Legal Technology Journal

Shoosmiths’ IS director explains how he has addressed the ongoing IT needs of his clients and why he took the rare decision to sign up his entire team to complete the ITIL qualification.

In today’s competitive, high-tech business market, organisations are increasingly dependent on IT systems to help them to achieve strategic objectives and service their clients. This has resulted in greater demand for high-quality IT services that are efficient and reliable.

In the beginning…

Providing consistency of service and ensuring user downtime or disruption is minimised, is the raison d’etre of the support management function of any IT department. The aim for Shoosmiths’ IT department is for the day-to-day aspects of our technology to be seen by our internal clients as comparable to any other utility: you turn the tap on, water appears; you press the light switch, the light comes on. Failure to deliver is rare. The initial decision to sign up to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) qualification was triggered by the results of our annual IT customer service survey. Although the performance in this survey was excellent by anyone’s standards, it was apparent that a number of service issues could have been avoided, or at the very least, dealt with in a more proactive and efficient manner. We were also keen to remove any existing evidence of silo mentality and to work as a coordinated team. This meant that we needed a common way of working to bring together two previously remote and separate IT teams.

Although the majority of the existing processes within the department already followed best practice standards, and therefore did not require changing or modification, a number of other areas were identified where immediate change was necessary. We were experiencing problems common to many service desks:

• Two service desk systems and separate support teams delivering to different service levels and using a variety of processes. This leads to the possibility of confused users.
• No formalised documented problem management process, resulting in an ad hoc resolution process with a heavy dependency on key individuals. There was no problem database or record of known errors, making it difficult to learn from past problems.
• Inconsistent service depending on who in the support team was contacted. IT staff would handle calls in different ways, some making follow-up calls, some providing incident reference numbers.
• No formal service catalogue or published service level. This often left users unclear about what they could ask for and what to expect.
• Incidents were often passed to second or third line support staff without the correct logging and escalation process being followed.
• Sometimes, communication of implications of major incidents was poor, with the observation of ‘too little too late’.
• There was no configuration management database (CMDB), and a poor asset database.
• Measurement of customer satisfaction on an individual level was inconsistent, with no formalised feedback from users on individual incidents.
• Lack of process documentation, with information being held and kept in people’s heads
• Cumbersome change management process.
• No formal release management processes.
• High level of open calls.

Clearly, some formalisation and control of systems was essential to move the existing IT department to an excellent level of service. The department already had the respect of the firm as a result of the hard work and significant effort being made by a number of individuals within the team. However, we realised that as the firm grew and our systems became more complex, we would find it increasingly difficult to maintain our reputation. There were times when we were not all pulling in the same direction, and it required a great deal of effort on the part of everyone in the department to ensure that we delivered the requisite service. I was keen to deliver a consistent, controlled service that would also help to make our lives easier.

Our approach

Research into what might be available to help address these issues very quickly highlighted the fact that an industry approved and proven set of processes, with a widely available skill set, would be essential. Service management appeared to be the most obvious starting point.

It quickly became apparent that ITIL was becoming a de facto standard in the ‘black art’ of service management. ITIL is a customisable framework for best-practice delivery and support of IT services and infrastructure. It was developed in the 1980s by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency, which is now the Office of Government Commerce, or OCG. ITIL is now recognised as a worldwide standard for IT service management. The standardisation of internal processes in line with the ITIL framework should lead to a more consistent approach and provision of a higher-quality service.

A project was instigated to produce a detailed gap analysis between current and ITIL standards and one which focused on service management. Project summary documents were created for each ITIL area producing an overview of process/function, with suggestions of key objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs). An action plan was then produced to address the gap. The project was broken down into four key steps:

• review key objectives and criteria for process/function;
• review the main processes that already exist and create any new ones required;
• create and/or review the main procedures to support these processes; and
• address actions resulting from gap analysis.

To enable the benefits to be delivered quickly, the initial scope was tightly controlled, and limited to the service support processes within the ITIL framework:

• service desk function;
• incident management process;
• problem management process;
• change management process;
• release management process; and
• configuration management process.

The key aspects of service delivery would be included in the second phase of the project and would follow on from the service support phase with immediate effect.

Depending on both the nature of the organisation and structure of its IT department, it is feasible to limit the ITIL framework to parts of the department or organisation. However, we decided to include Shoosmiths’ entire IT department. A structured training and education process exists around ITIL with national approved and industry accepted qualifications. I decided to take the relatively rare decision to put all staff through the foundation qualification process to ensure that the whole department understood the concepts, terminology and underlying objectives of the methodology. In addition, all members of staff responsible for key processes would be expected to acquire practitioner status, and the ITIL project manager would be tasked to achieve the management qualification. Although relevant training courses were widely available, none quite met Shoosmiths’ specific requirements.

In order to minimise any impact on our current levels of service and to ensure the IT team understood the Shoosmiths’ philosophy on support, I felt that a tailored on-site course would be the best approach. Given our department’s existing strong rating with users, and the firm’s confidence in the ability of our IT staff, we were able to complete the foundation qualification in an intensive two-day course.

