Service Catalog
Lean Vector
IT Services
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Service Catalog
Specialization
What is Lean IT?
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Service Offerings Summary
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Detailed Service Catalog
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Lean IT Services
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A1- Lean Service Desk
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A2- Lean Infrastructure and Operations
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A3- Lean Release Management
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A4- Lean Procurement
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A5- Kaizen Events
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A6- Lean IT assessment
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A7- Visual management of IT and IT Kanban
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Strategic IT Services:
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B1- Business Capability Mapping
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B2- IT Strategy Development
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B3- IT Cost Optimization
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B4- Service-Based Costing
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B5- IT Service Catalog and Portfolio management
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B6- ITIL implementation
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B7- IT Risk Register
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Service Catalog
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Service Catalog
Specialization
In the rapidly changing world where digitization and integration of services are happening
so fast, the people and the processes that organize them are becoming the only bottleneck
in providing instantaneous value to the customer in a very competing market. The only
way for IT organizations to survive is by reaching unprecedented process efficiency and
unlocking the true potential of innovation and creativity within their people.
From over 15 years in running IT operations and delivering high-complexity IT programs,
we, at Lean Vector, have observed that between the three elements: People, Systems,
and Processes, the latter is normally the one that causes IT organizations to fail achieving
their SLA commitments or project timelines. Yet, we also see IT managers and CIOs focus
on the expensive training programs and investing in new --and often very complicated—
systems to automate, measure, and manage different teams.
How do we help?
We help our clients to optimize the performance of their IT teams to satisfy the business
demand.
More specifically we help by: Looking into each team in IT, their knowledge, their process,
how do they do their daily job and how do they deliver their projects and work with them on
optimizing their process.
We do not solve the issues by recommending purchasing new systems or adding more
people. Instead, we adopt the Lean thinking principles in IT. We have a good track record
of reducing cost, eliminating waste, and greatly enhance the performance and quality of IT
operation after a short engagement. Most importantly, we help IT organizations achieve
much better customer satisfaction –whether internal or external—by using the Lean Vector
Framework.
What is Lean IT?
Lean IT is an extension of Lean Principles, applied in an IT environment. The approach is a way of
thinking and acting, focusing heavily on organizational culture. Lean IT is associated with the
development and management of Information Technology products and services.
Lean Principles are concerned with:
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Increasing customer value
Eliminating waste (work that does not add value)
Management as a facilitator
The involvement of all employees
Continual improvement
Preserving value with less work.
Many organizations have adopted Lean IT in order to increase customer satisfaction and to
achieve greater strategic and financial value.
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Service Catalog
Service Offerings Summary
Because digital transformation has become the new challenge for the business and the IT
department is the engine that fuels the digital transformation of the organization, we tend to give
special attention to the IT operations to help the team be more agile in their response to the
business needs.
Lean Vector’s IT service offerings are:
Lean IT services:
• Lean Service Desk
• Lean Infrastructure and Operations
• Lean Release Management
• Lean Procurement
• IT Kaizen Events
• Lean IT assessment.
• Visual IT management
• Implementing TPM, 5S, and SOP standards in IT.
We recognize other challenges that a typical IT organization might be facing. Business and IT
alignment, demand management, cost optimization, undocumented operational risks, are only few
to name. We can help our clients addressing a great proportion of these challenges by:
Strategic IT Services:
• Business Capability Mapping to IT investment
• IT Strategy Development
• IT Cost Optimization
• IT Service-Based Costing
• IT Service Catalog and Portfolio management
• ITIL implementation
• IT Risk Register
Training:
Predominantly, we have three means to deliver our training program:
• Class-Base: The Lean Training program is a class-based training that could be provided at the
customer’s facility or at Lean Vector’s training facility in Calgary, AB. Class size is 5-15. The
course is 5 days plus a complementary one-day on-the-job training consultation for eligible
clients.
Our training course is certified by Lean Chapters Canada. Upon completion of the course,
attendants will receive a course certificate from the above organization.
• On Line: Lean Vector also partners with industry leaders content providers to provide training for
organizations with large number of employees. Our strategic partnership with Automated
Learning Corporation® (ALC) allows us to provide cost-effective training that combines the
hands-on benefits of class-based training and the mass roll-out of online content.
ALC is a premier-provider of corporate learning solutions and e-learning products that improve
performance in the workplace.
