Socitm

Levelling up – A Socitm response

To support the emerging post-pandemic picture across the UK, Socitm has developed a narrative around Regeneration, Sustainability, Connectivity (RSC). We are proud to be championing this on behalf of our 2,500 members throughout the UK.

Through this lens, we will support our members in playing their part in delivering the 12 missions set out for Levelling Up (LU), building on local, place-based capability and capacity, and harnessing data to:

1. Better understand the distribution and root causes of inequalities;
2. Target resources and know-how to address these causes (level-up); and
3. Deliver a sustainable reduction in regional variation in healthcare and wellbeing of people and communities.

Debate around what will be achieved or celebrated by politicians in media soundbites from the ’12 missions’ that make up LU will play out in the months and years to come. However, local authorities have already rolled their sleeves up and demonstrated that RSC are already high on their agendas.

Local public service leaders are constantly asked to re-think the ‘art of the possible’ in relation to whether and how they should use technologies and data.

To support this, Socitm has developed several resources and briefings which capture the phenomenal response that has unfolded since the pandemic gripped the nation two years ago.

Our Planting the flag – a new local normal, Covid-19 digital impact survey and Our digital jump into the future report together give detailed insights into the impact and response of local government organisations during the pandemic. Our wider work around  key policy themes, ethical practice, leadership development, emerging digital trends and the application of concepts such as doughnut economics inspiring healthy and well communities are all shaping our understanding of ethical, digital placemaking .

An accompanying Championing place-based recovery infographic draws these resources together and, drawn from more than 200 local authority recovery and regeneration strategies,  maps out how local authorities are seeking to move from front-line response, via local post-covid recovery, towards community focused regeneration.

Alongside this, our place-based recovery prospectus goes further by highlighting how a variety approaches are supporting wider community regeneration and ethical change, issues  that assume even greater relevance in preparation for the societal and environmental challenges that lie ahead.

On collaboration, we have much to learn from the recent example of the vaccine roll out. Strong leadership from local government to really understand the people in their patch allowed local authorities to be the interface with the community, while the NHS brought the scale of delivery.

While the words may have changed, the required actions have not. The focus is on local authorities and authentic place-based leadership, which involves bringing citizens in early, along the long road of recovery. Socitm plans to deliver resources and to engage with its members to enable them to play an active part in the practical delivery of LU and its outcomes.

by Socitm

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by WiredGov

Computer Aid: Help Us Help Ukraine

We are proud to have Computer Aid as the SITS charity partner. They have brought access to technology to over 14.5 million people. Their goal is to build a world where everyone has equal access to technology through sustainable IT solutions, providing access to high-quality equipment and education in the developing world.

Over the last few months, millions of Ukrainian people have had to flee their homes to find safety. Whilst doing so, many of their mobile devices have been stolen, lost, or damaged.

These devices are crucial in connecting refugees to family members back in Ukraine and finding them transport, accommodation and, ultimately, safety. Without them, they are completely disconnected and in even more danger.

What are Computer Aid doing to help?

With the support of their partners at N50, they have started to deploy containers equipped with a variety of digital services including charging stations, computers and internet access. This allows the refugees to find any information they need online and also to communicate with their loved ones. They plan to deploy these portable solutions where there is more concentration of refugees, starting at the Romanian border with Ukraine.

They will also send and distribute as many devices as they can to help reconnect these people. Computer Aid have a number of mobiles and tablets ready to go but require additional funding so that all devices can be delivered with a charger and sim card.

How can you get involved?

Computer Aid have an initial fundraising goal of £20,000 but as long as they keep raising, they will continue to send devices to Ukraine. Millions of displaced families need these devices and they plan to help as many as they can.

Even a small donation could allow them to purchase the necessary accessories to send another device to those desperately in need. Head to the donation link below to find out more: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/computeraid-helpushelpukraine

by Computer Aid

SITS - the magic is still there

Last week Diversified put on one of the two best conferences that England, heck Europe, offers in terms of IT Service Management: SITS. Once known as the Service Desk show, SITS provides a magical mix of vendors, speakers and networking over two days for anyone interested in agile, devops, leanIT, ITIL, SIAM, Mental health for IT, leadership and more. People, processes, and all of the fun stuff in one event!

Before the pandemic, many of my conference friends and I had built up mental and physical conference skills and attributes. Two years away, wow, what a difference. Let's start with shoes. I have not worn proper shoes for a long time and now for two days, well shoes. SITS is a tremendous experience in a large conference facility covering a vast floor space. You walk a lot at SITS.

Networking. I have not seen my friends and colleagues in person for over two years. Do you shake hands, hug, or elbow bump? Forget the two-metre rule because SITS attracts hundreds of people! Some people had masks, but most did not. Beer and wine at the end of day 1, coffee baristas inside the event, pizza or curry at night. This is SITS!

Vendors galore. Some had exciting software to measure the experiences of staff and customer satisfaction. Imagine knowing in real-time whether what you delivered as a service met the customer's needs or helped your teams. Experience knowledge and leadership are the fundamental concepts of 2022. Warning to vendors: make sure your staff can tell a story that matters to the person. Asking what would you like to see or saying we sell ITSM software means nothing. After 50 years of dealing with vendors and consultancies in my career, I am happy to teach you how to act at a conference.

