Please rewrite this for me

Celanese commissioned HP to evaluate its IT processes after understanding that there needed to be change within internal IT operations. Celanese was getting to a point where new projects became detrimental due to their poor practice, issues such as lack of communication, budget management, and project approval. They understood that the ITIL framework could improve their IT operation, which was a good place to start. Many workers had never been exposed to ITIL ideas, which shows that organization issues could be seen as bigger than business structures. The culture of Celanese could have been doomed due to not giving workers good enough IT practices to follow. The evaluation was an eye-opening process which showed how little the groups knew about each others work, how isolated they were from each other, and how little awareness there was of what it took to deliver unified IT services to business customers. This again shows issues with their organizational structure. A structure that is so widely dispersed that is has no communication channel between groups will see heavy problems in interaction between different groups. Decentralization can work, but in this case, Celanese didnt take necessary steps to combat communication issues. They needed to develop a communication channel that involved all parties that work on projects together. An example of this would be to hold meetings that involve head of departments such as Applications and Infrastructure. These would help break the communication barrier and could fix any issues they are having with their combined projects.

The first suggestion would fix the issues that the HP assessment had with poor service-level management. Having an SLA with every service would help in project practices. It could bring qualities such as better deadline meeting and reaction time to customer requests. It would help align SLM to business requirements. Creating a standard documentation process would help in giving better utilization of tools and help Celanese in creating proper documentation for their practices.

Even after the assessment, the CIO and IT directors found issues in discovering which suggestions to prioritize. This might show the issues that once again stem from the organizational structure. Integrating ITIL should not have been a debate. The practices and organization it would bring to Celanese would surely improve IT overall and lead to better success for the company. Should less power have been given to a CIO that already let Celanese reach a point of overall poor practice? Understandably one issue they had was with the maturity level it would bring. Helping your employees understand why ITIL is being integrated and showing them the benefits of the program is important. It is noted Celanese was bureaucratic, but openness and honesty in the process could help eliminate the negative perception. Shifting from a bureaucratic layout that performed poor practices to one that performed proper practice should be seen as an improvement. If I were the CIO, the top priority would be to implement at least one ITIL at a time and progressively move toward implementing them all. For example, I would first support Service Strategy, due to the issues IT at Celanese has with their business strategies and also use it as a stepping stone to incorporate the other ITIL concepts. It would help begin the culture shift and would help in fixing the problems with SLM-business alignment.

The Infrastructure group took initiative to implement ITIL while the rest of the organization lagged behind. In an attempt to implement the processes effectively, the Operations Manager added three ITIL specialists into the organization one for Change Management, one for Incident Management, and the other for Problem Management. This is a great strategy. It reminds me of the AtekPC PMO, where they brought in experts to transition the culture into a more organized format. Having experts on staff who can lead and advise employees is key in a period of great change. After hiring the specialists, the director invested heavily into ITIL training by sponsoring four ITIL Foundation classes. This is another great step for the organization. The classes helped employees believe in the merits of ITIL, which, as discussed before, helped shift the culture. Training the employees on the concepts will ensure they are ready to go when the transition takes place. Lastly, the Operations Manager organized an ITIL Taskforce which met bi-monthly or monthly to propose, design, and implement IT service improvements. Sadly, other parties lost interest, and the taskforce dwindled down to the Infrastructure group. These initiatives taken by infrastructure were great and should have been taken company wide. Why didnt other departments follow suit? It seems as if many were resisting change, which simply cannot happen when the change will benefit the entire company. There needed to be a solid choice by higher leadership to require all to follow through with the ITIL initiatives. The CIO and other leaders aside from infrastructure dropped the ball on the transition phase to ITIL. The Infrastructure group was also eager to pursue SLAs, more than the applications group. This could come from the fact that the application group is more business oriented while the infrastructure group seemed more IT-oriented. The infrastructure group focused on improving IT while the application group seemed to be developing in a business mindset. This is reflected on the fact that they were constantly developing without infrastructure/costs in mind. They were wanting to advance in business rather than advancing in IT first. The SLA is directly involved with IT-client interaction with respect to costs/service levels, and infrastructure wanted to make sure they were giving the clients the best possible experience.

Celanese saw the benefits of ITIL processes from the incorporation of an OSM into use. The OSM came about because it came to light that business-critical services had been going into production with IT Operations knowledge. This is a big issue, because there werent plans for how the application would be supported. Celanese received complaints from customers after every maintenance event and realized that these problems were never fixed until after documentation had been developed and test cases defined. OSM isnt an ITIL concept, however, pieces of it were influenced by ITIL. For example, it applied the ITIL distinction of service owners and process owners, as well as the ITIL lifecycle model. These concepts helped Celanese get back on track in the APware project show the benefits that ITIL would bring to the company. It brought organization and fixes the company hadnt seen with their poor practice. Something like that would be a great aid in transitioning an organization into an ITIL environment.

IT went through a change, with a new position called ITIL Process Lead opening up. Parallel to the hiring of ITIL specialists by Infrastructure, this position was aimed at improving ITIL processes. She made small ITIL improvements by assembling employees to fix the problems that came about. She also coordinated an ITIL Advisory Board, which maintained commitment from groups throughout the company, something the ITIL Taskforce couldnt do.

This was a big leap and made IT groups realize how much they needed to change. Getting all groups involved was such a big step in changing the culture of the company. Having all groups involved rather than just one is not an easy feat and the ITIL Process Lead did a great job of making sure all were there to realize the benefits/important changes.