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The 80 / 20 on ITIL
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Or
Something to think about when youre in your next meeting

The 80 / 20 on ITIL

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Introduction
In the 1800s an Italian economist,

Vilfredo Pareto, identified that 80% of the wealth of the country

was owned by 20% of the people.

In the 1950s two of the early "quality gurus"

Deming and Juran, noticed in their work that 80%

of the defects came from 20% of the products, or 20% of the causes result in 80% of the defects.

Strangely,
this law seems

to apply to lots of things in life

20% of your stored phone numbers you call 80% of the time

You see 20% of your family and friends 80% of the time

80% of your monthly pay check vanishes in 20% of the month!!

The 80 / 20 Rule
is best summed up by remembering this image

Vital Few

20% 80%

Useful Many

80% 20%

The 80 / 20 Rule
Vital Few

20% 80%

Do 20% of Your Users Cause 80% of recurring Incidents ? Does 20% of Your Infrastructure Cause 80% of your Outages? Do 20% of your Staff Cause 80% of Your Migranes?

The 80 / 20 Rule

reto th e P a of value for an IT The pl e Princi Manager is e Servic eminds you r 20% that it n th e us o s! to foc hat matter nt t perce

Useful Many

80%

Do you focus 80% of your time on the vital 20% of things that really matter?

20%

What it means for IT Service Managers

The 80 / 20 Rule means that in anything a few (20 percent) are vital and many (80 percent) are trivial. In Pareto's case it meant 20 percent of the people owned

80 percent of the wealth.

In Juran's initial work he identified 20 percent of the defects causing 80 percent of the problems. IT Service Managers know that 20 percent of the work (the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent?) consume

80 percent of your time and resources.

You can apply the 80 / 20 Rule (with caution!) to almost anything, from the science of management to the physical world.

What it means for ITIL

Processes

Incident Management 80% of Incidents are Caused by 20% of users / components / systems / services
80% of Incidents are resolved by 20% of the Overall Support function (Service Desk / 1st Line Support)

80% of Service Penalties are caused by 20% of Major Incidents Problem Management 80% of Problems are generated by 20% of all Incidents 80% of Root Causes relate back to 20% of Changes Change Management 80% of failed Change is generated by 20% of the IT department
80% of late changes are generated by 20% of the IT department

80% of lead time exceptions are generated by 20% of the projects underway Configuration Management 80% of CIs are created / changed by 20% of the Infrastructure 80% of CI updates are generated by 20% of the changes implemented

Use Paretos Law to help you Understand:

- Those few items that affect the many - Where your time is best spent - Where your pain points are - What to focus on in any given process - How best to display graphs / charts to reveal the few Vs the many - How your user base is behaving - How your team are performing

Warning!
- Use the law as a guide only! - In real-life actual data is rarely 80 / 20 more like 73 / 27 or 68 / 32 - Use it as another tool in your kitbag

Further (Essential) Reading

T Service Blog

http://www.ITServiceBlog.com

Projects Today http://www.ITProjectsToday.co

T Service Today

http://www.ITServiceToday.com