Late last year Terry & I (Sunit) got together to review how things went in 2009 and what we could do better in 2010.

Here in a nutshell is our philosophy, approach and actions :

Our objective is simply to provide value to local itSMFnz members.  We will do this by running a program of events in 2010 that are unique, different, engaging and of professional interest to our members – at a low or no cost basis to itSMFnz.

How will programs in 2010 be different from 2009 ?

1. Interactive sessions with members entering into group discussions on the topic for the day;
2. Hands on service management by way of ITIL games and simulations;
3. Showcase/demo service management software and tools preferably by end user organisations;
4. Site visits to see service management in action;
5. Move away from death by Powerpoint.

If you would like to host, run, show, assist (bullet items 2, 3 & 4), or sponsor – please be in touch with one of us; you can be assured we will be approaching some of you as well !

• From an operational perspective, we will :
• send out placeholder meeting invitations in advance so that it’s in your calendar;
• be asking attendees to rate every event so that we know how we are doing;
• be asking for a volunteer scribe to report on the event for later publication for those who could not attend;
• constructing a scorecard comprising numbers of attendees per event, rating of the event, cost

Our first event for the year in Feb is already taking shape, Hudson will be giving us a view of the market for service management professionals in 2010, NZCS and Proactive will update us on the IT Certified Professional (ITCP) program and the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) – as promised this will not be a talk fest; more to understand first and then to discuss implications on us and our organisations. Refer to February Event Calendar for more information.

Lastly we ask you to put itSMFnz Wellington announcements on your intranets and company websites.  If you twitter, feel free to tweet our events and announcements.

Regards – Terry, Sunit & Kara
itSMF Central Branch Committee
www.itsmf.org.nz

“Ground Xero – Behind the Scenes”
by Rod Drury

Rod Drury; founder and CEO of Xero, “NZX listed Software as a Service (SaaS) online accounting solution for Small Businesses”, will share his expertise in establishing a scalable international service including all the stuff you don’t see that’s required to build it behind the scenes.

Rod will cover back office functions including ticketing, customer care, billing, operations etc…

Please RSVP to let us know you are attending at admin@itsmf.org.nz

Kindly sponsored by

We expect this event to be well-attended.  Preference will be given to members on a first come first serve basis, non members welcome subject to availability.  If you wish to join itSMFnz please complete our online membership registration brochure.

itSMFnz Wellington events are monthly events for professionals with an interest in IT Service Management. Run by a committee of volunteers; Terry Barwick, Sunit Prakash & Kara Nation each event offers networking opportunities and a chance to stay informed on the latest developments in the field – internationally and locally here in Wellington.

www.itsmf.org.nz

Case studies, and the effective use of tools by customers are always popular, and of late, increasing attendance means standing standing room only for late comers !

The meeting is free to members, non-members are welcome to join us, but we do ask that they join itSMFnz if they become regulars to the monthly meetings we plan to hold. To attend a session, please send an email to admin@itsmf.org.nz

Sunit Prakash and Terry Barwick organise and run the sessions.  If you are interested in attending, presenting or hosting – please contact me (sunit@sunit.co.nz) or +64 21 144 8181.

Upcoming events include :

• A Layman’s View of COBIT as More Than Just an Audit Tool – Rob England, Wednesday, July 22, 2009 (4:00 PM)
• What is this cloud computing thing – Mike Riverdale  Wednesday, August 19, 2009 (4:00 PM)
• The Multiple Considerations of Multi-Sourcing – Lauren Morrison of Voco  Wednesday, September 23, 2009 (4:00 PM)
• Introduction to Business Service Management (BSM 101) – Jonathan Chivers of BMC  Wednesday, October 21, 2009 (4:00 PM)

For more details :

http://www.itsmf.org.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=87&Itemid=190

I am planning to take a small business delegation of Kiwis with me to India in December 2009. The objective behind this is to provide high quality introductions to businesses in India leveraging off my personal contacts.

Connections will be at a real and practical level, and showcase warts and all – the challenges, and the opportunities that India presents.

My model keeps in mind the “Vista” example (look for Murray Holdsworth on LinkedIn) – and giving serendipity a helping hand.

