Prioritizing lean practices for implementation in IT support services

Purpose

– The purpose of this study is to capture the perception of the IT support service practitioners regarding the applicability of the lean practices and prioritize them after analyzing the gaps with respect to current usage and importance from practitioners’ perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

– It involved development of an instrument to capture the perceptions of the IT support service practitioners. The data collected was quantitatively analyzed by using statistical techniques and it involved testing of the hypotheses.

Findings

– The study conducted a gap analysis on the perceived current usage of the lean practices versus the perceived ideal usages of the lean practices from practitioners’ perspective. The gap analysis report revealed that gaps of all practices are not same from the practitioners’ viewpoint. This gap analysis was useful for prioritizing of the practices and resource allocation.

Originality/value

– This study was conducted in a relatively new domain, where mature empirically based studies are scarce. This study set out to determine the practitioners’ perception of the applicability of lean practices in IT support service organizations. It provides a sound basis for further research on lean implementation in IT support service area.

How do the practitioners perceive relevancy of lean practices in IT support services?

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to capture and analyze the perception gaps with respect to the current usage and importances of the lean practices from the IT support service practitioners’ perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

– A questionnaire was developed to capture the perceptions of the IT support service practitioners. The survey data were quantitatively analyzed by using statistical techniques which included testing of the hypotheses.

Findings

– The analysis of the perception gaps revealed that even though all the gaps are statistically significant but gaps between different practices are not same. The gap analysis would be useful for IT support service organization in prioritizing the lean practices for implementation.

Originality/value

– Lean practice applicability and implementation in IT support services is a relatively new domain, where mature empirically based studies are scarce. This study provides a sound basis for further research on lean implementation in IT support service area.

An Extensive Review of IT Service Design in Seven International ITSM Processes Frameworks

The main international IT Service Management processes frameworks (ITIL v2, ISO/IEC 20000, COBIT 4.0, CMMI-SVC, MOF 4.0, and ITUP) include the design of IT services as part of their main best practices. However, despite having a common purpose and conceptual structure, they are organized differently. Hence, ITSM academic researchers and practitioners need to integrate a broad and diverse literature in relation to these frameworks. In Part I of this research, the authors pursued the goal of a descriptive-comparative analysis of fundamental concepts and IT service architecture design models used in the seven ITSM frameworks. In this paper (Part II) we complete this systemic analysis by using the ISO/IEC 15288 systems engineering standard and focusing on the IT design processes and practices reported in the aforementioned ITSM frameworks. Specifically, CMMI-SVC and ITUP are assessed in overall as the strongest frameworks from an engineering view, MOF 4.0 and ITIL v3 as moderate, and ISO/IEC 20000, ITIL v2 and COBIT as the weakest. ITSM academicians and in particular practitioners thus will need to distinguish their utilization according to the level of required detail of the IT service design process. This paper aims to advance our comprehension and understanding on the state of the art regarding what are IT services and how they can be designed. Thus it is of broad significance to ITSM researchers and practitioners.

An Extensive Review of IT Service Design in Seven International ITSM Processes Frameworks

An IT service design process is considered to be a fundamental piece of the seven key international IT Service Management (ITSM) processes frameworks (ITIL v2, ITIL v3 (and ITIL v2011), ISO 20000-4, CobIT 4.0, CMMI-SVC, MOF 4.0, and ITUP). Nevertheless the availability of IT service design processes, few –if any- descriptive-comparative studies among them have been reported. Thus, in this paper (Part I), we address this knowledge gap. An extensive descriptive-comparative review of seven IT service design processes in aforementioned frameworks is reported. Fundamental concepts (viz., design as noun, design as verb, service, service system, IT service, IT service system, and IT service architecture design) are analyzed by using a Systems Approach. Our findings indicate that the frameworks ITIL v2, ISO/IEC 20000 and Cobit 4.0 are using weak systemic concepts, while the frameworks ITIL v3, CMMI-SVC, ITUP and MOF 4.0 are more foundationally congruent with the new service systems view. Implications for ITSM theory and practice are discussed.

Information Systems Service Quality, Zone of Tolerance, and User Satisfaction

Information system service quality has been a very important theme in both IS practice and research. User service expectations affect perceived service quality and user satisfaction. The objectives of this research are to i) to explore the relationship between perceived IS service quality and user satisfaction across the three regions of zone of tolerance (ZOT) and ii) to validate the associations between service expectations (adequate service and desired service) and service performance. The analysis of the data obtained from 193 IS users revealed a positive and significant association between perceived service quality and user satisfaction across the service zones and service dimensions with stronger associations in the acceptable service zone and weaker associations in the inadequate and superior service zones. Thus, the results demonstrate that the relationship between IS service quality and user satisfaction is affected by ZOT. It is found that the desired service expectation measure is more strongly related to service performance compared to the adequate service expectation measure. It is also observed that irrespective of the ZOT, the service dimension that contributes most to service performance is assurance. Tangibles have the widest ZOT and assurance has the narrowest ZOT compared to most other service dimensions. The author discusses the implications of the present study for both research and practice.