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Service Catalog
• On-The-Job Training: Our third delivery mechanism is onthe-job training. This way, our clients get the best of consultation servers and a practical training
Not sure which one to pick? Not a problem. We offer free evaluation services that assess your
training needs and process improvement requirements.
course.
Detailed Service Catalog
Lean IT Services
A1- Lean Service Desk
Description:
When the CEO of an organization calls his CIO and asks him to help fix his blackberry, does the
CIO have the confidence to simply answer: “Give it to the IT Service Desk,” ?
Most CIOs don’t.
As a matter of fact, most CIOs will immediately remember the big backlog of tickets his Service
Desk team is suffering from and the last embarrassment they caused due to unjustified delays.
Service Desk teams are often the most complained-about team within the IT department.
Unfortunately, the standard response to remedy the situation tends to always evolve around
making an investment in a big ticketing system that takes ages to get implemented and an army to
operate. Our Lean approach is faster, cheaper, simpler, yet much more effective and guaranteed.
Deliverables:
• Reducing Service Desk ticket resolution time.
• Reducing Service Desk response time.
• Putting the procedure in place to eliminate the ticket backlog.
• Better investment of the human capital in the Service Desk.
• Changing the Service Desk operation to achieve more efficiency, better customer service and
quality.
• Developing continuous improvement procedure for the Service Desk.
Delivery:
12-15 man/days on three intervals including: Evaluation, Improvement, then a final Audit visit six
months after the initial implantation of the project.
Dependency:
None.
A2- Lean Infrastructure and Operations
Description:
How fast can your team respond to a service interruption or an incident?
How many times does an incident happen that is tracked to either infrastructure or IT operations?
How long it takes to roll out a new service into production, successfully?
Is the normal response of the infrastructure manager whenever he is asked how they can improve
the stability and agility of the I/O (infrastructure and Operation) team that they either need more
people or require some extravagant investment?
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Service Catalog
Our approach is based on simple visual management
principles and continuous improvement that is proven to increase the agility of the I/O team and the
stability of the service.
Deliverables:
• Reducing I/O incidents.
• Reducing Service Desk ticket response time.
• Putting the procedure in place to help make better sourcing decision.
• Better investment of the human capitol in the I/O team.
• Changing the I/O processes to achieve more efficiency, better customer service and quality.
• Developing continuous improvement procedures for the Service Desk.
• 5S, Visual Management, Skill Matrix, and PDCA implementation.
Delivery:
12-20 man/days on three intervals including: Evaluation, Improvement, and then a final Audit visit
six months after the initial implantation of the project.
Dependency:
None.
A3- Lean Release Management
Description:
Release Management is one of the most important controls an IT organization should have. It
could also be a major bottleneck in project implementation. If you have a release management
team/process that is either inefficient, introducing delays to project implementation, or being totally
derailed by your software vendors, we can help you solve the situation.
Deliverables:
• Reducing Release turnaround times.
• Analyzing the source of delays or quality issues in the release management process between the
internal team, the project team, and the vendor.
• Putting the procedure in place to help make better sourcing decision.
• Better investment of the human capital in the Release Management team.
• Changing the Release Management processes to achieve more efficiency, better customer
service and quality.
Delivery:
5 man/days for each application; normally we recommend doing this practice for one application,
helping the customer the know how to do it for other applications.
Dependency:
The customer should have a release management process in place. If no process exists, we can
help create this process. Cost will depend on the complexity of the applications and the maturity of
the Infrastructure operations.
A4- Lean Procurement
Description:
Does your IT department know how much each PC order costs you to process? In certain
organizations the cost of processing certain items might reach 30% of the actual purchase order.
How fast is your IT procurement? Do project timelines suffer due to procurement inefficiency? How
fast you can pull a report at the end of the year showing all your consumable expenses?
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Service Catalog
Our Procurement methodology can work well for a
procurement department that involves in complex project purchases or deals with buying
stationary.
Deliverables:
• Reducing procurement turnaround times.
• Reduce processing time for order and increase quality.
• Put the procedure in place to help make better procurement decision.
• Facilitate better investment of the human capital in the procurement areas team.
Delivery:
5-7 man/days.
Dependency:
None. However, doing this step might help delivering Service-Based Costing (D2) and Cost
Optimization within the organization (D1).