The broad plan is as follows :

• Annual TIE conference – attend sessions by established business successes; meetings with Indian venture capitalists as well as Indian entrepreuners if required; chance to meet with some of the Indian high fliers from Silicon Valley; This will form the cornerstone of the trip; for prelim details have a look at : http://www.enterprisingindia.org/
• Business Networking session – firsthand networking opportunities with antepodeans based in India (provided they have not commenced their sojourn to warmer southern climes already)
• Guest lecture and tour at a local business management university (NMIMS) – an idea of the quality of education; guest lecture to cover the Indian market;
• Tour and meeting with local small and medium sized businesses (MIDC Andheri East) – first hand opportunity to look at local Indian manufacturing and meet with local business owners;
• Australian & New Zealand banks and their view on India;
• Call Center visit;
• Local malls to see Indian retail;
• If the opportunity allows, visit a local television production set;
• Sessions with local Indian professionals and high networth individuals in the areas of finance, intellectual property & IT.

Depending on interest, I expect to turn this into an annual affair. Costs depends on numbers. I will organise air travel, accomodation in Mumbai, local transport and attendance at functions.

What interest ?
Contact sunit@sunit.co.nz or +64 21 144 8181.
www.sunit.co.nz

–action noun

1. the application of Lean Principles to IT

Origin:

Date not known; Lean comes from the Toyota Manufacturing Method, IT Service Management comes from OGC; together now as LeanITSM
Lean is becoming fashionable in IT.  In October 2008, ServiceTALK, the journal of the IT Service Management Forum ran a cover story called “The Path to Lean Business”.  More recently CA announced LeanIT, a set of tools that use Lean thinking in delivering IT Service Management.  Somewhat paradoxically CA’s LeanIT refers to Fujitsu, a Japanese company, already practicing Lean IT and have products & services around it.

With the increased pressure on CIOs to reduce costs and increase efficiency, availability, reliability & generally deliver business value – applying Lean Principles to IT has started to get increasing attention.

A basic premise of Lean is that every process or activity needs to add value to the customer.  Value is anything the customer is willing to pay for; conversely, waste is any activity or process that does not add value.

With respect to “value” & “IT”, John Thorp in his article on the Val IT Framework in ISACA’s Information Systems Control Journal (volume 5, 2008) says “all enterprises large or small, private or public, for-profit or not-for-profit exist to deliver value to their stakeholders, be they owners or shareholders of private companies, recipients of services or taxpayers.  One critical challenge that enterprises face is how to ensure that they realize value from their increasingly large-scale and complex investment in information technology and IT-enabled change”

This is exactly where Lean Principles can help.
He further says “Val IT is relevant to all management levels across both the business and IT functions – from the CIO and the C-suite, to those directly involved and responsible for the selection, procurement, development, implementation, deployment and benefits-realization process.”  I would add to that in addition to all of the above, also in the day to day “business as usual” running of IT operations so as to optimize people, processes and tools so as to eliminate waste and squeeze maximum value out of the total system.

Typical steps an organization follows when looking at using Lean to improve performance are:

• Identifying, at a minimum, all the major problem areas that need to be improved

• Identification of low hanging fruit as immediate issues that can easily be addressed for quick wins

• Setting up empowered teams and training them

• Measuring the “as is” state by way of agreed and relevant metrics and measures

• Running Kaizen workshops and using Lean techniques to identify the root cause of a given problem; a key step here is “value stream mapping” – remember, every step in the process needs to add value; if not, it needs to be eliminated

• Identifying specific steps for improvement; this step assigns responsibility for executing the specific step, the outcome and relates to a metric that will be impacted and improved

• Executing the plan

• Measuring and comparing the new state vs. the old state and showing the improvement by way of agreed metrics

• Repeating and improving again by identifying new areas, or further steps

Examples of these could be: improving the end to end change management process time, reducing the number of defects in new versions and releases, reducing the number of outages on critical systems etc.  Each of these initiatives will have metrics associated with them to show improvements.  Showing operational efficiencies in these particular processes will also manifest itself in better customer satisfaction scores.  Some of these will result in

Useful Links :
CA : www.ca.com

IBM :www.ibm.com

Fujitsu : www.fujitsu.com

ISACA : www.isaca.org

IT Sceptic :www.itskeptic.org

All copyrights acknowledged.

