Answer: A LOT
The best Football teams bound for glory in South Africa will have a lot in common with one another, despite their cultural, political and socio-economic differences. They will demonstrate a cohesiveness, commitment, determination and drive that sets them apart from the competition, and allows an otherwise disparate collection of talent - most of whom play in countries other than their native lands with teammates from around the world - to claim World Champion on the biggest World stage playing the World's Greatest Game.
They also have much in common with IT Service Management.
Change or Lose
World Cup teams are under incredible pressure to harness and deploy the best talent available, and do this in a very short window. Coaches are charged with finding a delicate balance between experience and youth, managing through injuries, social and political forces. The players themselves are bigger, faster, better trained and with access to the best facilities and medical care available.
IT organizations are under immense pressure to respond to changing business conditions, while harnessing new delivery models, technologies and service support systems. Executives need robust decision support to manage during this period of unprecedented change. Their teams need to apply repeatable, automated best practices to enable high quality IT services which are dynamic in their configurations, secure and available during peak demand cycles, and are fully transparent in terms of cost, quality and function.
It's a global game we're playing
World Cup Teams and IT Organizations realize that talent can come from anywhere, as can opportunities and threats. Finding, cultivating, motivating and rewarding that talent is paramount for World Cup teams looking to "burst" onto the scene for one month every four years. For IT Service Management executives, technology can help bridge the physical divides that longstanding silos have created, but process (and automated process) is the true tie that binds.
If it isn't "goal oriented," it's not important
World Cup success is measured plainly and simply. Score a goal, Prevent a goal. Win. IT Service Management is not so different. IT needs to play both "offense" (developing IT services supporting business functions that drive revenue or increase profit/share), and play "defense" (ensuring IT services are secure, available and compliant). A simple set of goals is the true measure of value.
Play Your Position and the Team Wins!
Everyone has a role to play, and while some roles may see more ‘action', no role is unimportant. Here, the parallels are striking:
- The Coach- harnessing resources, communicating, measuring and improving.
- The Team:
- Strikers (Applications)- finding future opportunities to grow and prosper
- Halfbacks (IT Service Managers)- orchestrating the processes and handoffs
- Defense (IT Ops & Security) - protecting and preventing risks before they happen
What happens when you go "out of position" or do not understand how the Defense feeds Halfbacks which feed Strikers and goal opportunities? The team breaks down. But when all roles are firing on all cylinders and the entire IT service supply line is functioning at its peak performance, it doesn't matter which individual ‘scores', because the entire Team wins.
There will always be "incidents", there will be "problems" and there will be "events." That's what referees and yellow cards are for. Managing them during periods of "change" and with a "portfolio" view of quality, function and performance is what leaders do. Orchestrating the whole thing in a cohesive, team-first approach is the mark of true champions.
Viva La Service!