Plan and improve

Two of the six value chain activities steer the whole chain rather than handling individual pieces of demand. Plan creates a shared understanding of where the organization is going, where it stands now and how it intends to improve. Improve makes sure that products, services, practices and the value chain itself keep getting better. This lesson examines both activities: their purposes, inputs and outputs, the levels at which they operate, and how they connect to governance and the rest of the chain.

The purpose of plan

In plain terms, the plan activity ensures that everyone shares an understanding of the vision, the current status and the direction of improvement, across all four dimensions and all products and services. Without that shared understanding, teams pull in different directions. One team invests in a new platform while another commits to a customer roadmap that assumes the old platform; a third prepares a budget that funds neither.

Plan is not one annual event. It happens at three broad levels, each with its own time horizon and audience.

Inputs and outputs of plan

Plan draws inputs from governance (policies, requirements and constraints set by the governing body), from engage (consolidated demand and opportunities), from improve (improvement initiatives and their status), from deliver and support (performance information) and from outside the organization (market changes, regulation, supplier roadmaps). Its outputs include strategic, tactical and operational plans; portfolio decisions; architectures and policies for the value chain; and improvement opportunities it identifies along the way.

Portfolio decisions

A key planning output is the set of decisions about which products, services and initiatives the organization will invest in, keep, change or retire. This is portfolio management, one of the general management practices. The plan activity uses it to keep the total work in progress within capacity and aligned with strategy.

Planning and the four dimensions

A plan that considers only technology is incomplete. Plan should address all four dimensions: organizations and people (skills, roles, culture), information and technology (systems, data, tools), partners and suppliers (contracts, dependencies), and value streams and processes (how work will flow). A cloud migration plan, for example, must cover staff training and role changes, data migration and tooling, contract changes with the hosting provider and new deployment and support workflows. Lesson 10 examines the four dimensions in depth.

The purpose of improve

In plain terms, the improve activity ensures continual improvement of products, services and practices across all value chain activities and all four dimensions. Improve is the value chain's expression of the continual improvement component of the system. Where continual improvement describes the habit and the model, improve is the activity through which improvement work is identified, organized and tracked.

ITIL-120 introduced the continual improvement model (from "What is the vision?" through "How do we keep the momentum going?") and the continual improvement register. This lesson focuses on how improve connects with the rest of the value chain.

Inputs and outputs of improve

Improve receives inputs from every other activity: performance information from deliver and support, feedback from engage, knowledge about new components from obtain/build, information about new and changed products from design and transition, and plans and policies from plan. It also receives improvement initiatives raised anywhere in the organization. Its outputs include improvement initiatives and plans, value stream performance information, contract and agreement requirements, service performance information and status reports on improvement work.

Improvement at every level

Improvement happens at all levels: strategic (changing which services the organization offers), tactical (redesigning a value stream) and operational (fixing a recurring defect). It also happens in every activity. Engage can improve how it captures requirements; obtain/build can improve supplier selection; plan can improve its own planning process. A mature organization expects everyone to contribute to improvement, not only a dedicated improvement team.

Prioritizing improvements

Improvement opportunities compete for capacity with demand. Organizations often protect a fixed share of capacity for improvement, much as they reserve capacity for mandatory work. Without that protection, urgent demand tends to consume everything, and improvement is postponed indefinitely. A common rule of thumb is to protect somewhere between 10 % and 20 % of a team's capacity for improvement work, though the right figure depends on context.

Plan and improve together

Plan and improve are closely linked. Plan sets direction; improve finds the gaps between where the organization is and where the plan says it should be, and closes them. Improve also produces information that changes plans: if a value stream turns out to be slower than assumed, the tactical plan must change. Together, they form a feedback loop that keeps the value chain aligned with the organization's goals and responsive to change.

Both activities also connect to governance. The governing body evaluates the organization's situation, directs it through strategy and policy, and monitors performance. Plan translates direction into action; improve feeds monitoring information back. Lesson 12 returns to this relationship.

In the US federal government, agency strategic plans and annual performance plans and reports, required under the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, are an example of planning and improvement working at the strategic level: each agency publishes goals and later reports progress against them.

Plan and improve in ITIL (Version 5)

ITIL (Version 5) keeps the value chain as a component of the value system, and published course outlines describe key success metrics for value chain activities. The lifecycle activities it adds (discover, design, acquire, build, transition, operate, deliver and support) all need direction and improvement, so the ideas in this lesson apply in both editions. If you are studying for a Version 5 exam, check how your materials name and group these activities before relying on the six ITIL 4 names.

Rolling plans and planning cadence

Many organizations have moved away from a single annual plan toward rolling plans that are reviewed on a regular cadence. A common pattern is a strategic review once a year, a tactical review every quarter and operational planning every week or two. At each review, the plan is extended by one period and adjusted for what has been learned. Rolling plans keep direction stable while allowing priorities to shift as demand, opportunities and performance information change.

A cadence also helps the rest of the value chain. Engage knows when consolidated demand must be ready for the next tactical review. Improve knows when to present the status of improvement initiatives. Deliver and support knows when performance information will be used. Predictable timing reduces the scramble that often surrounds planning.

The key point is that a plan is a tool for shared understanding, not a fixed contract. Its value lies in keeping everyone aligned on direction while the details change.