PMG Shares Tips to Ensure a Seamless Service Catalog Launch

IT Professionals Examine Eight Pitfalls to Avoid

ATLANTA – March 25, 2015 – PMG, the smart choice for enterprise service catalog and business process automation software, hosted a virtual panel discussion that examined service catalog implementation pitfalls and tips to ensure project success.

The panel, comprised of PMG’s seasoned IT experts, highlighted customer examples and key elements other IT project managers should consider before, during and after establishing a service catalog. Below are eight best practices to keep in mind.

During the planning phase:

• Examine your data; don’t focus on the exceptions – Use data and facts to maintain the proper perspective of what to focus on. Treat exceptions as they are, and solve for mainstream services.
• Get buy-in early; don’t wait until the end – During the planning phases of a project, it’s critical to get approval from the necessary people and teams. This will help prevent critical project changes in the middle of the implementation and ensure a smooth process.
• Get everyone’s feedback when creating services – Consulting with all departments within your business may seem time consuming, but it helps provide a holistic view of project needs. This includes all possible scenarios, departmental nuances, security concerns and more.
• Assign a single catalog owner – When there are many departments and project players involved, there must be a single (department or individual) owner of the service catalog. The owner can help coordinate services, update and improve workflows, and streamline efforts to avoid duplication. A single owner can also ensure policies and communication.

During the implementation phase, there are four pitfalls that are often overlooked:

• Offer the most critical service options – It’s easy to overwhelm customers with too many service options. Using your data, examine the top service needs and focus on these options.
• Update and correct bad data – During the project, your team is likely to uncover corrupted and outdated data. Use this opportunity to correct and update corrupt data to ensure a smooth customer experience.
• Don’t automate bad processes – Similarly to bad data, this is your opportunity to find and remove processes that don’t provide any value. For one client, discovering and correcting processes eliminated 4,000 instances of re-entering data on a monthly basis.
• Keep the customer experience at the forefront – While data and functionality are important, it’s equally important to ensure users can quickly and easily navigate the service catalog. Continually get customer feedback to improve and expand the platform in all areas of the business.

PMG typically provides administrative training with new product implementations, and employs a knowledge transfer and “train the trainer” approach to foster client expertise and ownership. PMG also offers modular web-based training courses, as well as traditional training classes held at PMG facilities.

“Unlike most software companies in our industry, we’ve structured a personalized client relationship model so our customers’ first point of contact during the implementation phase is their same point of contact beyond. Our team of expert process consultants ensures that we set up each customer for long-term success,” said Joe LeCompte, principal at PMG. “Deploying catalogs within numerous Global 2000 enterprises, we’ve established a track record for excellence.”