Factsheet of ABC in Action - Apollo 13 ABC of ICT stands for the Attitude, Behavior and Culture within ICT organizations. In the past 10 years or so many IT organizations have adopted ‘best practice’ frameworks such as ITIL to bring IT under control. Many organizations have failed to realize the expected benefits of these frameworks. Why is this? Because of ABC issues. It is our belief that it is the ABC ‘Worst practices’ that will determine the success or failure of your ITSM improvement initiatives, not the frameworks and the models. This leads to questions such as: “How can we confront people with their current Attitude and Behavior and create a need to change?” “How can we effectively deal with the ABC worst practices that prevent us from realizing the value offered by these frameworks?“ “How can we create buy-in and overcome resistance?“ “How can we empower and enable people to deal with ABC issues themselves?” “How can we raise awareness about ABC and create a positive change in people’s Attitude & Behavior?”
Solution: ‘ABC in Action – Apollo 13’ ‘ABC in Action – Apollo 13’ is a specific two day variant of the ‘Apollo 13- An ITSM case experience’ business simulation. In this training, real life situations taken from the Apollo 13 mission are simulated. Participants will enact the roles of the Mission Operations Control team of Apollo 13. In 1970 we know Mission Control managed to successfully apply people, processes and supporting technology in saving the crew. Being actively involved in this context allows participants to: Work together as a team, take decisions, agree and apply their own working practices in order to meet their service level targets and save the astronauts. Be confronted with their own A, B, C and how these impact colleagues and organizational performance. Identify common ABC mistakes encountered when adopting and deploying best practice frameworks. Identify success factors for dealing with ABC and increasing the chance of success of your ITSM improvement initiatives. Develop soft skills needed for working effectively within ITSM Learn to design and improve as a team Learn more about personal ownership and accountability. Learn more about applying continual improvement initiatives. Show the effects of new behavior on performance and create a change in attitude. Capture improvement suggestions.
factsheet ABC in Action – Apollo 13
The program of ABC in Action: Introduction
Goal of the day What is ABC of ICT & Why learn about it (background)
ABC Exercise
Customer and User focused - confronts people with ABC Worst practices and selects which ABC issues the group will be solving during the simulation.
Play 4 Rounds Apollo 13
In each round the team undergoes the following steps: Step 1: Designing or improving their process Step 2: Applying their process Step 3: Reflecting and reporting Step 4: Make decisions what to improve Allow the group to learn and apply soft skills related to the worst practices they want to address. These are for example: Customer focus towards the business, communicating effectively with users, give feedback, negotiate, dealing with learning new technology and differences in knowledge, dealing with conflicting interests.
ABC interventions (during the 4 rounds)
Transfer
Exercises to translate the lessons of the simulation to daily working practice
Duration: Two days
Target audience Managers wanting to ensure ITSM improvement initiatives are not derailed by ABC issues ITSM improvement project managers wanting to ensure project success Employees requiring understanding of their role in contributing to IT organizational performance Employees requiring an understanding of the benefits of process based working Process managers and project managers responsible for implementing and managing processes. CIOs and Senior IT managers faced with a need to improve IT organizational performance.
Working within organizations Create a shared view of ABC issues and their impact Bring out the specific ABC issues in your organization and how to address these Help identify stakeholders responsible for resolving ABC issues Formulate desired behavior and actions for improvements Getting to know each other better, which improves work relations Create input into your own service improvement program
factsheet ABC in Action – Apollo 13
Quotes of participants: Responses to this form of training are very enthusiastic. Not just about the simulation, also about the effect when participants get back to work.
“This helped me recognize where we are currently going wrong and what we need to do to realize success.” “This was a great way to learn how to give feedback to each other on unacceptable behavior” “It was unbelievable how at the start of the day we had so much negative energy and resistance and how at the end of the day this was transformed into positive energy, buy-in and a willingness to change!” “A very strong proposition.” “A super learning experience.” “Finally something that offers training in soft skills, right at the moment you actually need them; so I can apply them immediately and see the results.” “Two days full of interaction, practice, challenges, experiencing, pushing boundaries, learning from and with each other, confrontation and most of all fun.”
factsheet ABC in Action – Apollo 13