lean it- 8 elements of waste

Lean IT

8 Elements of waste in IT operations and how to eliminate them

When the going gets tough, the tough ‘Think Lean’

> According to McKinsey and Company applying Lean principles can increase application and maintenance productivity by up to 40%

> These same principles can be applied to ongoing IT operations, since as much as 80% of the budget is tied up in “keeping-the-lights-on”

> The focus of Lean Thinking is on reducing waste, that is, anything that doesn’t add value to the customer.

> In IT, there are 8 elements of waste which negatively impact productivity and customer service and cause business DOWNTIME…

2 April 10, 2023 EITM: Enterprise IT Management Copyright © 2008 CA


Defects

> Unplanned outages and service defects due to unauthorized and unplanned changes to the IT infrastructure.

> Think Lean: Visualize IT services and

configuration details.

Incorporate policy-based controls to detect unauthorized changes and enforce compliance.

1 DOWNTIME


Over-Production

> Initiating projects or maintaining IT applications for which there is no customer requirement or quantified business need.

> Think Lean: Apply service portfolio

management techniques to prioritize projects according to business and customer demand.

2 DOWNTIME


Waiting

> Repeated system downtime and unacceptable application response times leading to poor customer satisfaction and lost revenue.

> Think Lean: Manage applications

from the end-users perspective, monitoring actual services and business activity.

3 DOWNTIME


Non-Value Added Processing

> Trying to report the value of IT in purely technical terms, using jargon and terminology misleading to business managers and customers.

> Think Lean: Incorporate dashboards to

report what matters to the business and its stakeholders – the cost, quality and business value of IT services consumed.

4 DOWNTIME


Transportation

> Frequent on-site visits to conduct software audits and ensure compliance:

> Think Lean: Automatically discover

software products within your infrastructure and correlate them to their licenses, use rights and supporting purchase data.

5 DOWNTIME


Inventory (Excess)

> Server and data center sprawl from unused or idle computing capacity.

> Think Lean: Virtualize services and

dynamically provision according to fluctuating business conditions.

6 DOWNTIME


Motion (Excess)

> Unnecessary manual activities and mundane tasks leading to excessive delays in the delivery of vital IT services.

> Think Lean: Incorporate process

automation and workflow.

Build out a customer facing service catalog to reduces cycle times and lowers costs.

7 DOWNTIME


Employee Knowledge (Unused)

> Lost time, ideas, skills, improvements, and suggestions from employees

> Limited tools or authority available to IT support staff to carry-out basic tasks

> Think Lean: Capture, retain and

distribute knowledge through a self-service support framework.

8 DOWNTIME

Thinking Lean IT


> Individually any element of waste in IT operations always has an adverse effect on business.

> But like in a manufacturing any element of waste across a production line of IT services creates more and more waste - The net effect to the

business is D.O.W.N.T.I.M.E

> Such an issue requires an integrated approach to IT management

DOWNTIME

Lean IT

The 8 Elements of Waste in IT Operations

lean it- 8 elements of waste

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