Coincidentally, silicon.com’s study of CIOs also put ITIL at exactly the same spot for UK CIOs for 2009

Some may think that IT Service Management has slipped in importance.  I would suggest that effective IT Service Management remains not only relevant, but even more so given the current negative economic environment.  Some of the items that have forced themselves into the CIO agenda ahead of ITIL are driven by cost constraints, the very same driver that keeps ITIL on the agenda.  These include virtualisation and cloud computing; and one could argue, possibly governance as well.

CIOs are being asked to shave 10-30% of their spend; no one is saying to them that they can perform less work as well.  If anything, CIOs are being forced to do more with less.  This means standardisation, consolidation and rationalistion – exactly the benefits the ITIL freamework delivers.

The only other item that makes it to the top 5 then that is not cost driven is around information security – and this continues to be a sign of the times.

The research also says, there are new demands for IT to improve its efficiency – around energy, the environment and IT’s consumption of resources.  The “greening” it IT has started.  The “leaning” of IT is not far behind.

Here below are : CIO NZ predictions published in Dec 2008 for 2009, silicon.com’s CIO UK Technology Plans 2009 & CIO NZ Issues and Challenges in 2008 for comparison :

CIO : Major IT Service Issues predicted for 2009 in Dec 2008 by Ovum for New Zealand
1. Competing for the Cloud
2. Quality assurance and information security
3. High-pressure IT
4. Retained organisations
5. Fixing BPO
6. Waste not, want not – meaning a focus on disciplines such as ITIL and a drive to improve infrastructure maturity
7. Enterprise 2.0
8. Economic flux

http://cio.co.nz/cio.nsf/news/45A370B518B42B60CC25751C000B9D9E?Opendocument&HighLight=2,2009,issues

Silicon.com’s UK CIOs Agenda 2009: Are you spending where they’re spending ?
1. Security – mentioned by 62 per cent
2. Virtualisation – mentioned by 54 per cent
3. IT governance and measurement, rated a priority by half of respondents
4.Enterprise business applications with most emphasis given to ERP and CRM projects
5. business intelligence
6.Itil was ranked at number six on the list
7.Mobile was the hottest topic for CIOs in 2007, now at number 7
8. Outsourcing was mentioned by a quarter of the CIOs
9. Offshoring also got a mention in the survey
10. open source, often seen as a means of cutting the cost of software licensing;
11. Software as a service was given a similarly low priority;

http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/cio-agenda-2009/cios-technology-plans-unveiled-39400384.htm

CIO : Issues and Challenges New Zealand 2008
1. Devolving of the CIO role
2. Negative economic impact
3. SOA and ITIL going strong
4. The cost of compliance
5. Sustainability spreads its wings
6. Demand for telecommunications transparency and flexibility
7. Consolidation and virtualisation
8. Communications taken to a new level
9. Mixed reaction to vendor mergers
10. Staff recruitment and retention issues worsen

http://cio.co.nz/cio.nsf/specials/282F593A089898EFCC257448001B0A37?Opendocument&HighLight=2,MIS100,2008

Disclaimer :
All copyrights acknowledged., Sunit

A major national bank commissioned its telecommunications vendor to refresh its data and voice network, roll out voice over ip (VoIP) telephony nation wide including all branches, regional and softphones at corporate offices, and implement a new billing and reporting system.  Each of the streams was run as sub-projects within the overall program.  Service Management sat across all 3 technical silos.

Coming to the end of a 2 year Service Management implementation, here are some reflections on what went particularly well, what did not go so well, and what I would do differently if it had to do it again.

Background

This was a managed outsourced service model, it was incumbent on the service provider to build & deliver the solution.  As the specialist from the client side, the role was to ensure Service Management requirements were captured, met, agreed processes documented, the service management solution built, tested, accepted and rolled out.

In some ways this was the easy bit.  The hard part was determining what the optimal Service Management solution would look like.  The client had atleast 2 sets of IT service providers and so also atleast 2 sets of processes for end users to access technical support.  This was based on their heritage of two previously disparate organisations coming together and with it the issues to do with multiple process protocols, reports, service levels and differing end user experiences.

The scope for improvement was tremendous, and also obvious.  As a first step, impacted services were reviewed (eg: desktop support on account of softphones) and a new, harmonised service management model built.  This involved transitioning several service desks between internal and external service providers.

