Recipe for Success
Posted in Service Management Update, Michael Wedemeyer on Sep 15th, 2008 No Comments »
A recipe for success
I was trying to explain to a (non IT) friend the other day what a CMDB was (don’t ask why.. but), and the best way I could was by relating it to his profession – a chef. So today, I thought I would share my metaphor:
- As a chef, he was responsible for developing the menu - service catalog.
- Within the menu are individual dishes – services
- As a chef he is responsible for creating the recipe for each menu item – process (loose, but it worked)
- When creating his menu, he considered what other menu items and the similar ingredients used to maximise resources - reuse of service assets, shared resources such as common networks, servers etc
So far – so good – he was understanding…. – now the CMDB…
- To ensure you are maximizing your resources in your kitchen, eg stoves, oven, pots, bowls, moulds, knives, you would be able to a) list all of these and know where they are stored, and more importantly b) know what resources you need to make your menu item - the relationship between your menu item (service) and your components (CI’s)
- He agreed and said that he has a recipe register that not only lists the recipe, it also lists the utensils and machinery required (CMDB).
He was getting the picture… to test it – a question was asked: Q: if a customer ordered a souffle and it came out flat – how would you know the reason why? A: Easy – I know every utensil that is used to make the souffle – its in my recipe register – it could be either, the beater was faulty, or the wrong bowl was used.
I then explained that IT organizations need a very accurate and up to date “recipe register” so if a souffle goes down, we can quickly identify what components were used that may be faulty and remake (restore) the souffle asap to the customer.
He got it!
Till next time Cheers from The Art of Service
