Seychelles’ ITSM implementation a model for other Commonwealth states |28 November 2011

This remark was made by Mike Campigotto, the ITSM specialist from Collective Minds Consulting of Canada, at the opening of a five-day workshop organised recently at Le Méridien Fisherman’s Cove hotel by the department of information and communications technology (DICT) in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat.
 
Mr Campigotto said the results were accomplished in period of months and that that DICT has positioned itself to not only support effectively and efficiently the systems under its responsibility, but also has the right framework in place for continued improvement in the future.

He said the Seychelles/DICT model, including lessons learned and approaches followed, could be used as the basis for replicating the development of similar ITSM capabilities in other small island states in the Commonwealth.

IT services staff from the DICT and from other ministries that are either using or planning to use the DICT service desk implementation framework to support the delivery of IT services in their respective organisations, took part in the workshop which forms part of an ongoing initiative to develop ITSM capabilities in Commonwealth countries. The sixth held so far, the workshop was organised in partnership with the Commonwealth secretariat.

DICT principal secretary Benjamin Choppy was present at both the opening and closing sessions of the workshop which saw various presentations by local IT professionals involved in the ITSM implementation and also findings made by the consultant.

The Commonwealth-funded consultancy firm also evaluated DICT’s ITSM implementation and also established the levels attained by the organisation in the different management areas worked on. These areas included service desk management, change management and configuration management. As part of the evaluation process, client organisations where DICT is implementing its ITSM framework to manage the delivery of services were also able to provide feedback directly to the consultant.

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Mr Choppy said in addition to DICT being able to deliver on complex technical projects in the IT field for the government and has the capability to resolve any technical incidences that emerge, it is imperative for the organisation to have the right type of management framework in place based on established best practices in the field that will allow long-term sustainability of deployed systems and also allow quality service to be delivered to its client organisations consistently.

In relation to the evaluation aspect of the workshop, he pointed out that it is always good to have established external experts coming in to evaluate and assess their work as this helps them to find gaps and identify possible strategies to address them.

For his part, Tony Ming of the Commonwealth secretariat, said the level of commitment and leadership of the senior management, the track record for providing quality service and flexibility to address the specific needs of ministries and departments were critical factors for the successful implementation of IT service management in any organisation.

In fact, it was in 2009 that the DICT started to implement a series of capabilities to address the growth of infrastructure, provide support for the implementation of government services online and deliver quality services consistently.

Senior managers from the department attended workshops on ITSM sponsored by the Commonwealth secretariat and subsequently approached the secretariat for help to implement the framework and models covered in the workshops, thus emulating the service desk operations of Ontario, Canada –viewed as a best practice case in IT service management in the government.

It’s the Commonwealth secretariat which secured the services of Collective Minds /Consulting of Canada to help the DICT implement the framework and models, as well as use their experience with other governments to accelerate the implementation of the Seychelles initiative.

Over the last two years, the DICT has made significant progress and has positioned itself to respond to service requests and problems in a timely and effective manner.

According to the department, new systems can now be implemented in a controlled manner to eliminate unintended impacts on other systems and a robust support system is now in place to help deployed systems. This is of particular importance as more online government services are expected to be deployed in the near future.

Furthermore, effective reporting mechanisms are in place to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the department’s operations, allowing the management of infrastructure services to be undertaken in a more proactive manner.