SEM is Agile
In the race for most over-used and abused Marketing-speak, ‘agile’ is gaining rapidly on smart/smarter/intelligent. How can we make Agile customer service real, rather than just facile jargon? Our answer: insure that KANA SEM is Agile, rather than just another technology fluttering aimlessly towards the abstract idea of ‘agility’. To that end, Service Experience Management (SEM) is designed as an Agile Methodology, specially adapted to the problem of managing service experiences.
If you haven’t heard of Agile Scrum, detour here, for one minute. If you have, you know that Agile Scrum has quickly become the standard Agile Method for solving the problem of software development. Scrum arose from extreme frustration with traditional engineering process, and the dysfunction preventing software engineers from satisfying their customers. In 1998, some clear-thinking gurus within the Engineering world got together and said “There has to be a better way to build working code”. And, using Agile Methods as a foundation, the Agile Manifesto emerged. The Manifesto’s lead: “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software”. Like most modern Research and Development (R&D) orgs today, KANA uses Agile Scrum. Like most serious Scrum Teams, we know that agile methods are no panacea. But, we also know that, aided by Scrum-centric technology like Rally, Atlassian, and Perforce, we get better as our DNA becomes more Agile.
In the engineering universe, ‘Agile’ and ‘Scrum’ are virtual synonyms. Although we geeks often see Agile thru engineering eyes, Agile Methods were born in the log cabin of manufacturing and matriculated in the schools of process engineering, long before being re-invented and renewed by the Agile Manifesto. While there are many flavors of Agile Methods, all rest on a simple thesis: process goodness requires constant improvement; constant improvement requires paying attention to feedback; reacting to feedback requires giving power to the people who own the process. Scrum, Lean and SEM are all in the Agile Family, sharing this DNA.
The trouble with common sense ideas is that sometimes obviousness disguises profound and powerful breakthroughs. Engineering teams struggled for decades with the Waterfall, missing deadlines, delivering software no one wanted, ‘freezing’ requirements years in advance of delivery, fighting the dreaded evil of ‘scope creep’. Of course, it was obvious to us all that the Waterfall was roughly as sensible as going over the Niagara Waterfall in a barrel. Scope crept because customers wanted something other than we planned to deliver. The waterfall response – “Gee, that’s scope creep and we don’t allow scope creep, so wait for two more years, and meantime use precisely what you’ve told us you don’t want or need”- rankled for both the customer who received no value and the creator who built what no one wanted. Yet, burn victims from the futile chase of ever-creeping scope, R&D Managers mounted the high horse and haughtily proclaimed that once ‘Design’ was done, “Tough, the ship has sailed” (aka the barrel is over the fall). We wanted to build what customers wanted, but we didn’t know how. Agile swept away the insanity of the Waterfall with one obvious, unbelievably important idea: it’s okay to build the wrong thing. Just do it fast .
As I talk with you, I see how much Agile has and is changing the world of software development. More and more of you are using Agile Scrum to drive I.T. projects, and more and more the sanity of “failing fast” via short sprints is accepted wisdom. But, what of customer service itself? Service Experience Management is nothing but Agile. The core of SEM is Design-Orchestrate-Listen: the technology exists to enable a methodology of rapid development, comprehensive listening and near-instantaneous response to feedback. SEM is meant to be an Agile Method, and the SEM platform is simply the technology necessary for that Method.
Customer Service Managers today are in the same place as Engineering Managers ten years ago. We want to deliver service experiences that work. But, our technology and process stand in the way. Instead of frustrated engineers, we have frustrated agents and managers. Instead of software that can’t change in less than two years, we have experiences that we can’t control at all. Instead of a rigid process that blocked the creation of valuable software, customer service suffers from rigid software that blocks the creation of valuable experiences.
The way forward is Agile. KANA SEM makes Agile the means, and not just the end.
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