Complexity can be a killer for IT services.
Sometimes this complexity is necessary but, what impact is this actually having on your end users? And what can you do to reduce your organisation's IT service complexity and improve user experience?
Before we dive into this, if you’re not sure what we mean by complexity then hop over to our blog on ‘The 3 Ratios of IT Service Complexity’ where we go into this in much more detail.
So, does IT service complexity actually impact your end users?
Yes! We are seeing that the impact of high-complexity environments can be huge for an IT service and its consumers of IT services. We’re seeing complexity causing;
- Delays in decision-making around implementing or removing systems in the environment, causing frustration in the lack of action or improvement to services for end users.
- Project cost and time overruns when implementing complex changes, adding to IT effort resource issues and causing longer disruption to the organisation whilst the change is occurring.
- A shift to operational activity (and mindsets over time) due to the amount of effort just to operate the service that takes focus away from valuable, business impacting, transformation activity.
- A reliance on sticking plaster type, point solutions, that further propagates complexity, siloed knowledge and inefficient delivery that draws more resource and budget away from the functional activities of an organisation.
- End users take control of their own IT due to a lack of action and capacity for IT to make changes, implementing “shadow IT” solutions.
- The more time and energy your IT team are spending juggling multiple complex services, the higher the risk that this will overwhelm the IT service and have a direct impact on the end users experience.
What can you do to make your IT services less complex?
Despite how things may feel, complexity isn't always necessary. Sometimes it's a result of technologies and services that have built up over time. At one point all these different software's and applications were essential for compliance and the day-to-day running of the organisation. But, over time, many of them have faded in demand or the combinations of software you are using have morphed into something entirely different from what was intended and have got out of hand.
So, what can we do to reduce complexity and avoid these costly impacts? Here are a couple of our top tips...
- Carry out an audit to fully understand the technology services that you run, understanding the dependency on technology that the organisation has, the detailed cost of each service, and the consumer opinion on the value of the services offered.
- Understand the technology landscape and the dependencies between each technology type, mapping this out to create cross-discipline awareness within the IT service and defining the appropriate level of capability required.
- Review services offered to the organisation, defining and communicating the boundaries of each service to ensure end users know what to expect and (as importantly) what not to expect.
- Align budgets and capacity to the services offered and the quantity of kit, applications, or data required to be managed, rationalising technology that no longer adds value.
- Perform a capability review across the IT service to understand how the capability across various functions of IT could be improved and the root cause affecting capability.
- Operate a ‘give and take’ service with the business, improving service value over time for the same budget if complexity is reduced.
- Implement tooling and reporting to track the cause and effect of service improvement, enabling service directors to see the impact reducing IT service complexity has on the organisation over time (including cost).
- Define your guiding principles and technology standards on which technical decisions should be made and implement a disciplined process for governing decisions against these principles and standards; integrating with programme management, procurement, and finance processes.
- Perform further detailed reviews of end-user workstyles, applications, and data to identify roadmaps for the retirement and consolidation of end-user devices.
- Review the culture of the organisation in how they see, use and think about technology or consume services from IT; enabling a subset of technology and enabling support for rationalisation.
The good news is that there is always a path to reducing complexity, it's just finding that optimum path and ensuring that output, aims, and objectives aren't dented in the process. CoPerceptuo can help you on this path to finding a lower complex environment.
CoPerceptuo is a new application that guides customers in entering, contextualising, and generating operational insight from data that customers didn’t even know they had. Their mission is to drive ICT service value and enhance outcomes for consumers - without costly IT consultancy fees. For more information visit CoPerceptuo.com or email contact@coperceptuo.com.