Building Operational Excellence: IT People and Process Best Practices (IT Best Practices series) [Paperback]

Bruce Allen (Author), Dale Kutnick (Author)

Book Description

Series: IT Best Practices series | Publication Date: February 1, 2004

Running an effective and efficient IT organization goes beyond just having the right technology in place, and this book addresses how and why IT organizations must have effective ways to meet increased workloads, manage staff levels, and collaborate more effectively with business units. Valuable insight is provided into organizing IT people and processes and improving end-to-end management of critical resources. Techniques of analysis, assessment, and change management that help create the center of excellence are discussed, and techniques for implementing meaningful metrics to drive and demonstrate the business value of IT are offered.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Running an effective and efficient IT organization goes beyond just having the right technology in place. IT organizations must have effective ways to meet increased workloads, manage staff levels, and to collaborate more effectively with business units. Building Operational Excellence provides valuable insight for organizing IT people and processes, showing you how to improve end-to-end management of critical resources.

This book guides you through techniques of analysis, assessment, and change management that help create the center of excellence. It also offers techniques for implementing meaningful metrics to drive and demonstrate the business value of IT.

Although you can find many reports and briefs on the topics of infrastructure and operations excellence, this book provides a single source of industry-approved, affordable information.

0201767376B05062002 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Bruce Allen is a vice president of META Group. Before joining META in August 1990, he managed corporate central processing of hardware and software resources at the Hartford Insurance Group, where he was responsible for procurement and strategic planning. During his seventeen-year data-processing career, he has been involved in all aspects of central environment support, including operations, systems programming, performance analysis, rates/chargeback, budgeting, service levels, forecasts, and overall planning.

Dale Kutnick is the cofounder, CEO, and chairman of the board of META group, overseeing all of the company’s research and analytical activities. Prior to co-founding META Group in 1989, Mr. Kutnick was executive vice president of research at Gartner Group. Previously, he was executive director and a principal at Yankee Group, and a principal at Battery Ventures, a venture capital firm.

Product Details

• Paperback: 219 pages
• Publisher: Intel Press (February 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974364975
• ISBN-13: 978-0974364971
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,578,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly refined approach to attaining IT Ops capability, June 22, 2002

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Building Operational Excellence: Strategies to Improve It People and Processes (Paperback)

The objectives of this book are to achieve an operational posture that is based on mature processes and an organizational structure that is efficient and delivers value to the business.

The authors take a pragmatic approach by making the distinction between best practices from an industry-wide perspective and selective use of best practices to ensure that only those that make sense in the pursuit of your organization are chosen. The three fundamental steps that are addressed by this approach are (1) determine your current operational posture, (2) define quality goals and (3) examine the gaps between where you are and where you want to be. The book is organized to lead you through these three steps in great detail, starting with a definition of best practices (Chapter 1) and laying the foundation by defining tasks and processes and how to move from task- to process-driven methods (Chapter 2). Gap analysis are process refinement are the topics of Chapter 4, which will provide the level of operational maturity to move to the most efficient model proposed in the book called centers of excellence (COE). The collection of COEs are comprised of groupings of core processes that are found in mature IT organizations. By grouping these processes in COEs you can achieve end-to-end service delivery as well as economy of scale. On paper it looks logical, but in practice it is not easy to achieve. In addition if COEs are not carefully structured there can be gaps of responsibility and accountability, which the authors note and provide advice about how to prevent these gaps. Chapter 5 provides a thorough discussion of metrics, while Chapter 6 ties together the concepts in the previous chapters.

The most valuable parts of this book are Chapter 7, which is a complete catalog of core processes ranging from application optimization to workload monitoring (31 processes in all) and Chapter 8, which gives eight COE catalogs. The processes in Chapter 7 are depicted with two scales ranging from 1 to 10 for automation and stability, with the following 8 characteristics: (1) tasks, (2) skills, (3) staffing, (4) automation technology, (5) best practices, (6) metrics, (7) process integration and (8) futures. The COE catalogs are slightly different and are structured as follows: (1) attributes, (2) processes, (3) skills, (4) automation, (5) best practices, (6) metrics, and (7) futures.

While I think this is a 5-star book that makes an important contribution to IT operational excellence, it isn't without a few flaws. I noticed a few minor problems as the book leads you through a typical process-oriented structure to a COE-based one, such as system administration not being placed in one of the COEs. This is a possible editing error in the book. I also thought that the 1 to 10 scales for automation and stability were defined too ambiguously and the scales are too fine grained given the arbitrary definitions assigned. Many of the illustrations were too busy and misleading. However, the material in this book is so well thought out and supported by compelling value propositions that the flaws are easy to overlook. Overall this book represents a major contribution to the small--but growing--body of knowledge about IT operations management.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good descriptions of goals, little on how to move people, March 9, 2003

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Building Operational Excellence: Strategies to Improve It People and Processes (Paperback)

The basic premise of the book is that an efficient organization segments their operations into communicating, but largely distinct entities. These entities are then transformed into centers of excellence (COEs), by defining the tasks of the group, acquiring the appropriate skills by either hiring or training, and implementing the appropriate managerial style. Without question, these goals are the correct ones and will improve the efficiency of any company when implemented.
The problems are of course in the difference between stating the appropriate goals and actually implementing them. Inertia due to entrenched practices or a fear of change is a very powerful force that is difficult to overcome. The authors spend very little time on exactly how one should act to overcome these problems. Without a plan to meet and conquer these difficulties, such goals often never progress beyond the realm of the ideal.
Many different types of COEs are described at the end of the book. Each entry contains a short description of the process, a ranking from one to ten of the level that the process can be automated, a ranking from one to ten of the stability of the process, and highlights concerning staffing, automation technology, best practices, metrics, process integration and futures. These explanations are very helpful in describing the parameters to shoot for when constructing a process.
This book is good as a descriptive listing of ways to improve the efficiency of departments that use IT. Unfortunately, reality is often much more complex than simply stating a plan, and there is very little beyond the statements of the goals.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book on Best Practices, April 20, 2009

By 

Joseph A. Francis "Joe Francis" (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Building Operational Excellence: IT People and Process Best Practices (IT Best Practices series) (Paperback)

When I first picked up this excellent book, I had already spent 11 years doing similar work establishing IT operational systems for large organizations. The practical suggestions and checklists in this book corresponded closely with my experience and I keep the book in front of me on my desk for the past five years and often make a gift of it to others. This book is absolutely unique in the deep knowledge and concise presentation of IT operational support excellence.