
• To Love, Honor and Cherish.

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