The SIAM Health Assessment is now live and you can complete it for FREE through our website.
The Assessment was created by almost 30 subject matter experts, from different location, different time zones, speaking different languages and all having different opinions and backgrounds.
Here, one of the lead architects, Simon Dorst gives a better understanding about why this assessment is everything you would expect from a medical check-up and should be approach as such: necessary to maintain a healthy SIAM environment.
Thank you Simon for sharing this blog with us!
When starting the development of the SIAM Health Assessment, we had a lively debate amongst the volunteer contributors about the value of such a service. In many of our experiences, organizations are undertaking an assessment to prove a certain level of maturity and/or compare themselves to others. We have also experienced organizations being skeptical of consultants performing assessments and perceiving this to be a ‘judgy’ or a fault-finding mission.
None of this of course should be the intention of any assessment, but we certainly wanted to make sure that the SIAM Health Assessment would avoid these pitfalls as much as possible. Our intention is for the assessment to be a useful tool that helps the organization to start improvements on their current (or proposed) SIAM model:
THE ASSESSMENT IS THE BEGINNING OF AN IMPROVEMENT JOURNEY, NOT THE END OF AN IMPLEMENTATION
As such we have avoided using terminology such as ‘benchmarking’, ‘maturity’ or anything which would indicate that the most outcome of the assessment was merely a score. Different organizations will reach different levels in the assessment, which should then lead to different, individual improvements for that specific organization. So, a higher or lower level is not necessarily better or worse, but indicative of different improvements that can be undertaken:
THE ASSESSMENT IS NOT ABOUT THE NUMBER ACHIEVED, BUT HOW YOU USE IT TO IMPROVE!
After much debate we arrived at the analogy of a medical check-up or scan. Whilst of course you are hopeful that ‘all is fine’ when you undergo a medical check-up, it is also a benefit to find something that is perhaps sub-par as this diagnosis will often lead to medication, treatment or another action to improve your health!
So, let’s do a quick comparison between the assessment challenges discussed at the beginning, compared to the concept of a medical health assessment:
Benchmarking
As mentioned, some individuals and organizations are focused on achieving a certain level of maturity and often use an assessment to prove their achievement. The results in this case are treated as a number and often are the conclusion of a project, implementation or end-of-year review. Improvements are rarely initiated following such a benchmarking assessment (unless the results were below an arbitrary, predefined benchmark).
Now, unless you need to pass a fitness-test (for instance for a job, insurance application or such), this is not how we treat medical check-ups. These are not seen as an endpoint where the achievement of a clean bill of health indicates that we no longer have to worry about are health. At best we are re-assured of our health and continue in our way until our next check-up (often an annual occurrence). We are all aware that just because something is healthy today, doesn’t mean that it won’t deteriorate over time and a check-up can hopefully catch this decline early.
And this is exactly the purpose of the SIAM Health Assessment, as a regular check-up (perhaps utilizing the free, online assessment) it can provide a snapshot of the current condition of a SIAM environment, and even if this is considered ‘sufficient’ (and no improvements are instigated) it then establishes a comparison for a future assessment, catching changes in the condition (for the better or worse).
Comparison
As an extension of the benchmarking, sometimes we want to compare ourselves to others. And whilst it might be good to know that we are ‘better’ than others (or perhaps not so much), this in itself is not a goal. Knowing that you are healthier than your neighbor, does not discharge you from having to look after your own health. And better than another doesn’t mean your health is a good as it could or should be!
The hardest part here is to establish a fair comparison (apples-to-apples and not apples-to-giraffes). Whilst an octogenarian may be in ‘perfect health’, there is no comparison to a 20-year old athlete’s health. Gender, race, age etc. all impact the expectation of what good health looks like, as does the history (i.e. immediately after an operation your health expectations are different than what you might have expected before the operation or given enough time for the recovery).
