ABOUT
Started in 2019 to bring the Focus Framework's efficiency standard to organisations everywhere, Opimise is a DigitalOps solutions practice for IT and Enterprise Service Management.
What/ Why?
IT support is central to Service Management, but it has always had a big problem. For tasks that can't be automated, made self-service, or otherwise completed straight-away, weak service experiences happen a lot.
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The cause is slowness, made worse by lack of communication around delivery time-frames (aka weak expectations management). Worse still, service needs are frequently not met at all.
Not surprisingly, slow and failed service means the reputation of IT support is not good. This is carried through to the reputation of "IT" as a whole.
IT organisations might not truly acknowledge the "big problem", because standard service information leaves its extent unknown, and because an approach to tackle it has not been brought forward.
Experience management practices are helping, but what is needed much more-so is an approach that ensures customer experience is good every time. What is needed, is a new, modern service system.
TOFT (the Focus Framework) handles all of IT support's complexity, through a completely structured and streamlined approach. Its fundamentals are incredibly straight forward and appealing to adopt. As a whole, TOFT considers all service needs, including responsiveness, teamwork, team engagement, manageability, technical knowledge, service approachability, communication, and continual improvement. TOFT is not just optimisation, it is a cure-all for the 21 common support service issues.
Who
TOFT has been developed by David Stewart.
Beforehand, David spent 18-years in diverse technical and managerial roles, from which a deep understanding was gained of the many issues that always exist when support services follow a purely ITIL way of working.
The first seeds of a new way were sown in 2007 but it was not until Cherwell Service Management exposure in 2015 that things began to move forward. Recognising how difficult it ordinarily is to cut through operational difficulties and make a big difference to delivery, the pursuit of true best practice, to remove the 21 issues through ITSM tool utilisation, began.
History
From 2016, the framework was developed over a five year period, facilitated and piloted through further in-practice roles, and with the development of two key software components in Cherwell Service Management.
Opimise became a Cherwell (acquired by Ivanti) Technology Alliance Partner in 2019. TPM Insight, became available for the platform in 2021 and Flow Metrics for ITSM were introduced for the first time.
The framework's first book, "TOFT 7 Essentials", will be released as a microlearning course in 2023. The book's introductory sections are currently available to read or listen to.
The course "IT Support Service High Performance Principles (TOFT)" is available now.
Objective
To share TOFT practices, to make IT and enterprise support a far better place to work and receive service.
Opimise looks to works with tool vendors, Managed Service Providers, IT consultancies, consultants and end-user organisations in the pursuit of this goal.
