Ryoshi

Ryoshi Lean ITSM for Enterprise IT | Transforming your Reactive Support Ticketing into Efficient Service Delivery - without adding tools or headcount.

Subscribe to the Lean ITSM Newsletter here:
https://www.ryoshi.de/en/newsletter/

„Without your help, the result wouldn't be as good.“A client said that to me as a compliment. *proud*Three clients have ...
17/09/2026

„Without your help, the result wouldn't be as good.“

A client said that to me as a compliment. *proud*

Three clients have said different versions of this so far:

- That a project had never been prepared this well here.
- That they are pleasantly surprised by the good preparation.
- That the result wouldn't have been as good without the help.

What none of them praised were the recommendations itself.

That's the part I’d like to highlight. What gets remembered is that the results arrived along with the rationale, checkable, in a form they could directly hand upwards.

I don't recommend or decide anything without rationale - that's a principle of my method.

In practice, it’s the filter of the Improvement Funnel.
We'd only keep working on tasks that pass this filter.

It decides how the rest unfolds.

Felix

P.S.: Want to apply the Improvement Funnel? → Start with an Audit Call, here: lean-itsm.com/audit

Every IT team I meet knows what's broken.Still none of it makes it onto the to-do list.There's a word for knowing what t...
15/09/2026

Every IT team I meet knows what's broken.
Still none of it makes it onto the to-do list.

There's a word for knowing what to do and doing something else.

Akrasia. It refers to the phenomenon of acting against one's better judgment.
Example: people who fully agree that smoking is unhealthy - keep smoking.

This paradox happens in IT service management as well, and it's the one I keep coming back to.

The knowledge is rarely missing. Teams can tell you which process is broken. They can name the queue that never empties and the report that gets created but never read. Ask what should be done about it and you get an accurate answer.

Then the quarter goes somewhere else.

It isn't laziness, and it’s not a lack of will. Two things push against it:

a) The broken process sits in no one's targets.
b) The work that would fix it has no set priority.

So acting on it costs the team something and returns them nothing.

That's why the program starts with the ticket data and not with a workshop. A number in front of a director changes what gets funded → funding is what turns knowing into doing.

Look at your last quarters of improvement items. How many were things the team already knew a quarter earlier? If it’s zero, add one for the next.

Read more tips like this in the Lean ITSM Newsletter: link on top ⤴

Felix

My program carries a promise: if we don't find at least 10% improvement potential in the first 30 days, the first month ...
10/09/2026

My program carries a promise: if we don't find at least 10% improvement potential in the first 30 days, the first month is free.

I’m making that promise because of one sentence, written before the main work starts: The Outcome Sentence

The Outcome Sentence is short: Which service, what should be different in six months, which number in your ticket system will show it, and to whom by when.

Ten minutes to write. It's the cheapest part of the whole engagement, and it's what makes everything after it measurable.

I've seen the other version at more than ten clients:

External help comes in for a new workflow to be implemented. A web-form, the workflow, maybe an automation. The internal time isn't there, nor is the specific skill to do it.

Then it keeps going. One small request after another. The arrangement settles in.

An Outcome Sentence was never written. So at renewal, the only evidence is that the work kept coming and someone is happy how it goes.

Busyness is easy to feel and cheap to report. It also survives a full year in which the service itself got no better.

Nobody did anything wrong there. The spend arrived in small pieces, no single request is big enough to need a business case, and the total is only calculated in the budget sheet.

Write the Outcome Sentence and efforts stop leaking. Six months on, the number either moved or it didn't, and you can argue without a big discussion.

→ It's the same sentence whether the work is done by your team, by any partner, or with me.

I've put it on one page: the four parts, worked examples, and the three shapes that fail. DM me "GOAL" and I'll send it over.

Felix

P.S.: What program?! See it here: lean-itsm.com

A cake worth half a million.That's the obvious measure of many ITSM platform migrations.The go-live cake gets a photo - ...
08/09/2026

A cake worth half a million.

That's the obvious measure of many ITSM platform migrations.

The go-live cake gets a photo - the scope never gets a number.

Celebrating a platform launch is right. A tool migration runs for many months, it's hard work, and the team that's getting it live deserves the recognition and ears the applause.

Then every post and every town hall meeting says the same things:

We went live. We were there. It has been finished. We can afford it.

What's missing from all of them: how much of the planned scope has actually been shipped, what changed for the people using it, and what numbers improved for the company.

A new interface on the same process gives you the same ticket lifetime and service delivery efforts as before.

The screens moved. The work didn't.

At worst-case, the operating overhead increased even further.

That's not the project team failing. Scope gets cut late, under time pressure, and the cuts get agreed in a call and written down in no place the management will look. So a year later, „what did we actually ship“ has no answer anyone can point at.

Do this before the next go-live celebration. Put the planned scope on one page. Put one measured number beside it, one your team already tracks: ticket lifetime, first-contact resolution, reopen rate. Measure the same number again 90 days after launch.

If it hasn't moved, you shipped a new interface and the service stayed where it was.

You employees will only see a cake worth half a million.

Felix (follow me for more service delivery efficiency ⤴)

A year to decide. A year to implement.That was the rhythm of an IT manager I worked with for several years.He was curiou...
03/09/2026

A year to decide. A year to implement.

That was the rhythm of an IT manager I worked with for several years.
He was curious, honest, communicative, and he knew about technology.

Nevertheless, he was not successful.

By the time anything was changed in his department, he already lost the support of his team.

Every idea went through an endless loop. Talking about what could be done. Talking about what should be done. Getting to a decision took close to a year. Getting it done took another year.

Yes, that's an overly dramatic picture, but in some cases that's exactly how it went.

Somewhere in that stretch, one colleague after another gave up on the idea. Not because the ideas were wrong, but because nothing moved fast enough to keep them on track.

Many IT employees seem to love exploring and discussing options because of uncertainty.

I've see this behavior across IT departments in companies of various sizes.

Organizational development for service delivery and support is set on hold.

In order to get things done anyway, some might hire an external consultant. Which gets expensive fast, and the knowledge is lost when the contract ends.

Others might look for a community instead, just to discuss the same problems on repeat. Still, nobody has to actually decide anything.

If that loop sounds familiar, you don't need another meeting. You need people who'll hold you to a decision and make you take action.

These people are the SDM Impact Club. A closed community for any kind of Service Delivery or Service Desk Managers who hold each other to deciding and acting, not discussing.

SDM Club will open in Q4 2026, once the waitlist reaches 100 signups.

Join the waitlist here: sdm-club.com

I’m looking forward to see you there.

Felix

P.S.: Founding members get their first month free.
P.P.S.: You still have questions? Send me a message.

IT employees don't lose their work day on technology only.Tom, an IT professional, wants to make his daily work more eff...
02/09/2026

IT employees don't lose their work day on technology only.

Tom, an IT professional, wants to make his daily work more efficient and is looking for technical solutions to do so. His team colleague Anna, on the other hand, blames the outdated tools. And their manager Frank, he's asking to speed up, to fulfill all the business requirements.

All want to improve their work. All have an idea what to do. All are losing their time somewhere.

Here are six things that prevent IT employees from improving their efficiency:

1. Unfounded priorities: „Just do this first, we need it asap.“
No reason given. No benefits explained.

2. Context-based habits: „Open the tool; click here; check this; do that;“
The context triggers the habit - unquestioned.

3. Unknown impacts: „That's not a big issue at the moment.“
Assuming low impact, while the urgency is rising.

4. Missing statistical figures: „The average looks fine. No trend is visible.“
Average values cover up the underlying patterns.

5. Misunderstandings (communication): „I thought that’s what you meant.“
Assuming that we all share a common understanding.

6. Technical debt: „The tool is too old.“
The only one that's actually technical.

Look at the list again. Five out of six are not about technology.

These five won't shows up in a ticket count. They shows up in overtime, unpredictability, and in good people quietly considering to leave the company.

Now check your IT strategy. Is it mostly people-first or tech-first?

Fix the process before you fix the tool. That's the people-first answer.

I write about exactly this in the Lean ITSM Newsletter: link on top ⤴

Felix

The beach was beautiful. The wastage wasn't.That's why my last vacation left me uneasy.It was an all-inclusive hotel, ri...
01/09/2026

The beach was beautiful. The wastage wasn't.

That's why my last vacation left me uneasy.

It was an all-inclusive hotel, right next to the beach. All meals were served as an open buffet: fresh omelets, fruits, bakery and soft drinks.

I watched people grabbing and stacking all of it onto their plates. When they left, the table looked like a second mini-buffet, still full of food.

I hate to be wasteful. So I hate to see wastage.

On the way home, I started looking for the reasons and studies as evidence.
There are multiple: Habits, excuses, missing price tags and moral licensing.

One reason matters most to me: the environment is designed for waste.
The abundance is staged on purpose, because guests read a full buffet as high quality.

One study proves, that reducing the plate size by only a little cuts food waste by around 20%.

Now, let's apply it to IT services.

Company IT often looks the same way to the employees: all-inclusive, no price tag, invisible consumption - it’s there anyway.

This way, users are unintentionally invited to waste IT resources.

There's one item on most IT service catalogs doing the same job as that buffet plate: no limit, no price, wide open.

I'll show you exactly which one it is, and what replaces it, in my next newsletter.

Subscribe to it here: link on top ⤴

Felix

You didn't skip anything in that training. That's exactly why it failed.A week after the process training, the same ques...
11/08/2026

You didn't skip anything in that training. That's exactly why it failed.

A week after the process training, the same questions came back, about the parts you already explained.

