Designing the IT Organization for Service Management

Also within the process organization is IT security. Having all of the global processes in one group enables a consistent approach to major IT initiatives, while also establishing organizational expertise for process management.

INNOVATE - The Innovate function focuses on managing a pipeline of new ideas, developing concepts, intellectual property management, testing feasibility and business development. Once a concept is established, it can be incubated both internally or externally with partners.

By separating process from content, each part of the organization becomes more specialized and effective in delivery of IT and business objectives. By organizing our teams to optimize service management processes, we have been able to achieve key goals, including:

• Significantly improving customer service

• Increasing productivity

• Reducing expenses

This new model allows the Sentara Healthcare IT team the opportunity to focus on their respective capabilities; hence, aligning staff to perform utilizing their strengths. Helping to eliminate the pull in varied directions allows a more focused approach to excellence in service delivery.

It is notable that dedicated teams are set up to focus on developing expertise in each of these functions. This focus drives team members to be more proficient within their designated functions while also allowing horizontal movement for career development and growth.

Streamlined and efficient customer interaction with the IT department drives value not just for the IT department but for the overall organization as well. By focusing on the Voice of the Customer, we have the ability to leverage a more collaborative, effective way to perform. This means we are designed to rationalize our application portfolio, implement more effective service desk solutions and avoid multiple points of entry for initiating work, among other benefits.

Getting it done!

Sentara IT has positioned itself as a high performing department within a high performing organization. Our foundation is based upon transparency to our customers, quantifying how we are doing (meaningful metrics-driven approach), focusing on intake of issues and requests that are impactful, and paying close attention to service level agreements. An essential component of our success is that IT leaders have bought into this model and our transformation is supported from within the organization which allowed for change and further growth.

Conclusion

The business of the IT department can deliver the most value to the organization when built upon thoughtful approach, relationship management and partnerships. The outcomes for outstanding service delivery are numerous, bringing a level of high quality and value to the organization. Organizing for success can make the Service Management journey more efficient and effective when we capitalize on the strength of the IT team.