As projects become more global, with project teams split across vendors, countries and even continents, the approach we take is increasingly important.  This becomes even more so when dealing with ‘follow-the-sun’ operations often found in multinational companies.

But what are those key things?  Here, we’re going to cover three, although this is far from exhaustive and indeed, are not only applicable to global projects.

In an earlier post discussing Harmonious working across Geographically Dispersed Teams, we touched on the importance of communication.  In this post, we’re going to briefly look at systemisation.

Systemisation is designed to ensure that we follow the same path every time a certain action occurs.  As users of ITIL, systemisation is quite meaningful to us.  Systemisation provides the backbone of the approach.  This should ensure that when we are implementing a new ITSM system, the importance of Systemisation is clear.  This is not always the situation though.

Creating a clear systemised approach should ensure that each action across disparate teams should lead to the same outcome, following the same process.  Locally, it might have different steps, but the systemisation ensures that for every input, everybody can be clear on the outcome. Take project delivery of an ITSM Solution, for instance. There is a significant difference between a ‘transformation’ to an ‘upgrade’. Both types of delivery will have common Processes that all members of the project team should be familiar with and there will also be unique processes that will only be applicable to the type of deliverable taking place.

In the case of a Transformation project, users will need to understand their ‘As-Is’ processes, ‘To-Be’ processes and identify the gap that needs to be plugged between the two. There are additional processes that need to be followed around documentation, data capture, process definition, etc which might not be seen during an upgrade. To be able to systematise the activities that drive the outcomes ensures that all members of the project understand what needs to be done and what the expected outcome should be. This prevents delays due to lack of knowledge or different expectations impacting the deliverables going ahead.

At Siamang, we ensure our testing processes and systems are clearly defined and communicated for all testing phases. We continue to use proven systems and processes across all of our projects to ensure that we are delivering consistently every time. This results in our teams working across projects effectively and our customers knowing what to expect each time we return to carry out further testing work for them.

In the next part of this discussion, we talk about Communication and Clarity in Process