You covered everything. Every step, every exception, every "what if someone asks." The whole department sat through it. There was even a short quiz at the end.

Then days go by and the first questions roll in. On topics you spent 20 minutes explaining, in detail.

Sounds familiar?

Here's what actually happened. You built that training out of the fear that someone would say afterward "nobody told me that." So you packed in everything, just to be safe.

The content was fine. There was just too much of it.

People don't remember everything you tell them.
They remember what's relevant to their day.

So the relevant question isn't "did we cover it all." It's "what does this specific group actually need." A field technician needs the exceptions. A service desk agent needs the escalation paths. Neither needs all the information.

Build your next training around the role, and three things shift:

a) The content becomes a thread people can follow.
b) Nobody gets overwhelmed by irrelevant cases.
c) Follow-up questions drop, because the right people got the right information.

This matters most in large IT organizations, juggling a dozen roles and just as many process variants. That's exactly where covering everything backfires.

Read more on building service operations that hold up under complexity in my Lean ITSM Newsletter: Link on top ⤴

How my 2nd level support team went back on track.We had to cut the average incident lifetime in half.Not the way you are...
04/08/2026

How my 2nd level support team went back on track.

We had to cut the average incident lifetime in half.

Not the way you are thinking.

There was no new tool. There was no new headcount.

Ask an IT leader what it takes to get there, and you'll answers like:

– Hire more people or outsource.
– Run a big automation program.
– Execute a consolidation project.

All three need budget, a business case, and a year of your work life.

So the work never starts.

The team keeps handling the escalations and everyone gets used to it.

Here is an alternative - four steps - no purchase order:

1. Collect all of the possible causes.
Not only the popular one - all of them. Ask the people who resolve those tickets every day. They already know. Likely nobody ever asked them properly.

2. Turn each cause into a sentence.
„Tickets that get reassigned too often.“
„Information is missing in the tickets.“
„Too many requests for information.“
Write them down. Aim for more than ten.

3. Test each one against your ticket data.
Most of them won’t be confirmed. That’s the useful part.
Some will be confirmed, and these are worth changing.

4. Change how those specific tickets get handled.
Then tell everyone what changed and why.
The telling matters as much as the change itself.

That was the whole intervention we did.
Average incident lifetime dropped by half.
Escalations stopped.

It's what I call the Improvement Funnel.

Why does it work?

Delay is not spread evenly across your queue. It sits in a few specific places - we call it 'factors'. Most teams never look, because they assume the answer is either beyond control or too expensive.

You can copy this. Schedule a one hour workshop for steps 1 for tomorrow.

Before you start, find out what that delay is already costing you. The RCA ROI Calculator turns it into a euro figure your CFO will respond to: https://www.ryoshi.de/rca-roi/

In a factory, 1000 defects a month starts an investigation.In IT, it starts a monthly report.Picture a production line.T...
30/07/2026

In a factory, 1000 defects a month starts an investigation.
In IT, it starts a monthly report.

Picture a production line.

The plant manager asks how the week went. The line manager says:
"Strong week. We handled 3 outages and produced 186 faulty parts."
He would not get any praise. He would get a root cause analysis.

In IT we do the opposite:

We count incidents handled. We put the number in a report.
And the teams learns exactly what get’s measured.

More incidents means more visible work.
More visible work means more value.

Nobody says that out loud, yet everybody feels it.

But every incident is still a failure. It adds no value.

That’s necessary work - not productive work - and never a priority you want to grow.

Three numbers that actually show productivity instead:

1. Standard services delivered. How much of the month was planned, repeatable, designed work? That is real output.

2. Automation rate. How much of that standard work ran without a person touching it? At one construction client we moved from 11% to 33%. Same tool. Same team.

3. Incident trend. Which team has fewer incidents this month than last? This number proves something actually got fixed.

You don’t get better service by handling failures faster.
You get better service by producing less failures.

Do this today: open your last service report. Count how many numbers describe failures handled, and how many describe actual delivery work that was designed. In most of the reports I’ve see, the former is more common.

Then find out what these failures are costing you, with the RCA ROI Calculator: https://www.ryoshi.de/rca-roi/

Which number does your management ask for? 💬

--

P.S.: Rebuilding that measurement set is week one of our IT Service Turnaround Program. If you want to do it together, send me a message.

Adresse

Aidlingen
71134

Telefon

+4970349424200

Website

, ,

Benachrichtigungen

Erfahren Sie als Erste/r von Neuigkeiten und Aktionen: Wir schicken Ihnen eine E-Mail, wenn Ryoshi etwas veröffentlicht. Ihre E-Mail-Adresse wird für keinen anderen Zweck verwendet, und Sie können sich jederzeit abmelden.

Service Kontaktieren

Nachricht an Ryoshi senden:

Verknüpfungen

Teilen

Kategorie