The training was undertaken by FGI Limited, chosen by us based on the quality of their training delivery and flexible approach. This included the design of tailored pre-course reading materials to give delegates attending the courses more of an understanding of the ITIL processes ahead of the course was both rigorous and competitive. The commitment of staff to pre-course reading was a gauge of how serious the training was taken.

The key challenges faced by the department included:

• making enough time and resources available for the project;
• having sufficient budget;
• resistance of staff to change;
• integration of service delivery between IS elements;
• process ownership and responsibility; and
• upgrading the Magic support system.

Back to today

Shoosmiths values openness of information and our team produces monthly statistics summarising the performance of the department. The KPI dashboard is used to relay to the business how the service is performing. The system availability operates continuously around a highly respectful 99.9%, but the first call resolution and overall service level needed improving. The Dashboard from March 2007 shows the first call resolution at 60%, and the overall service level at 80%. It also shows that 2,502 incidents were logged, and 477 remained open at the end of the month.

We are now into the ninth month of the project, and the department has started to reap significant benefits. The figures published for December show some superb improvements – first call resolution is now at 76% and overall service level at 88%. Each month now sees the logging of more than 4,000 incidents, with only 138 remaining open.

Our department has achieved an excellent pass rate for all delegates across the portfolio of courses that FGI has so far delivered; well above the national average (which for ITIL foundation exams is 90%). I am proud to say that Shoosmiths scored a superb 98%. The individual scores were also excellent. As is often the case in an intensive support environment, there can be friction between the handing off of incidents from the service desk to second or third line technical support staff. Again, success would only be achieved by the intensive activities of a couple of individuals. In line with ITIL best practice, an operational level agreement has been designed and agreed between the service desk and the technologists, which clearly depict what is expected of each individual. This can now be measured, and managers have a greater awareness of what is happening.

IT departments will often look outwards and focus on improving business process. Shoosmiths is no different in this respect; but what it has recognised is the level of importance that an efficient and effective IT department has on the overall success of the business. As a consequence, we now have an individual within the department who has been given the responsibility of focusing on internal operational performance alone.

The implementation of this new way of working has enabled significant improvements in performance despite a huge growth in support demand during the year. We handled more than 38,000 incidents during 2007, a 50% growth on the previous year, and yet improved our overall performance; a superb result in anyone’s book.

Our IT team has gained recognition both internally and externally for its excellent efforts. The Legal Technology Awards 2008, in association with LTJ awarded the team Regional IT Team of the Year, and a recent internal customer satisfaction survey revealed that IT users in Shoosmiths are very happy with the service being provided, and service availability was consistently more than 99.9%.

Why FGI?

I was genuinely impressed with FGI, because they listened to our requirements and constraints and put together a tailored training programme that met all our needs.

We have managed to develop a training partnership with FGI, rather than a standard customer-provider relationship, and that is incredibly reassuring. The trainers at FGI are all highly experienced consultants. The pass guarantee, coupled with the skills protection promise FGI was able to offer Shoosmiths, made the decision to use FGI as our strategic delivery partner very simple.

Our achievements to date have been significant:

• Merging together two helpdesks into a single service desk.
• Change process – reduced time from 2.5 hours to 30 minutes.
• Further enhancement to the Magic support system.
• All staff passing ITIL foundation qualification.
• Management qualification achieved for project manager.
• Appointment of incident, change, problem and release managers.
• We are now well into the service delivery phase.

But perhaps the most important success of the past nine months is that all staff are now talking a common language, and understand the differences between incidents and known errors, as well as the benefits of tightly managed changes control and release management. Even some of our users understand the difference.

The future

As far as our department is concerned, this is just the beginning of the process to improve on the service that we are currently able to deliver to our clients, and are already planning the next stages in the adoption of ITIL. Initiatives include: • arranging another foundation course to mop up those who missed the first one or who have joined since then; • changing the recruitment process to stipulate that ITIL foundation is a key requirement on people joining, although training will be provided; 52 Issue 8 Service management • working towards the ISO 20000 accreditation; • creating a more comprehensive CMDB; • replacing the asset management system; • rolling out the release management process; and • completing the implementation of the service delivery aspects of ITIL.

Shoosmiths and FGI will continue their working relationship, with further training being provided for key managers and new starters, along with consultancy to ensure that Shoosmiths’ support team is maintaining momentum and delivering what is required.

I feel that ITIL has delivered a structure and approach that is easily adaptable and can deliver results quickly. Although, were it not for the considerable commitment from my staff and the support of a knowledgeable partner, the improvements and successes we have so far enjoyed would not have been possible. My team is certainly committed and FGI has delivered above expectations.

David Bason is the IS director at national law firm Shoosmiths. At the 2008 Legal Technology Awards, Shoosmiths won Regional IT Team of the Year and David Bason was awarded Regional IT Director of the Year.