1. Applying LEAN
to the
ITIL V3 Event Management Process
itSMF UK Conference 2008 – Driving Real Value
Rohit Nand I Subbarao Chaganty

2. Agenda
1
1 ITIL V3 Event Management & Lean Principles
1
2 Event Management Process & Business Case
1
3 Approach for Waste Reduction
1
4 Waste Reduction Scope and Benefits
Summary & Other Opportunities within IT Service
1
5 Management
2

3. Agenda
1
1 ITIL V3 Event Management & Lean Principles
1
2 Event Management Process & Business Case
1
3 Approach for Waste Reduction
1
4 Waste Reduction Scope and Benefits
Summary & Other Opportunities within IT Service
1
5 Management
3

4. Event Management gets its due with ITIL V3
• I monitor my servers. What else do I need to do?
• Isn’t this a part of the Incident Management process?
Questions
before ITIL V3 • I support and manage Applications. Does this still concern me?
• Whose ownership and responsibility is it?
• Where can I find best practice guidance on Event Management?
• Impact of proactive event monitoring and management on IT
Outcome stability
Areas • Key enabler for proactive Service Desks
• Improve efficiency through Automation
Event Management is the backbone of IT Service Management playing a
significant role in Service Operations and Assurance
4

5. LEAN originated with the Manufacturing industry but its principles
are now being successfully applied to Services
The complete elimination of
waste so all activities create
value for the customer
Our initiative focused on elimination of waste in
Event Management to reduce manual efforts by ~ 44%
5

6. We mapped the Lean Principles of Waste Reduction to Event
Management to achieve optimization…
1. Inventory
Waste
2. Processing As-Is To-Be
Waste
Mapping the redundancies
Building an
and duplication existing in
optimized Event
3. Waste due to the current Event
Management
Waiting Time Monitoring and Alert
system
scenarios
4. Transportation
Waste
5. Waste of 7. Waste due to
6. Waste from
Motion Product Defects
Over-Production
6

7. Agenda
1
1 ITIL V3 Event Management & Lean Principles
1
2 Event Management Process & Business Case
1
3 Approach for Waste Reduction
1
4 Waste Reduction Scope and Benefits
Summary & Other Opportunities within IT Service
1
5 Management
7

8. The Event Management process in question mainly depended on pre-
configured Alerts which needed to be responded to and resolved …
XXXXXX
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Alert volumes and over crowded
monitors are distracting for the
analysts and challenge the
analysts focus
Risk of missing a critical alert
while dealing with such a huge
number of alerts
Cleanup the monitoring system
and ensure only genuine alerts
Hot Spots for Waste Reduction
8

9. Case study – Business Case & Drivers
Service Desk operations involved A focused initiative was kicked off to
significant efforts towards monitoring analyze the alerts and reconfigure and
alerts triggered by specific application cleanup to ensure following outcomes:
related events: Reduce cost of monitoring
Batch jobs activities
Log files for key words Optimize Service Desk monitoring
System and database space Ensure accurate priority
Key business processes classification
File arrivals Automate manual activities
Improve team moral
• Non-value adding monitoring • Reduced monitoring efforts
efforts • Ability to detect & address critical
• Probability of missing critical alerts alerts
• Crowded alert interface • Cleaner alert interface
We applied waste reduction practices from LEAN on Event Management to
improve efficiency and reduce costs
9

10. Agenda
1
1 ITIL V3 Event Management & Lean Principles
1
2 Event Management Process & Business Case
1
3 Approach for Waste Reduction
1
4 Waste Reduction Scope and Benefits
Summary & Other Opportunities within IT Service
1
5 Management
10

11. A data collection drive followed by intensive analysis and validation with
the application support groups strengthened the business case…
Phase
Analysis Business Case Implementation
• Establish 2 week baseline • Develop the business • Setup implementation team
period case (Effort/$aving$) • Recalibrate the baselines
Key Activities
• Collect/download alert • Determine 2 weeks (retrofit changes)
reports implementation • Implement identified
• Categorize alerts into requirements resolution
waste and identify • Identify risks and • Validate the reduction
resolutions mitigation goals for each category
• Validate redundancies • Seek agreement and go-
with application groups ahead from Leadership
Deliverables
1. Analysis report 3. Business Case 5. Recalibrated baselines
2. Waste categories 4. Implementation plan 6. Realized benefits
The Solution enables the Service Desk to continually remove alerts they
believe to be redundant & aid in further optimization of the process
11

