.. in the energy sector

Marslander ….

​One of New Zealand's leading energy providers has been operating their Service Management functions in an agile manner for several years now, enabling them to meet the demands of the delivery teams and the wider organisation.  However, as with all mature organisations, it was recognised by the team that learning is an ongoing process.

​Having heard how the MarsLander simulation focuses on making service management more agile and lean, and how it enables participants to see how ITILⓇ4 can be used in everyday scenarios, they engaged us to run the simulation.  

Through experimentation, the simulation enabled them, over the course of a day, to identify areas where they could improve their operating model and try new things.

​As Greg Wilson, IT Service Management Specialist at the organisation, put it,

​"This has been a great day to identify where we as a team can do things differently to improve value internally. To do so in a safe and fun environment has been fantastic. It's been one of the best learning experiences I have ever been part of."

.. for Managed Service Providers

​We worked with an Auckland based MSP to revitalise their operating model, using DevOps principles, KCS, ITILⓇ, Standard + Case & Lean IT thinking.

 
As part of the process of getting the teams to understand the new ways of thinking, we ran a MarsLander simulation for CEO, CDO, technical team members and HR to help them understand how preparation, planning, visualisation and collaboration can improve the way that work was delivered. 
This session was an eye-opener and provided all concerned with a pin to return to when considering how to think differently.

  • Had a great day with James facilitating the Mars Lander Simulation Workshop at One NZ the other day. Lots of good insights for the team and learnings from one side of IT to the other.

  • James ran a number of sessions for my ICT Services team including the Mars Lander scenario workshops. His thoughtful, and expert support and guidance throughout the sessions along with his fun style were extremely engaging. My team got terrific value from the sessions.

  • I was so impressed with the Phoenix simulation workshop James ran with one of our infrastructure teams at the university, that I immediately recommended he come back and do some more. Recommended for a mix of leadership, architect, project management, infrastructure, service desk and applications. James is professional and knowledgeable, and a pleasure to work with.

The Phoenix Project ….

.. at University of Canterbury

At the end of 2017, ITS at the University of Canterbury started a transformation to move from a traditional shared service model to a product focussed delivery model. This change in delivery required a fundamental change in the way that ITS and the wider University thought, engaged and interacted. Andy Keiller, CIO, required not just a new way of working, but a revised way of thinking by all concerned.

In order to drive this change, ITS engaged Gander Service Management to deliver Phoenix Project simulations from GamingWorks, for all members of ITS and the key stakeholders within the affected business teams. 

The first simulation was for the ITS leadership team, as well as representatives from the wider university. Then, over the following 11 months, all other teams experienced the same simulations.  This ranged from a mix of existing teams to one team who only met as a team on the day of the simulation. That was day one for the establishment of a new product based team.

What did the University get from the simulations?
Talking to Andy recently, he commented firstly, on the fact that he received only positive feedback from his teams and customers and secondly, on the fact that people were all receiving the same message around change, but they were picking up on different aspects. Finally he felt there was a lot of value to be had from attendees being placed into roles within the simulation that they would not normally do (technical people in business roles and business people in technical roles), so they all got to look at things from a different perspective.  

Most attendees, across all of the simulations, agreed on similar points with regards to learning about how to work smarter. (I’m not going to mention what those things were. You’ll have to experience the simulation yourself). One attendee who had found reasons not to attend earlier in the year, until given no option, commented that he was glad he did finally attend and he found it “enlightening”.  A member of the PMO, at that time building the portfolio of work for the coming year, mentioned that she needed to revisit how she engaged with ITS and the wider University on the portfolio. 

Business partners commented on how they found the simulation useful in two ways; to understand how they could work closer with ITS and help each other, and how their teams could work better. Several non-IT teams are now discussing engaging us to run the simulations within their business areas.

Andy Keiller, the CIO, following his day on the simulation in the role of Tester, commented that the key learning he got from the day was that they generally did not prepare enough, but jumped straight into planning. This is changing with the transformation. 

.. for non-IT leadership teams

Recently I was privileged to be asked to deliver a Phoenix Project simulation workshop to the leadership team at Classic Group. The only IT-related people were the CIO and the Software Development Manager.  Much of the team had read the books, The Phoenix Project and The Goal, and now wanted to experience applying some of the theory. There were some key objectives they wanted to achieve on the day:

  • Encourage collaboration and understand how to prioritise work together

  • Encourage the removal of silos and improve cross-organisational working

  • Encourage different ways of thinking and working to improve efficiency

 
This is not to say that they weren’t already doing some of this, but as with all organisations, you reach a point in your growth where you need to reset and refocus. We all fall into doing things the “comfortable” way and sometimes need to stop, think and change.  That’s what this day was for. 

I’m not going to give away all of their learning achievements here, but over the course of the day, the team:

  • discovered the need to understand how work flows through the organisation, 

  • understood the need for clear communication, 

  • saw the value of visualisation, 

  • experienced the value of training and sharing the workload to create extra capacity for handling the unexpected and removing bottlenecks, and 

  • recalled the need to reduce work in progress 

None of the above were new to the team. However they were reminded of the value each of the above brings and as they left at the end of the day, there were many conversations around how to put all of this, and more, into practice.   That’s where the hard work really starts; Where to from here?