A5- Kaizen Events
Description:
Normally, in every IT department there is one particular problem that is causing embarrassment for
the management or perhaps there is a team or an area that is always underperforming. Whether
the problem is with a strategic project that seems getting out of control or a simple application
issue that is taking forever to be fixed, we can help by brining new perspective and a completely
different approach to address such challenges. Our methodology utilizes long experience in IT with
Lean and Six Sigma principles and best practices.
Kaizen (a Japanese word that means Good Change) is a focused event that can last from few
days to couple of weeks depending on the size of the area. Kaizen is ideal to concentrate on
solving one particular problem hindering the productivity or a group of problems affecting one team
within IT.
Deliverables:
• Creating a Future Value Stream where the process is leaner.
• Demonstrating Customer Experience improvement.
• Demonstrating Quality improvement.
• Specific Cost optimization.
• Creating detailed Business Case justification for any technology requirements with benefit
realization standards.
• Developing process measures and KPI.
Delivery:
10- 20 man/days per event. Each event will cover one area/unit.
Dependency:
A1 and/or A2,
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Service Catalog
A6- Lean IT assessment
Description:
This is a short-term engagement were we observe and evaluate the way the IT team operates and
see if that is aligned with the business strategy. Normally our evaluation report will include some
quantifiable data about different types of waste within the current process and improvement
opportunities.
Deliverables:
• Detailed report analyzing the current process and its shortfalls.
• Quantifiable data about improvement opportunities.
Delivery:
4-5 man/days per area.
Dependency:
None
A7- Visual management of IT and IT Kanban
When you see something you can understand it better. Kanban is a Japanize word that means
colored card and it’s a key element in reducing waste and building a Pull system. Visual
management is a business management technique that makes important information visible to all
workers. Visual management presents information in an easy to understand way by using visual
signals instead of text, so that workers can follow them easily.
The key benefits of the Visual Management techniques are:
 Highlight critical information in ways that cannot be ignored.
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Service Catalog
 Alert and help expose, prevent and eliminated waste.
 Prevent information overload so employees can see their results.
 Significantly reduce time needed to understand information.
Deliverables:
 Easy-to-implement IT visual management tools.
 Visual problem solving and issue tracking signals.
A8- Implementing TPM, 5S, Poka-Yoke, and SOP in IT
Description:
How much time does the IT team waste in trying to fix a broken database interface or searching for a
document (digital or physical)?
Is the IT offices clutter-free and everything is stored where it belongs or there are equipment and boxes
all over the place?
Lean principles cover wider angle than just eliminating waste from the process. Lean tries to maximize
the use of the space and equipment to serve the people (your IT team in this case) and enable them to
focus on the value while doing their jobs.
Deliverables:
 Implementing Total Productive Maintenance (TPM): A Lean IT methodology to reduce
number of interruptions to IT services and systems.
 5S implementation in office, IT store, and IT shared drives or file storage. The 5S stands for
Sort, Set In Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain (regularly apply the standards)
 Implementing Poka Yoke: Mistake prevention and error proofing techniques in the IT
environment.
 Establishing Standard Operation Procedures in IT and link it with other Lean initiatives/tools
such as Plan-Do-Check-Act.
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Service Catalog
Strategic IT Services:
B1- Business Capability Mapping
Description:
How
does
the
organization’s
investment map to its strategy? How
many IT projects last year provided
competitive advantage? What are the
key business capabilities and how do
they relate to Enterprise risk?
Best practice is to recognize that
business capability mapping is about
increasing
collaboration
between
business and IT in your organization,
not about formulaic or theoretical
models. This collaboration might be
focused on identifying business
opportunities and threats, identifying
business requirements, developing
future-state business visions, and
understanding the gaps between
current and future states.
The Business Capability Mapping is a
pace-layering technique that will provide Enterprise Architects, Enterprise PMO, Portfolio managers and
senior executives the means to view their organization and their capabilities in a new and holistic view.
Deliverables:
• Developing Business Capability mapping of key business areas.
• One-page strategy tool to be used in decision making and portfolio analysis.
• Conducting pace layering to show recent IT projects, IT systems, IT Opex and Capex.
• Creating a mechanism to perform portfolio management governance based on the BCM map.
Delivery:
15-25 man/days depends on the complexity of the organization and the variety of the pace-layering
the client want.
Dependency:
None. However results would be far more complete if there is some sort of IT Financial
Management practices in place.
