Good enough and working is better than perfect and perpetually 'in planning'
Practicality in managing services
A key principle of FitSM is that it tries to be in all ways a practical solution. But what does that mean and how does FitSM achieve it? Here we’ll try and explain why.
There is a phrase in photography: the best camera is the one you have with you. It doesn’t matter if you spend tens of thousands on a professional camera setup if you leave it at home in a cupboard and take pictures of the key moments in your life with your out of date mobile phone.
What is the Master Plan?
This is how we feel about service management. If you have a master plan that is always being developed, or the plan is constantly updated to be ready to go, but it never gets implemented, what is the point? While some implement IT Service Management to get a stamp of approval or to meet an external requirement, the real benefit will always be to have services that are more manageable, to better deliver on promises to customers. For that to work, it is crucial that a practical solution is selected.
Practical help from FitSM
FitSM is designed to be used. There are no large books to buy and leave on a shelf, just free PDF files to have to hand all the time. The requirements themselves are as concise as possible, and instead of writing things out in ever greater levels of detail, we offer templates, samples and guides that are of practical assistance in actually implementing a Service Management System. This helps get around blank page syndrome, e.g. when you read a requirement for a plan or policy but have no idea where to begin. While some may have contacts to send them an example, or consultants to provide an outline, we believe that it is important that everyone gets this head start on key elements of the Service Management System.
Rather than trying to be a huge collection of amazing but extremely specialist tools you will rarely use, we are trying to be the multitool or Swiss Army Knife of ITSM. Something you can keep in your pocket, ready to use, that will assist with many of your day to day tasks. This doesn’t mean you can’t go and get specialist high-price tools when you need them, but the multitool will deal with the majority of issues and sits happily in a pocket.
We have also tried to write FitSM with the point of view of the person implementing it in mind. Senior management are crucial to the process of approving and overseeing ITSM, but once they have given their backing and mandate, the success or failure of implementation will be down to your staff using and improving your processes and procedures each day.
If it isn’t practical, it probably isn’t in FitSM.
