Published: February 16 2011, 01:38 PM | no comments
by Robert Stroud

Have you ever ignored the warning signs of a failing device? I did, although I should have known that my phone was dying and like a good Boy Scout, I should have been prepared. The time between each charge of my mobile phone had been rapidly reducing and I just didn't bother with it, although I knew I should have. Then it happened--total failure to charge. The thing is, I was never was a Boy Scout, so preparation had not entered my mind. Instead, I thought that I would deal with it when it happened. Besides, how long can it take to get a new phone? 

Upon realizing that my device had failed, I visited that well known support site, "Google," and searched for assistance. I got many wonderfully varied responses from flushing down the toilet (not recommended, not eco friendly and if not illegal should be) to trying all sorts of restores to the best answer of all, call your provider and order a new one (note to self next time just use the corporate service desk. It's faster).

I ordered the new device, but remember how I thought that it wouldn't take too long to get a new phone? Well, a week later it showed up, delayed due to ice storms which is considered an "act of God" and therefore modified the two day delivery SLA (still cannot find that in the fine print). Then, after it was charged and ready to go, I activated it online. So far so good, right? Wrong.

It appears that when I ordered the phone I asked for my existing plans to be transferred to my new service but as some of them were no longer offered, the phone company decided to simply not activate the feature. Of course, they failed to communicate this with this to me and it took me two days and a support call to figure this out!  And they say technology is supposed to be simple!

The are some good nuggets of insight here. First, the SLA and the Ice Storm.The modification of my two day delivery SLA due to the act of God is quite appropriate. I understand about the SLA modification and I wish more IT organizations would consider this. Last week I was speaking to an large healthcare organization and they were reporting downtime against SLA's and including time down due to planned changes. Now, to be clear, the absolute number of minutes the service is unavailable is important, but I am firm believer that if the window has been negotiated and approved to implement IT-enabled business change you shouldn't count it against the SLA. The same is true of downtime due to maintenance and so on with the caveat that you negotiated these windows based on business requirements. Be fair to your customers.

The second nugget of insight was the total failure of the business process when I transferred my service. The business policy is clear that if there is no equivalent plan the capability doesn't transfer but rather than simply remove the feature, a better approach would be to contact the customer. This could still be undertaken in an automated manner. I hold the phone carriers business culpable here, not the IT person I called.  Upon reflection, these types of challenges are probably going to become more prevalent in the future as business process continues to be delivered via technology. This means that business requirements are going to have to be articulated to customers long before implemented through technology.

I have my phone and it's up and running fine now. Which makes me a happy evangelist, now able to travel from venue to venue sharing the message of effective governance of enterprise IT, service management, effective use of social media and now there is a new message--that you should treat your mobile telecommunication device well--you don't want to be left without it!