12. Agenda
1
1 ITIL V3 Event Management & Lean Principles
1
2 Event Management Process & Business Case
1
3 Approach for Waste Reduction
1
4 Waste Reduction Scope and Benefits
Summary & Other Opportunities within IT Service
1
5 Management
12

13. Inventory Waste – 32% of alerts warranted “No
Remediation Action”
Significant number of alerts configured to prompt manual activities like releasing
space, kicking off processes and/or jobs manually
Notification or informational alerts
Prioritization & classification of
alerts (Informational, Minor,
Major & Critical)
Alerts as triggers for manual
processes
Automate manual tasks to Revisit prioritization and
alert on exception only clearing of informational alerts
Automation of manual activities significantly reduced this waste. Alerts should
be configured to trigger specific ACTION
13

14. Processing Waste – 24% of alerts were “Redundant” in
nature !!
Alerts for same or related events, e.g. Both Parent and Child jobs triggering alerts
within embedded batch job scenarios.
Redundant alerts for embedded
jobs
Different monitoring systems
creating duplicate alerts
Lack of co-relation between
related events
Co-relate alerts and Identify relation patterns
remove duplicates within events and alerts
Redundancies identified and eliminated such that ONLY meaningful alerts
appear in the system
14

15. Waste due to Waiting Time – 13% of alerts were
performing “Reminder Service”
Alerts that are prime candidates for automation – move from a “Reminder Service”
mode to “Alert on Exception only” mode
Lack of Service Desk
empowerment
Log file alerts & file arrival alerts
Reminder service alerts for
manual jobs
Eliminate manual task Automate manual tasks and
reminder alerts configure exception alerts
Empower Service Desks; Move towards “Exception Based Alerting”
15

16. Few other categories of Alert wastes were identified and marked
for either reconfiguration or decommissioning
• Misfired alerts – sent • Alerts created by
to wrong teams / new or changed
configured to wrong functionality
teams • Missing alerts for key
• Lack of proper changes
training or event • Lack of release
handling procedures management &
coordination
• Orphan alerts – no
clear resolution
defined
• Lack of clear event
handling procedures
• Crowded alert radars • Duplicate alerts due to
– capturing incorrect configuration
insignificant events • Alerts configured for
and alerts scheduled downtime
13% of the total alerts eliminated belonged to this category. Periodic review of
Alerts is a critical activity to maintain optimum alert levels
16

17. Agenda
1
1 ITIL V3 Event Management & Lean Principles
1
2 Event Management Process & Business Case
1
3 Approach for Waste Reduction
1
4 Waste Reduction Scope and Benefits
Summary & Other Opportunities within IT Service
1
5 Management
17

18. By addressing the waste types to remove redundancies and duplication
– we were able to achieve effort reduction by 44% (~USD 600,000)
Event
Mgmt Efforts
reduced by
44%
Some practical considerations
Develop Ability to detect redundant Build and maintain a continuous improvement
alerts for analysts program
Identify opportunities for automation Consider breaking up vertically aligned support
and integration and moving towards a shared services model
18

19. Potential areas within IT Service Management where LEAN based
Waste Reduction can be applied to considerably optimize VALUE
Service Transition Service Operations
Change Management Event Management
Configuration Management Incident Management
Transition Planning Problem Management
Knowledge Management Access Management
Testing & Validation Service Request Fulfillment
Release & Deployment Mgmt
Strategy
Service
Portfolio
Financial
Service Design Management Continual Service
Improvement
Service Catalog Management Demand
Management Service Measurement
Capacity Management
Service Reporting
Availability Management
7 Step Improvement Process
Service Continuity Mgmt
Security Management
Supplier Management
19

20. Lessons from Economics and Psychology in managing
the “Change” …
Look within the organization Build Partnerships
for Positive Variance
Self-funding of Continuous Measure and
Improvement initiatives Communicate Success
Assign Ownership Design Incentives
20

21. Thank you
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Infosys Technologies Ltd.”
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