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Service Catalog
B2- IT Strategy Development
Description:
We now live in the age where having a practical, achievable and visionary IT strategy is one of the
key pillars of keeping up with the competition. Yet, IT strategies are seldom practical or achievable
if at all documented. A good IT strategy is no more than 20 pages that demonstrates demand
(what business success is and how IT contributes to that success), governance, and supply (how
IT can meet the demand and participate, if not lead, business success).
Deliverables:
• Create an IT Strategy with
three dimensions: Demand,
Governance, and Supply.
Delivery:
7-10 man/days.
Dependency:
Having a complete Business
Capabilities map (B1) will make
generating an IT strategy much
more fruitful exercise.
B3- IT Cost
Optimization
Description:
According to Gartner, IT cost is
often not more than 4% of
organizations spending. Yet, most
cost saving initiatives focus on
this 4%. We follow 4 steps in IT
Cost optimization, each representing a different maturity level in cost saving.
1- Reducing IT Procurement cost.
2- Reducing IT operational and process cost.
3- Reducing Business Process cost.
4- Joint IT and Business cost savings.
Deliverables:
• Delivering full procurement analysis and highlighting cost saving opportunities.
• Analyzing IT operation and processes and highlighting saving opportunities.
• Developing a procedure for business process cost saving, using one business process as a pilot
for cost saving.
• Exploring options for joint cost saving between IT and the business.
Delivery:
5-8 man/days for each phase/deliverable.
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Service Catalog
Dependency:
Completing Service-base Costing (B4) is very important to phase 3 of the cost optimization. Also
having a Lean Procurement procedures (A4) will help a lot in reducing the procurement cost.
B4- Service-Based Costing
Description:
How much does it cost to process a medical insurance claim in an assurance company? How
much does it cost to book a seat for an airline? How much does it cost to book a night in a hotel?
Knowing the exact cost is the first step to optimize operational cost and increase the bottom line.
Although Service-base costing is not limited to IT, IT departments can make the most of it for all
sorts of strategic initiatives they are performing.
According to Gartner, Service-based costing is the highest budging maturity model in the six levels
of maturity they classify within IT departments.
Deliverables:
• Developing IT Service-Base costing.
• Finding cost saving opportunities within IT and the business.
• Analysis of IT applications and their cost and their relation to business value.
• Developing tools for better sourcing decision.
Delivery:
10-12 man/days for each phase/deliverable.
Dependency:
Completing a basic IT Service Catalog (B3) is a must for any service-based costing.
B5- IT Service Catalog and Portfolio management
Description:
IT Service Catalog is the base of any Service Management or ITIL maturity in the IT department. It
is the tool that will allow the IT team to communicate SLA to the business, make decisions about IT
investment, measure Service availability, balance IT Disaster Recovery approach, and better
understand projects impact on IT operations.
The Service Catalog consists of all the Business processes that depend on technology. Once we
create the catalog for your team to use, it will be part of almost every discussion in every meeting
and will be refer to in every document the team will produce.
Deliverables:
• Creating an IT Service Catalog.
• Developing a model to calculate availability of the IT services.
• Designing what-if scenarios and tools based on the service catalog that could be use as costbenefit analysis when considering IT investment.
• Creating the building blocks for IT financial management.
• Bringing IT SLA to the business.
• Developing IT SLA with outsource vendors.
• Creating a prioritization tool for IT investment and ITDR (Disaster Recovery) Projects.
Delivery:
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Service Catalog
5-15 man/days depending on the granularity level the client
want to achieve.
Dependency:
None.
B6- ITIL implementation
Description:
4 easy phases of ITIL implementation that will deliver a better maturity to the IT organization.
Deliverables:
• Assisting with change Management.
• Conducting configuration Management.
• Working on release Management.
• Helping the company with continuous Improvement.
Delivery:
5 man/days for each phase.
Dependency:
None.
B7- IT Risk Register
Description:
A simple, yet very effective tool to manage IT operational
risk and feed into Enterprise Risk Management, the IT Risk
Register is the ultimate tool to assess IT service stability
and prioritize IT investment.
Deliverables:
• Create an IT Risk Register.
• Discover Risk Qualification and Quantification.
• Assist with mitigation of top risks.
Delivery:
15 man/days based on complexity of the IT operation.
Dependency:
None.
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