The IT Service Blog Presents T h e 80 / 20 o n ITIL ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Visit the Official ITIL site at TM

80 20 T h e 80 / 20 o n ITIL TM Or… Something to think about when you’re in your next meeting… your next meeting…

Introduction In the 1800’s an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, identified that 80% of the wealth of the country was owned by 20% of the people. In the 1950’s two of the early "quality gurus" Deming and Juran, noticed in their work that 80% of the defects came from 20% of the products, or 20% of the causes result in 80% of the defects.

Strangely, this ‘law’ seems to apply to lots of things in life… 20% of your stored phone numbers – you call 80% of the time You see 20% of your family and friends – 80% of the time 80% of your monthly pay check vanishes in 20% of the month!!

20% 80% Useful Many Vital Few The 80 / 20 Rule …is best summed up by remembering this image…

20% 80% Vital Few The 80 / 20 Rule Do 20% of Your Users Cause 80% of recurring Incidents ? Does 20% of Your Infrastructure Cause 80% of your Outages? Do 20% of your S taff Cause 80% of Your Migranes?

20% 80% Useful Many The 80 / 20 Rule Do you focus 80% of your time on the vital 20% of things that really matter? The value of the Pareto Principle for an IT Service Manager is that it reminds you to focus on the 20% percent that matters!

What it means for IT Service Managers… The 80 / 20 Rule means that in anything a few ( 20 percent) are vital and many ( 80 percent) are trivial. In Pareto's case it meant 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. In Juran's initial work he identified 20 percent of the defects causing 80 percent of the problems. IT Service Managers know that 20 percent of the work (the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent?) consume 80 percent of your time and resources. You can apply the 80 / 20 Rule (with caution!) to almost anything, from the science of management to the physical world.

What it means for ITIL™ Processes Incident Management 80% of Incidents are Caused by 20% of users / components / systems / services 80% of Incidents are resolved by 20% of the Overall Support function (Service Desk / 1st Line Support) 80% of Service Penalties are caused by 20% of Major Incidents Problem Management 80% of Problems are generated by 20% of all Incidents 80% of Root Causes relate back to 20% of Changes Change Management 80% of failed Change is generated by 20% of the IT department 80% of late changes are generated by 20% of the IT department 80% of lead time exceptions are generated by 20% of the projects underway Configuration Management 80% of CI’s are created / changed by 20% of the Infrastructure 80% of CI updates are generated by 20% of the changes implemented

Use Pareto’s Law to help you Understand: - Those ‘ few ’ items that affect the ‘ many ’ - Where your time is best spent - Where your ‘pain points’ are - What to focus on in any given process - How best to display graphs / charts to reveal the ‘ few ’ V’s the ‘ many ’ - How your user base is behaving - How your team are performing

Warning! - Use the law as a guide only! - In real-life actual data is rarely 80 / 20 more like 73 / 27 or 68 / 32 - Use it as another tool in your ‘kitbag’

IT Service Blog IT Service Today IT Projects Today Further (Essential) Reading