Engaging All Service Engineering Folks: Help Forrester Define “Service Engineering” As A New Role Within Infrastructure & Operations (Or Beyond)! A variety of technology trends such as mobility and clouds are empowering consumers and connects employees who all are interacting and collaborating through apps and devices which are changing the way business is conducted. In response, organizations are forced to accelerate business changes which require the need for agility innovating new technology choices, implementation options, and delivery approaches. In this new pace of change the business demands more of IT to help deliver services which enable and support the age of the customer. Some Infrastructure & Operations teams have made the transformation to manage and support BT services which consist of technology, systems, and processes to win, serve and retain customers. Other organizations still manage and support components which range from operating systems, middleware, general purpose components, applications and custom components built all for specific purposes. I&O teams have become good at building components, but it often lacks the engineering discipline to assemble these components into services that meet specific business needs and are relevant in the age of the customer. To stay relevant and transform Infrastructure & Operations in the age of the customer, I&O needs a new role – service engineering. Service engineers mainly “do” three things:

1. Think and act from the outside-in – this means establishing, managing and continually improving services which are critical and essential for business enablement and business success.

2. Participate and support the DevOps journey – business agility in large parts depends on technology today. The DevOps team plays a large role in the quality and speed of technology delivery.

3. Change the attitude, behavior and culture (ABC) inside I&O towards the customer – this means a transformation in people, processes and technology all used in combination of delivering value to the business.

Do you lead such a team? Or are you in such a role?

If yes – I need your input. Please reach out to me ASAP at eoehrlich@forrester.com or reply to this blog as I like to know what soft and technical skills are needed as part of this new role.

Thank you very much. Looking forward to hear from you hopefully today!