AlfaPeople | Is your Modern Service Management project biased?
There may be many reasons why a Modern Service Management project after completion of implementation does not meet expectations. The project manager or project members can – consciously or subconsciously – manage personal interests rather than the interests of the business during the process. Here, the service management expert, Allan Pihl, from AlfaPeople, helps identify the most common bias and provides good advice to ensure a focused process.
When the business chooses to invest in a Service Management solution, engagement is often at the top after the decision is made. For now, you can finally begin to increase the quality of service, push several cases through the system or increase service efficiency.
But then it follows the difficult time when executing the great plans and where the business case will be realized.
Here are a number of biases related to the implementation of a Service Management project that a company should be aware of, explains Allan Pihl, Lead in Customer Service & IT Service Management at AlfaPeople.
Projecting of the project
First, it may happen that the project is subjected. That is, instead of pursuing the goal of the business for the Service Management project, the project is skewed because it follows individual employee’s personal preferences or competencies.
“Often, something can happen completely unconsciously because the employee may have a long and deep experience implementing change processes and therefore feel most at home in the very aspect of a Service Management solution. But what if the realization of the original objective is not best pursued by, for example, focusing most on change processes, but by increasing the volume of processed cases? So, the company uses time and resources to chase the wrong gain, says Allan Pihl.
“The most effective protection against subjective activation of an IT project is a clear business goal of the project, as all stakeholders are informed about, so everyone is always working for the same purpose.”
The right to interpretation
The reason why a Modern Service Management project is slowly running off the track and becoming personally driven and not business-driven can also happen as a more or less conscious act among key employees in a team.
“Strong academic profiles can distort the interpretation of the project objective and force it in the direction they prefer or best fit their individual career goals. I do not say employees make it unfair to the business they work in. But it is important that you, as a leader, sponsor or company, focus and ensure that you win the gain that benefits the company and not the individual employee best,” says Allan Pihl.
In order to avoid a Service Management project being controlled by personal interests, it is important that the company puts the right team from the beginning.
“There is something as simple as good chemistry in the project team. All people have some, they work better with others than others, and that makes sense when you put together your team,” says Allan Pihl, and continues:
“The absolute most important thing is, however, to collect a team where the right competencies come into play so that you can get all corners of the project’s goal in play. The art is to find those people who can go beyond their own interests so that they serve the company’s best. I would even go as far as saying that a good project manager is aware of his own and the entire project team’s bias so that he can compensate for any imbalances and ensure that it is corrected where necessary.”
Questions to yourself
In order to identify any bias associated with the implementation of a Service Management project, it may be a good idea to ask yourself some key questions:
- Is the project team clearly informed of what is expected of them and what to deliver?
- Is there a consensus betweenthe project manager’s personal KPIs and the project’s objective?
- Isthe project team’s individual KPIs consistent with the project’s objective?
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Read more blog posts in this series:
We have written several blog posts on the subject of Modern Service Management, which you can read here:
