12 TOFT Practices
Excluding TOFT's most advanced practices that include Value Stream Management and Flow Management, those that fill gaps in standard practice are:
Activity Prioritisation (AP)
Usually the starting point, AP comes in three forms:
Basic: Progression Point Prioritisation (PPP). Supports five types of teamwork / "swarmed" activity introduced by dependent practices *
Standard (SAP): Status-based full scope activity sequencing using "progression thresholds".
Advanced: Perfect Prioritisation (PP). Extends PPP with SPS, teamwork when progression thresholds breach, and ownership silo removal (optional).
For teammates who cover support all day long, total contribution is known by aggregating all aspects of activity into Flow Metrics. When the six types of swarmed activity are included, teamwork is motivated whenever there is no impending progression breach. Reviews become objective, aligned to working effectively as a team.
Pinpoint Expectations Management
Teams who reach reliability may then have SAP time frame information presented to requesters, dynamically communicating expectations.
User Escalation Management *
Accurate knowledge of chased ticket occurrence is perhaps the best barometer of service health.
In standard or advanced AP, particularly if supported by expectations management, requesters will rarely need to chase, so a service portal can be provisioned to channel all those that still arise, closely rationalised and managed through this practice with two KPI’s that reflect your true ability in meeting needs and expectations.
SLA Breach Prevention *
Timely flow of activity ensures service target warnings are minimal. When they do occur, breach prevention can be achieved through status elevation and team swarming motivated by Contribution Recognition.
Coordinated Customer Contact
Many supported staff are often away from their desk. This practice integrates with SAP and Perfect Prioritisation, and optionally, with your service portal, to ensure that appointment requests, and those that have been arranged, are closely coordinated and met.
Yet another way to reliably meet needs and expectations.
Service Desk Re-involvement & Learning *
New Service Desk team members often make ticket assignment mistakes where either the wrong team is selected, or ticket information is missing. A KPI of Service Desk ability, this practice enables other teams to work seamlessly with a Service Desk who swarm "rejected" tickets for minimal delay, and learn from these mistakes to avoid re-occurrence.
Continual Procedural Improvement
In a team's use of Progression Notes to explain tasks that go beyond your governed maximum work time, and through an integrated Knowledge and Procedural Improvement Register, this ITSM tool app enables six types of “Operational Problem” to be identified and captured, and their removal coordinated, for the path to comprehensively lean ops.
Team Together *
By working on tasks together, reassignment is minimised with this specialised asynchronous collaboration app that has several unique advantages including being whole team based, and integration with CR and your Improvement Register.
Quality & Security Protection
New service team members need close supervision to ensure procedural mistakes are spotted and abridged. This practice enables a team’s designated Inductee Manager to review all inductee activity, with interventions measured so it is known when an inductee is ready to pass probation. This practice also integrates with your Improvement Register.
Progression Automation
By ensuring reminders are promptly received, eliminate service failure that otherwise frequently occurs when a requester is asked for additional information.
"Urgent" ticket swarming *
This practice includes service catalogue and portal integration for organisations wishing to become a Digital Channel Service Desk in which call centre traffic is minimised.