Marslander® – Next Generation ITSM Simulation

Overview

Where are we now?

We have used ITSM practices such as ITIL® (ITIL® is a (registered) Trade Mark of AXELOS Limited. All rights reserved) to bring our Apollo 13 mission to the moon. Since then the world has changed. Technology has changed. Customer expectations have changed and there are more competitors able to provide space services. MarsLander is the next generation of space technology. Bringing a MarsLander to Mars requires a higher level of ITSM capabilities.

We need ‘ITSM the next generation’. There is a lot more software involved and more stakeholders and customers whose
experiences we must take into account and manage. To effectively manage the service delivery in this ‘digital age’ we need to be more Agile and Lean and we have to work as end-to-end teams, ensuring software, hardware and services are in sync and able to respond rapidly to changes and new requests. ITSM capabilities such as ITIL® are still relevant but must be more responsive to a rapidly changing world – the words Agile and Lean enter the conversation. New approaches emerge such as VeriSMTM and ITIL®4. But what does ITSM Next generation mean? How do frameworks such as ITIL®4 fit into the end-to-end stream of ‘practices’?

To fulfill all the demands of the business and customers, IT Teams must deliver fast, reliable, safe, error free solutions. The increasing demand for digital services means we must increase the flow of work. More and faster is the business demand. But an increase in demand and speed brings with it the risk of mistakes. An error in space cannot be readily fixed by sending an on-site engineer. Quality and manageability must be built in. New software can be deployed in real time, any time, as needed. The way we need to work on the MarsLander mission is new. We are learning as we go to deal with things we have never experienced before. We need to be flexible and continuously learn and improve our services and capabilities in small steps to ensure we are continually aligned with customer needs. At the same time we are increasingly dependent upon an eco-system of partners and suppliers who must also be aligned and flexible to changing needs.

This new way of working has also brought about a demand for multifunctional teams, a need to share knowledge, reduce hand-offs, prevent miscommunication and ensure all are aligned to realizing customer needs.

About the simulation

In this simulation you will be ‘working’ in the Digital-service team of SPACE-Y. A company that sells data collected from their space missions to customers, such as Universities and Research Centers. The mission of your team is clear: “Launch a rocket with MarsLander, deploy it on Mars and collect valuable data for Universities and Research Centers”.

Challenges of the simulation

Your challenge is to work on achieving all of the mission goals. The Sales Director has direct contact with the customers and will sign new contracts. The Product Owner – digital services will manage the backlog of work to ensure mission goals are achieved. The Customer Support team will support customer feedback and Flight Operations will manage the flight. The IT Team will make sure Issues and Events are solved according to the Service Agreement and new offerings are integrated into operations practices. Requests and Features must be built and released on time and Customer Feedback dealt with as fast as possible to guarantee high customer satisfaction scores. Application Development will build software to support new and changing business and customer demands, and at the same time will fix issues if they are related to software errors. This team will be supported by the Vendor who is delivering data storage and data support services.

The Service Manager will manage the continual improvement activities and will make sure that new and existing services deliver the required value.

Unfortunately, our capacity to work on creating value is partially blocked by ‘waste’ like supporting legacy systems, work arounds, lack of knowledge and manual test and release procedures. Your challenge is to balance between delivering value and continually improving your services in an Agile way.

The Simulation

The simulation is made up of 3 rounds. Each round is a phase in the MarsLander mission to Mars.

Target Audience

This simulation is designed for roles inside and outside of IT. Since this simulation is aimed at exploring and experiencing a new way of working this simulation does not require any specific knowledge to participate. Our Accredited Training Partners will introduce any relevant ITSM Next Generation theory such as ITIL®, VeriSMTM or Agile Service Management between rounds as
appropriate in line with the required learning objectives for your simulation.

» Employees of IT (Operations) teams can explore how a more service oriented way of working can make their work more enjoyable and better.
» IT managers and team leaders can learn how to coach and facilitate their teams towards high performing teams.
» Development teams can experience how to work together with IT Operation teams.
» Business roles can experience how their roles may change if the organization starts to work in a more Agile and Lean way of working.
» ITSM specialists learn what can be the value of working in an Agile and Lean way; how to make ITSM practices such as ITIL® and VeriSMTM more responsive and fit for use in this new environment of rapid, unpredictable change in which solutions must be deployed rapidly, yet safely.

This simulation also helps IT Operations teams to take the next steps towards alignment with the DevOps philosophy and ITIL® Practitioner guiding principles.

How can this simulation be used?

This simulation is a powerful way to stimulate a new way of thinking within the IT Organization. It also shows in one interactive day the essence of ITSM Next generation practices such as ITIL®4 or VeriSMTM.

Your ATO will explain how this simulation can be used to support their Accredited ITIL® or VeriSMTM portfolio of training or consulting.

The simulation can help create a dialogue and help employees better understand how to improve their own way of working from where they are now (traditional Service Management) towards
a Next Generation Service Management with a more Agile and Lean approach, not as a large implementation project but in small incremental steps and based on their own motivation.

This simulation is a GamingWorks product.
Built by the developers of Apollo 13 and The Phoenix Project.

Instructor

Facilitation of a Business Simulation is what Eppo has done for more than 15 years now. Hundreds of simulation attended by thousands of delegates made him very experienced in helping organizations and individuals to learn capabilities and discover new ways to adapt to an ever changing working environment. Business simulations as the Apollo 13, Marslander and others will make an impact, or as Eppo says: “ You forget what you had for dinner yesterday, you will never forget the business Simulation you did, and the learning outcomes”.

Eppo has developed the capability to facilitate the Business Simulations by combining his experience from the field of ITSM, his unique capability to teach and his personal style. The latter can be described as respectful and challenging. The facilitator ‘plays’ several roles. Of course one of them is ‘the game leader’. His motto is that delegates should understand the simulation rules and be comfortable in a safe environment, before even starting. However when the simulation is running, his role might change into the CEO who challenges the team to make decisions on conflicting events. Never ever these challenges Eppo imposes on the team are too difficult to handle. So part of his facilitation skills is to lower – or to raise the bar according to the challenges the team just can handle. Because doing a business simulation should also be fun to do and be rewarding.

A business simulation hardly ever is a one-off. The delegates are askes – at the end of the simulation – to reflect on their own experience of the day. This 30 minutes of reflection is ‘the most important half hour of the day’. Delegates and facilitator will capture lessons learned and use these newly acquired skills the next day. One of the key questions of these reflection is: “what will you do different tomorrow?”.

NOT A GAME!, a Business simulation is serious matter. Hence, before engaging with the team, Eppo will discuss the learning outcomes before performing the simulation. What are the presenting issues? What are the goals of the team and its management? When are we satisfied? And most important, What are we going to do AFTER we have completed the Simulation?