Speakers: loads of speakers on every conceivable topic important to those that want technology to enable their staff or help customers. Regular sessions, panels, hot-topic discussions (I did one on metrics), free advice at stands, interviews of legends being taped, and breakfast sessions. SITS is a learning and sharing experience.

Back at hotel day 1: I had walked miles, my feet were sore, my hands and elbows hurt, my head was pounding with all that I had learned, my stomach was full of wine and pizza.

See you at SITS 2023!

Daniel Breston: 50 years of leadership and consultancy in IT. Now rebranded as the Retired Coach (working his way), Daniel speaks at events, blogs for himself and others, board member of is itSMF UK, a Fellow of the British Computer Society,  and generally is just having fun keeping up with the opportunities being offered by technology to individuals and organisations.

by Daniel Breston

The Value of Experience Data to Continual Improvement

Have you ever stopped to think whether your continual service improvement (CSI) – or simply continual improvement if you’ve gone “all ITIL 4” already – efforts are missing something? That you might have identified many areas across which to improve your IT support capabilities, but you don’t know the root causes of the issues. Or you don’t have full sight of the possible improvement opportunities because traditional IT service desk metrics and improvement methods don’t highlight all of the issues end-users are experiencing.

In this blog, I explain how experience data is useful when measuring outcomes (or value) and recognising the issues end-users face and helping to identify the required solutions.

Gathering the right ingredients for continual improvement success

In my experience, continual improvement is still an underused IT service management (ITSM) practice. In part because of what’s needed to undertake it successfully. For instance:

• Continual improvement needs committed resources. Finding the time for people to undertake continual improvement activities is often a primary stumbling block. Even though this is similar to not having the time to attend a time management course.
• Continual improvement needs accurate data. What are you improving right now? How are you confident that there’s a need to improve? Do you have data that demonstrates this? Plus, is there data that digs into the issue to identify the root cause (or causes) to understand what needs improvement (and assess whether the improvement was achieved)?
• Continual improvement needs the right focus. Is this area the most important thing to improve upon right now? And for whom? For instance, will it improve things for employees and business outcomes, or is it simply improving IT support operations? Or is it just “a good thing to do” relative to what you think is important to others?

Ultimately, are your continual improvement investments targeted on “what matters most”?

How experience measurement helps

Our customers find that experience measurement – thanks to the employed mechanism that leverages simplicity and immediacy – results in a far greater response in end-user feedback. Customers often see customer satisfaction (CSAT) feedback levels of less than 10% increasing to experience feedback levels of circa 40%.

And when you have enough employee feedback, particularly response rates above 25%, you can start to trust the results. Although I’d argue that end-users don’t have a reason to lie about how IT support performance adversely impacts them.

For example, our aggregate customer employee experience data up to the end of 2021 highlighted that the top three contributing factors for employee happiness with incident handling were:

1. Speed of service
2. Service personnel’s attitude
3. Service personnel’s skills.

Whereas unhappy employees highlighted:

1. Their issue not being solved despite ticket closure
2. Slowness of service
3. Having to reexplain the issue and provide details repeatedly, i.e. being bounced between people.

So, if you were already measuring employee experience in your organisation, you’d have accurate data and the ability to prioritise and focus effort. For example, the deeper analysis of bullet #3 above highlights the impact of bouncing on employee happiness and their level of lost productivity. Each time a ticket is bounced, happiness falls by close to 8 points, while end-users lose 1h 38min more of their work time.

Source: The Global IT Experience Benchmark: H2/2021

So here, with employee experience measurement, there’s accurate data rather than simply a gut feeling or assumption that multiple IT-support bounces hurt employees. These are two valid reasons to minimise the level and frequency of ticket bounces and prioritise available resources and effort amongst other improvement opportunities.

Experience data helps with higher-level focus too

Our customers find that their experience data also brings about a significant strategical change. It allows them to focus on what’s valuable and not only on the minimisation of the IT service desk’s cost-per-ticket – which is often the improvement for IT organisations with potentially suboptimal cost-reduction strategies.

The experience data also provides greater transparency to IT’s stakeholders – from service desk analysts to the CIO and other C-level executives. This insight’s visibility is vital for improvements, and to prove my point, try a sense check in your organisation. Ask the members of an improvement project team what the target of the project they’re working on is. I’m sure too many will state the deadline for the project. This response is a scary answer in terms of not being focused on actually delivering the desired outcome(s). But it’s also a missed opportunity to provide staff with meaningful work – something that fulfills them on completion, making a difference rather than simply hitting a deadline.

Our customers find it relatively easy to get their senior management to commit to new improvements when the recommendations are based on employee experience data. In particular, every senior IT leader is interested when you ask them if they’d like to hear what >2000 employees have said about their services.

Your organisation can use experience data to enable and support continual (service) improvement in many ways. From identifying people development needs, motivating teams and getting everybody involved, to measuring and demonstrating the business value of ITSM.

If you’d like to learn more about how to use experience data for continual improvement, please attend our session at SITS: 7 Practical Tips for Getting Started with Experience Management (11^th May at 1pm, Theatre One), where our customer Wiley will share real-world examples.

Register for a free ticket to SITS, The Service Desk & IT Support Show at ExCeL London, here. 

by Sami Kallio, HappySignals