Thus, an assessment should always take into account the specific situation of the organization that is being assessed. That is to say: the assessment is the same, but the outcomes need to be interpreted. This is where is experience and expertise of a subject matter expert, or consultant, can come in.
Judgement
When it comes to consultant-led assessments there are arguments in favor or against. Personally, I think a consultant can bring a level of objectiveness, experience and expertise to an assessment that is much harder to achieve yourself. After all, whilst we keep a general eye on our health, eventually we want a medical professional to confirm our own assessment and/or to provide a more in-depth and specialized check-up, beyond our ability.
Which is why it is somewhat surprising that some organizations find the use of consultants an intrusion. They do not want to show the ins-and-outs of the organization in fear the consultant will find there is something wrong. This is literally akin to hiding pains and symptoms from a doctor’s visit, only for these to remain a significant hindrance or even become (much) worse. Do we feel judged when a doctor tells us our blood pressure is too high? Perhaps somewhat, but we also accept this as a fact and trust the medical professional to diagnose this and present suitable options for us to improve.
Similarly the SIAM Health Assessment provides an independent, objective assessment of your SIAM health and whilst the consultant certainly adds their own experience and expertise (and takes your particular circumstances into account), the assessment is based on the globally recognized SIAM best practices as described in the Bodies of Knowledge. You are not judged but assessed against this unbiased standard to find areas for improvement!
Fault-finding
Which then perhaps leaves the impression the assessment or the consultant is trying to find things that are wrong (if only to prove that they have done their job). Again, this is not the intention of the SIAM Health Assessment. If you go for an annual medical check-up and after some prodding and probing the doctor says that all is fine, do you believe they have not done their job? Or, conversely, if they do find something (a high blood pressure for instance) do you disbelieve them and think they are only saying this because they have to find ‘something’? I hope not.
The objective of the SIAM Health Assessment (based in the SIAM Bodies of Knowledge) is to provide an impartial outcome. If something is not at the level of expectation, then this should not be considered a fault but rather an objective diagnosis and finding, and in fact an opportunity for improvement. Would you have been better off not knowing about this and for it too possibly provide sub-optimal results of your SIAM environment?
In summary
The SIAM Health Assessment is not a scary, ‘judgy’, benchmark/achievement focused endpoint that needs to be achieved. Instead it provides a snapshot of the health of your SIAM environment. If all is well then this should provide a level of confidence in the current operation, but of course still not mean that further activities are not needed. Everything is always changing and continuous improvement should be a core tenet of your SIAM model. Thus, regular check-ups through the SIAM Health Assessment can monitor the environment and provide early warning of any regression.
But, if the assessment finds some areas for improvement than this is still not a negative (, a fault, a judgement), but in fact a beneficial outcome. The build-in guidance of the assessment, augmented with the consultant’s knowledge, means that you now know what the status is, what to pay attention to and even how to get started with improvements. The assessment is everything you would expect from a medical check-up and should be approach as such: necessary to maintain a healthy SIAM environment!
About the author
Simon Dorst has over 25 years’ international experience in in the development and delivery of various Service and Project Management consulting and training assignments. Known as the ‘ITIL Zealot’, he is always looking for the most effective and efficient way of delivering managed services, using ITIL, VeriSM, SIAM or whichever other enabling practice.
Simon was the Lead Architect for the Scopism Service Integration and Management Professional Body of Knowledge (BoK), the 2nd edition of the SIAM BoKs and was a founder member of the SIAM Foundation BoK architect team, as well as a Subject Matter Expert for both EXIN and BCS in developing the accreditation around this. He was a contributor to the VeriSM publication, and co-authored the VeriSM pocket guide.
He has been active in the itSMF Australia committee, seminars and conferences for over 20 years (including WA State Branch Chair). He is a pragmatic thinker, who is always looking for the most effective and efficient way of conducting business. Combining a technical background, service orientation, industry best practices, analytical mind and his knowledge of and experience in Service Management, he is exceptionally qualified to advice organizations on improving their (service) management processes.