The Gotchas

• Security – network infrastructure is a key business enabler for any financial institution; group security policies need to be converted to requirements; these need to be translated into design and then when built tested and accepted.  Do not underestimate the time and effort this key activity takes;

• Silo Approach – stock standard ITIL processes, even if customised for a client does not work.  Based on the end-user or the technology, Service Management needs to build processes that suits each the constituent user of that particular solution (eg: the Incident Management process for a softphone user will be different from the process for a power user of the billing & reporting system); beware, generic cookie cutter processes will not work across all silos;

• The network touches everything – be prepared for the unexpected; in this instance, even though ATMs were outside of the scope of the project, Service Management processes needed to be put in place since changes to the network infrastructure impacted on ATM monitoring and alerts.  New processes needed to be agreed;

• Work Requests from End Users – the stock standard ITIL processes “assumed” the process would kick of once the work request was received by the service provider.  It became evident that to get the work request from the client organisation to the vendor organisation was a major “gotcha”; the vendor organisation understandably required detailed information to provision new phones or services, this needed to be balanced against complexity of the form and the end user experience….and also physically make its way across.  Spend time to ensure the interlocks are properly understood and defined;

• Organisational Change – in a project spaning several months, and in today’s financial environment, the only thing that remains constant is change.  As the client organisation flexed and changed, processes that were initially built to cater for one or two individual end-users at a time needed to cater for “bulk” changes; make sure your processes are scalable to allow for changes relating to tens or hundreds end-users;

• Organisational Change and System Owners – as a corollary to the above, managers and staff members who had participated in the requirements either moved on to other roles, or were performing dual roles while newly created vacant ones were being filled.  In this environment, as the new solution started coming online, finding “business as usual” (BAU) system owners to take ownership and manage will have it challenges;

• Process Documentation – often a key deliverable to ensure that the service provider properly documents processes, make sure you agree the level of detail that will be written to.  It is easy to “copy & paste” stock standard ITIL processes, it is another thing to customise them so that interlocks, communication & communications between the two organisations is documented properly.  It is important to understand the difference between the procedures manual and work instructions; decide what is most appropriate for your situation;

• Technology supported by Multiple Parties – softphones is a good example where an end user may have a simple issue (not being able to make a call), but the underlying problem could be with any number of internal of external parties (pc, cable, headset, lan, network, telephony infrastrucutre).  Per item of technology that the end user touches, use “use cases” to work out all the processes that need to be in place to support the customer;

• Levels of Maturity – it is possible that both the client and the vendor will agree to use the ITIL framework.  The project management and delivery methodology needs to be robust enough to take into account and cater to the different levels of maturity of the two parties.  Generally speaking you are expecting for the vendor to have a higher level of maturity than the client’s, all hell will break lose if it is the other way around !

What went well

• Vendor Team – comprising the “A Team” of an accomplished Project Manager, ITIL subject matter experts & very committed BAU staff working and pulling together to deliver the solution; make sure the project team and the BAU team are engaged constantly and that the solution is not built and “thrown over the wall”;

• BAU Team – for the solution to be built properly, and then for ownership to be taken by the BAU team, the client BAU team needs to be available for workshops and reviews.  Ensure the BAU team are involved and have skin in the game.

• Service Management Technical Architect – ITIL processes are fine, a large component involves the toolsets that support and deliver Service Management.  These include not only the Service Desk tools themselves, but also network monitoring tools, alerts, auto-ticketing, security considerations etc.  A top notch Service Management Technical Architect to review the system design is invaluable;

• Service Desk Cutover(s) – a project of this magnitude will involve setting up new service desks, as well as transitioning existing service desks from one provider to another.  Be very proactive in managing these transitions, they are very visible changes and not doing them properly will generate negative user perception of the entire project;

• Reporting – a key deliverable.  If you start with the end in mind, these should already be well defined in the requirements.  There is no need for long drawn out workshops to discuss the reports, expect a draft template and fine tune them into production;

• Timing – “security” requirements, implementation and sign off being a good example of how short lead times make for quicker acceptance.  Security was the last cab off the ranks in terms of design review, the shorter the time gap between requirements building and solution delivery, the quicker and easier it is to accept and implement.

If I had to do it again, what would I do differently ?

• Reduce rework – ask the vendor to table existing material in terms of process documentation.  Review for level of detail and applicability to your situation.  Ensure you are not paying for a copy & paste job from standard ITIL books.  See comments above relating to understanding the difference between a Procedures Manual and Work Instructions.

