Information Technology Consulting

Improve IT services.  Address all aspects of the life cycle of delivering IT services.  Execute agile process.  Integrate new cloud technologies,  Raise customer satisfaction.  Improve staff.  Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) and the best practices of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) help to stabilize, improve, and economize the way that an IT organization manages its offerings.  We employ ITIL, ISO 20000, ISO 33071 and other bodies of knowledge.  Example tasks include: 

• Staff training and coaching
• Assessment
• Planning
• Service Management program Implementation
• Program management
• ITSM tool platforms (ServiceNow)
• IT Service Catalog design and implementation

Every organization needs a strong and relevant strategic plan even if they've gotten along without one.  A good planning process guides tactical planning, project planning, and operational management.   The planning process must provide value and not just lead to a useless document sitting on a shelf.  We excel at quickly diagnosing an organizational situation, talking to the right people, and leading the organization to the creation of plans that have an impact.  Examples of our support include the following tasks: 

• Facilitation of strategic planning workshops
• Review of existing  plans and materials
• Authoring of new strategic plans (draft and/or final)
• Orchestration and facilitation of planning iterations
• Development and management of a comprehensive on-going planning cycle (with bottoms-up and/or top-down paths)

Need to consider or secure managed service providers to provide IT services?  Whether you are outsourcing for the first time, or looking to switch vendors, Holmes and Associates can bring the expert assistance to guide you through your transformation and transition.  

For Kaman Corporation, we not only advised on the completion of a transition to a new provider, but Kirk Holmes served as the interim leader of the IT function to ensure that the transition could happen while the IT organization continued to deliver services and meet business needs.   We helped design the new organization, select the managed service partner, and craft a new IT leadership.  During a very difficult transition, Kirk also oversaw the massive and unprecedented shift a remote workforce during a pandemic and ensured the IT organization could support the office workers and production floor workers during this shift while still completing the outsourcing process. 

Holmes and Associates will optimize and improve the service desk, one of the most critical functions in any IT organization.  The Sevice Desk (or Help Desk) delivers end-user support that the user community sees as the face of IT.  Improve the Service Desk and customers will feel they are receiving greater value.  We employ best practices and decades of hands-on experience to coach existing management, coach staff, train employees, create new processes, and specify the improvement of tools.   

Holmes and Associates led a massive improvement of the 100-person service desk servicing over 2 million end users for the U.S. Army.  Quantified improvements included saving millions of dollars in handling of tickets, decreasing ticket handling times, and decreasing costs while also increasing service quality.  

Money talks. Internal and external customers always demand more service and expect lower costs or prices for the same level of services.  Achieving those goals is hard to do.  If you don't have a strong financial program, there is almost a guarantee that there are significant opportunities that have been left on the table. 

• Reduce Costs
• Improve efficiencies
• Optimize pricing models for internal or external customers

Understand what you do or make for your external customers, how much it costs, how much it should cost, and how much it could cost.   We'll help you get there with knowledge and certainty so that you can make the right decisions on reductions and new investments.  

Good program managers and project managers can change the trajectory of an organization.  Our principal consultants can manage programs and projects of almost any size and complexity.  We employ proven processes based on PMBOK and accepted industry standards.  We can operate in classic traditional models or in more modern agile models.  

• Management of large, complex programs, small agile projects, and mixtures of both
• Management across all disciplines, functional areas, and across the entire enterprise
• Independent oversight and review of existing projects and programs