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Warranties, Dishwashers, Fish and ITIL v3

Published: February 19 2009, 02:17 PM
by Robert Stroud

 

What do dishwashers, cars and ITIL v3 have in common?  Warranties!

Recently I was reading the warranty of a dishwasher and it stated that cooking fish in the dishwasher voided the warranty. Stunned, I did Google and find just such a recipe (it is below just in case you are curious).  Who'd have thunk it?

If you buy a new car you receive a warranty that covers most car parts for various time periods and mileage limits, but, as with the dishwasher and the fish, there are always exceptions, for example, wear and tear on the clutch.

In ITIL v3 we introduced the term "warranty"--not surprisingly it is one of the most misunderstood terms in the book. The definition in ITIL v3 states that the warranty is "a promise or guarantee that a product or service will meet its agreed requirements." The key term here is "agreed requirements." This is where most IT organizations make their mistakes--they forget to identify and confirm the agreed requirements up front. The results can be customers who don't value all that you've given them, and who are sure to miss what you have not supplied.

Picture the dishwasher engineer saying "How was I supposed to know they would try to cook fish?"  The lesson here is to fully understand the requirements up front for the service that you are delivering so that you can build it to meet to the user expectations.  

Here is the fish recipe.  Attempt at your own risk.

 

Dishwasher Salmon Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 pound salmon fillets
  • 1 roll aluminum foil
  • 1 - 2 lemons
  • 1 stick butter
  • electric dishwasher

Directions

  • Place Salmon fillets on two large sheets of aluminum foil.
  • Squeeze lemon juice liberally over the fillets
  • Cut the butter into thin slices and place the butter on the salmon fillets.
  • Seal the fillets in the foil - do not skip this step
  • Place the foil packet in the top wire basket of dishwasher
  • DO NOT ADD SOAP OR DETERGENT
  • Set the dishwasher on the hottest wash cycle, complete with drying cycle, and let it run through a full cycle
  • When the cycle is complete the fish will be cooked just right

Warnings

  • Should you not seal the salmon correctly, place order for new dishwasher
  • Cooking cycles may vary (you may have to try a few times to perfect)
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By: Robert Stroud
Robert Stroud serves as VP and as Service Management, Cloud Computing and Governance Evangelist at CA Technologies. Robert also serves as an International vice president of ISACA, is part of the Framework committee and was the former chair of the COBIT Steering Committee. Robert also serves on the itSMF...
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6 people have left comments:

I don't think I will attempt the fish recipe although I could use a newer dishwasher.  I do agree that a waaranty can be a misunderstood term if the services delivered are not agreed to up front.  I recently purchased a suitcase just to find out the warranty didn't cover the wheel that was broken by the airline the first time I used it. On the other hand, I may not have purchased this brand if I understood this part of the warranty.   My "agreed requirements" were different than the service that was delivered and understanding that upfront may have resulted in different actions. Thanks for sharing this Rob!

Posted by: Janie Frandsen | February 21, 2009 10:54 AM

Can you expand upon warranty as it relates to Service Level Agreements, Operating Level Agreements and Project Management (e.g. PRINCE2) business approvals and use cases for applications development?

I would think all of these are instances of warranty even if they are or are not explicitly stated in ITIL V3.

Posted by: Cassius Downs | February 21, 2009 12:36 PM

ITIL IS NOT THE END ALL BUT SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE...  All versions of ITIL have done a good job with managing the operational side of an IT shop.  The authors have refined the standards to make them easy to apply to your business.  They have however fallen woefully short in their 'prescriptive' methods introduced in version 3 discussing how a service is created thus enabling a "warrantee."  There are several standards and guides that can be utilized like the Application Services Library (ASL) or the PMI standards to help an IT department create a cookbook for defining and creating services for the business based on realistic requirements.  Once the service has been created and moved to production, COBIT and other operational standards can be used to measure the effectiveness of the service to ensure IT delivers on their "warrantee."  Closing out my rant about Rob's BLOG, search out other standards to create and measure services while utilizing ITIL to keep it running operationally.

Posted by: Morgan Langley, PMP, ITIL v3, ITAC Architect | February 22, 2009 7:37 PM

Nice analogy on the difference between nice to have and need to have. I see so many shops talk about how they are getting to the part where they are defining SLAs with their business partners, as if its a nice to have. In fact, if they established them up front and created something measureable that's a value to the business, perhaps it would be easier to get various projects and budgets approved that optimize and increase service levels. I will continue to emphasize this chicken vs. egg concept (maybe we should try cooking those in the dishwasher?).

Posted by: Lisa Meegan | February 23, 2009 1:04 PM

I look at two definitions to describe assurance of the delivery of a service.

The warranty, sometimes expressed as a service level agreement represents a contractual agreement around the delivery parameters of a service: availability, response timeframe, operating hours, price, etc.

"Service Response" on the other hand, represents a “best effort” definition around the delivery of a service.

Companies that are less mature in their processes should look toward offering a “Service Response” within their service definition. Before IT can agree to customer requirements, they need to know how and what they can actually deliver. A warranty implies that IT has full knowledge of their capabilities and limitations and is confident that they are able to operate within those parameters.

Posted by: Eric Feldman | February 27, 2009 2:25 PM

My personal favorite is on my hair dryer, "Do not use while sleeping". That one always gives me a chuckle.

A Key Factor in being able to offer Service Level Agreements to your end users, is understanding your existing performance levels. You cannot offer what you cannot deliver (or at least your shouldn't).

As you stated quite well, the other side of that coin is offering SLAs that meet the enduser requirements. Reference to the old saying, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound?" Basically, if an application server goes down at midnight on Saturday and no one is affected, does the enduser care? Probably not. IT has to care, but the enduser cares about what affects them.

That being said, when a company fully utilizes the power behind being able to offer and report on meaningful SLAs, not only will they improve user perception, they will also have the data needed to validate existing budgets and plan for future projects.

By building and delivering SLAs that are relevant to the business IT can gain the footprint they are looking for within the organization.

Posted by: Corene Nelson-Amato | March 23, 2009 3:12 PM

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