• Use Cases – for each technology silo, define typical end use cases.  Break them up into “get it”, “use it”, “fix it” or “retire it”.  Then work the process from the customer backwards; make sure this includes any forms, test the flow of forms from the client to the vendor and the feedback loop.  Test the interlocks particularly if more than one internal or external service provider is involved.

Net nett
With the new network being rolled out, the ITIL processes designed have gone live are being stressed and used in anger.  The BAU team from both the vendor and client side have stepped up, taken ownership of the solution and engaging at different levels.  Already operational & SLA reports have been tabled and reviewed.  Open items in the risk register, workarounds and open issues will be closed or handed to the BAU team.

Service Management moves on to the next phase of the project; building a model to include multiple vendors so that the technical solution can be extended to other parts of the organisation.

It was clear that the Score Card was set up to get to where IT department wanted to get to.  Knowingly or unknowingly they had already adopted one of the 7 Habits: starting with the end in mind.

Here is my interpretation of how the 7 Habits can be applied to the IT Service Management function.  When writing this, I am thinking of a Service Desk Manager, or a Service Delivery Manager applying these to the operation of their IT Service Delivery organisation.

Being Proactive
Many, many, many Service Desks, and by extension Service Delivery organisations, are caught in the never-ending loop of being reactive.  Many, many metrics are around average time to answer, average resolution time & first time right rates.  This is similar to an airline losing passenger baggage, then restoring it to you within 24 hours, intact and undamaged – and seeking kudos for it.  This is unacceptable.  The baggage should not have been lost in the first instance, and so also the incident should never have occurred either.

Being proactive in an IT Service Management sense means being on top of systems so that the end user never realises that there has been a problem.  It can be by means of alerts & alarms, proactive system management, thorough change and release management processes, or just plain business & technical nous.

From a customer management sense it requires the Service Delivery Manager to be plugged in and understand customer business initiatives are under way and how it will impact on the technology services being delivered; then picking them up and coming back with recommendations.

And finally from a perspective of managing the service delivery organisation itself as a business, see the habit below, once the role is resolved and understood, appropriate strategies can be put in place to achieve the outcome.

Beginning with the End in Mind
In many ways there are two ends; and both have to synergise.  One is an understanding the mission of your own larger organisation and knowing how your department contributes to the overall whole; a key question is to understand if the organisation is a cost centre or a profit centre.

A well constructed Balanced Score Card is really good at helping to focus Service Delivery organisations.  These will help to chart the short and long term mission of your organisation and develop strategies to get there.

The other is to understand the customer’s requirements of you as a service provider.  This will help construct models and strategies to deliver effective service.  Of course both “ends” are not mutually exclusive.

Putting First things First
Apply classic time management strategies; identify the “big boulders”; which ones are urgent, which ones are important, which ones are urgent and important?  These can be applied to running the operations of the service delivery organisation; they can be applied per customer as well.

At an operational level, develop a philosophy as to how job queues are to be handled by engineers.  Too often, and without the correct metrics, easy or attractive jobs will be “cherry-picked”; odious jobs will continue to languish.

Thinking Win Win
Business is based on relationships.  If there is a need to refer to the contract, it is already too late to rescue the situation.  Some organisations, for reasons best known to them, have a culture of being combative or adversarial to internal or external suppliers.  This is a zero sum game.

The customer has the right to get the best price the market will allow, consider the consequences of closing a deal that is not profitable for the vendor; on the flip side, a vendor is better walking away from a deal that they have no hope in delivering effectively.

For customers in the installed base, any numbers of Service Desk Consultants, Customer Service Managers, Service Delivery Managers, Consultants or Service Desk Managers have won the trust of customers based on their “win-win” attitude.

These folks strive to reduce the pain for themselves, and so also for the customer; they are constantly driving to get to the root cause, trying to improve processes.  The aim being to eliminate as many faults as possible, to reduce the number of incidents being logged, to ensure there are no problems – these trusted folks invariably also generate additional revenues from the installed base – the customer trusts them and sees real value in the services and solutions being provided or proposed.

Seeking First to Understand; then to be Understood
Of course this applies to all business meetings; but even more so in a pre-sales call on a prospect.  Uncover and understand the customer’s business drivers and needs, this will help formulate the value proposition of your service offering better.

