Some General Advice

[billk]

I have managed to install OTRS (Linux and Oracle) in my company.
My department is really small (5 people - 3 ITIL Certified) the company has over 400 people and we are wish to implement Help Desk and ITSM.
My opinion is that some consulting could be a big help. Some believe we could give a try alone.
I would appreciate hearing some thoughts and personal experience from people who
gave a try just on their own or an advice from other experienced users.

Thanks in advance

[Lorenzo_Marschall]

I have managed to install OTRS (Linux and Oracle) in my company.
My department is really small (5 people - 3 ITIL Certified) the company has over 400 people and we are wish to implement Help Desk and ITSM.
My opinion is that some consulting could be a big help. Some believe we could give a try alone.
I would appreciate hearing some thoughts and personal experience from people who
gave a try just on their own or an advice from other experienced users.

Whether you need external consulting depends on the experiences your IT staff has with Help Desk and ITSM.
Are the 3 people ITIL foundation level or ITIL expert level?

1. strategy
Do you have defined an IT strategy?
Any paper?
Goals?
Any guidance of your management board?

2. processes
Do you have defined your IT processes?
Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management etc. etc.
Are you "living" these processes?

3. roles, functions
Are your IT-roles complete and accurate?
RACI? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibi ... ent_matrix
Do you have one accountable for everything?
E.g. Who will be able to see your Configuration Management Database (CMDB, SACM)? Who will edit/update the entries? Who will be accountable?

4. plan
Any realistic planning on how to implement Help Desk and ITSM? <- Could be a job for your ITIL people.
Incremental implementation? Or big bang? Enough qualified manpower?

[...]

If you answer most questions with no, you should think about external consulting.

A good ITSM implementation is very, very useful for every company, with a very good ROI if done right - but it is always a complex project: cultural changes, management commitment, IT manpower, business process modelling etc. etc.

The most important part of all work is done outside the computer.

Btw.: Installing OTRS should be the last step after all planning work is done...

HTH, Lorenzo

[billk]

Thanks for your reply Lorenzo
You have answered all my questions
I really appreciate your advices

[tabrez_nazir]

Hi,

We are manufacturing company having IT department compromising 3 people including self. Recently I have completed my ITIL v3 training and now certified as Expert. I'm planning to implement ITIL processes in my company, the main management concern behind implementing ITIL is to streamline IT operations with policies and procedures and secondly we need to have dedicated and consistent knowledge management system with all the Service Assets and configuration items details.

Initially i want to start with few basic and mandatory processes which is must to meet above goals they are request fulfilment, incident management, problem management, change management, SLM and SACM.

Kindly guide me where i should start from???

[vinnie2k]

I have managed to install OTRS (Linux and Oracle) in my company.
My department is really small (5 people - 3 ITIL Certified) the company has over 400 people and we are wish to implement Help Desk and ITSM.
My opinion is that some consulting could be a big help. Some believe we could give a try alone.
I would appreciate hearing some thoughts and personal experience from people who
gave a try just on their own or an advice from other experienced users.

Thanks in advance

If you have the time (in weeks, not in days) to dwelve into OTRS, its manuals, it numerous config options, its APIs, etc. then go ahead on your own.
If not, I'd strongly recommend buying consulting from otrs.com.

[billk]

Thanks vinnie2k