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Processes describe the work performed by people, but according to industry expert and author Hank Marquis, many IT managers confuse the two. ‘4 Steps to Better IT Process Design’ offers practical, workable guidance on how to separate process from performance and document IT processes in order to improve them.
Hank Marquis, Chief Technology Officer at itSM Solutions LLC, provides step-by-step guidance on how to document an existing IT process. Marquis explains to practitioners why they need to capture the “who, what, when and where” of the process, and should skip the “how and why” until after completely documenting the process.
Excerpt from the guide:
“To improve a process the very first step is to accept that neither workers nor managers really know what is going on or how people actually perform their work. Hundreds of years of manufacturing process improvements have raised two facts about workflow. First, only those who actually perform the job tasks really have the skills to accomplish a job; and second, you cannot ask the worker what they are doing, since they have internalized many of the skills tasks. Perhaps the hardest part is accepting that you don’t really know what is going on, and it is also very difficult to impartially observe a person doing something that you think could be done better without intervening. But your goal is to be an impartial observer. You goal during task analysis is documentation, not improvement.”
About the Author
This guide is the latest in a series of “Do IT Yourself(tm)” publications by the author, Hank Marquis. He is a certified IT Service Management professional with over 20 years of practical hands-on experience managing, organizing, and optimizing IT infrastructures and organizations.
If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Hank Marquis, please call Tammy Lyons or email.
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info[.]hankmarquis.com 