This habit comes into its own as a Service Delivery model is being built in the Requirements Definition phase, get this right and the rest follows automatically.

To service existing customers, continue to engage with them on an ongoing basis, formally and informally, so that their evolving drivers and needs can continually be serviced by changing or adapting the Service Delivery model.

Synergising
A passive compromise will not always provide the best result.  Whether building system requirements, or constructing a technical solution, actively seek differences.  Active collaboration will provide solutions that will be far more satisfying to the customer than one created out of passive acceptance.

Sharpening the Saw
Ensuring training and development plans are in place for your organisation.  Keeping skills current and updated is a key motivating factor for many engineers.  Create an overall training and development plans for your organisation keeping in mind customer requirements, new versions, releases, products and services being released, and new technologies in the market.  Develop individual training and development plan per engineer.

Particularly use slack periods to skill up.  In addition, develop knowledge management strategies so that knowledge does not rest in islands, but is coded, easily found & accessible, relevant and current by everyone who needs to use it.

Look at Continuous Improvement Programmes to see how processes can be improved and end to end resolution times and first time right rates can be improved.

For more information on the 7 Habits :

http://www.stevencovey.com

http://www.franklincovey.com

Disclaimer:

7 Habits of Highly Effective People is copyrighted by Franklin Covey, all copyrights acknowledged.

Accordingly I propose the itSMFnz National Exec carry out specific programmes of work based on the ITIL framework. Specifically these include constructing a “membership service catalogue”; putting together “financial management” processes & follow elements of “business relationship management”.

A key challenge facing itSMFnz is declining membership, with some members feeling membership does not provide value. I plan to address this by enunciating a clear value proposition and increasing the visibility of itSMFnz as a respected professional body.

The increasing numbers of attendees at the Wellington events, and the insistence of non-members to attend these sessions indicate that we are doing something right in Wellington.

With the strategy and programmes in place, it will address our raison d’etre of adding value to our members, and so not just maintaining our membership, but growing them (professionally) and itSMFnz (membership numbers) – be they individuals or organisations.

The 3-fold strategy:

• Putting steps in place to increase value to our individual and corporate members
• Increasing the visibility of itSMFnz at the CIO level; and also within the IT sector
• Ensure transparency in the running of the organisation

I have concrete ideas under each heading and there will be costs associated. Some ideas may take some time to gain traction – but with a shared vision and budget in place, I can not see why these can not be delivered.

By way of background, I have been involved at itSMFnz since I returned back home to Wellington in 2007, after 10 years in Sydney.

I am a very active second-in-command to Terry Barwick in raising the profile, assisting & organising itSMFnz Wellington events. I write and am sometimes published in the national press and in the itSMFnz newsletter, I review ITSMF International publications when time allows, and present from time to time at IT Service Management events. In addition I am also a member of the National Committee and a member of the Events sub-committee.

Yet, the value organisations seek to realise by changing suppliers is hard to unlock.  Very often the problem lies not with the vendor organisation, but on the other side.  Unless their own house is put in order, the problem with IT service delivery only moves from one party to another.

Here are some points to consider at a strategic level :

• what are your organisations pain points; what exactly are you trying to resolve or mitigate

• are the issues internal to your organisation, or are they really external

• if the new supplier has promised to change, transform & unlock value, have they done it before and what is their track record

• what concrete steps will your organisation take to embrace change and make a success of it

More often than not, this will involve not only a change in systems, but also cultural and process changes.  Before you sign on the dotted line (and unfortunately if you have already signed, but are still to implement), insist on “seeing” the solution end to end; this means :

• visiting and talking to other customers who have the same or similar technical solution implemented

• simulating and walking each major process through from end to end and how the underpinning technical solution supports it

• visualising how it is going to work for your organisation

• assessing your organisation’s ability to handle change and the impact on your organisation if these are going to be significant

Make sure the you the folks from the right level involved.  Too high and they will not know enough about the service desk and associated processes; too low and you will get bogged down.

Above all remember that documenting every last step, every detail, and work instruction will not solve any issue; particularly if these are recording the current processes, warts and all.  The reason for the change is after all you want your processes to be improved; take the opportunity to base-line your current performance and improve the processes as you move forward.

Depending on your organisations maturity, see if you can allow latitude in the new documented processes for speed, agility and innovation.  Simply by allowing these will see your organisation reap the rewards of change.