Business performance isn’t just supported by information technology—business relies on information technology. However, in today’s tough economy, many IT organizations don’t have the budget to treat their entire infrastructure as “mission critical.”

So, how can you deliver more service more quickly, and make room for innovation when you have fewer dollars to invest in IT improvements? The answer is to change how you’re doing things. You can get more out of your existing resources by planning your operations in such a way that incorporates industry best practices and continual improvement.

Here’s a four-step framework to help you develop and drive operational excellence across your entire IT organization.

Faced with increasing pressure from the business, it’s hard not to focus entirely on near-term cost cutting and set aside long-term improvements until sunnier days arrive. But failing to invest in long-term improvements could leave you without the IT capabilities you need to respond to new business when the economy changes. And it will change.

To address both near- and long-term objectives, you need a structured plan that extends at least two to three years into the future. A documented plan will align the efforts of your entire IT organization and provide a timeline for achieving your goals.

When developing your plan, work with the business to make sure your IT goals support the business goals. Balance current needs, such as cost cutting, with potential future needs, like improved mobile networking. Create an overall vision for improvement that will help the IT organization better support the business now, and in the future.

Before prioritizing near-, mid- and long-term improvements, you must evaluate your current state of affairs. A thorough assessment will help identify gaps between existing capabilities and long-term goals so that you can prioritize critical improvements. Then you can decide those that must be addressed now, versus the nice-to-haves that can be saved for later.

NOTE: An assessment also provides a benchmark for measuring your plan’s progress. An independent third party, such as a contract service provider, can give you the most objective and accurate assessment.

A thorough assessment includes people, processes and technology. An assessment will catalogue your staff skills, IT capabilities and methods of delivering and managing specific services to the business. You must also account for your technology and how it’s being used.

Industry best practice guidelines such as ITIL, ISO/IEC 20000 and COBIT can provide an excellent framework for getting started on your assessment. But it’s important not to interpret these sources too literally, as they may be more in depth than you need. Only select the best practices that are appropriate to your business goals and the size and capabilities of your organization.

Even with a tight budget, you can still achieve real IT improvement and free up resources for innovation by making improvement activities business as usual. Building continual improvements into your day-to-day operations will have less impact on your budget because the projects are spread out. This also ensures that the improvements actually happen.

A first step toward continual improvement is to transition from reactive problem solving to proactive problem management. You’ll gain more efficiency by getting ahead of your problems before they occur, or by addressing the root of problems to prevent them from reoccurring. Your initial assessment will help identify and prioritize the issues you need to address. Look for quick wins that can generate immediate savings and project momentum. Prioritize your remaining issues by their difficulty and cost, and the resources you have for dealing with them.

Group related tasks and assign them, along with accountability for completing them, to specific individuals either within your organization or to an outside service provider. Check in regularly to gauge progress and when the task is complete, move on to the next one. Your list of improvements and priorities will change over time as you identify new issues.

To stay on track with your master plan and maintain continuous improvement, it’s important to undergo routine benchmarking. Benchmarking can also help identify new problem areas or risks before they blossom into big, operation-stopping challenges.

Your routine benchmarking should focus on the key IT services you initially documented and the improvement projects you’ve completed so far. Compare the results to your initial benchmark to track progress toward your long-term goals. A service provider can give you even more insight by comparing your progress to data gathered from other customers, so you can see where you rank.

Set a schedule for your routine benchmarking—quarterly, annually or whatever makes sense for your goals—and incorporate it with your master plan timeline.

It may seem impossible to improve your business’ competitive advantage when you are struggling just to keep afloat. But innovation is closer than you may think. Incorporating best practices and continual improvement into operations will gradually improve your IT organization. Staff attention can then shift from maintenance and firefighting to innovation.

Achieving operational excellence doesn’t happen all at once. You may benefit from a little outside help to get you on the right path. HP has a full set of business service delivery best practices developed from working with IT leaders worldwide. Learn more about the business benefits that best-in-class capabilities can bring by downloading our white paper, Changing the Economics of Service Delivery (365 KB, PDF).

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