by Anne Ramey
At large companies, there are often many internal customers utilizing any solution provided by IT for use in the company; request management is no exception. A phrase I have always used to describe the diverse internal customers working together to agree on requirements, enhancements, etc. for shared components of any particular solution is folks “playing in the sandbox together.” You have folks who play nice, folks who want all the sand toys, folks who like to throw sand, etc..
If you follow this metaphor, then having to share a limited pool of designers/developers/system administrators is like having a limited number of shovels and pails in the sandbox. If you follow this further, the tool the designers are working with is the sand itself.
There are service catalog / request management tools that tout themselves as so easy to use that anyone in the company can use them (departments can set up their own requests, etc)—no technical skills required. These tools represent your basic playground sandbox sand. Pretty much anyone can dig a hole and make a “mountain,” but that’s about all anyone can do with it. Everyone’s results look pretty much the same, and there are simply things (a lot of them) that these tools just can’t do.
On the other hand, Kinetic Request is like sculpting sand. Anyone can build a basic hole and mountain. But there is also the capability, with some about of prep and skill and more work, to end up with a real work of art. You can end up with anything from your basic beach sandcastle to (with proper staff, training, planning, funding, etc) a full life-like medieval castle with accompanying village. It’s all up to what you put into it.
Cassy Lueneburg