Avoiding the cost of unavailability

When I'm asked, "What are the key steps to maintaining high Avaya system availability?" I always respond with "Manage change more effectively".

It’s all about the spans of control; do you have the complete end to end visibility and final approval for all system changes which could impact your business technology? Unfortunately the answer is no – it’s impossible to achieve.

You see, in this converged world where multiple technologies and services are heavily intertwined, the possibility of the unknown increases substantially. Combine this with human error and external factors which cannot be controlled and you will never achieve 100% “Managed” Change.

It’s not all doom and gloom however, because there are key steps beyond the standard Change processes you can take which will make a real difference and move you closer to the 100% target.

Analysis

Review downtime on a regular basis and ensure major incident reporting is completed for each and every service outage. Empower your teams to challenge and engage during the review. With your team, map out lost effort, cost and revenue and publish the results within your teams and service providers. Identify key areas of concern and engage with service owners or providers.

Act

As a manager you must create an environment in which change is simple to understand and efficient in its execution. Enablement is key; listen to feedback and interpret the needs of the team. Facilitate the required changes to improve and move forwards. Above all else, involve the people.

Reward

Align employees remuneration plans to the human governance of Change. As an example, offer a quarterly bonus to employees who pre-empt and alert instances of unmanaged change. Promote Change leaders and encourage them to touch move and inspire others. The cost of these bonuses will significantly outweigh the tangible and intangible costs of unavailability.

Feedback

Publish to your teams the positive impact improved Change Management has made, demonstrate the reduction in operational overheads and costs of managing downtime. Translate this into positive whitespace time such as employee study time and training. Publish to the business the story of success and how IT have improved availability.

It’s in your hands, you can make a difference starting today.

For more information or advice, call 0344 412 3000 or email [email protected]