People first in ITSM

People first, in priority and in order. Over on Stephen Mann's blog at Forrester, we were discussing GamingWorks' ABC and the importance of people. Stephen said

In my recent blog on the top 50 ITIL adoption mistakes many related to the people-side of changing the IT service management (ITSM) and IT delivery status quo. In many ways, people are the ultimate barrier (or success factor) to effective ITIL adoption or to other aspects of an IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) organization successfully meeting business demands for IT services.

I made a couple of comments that I thought I would share here:

I was working on a book He Tangata: People in IT, (the name is from an old Maori saying, see it here http://www.hetangata.com/what-he-tangata-about). Three years ago when I conceived the book it was near the leading edge but the work of Paul and others has finally raised awareness of the primary importance of the people aspects, to the point that I fear the book will be redundant before I ever get it writ. Especially at this rate.

Anyway, an epithet I like to use is:
Good people will deal with bad process - in fact they'll fix it. And good process can work around bad technology (and identify requirements).
But new technology won't fix process. And improved process won't change people.
So fix the people. ("...with ABC" says Paul from the wings)

We're not saying ABC is the magic pixie dust nor that People are the only issue. The point is that - in order to be holistic - one must include People considerations, which organisations too often don't.

When I hear the People Process Technology mantra or the PPPP one, I add "...in that order". In that order of priority, and in that order of starting execution.

Give People priority. If a few more projects spent a third or more of their time, effort and money on People aspects (consultation, collaboration, walkthroughs, training, pilots, training, coaching, training, support, feedback...) instead of Technology and ITIL consultants, we might have some more successful ITSM implementations.

Start with the People. Standard Kotter: get a sense of urgency, and a guiding coalition. Start consulting and collaborating in order to get cultural change momentum going. Let the people who know be the ones who guide process improvement. If a few more managers would realise their role is deciding not telling, and they should just STFU and listen to their staff, then even more ITSM implementations might be successful.