ITIL® and Me

Often in my job I’m referred as a “bad guy” (since I’m 6’4″ I’ve considered wearing a Darth Vader costume to work, but that’s a topic for another day).  The idea of being a bad guy at my job is something I’ve been used to ever since I started working in my department, and my cohort in ITIL (Brett) is now finding out what it’s like to be a loathed member of a team.  Why are we even bad guys?  Is it because we help create policies and procedures that are accepted by the department leadership and meant to be followed by our coworkers?  Is it because when analysts don’t want to stick with policy that we stand our ground and justifiably deny their requests?  If we just look at why we even like policies and processes, is it because we like to have a structure in which the I.T. department can function as efficiently as possibly while providing value to the business?  Whatever the reason, the truth is that I’m often looked at as a bad guy.  Some of you may think I’m paranoid, but today I came across a realization that helps to prove my point.

A manager in my department has been really making my job difficult.  This particular manager is in charge of pretty much all of our I.T. infrastructure systems; servers, virtual applications, desktop images, his group is pretty much doing it all.  This also means that when there’s a Problem I’m required to go and question his staff as to why things break.  Often one analyst will give a “root cause” as being another system failing, and when I question why that system failed I’m often met with “I don’t know.”  When I ask how can we know, the response is either “I don’t know” or “we don’t collect logs from that particular system.”  Needless to say my attempts to get to a Root Cause from a Problem literally accomplishes nothing except having a bunch of meetings which wastes time of having a lot of blank stares (I think the next root cause analysis meeting should be at a local bar so at least I can numb my consciousness).  The manager in question also doesn’t help much by holding his staff accountable for their actions.  In fact, it often seems that whenever he’s involved with a Root Cause Analysis session he tends to not add much value except to constantly say jokes that derails the focus of the meeting.  Why is it so difficult for this manager to follow the processes?  I’ve been racking my brain for the past few days and I think I’ve finally found the answer.  In general, people don’t like to have their actions reviewed and questioned, especially when it has something to do with a failure.  For the past few weeks I’ve been raising a lot of questions about a particular group in my department and when the analysts can’t provide answers, who is responsible?  Who is accountable?  I could be wrong, but something tells me one of the responsibilities of a manager is to make sure his/her staff are following policies and procedures and are working as efficiently as possible.  When someone questions the actions of a group, it questions the managers ability to motivate and lead the staff of that group.  Suddenly it makes sense why this manager is blowing me off and making my job difficult; by my succeeding at my job it potentially could show that he’s not succeeding at his.  Now, do I really want someone to lose their job?  Absolutely not.  A core book in ITIL is Continual Service Improvement.  This could be improving processes, technology, or even people (preferably by training).

Since I don’t want to be paranoid and just assume this manager is “out to get me,” I’d like to talk about a different manager.  This manager is in charge of our network and communications group; a.k.a. “the network.”  During Root Cause Analysis meetings it’s a given that someone will blame the Problem on network instability.  My instinct is to defend the network team and force the members of the meeting to look for other causes.  Why do I do this?  Is it because the manager of the network team bribes me?  Is it because I have a crush on that manager and I show favoritism?  Or maybe it’s because whenever a network failure occurs I’m almost immediately notified of the outage even before users contact our Service Desk?  In fact, this particular manager keeps the team running like a well oiled machine.  Event monitoring is in place, communication is very open, and there’s always plenty of cooperation during Problem investigations.  That manager doesn’t even need to be present and I know the team will work as quickly and as efficiently as if the manager was present.

I’ve given examples of two managers.  One of them seems to be aloof and unaware of their team’s actions while the other one maintains contact with their team, helps during Root Cause Analysis and is always looking to improve how the team functions.  So, am I really a bad guy for asking questions and trying to find where improvements need to be made?  Maybe.  But if you know about the Deming Cycle then you would know that asking those questions is a part of Continual Service Improvement.  I may be viewed as a bad guy by some of my coworkers, but in the spirit of ITIL, I think it’s a good thing.  After all, Darth Vader may have been a bad guy but at least he knew how to maintain order.  And let’s face it, those Stormtroopers were pretty organized and efficient at what they did, even if they can’t find two little droids in a desert.