{"id":5718,"date":"2016-03-01T19:36:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T19:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multiacademstg.wpengine.com\/20000academy\/?p=5718"},"modified":"2025-07-07T08:37:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T08:37:00","slug":"how-to-translate-itiliso-20000-language-into-business-language-understandable-by-your-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/how-to-translate-itiliso-20000-language-into-business-language-understandable-by-your-management\/","title":{"rendered":"How to translate ITIL\/ISO 20000 language into business language understandable by your management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Involvement of your management during <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-itil\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ITIL<\/a>\u00a0or <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-iso-20000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ISO 20000<\/a>\u00a0implementation is \u2013 unavoidable. Sometimes you will need a (implementation) project budget and sometimes you will need a sponsor (your \u201cpolitical\u201d patron inside the organization). Whatever the reason, talking to them is not the same as talking to your colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>Why is that so? Your colleagues understand your language \u2013 meaning, the vocabulary you are using. So, you will not have to explain to them that changes must be managed if further incidents are to be avoided and therewith service unavailability.<\/p>\n<h2>It\u2019s not as complex as you think<\/h2>\n<p>If you think about the situation \u2013 talking to your management shouldn\u2019t be complicated. Namely, they are also just people working in a certain environment and who use a certain language. And, from my experience, it\u2019s easier for someone working in IT Service Management (ITSM) to adapt to management\u2019s vocabulary than vice versa. If they would try to come to the ITSM level \u2026 well, I\u2019m sure it would take some time (to be clear \u2013 because of the complexity and specifics of the wording).<br \/>\n<div id=\"middle-banner\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><script>loadMiddleBanner();<\/script><br \/>\n<div id=\"side-banner-trigger\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><br \/>\nSo, let\u2019s see how best to use communication to approach them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Business language<\/strong> \u2013 do you expect management to understand what a <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=service-design-build-and-transition-processes&amp;doc=request-for-change-and-change-record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Request for Change (RfC)<\/a> must contain? Or, what\u2019s the difference between\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=resolution-and-fulfillment-processes&amp;doc=incident-record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">incidents<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=resolution-and-fulfillment-processes&amp;doc=problem-record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">problems<\/a>? Or, what the Known Error Database (KEDB) is? Your managers usually don\u2019t even understand IT roles (who does what) and the scope of their activities. Basically, there are two types of managers: the ones who understand (at least) something from IT, and the ones who don\u2019t have a clue about it. From my experience, it\u2019s hard to talk to both of them. Those in the first category think that they are able to see all realistic options and make decisions (which is usually not the case \u2013 they just know what\u2019s on the \u201csurface\u201d). Those in the second category \u2013 maybe you should not expect to make them understand everything in your first attempt. But, whatever the type, you can approach them in three steps:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Explain the problem (from a business point of view).<\/li>\n<li>Explain the options or what your competitors do.<\/li>\n<li>Explain your recommendation and the reasoning for it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In such a way, you will make sure that they are aware of all necessary facts needed to make a sound decision.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Benefits easily explained<\/strong> \u2013 this should be strong. If they don\u2019t see benefits \u2013 why would they give you the budget? Benefits go in both directions, inside the company (internal) as well as outside the company (external). External benefits are \u201ceasy\u201d \u2013 e.g., fewer <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=relationship-and-agreement-processes&amp;doc=service-level-agreement-sla-\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SLA<\/a>\u00a0breaches, an increase in customer satisfaction, customer acceptance signed \u2026 etc. But, internal ones are, sometimes, not that obvious. Take, for example, employees\u2019 (who are part of the IT Service Management team) satisfaction. On one extreme there is a chaotic organization (no processes or roles\/responsibilities in place), and on the other side there is an organization with mature processes and respective organization. I know that there are some people who do well in chaos, but what I found out is that most of the employees like a managed environment. And, most interesting, internal efficiency shows on the outside. Believe me: customers will notice an inefficient internal organization.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fact based<\/strong> \u2013 facts, facts, and facts. This is maybe your strongest weapon. There is nothing more that managers like than provable facts. And, if you combine them with the two previous arguments (i.e., explain the benefit those facts present, but explain it in easy-to-understand language) \u2013 \u201cthe whole world is yours.\u201d \u00a0Particular care should be taken when explaining what\u2019s important. For example, information security is always a good topic, but it has to be presented effectively (e.g., potential loss of clients\u2019 data hosted on our servers). Again, try using words that management understands.<\/p>\n<p>And, one more thing. There is no recipe to tell you how to communicate with your management. After all, whenever the situation includes people \u2013 nothing is certain. Everyone has their own individual personalities, etc.<\/p>\n<h2>You can\u2019t live without them<\/h2>\n<p>And \u2013 that\u2019s a hard fact. You can have the best intentions, underpinned with a reasonable ITSM implementation need (ITIL or ISO 20000), but if you don\u2019t have your management\u2019s support \u2013 it\u2019s worth almost nothing. OK, I agree \u2013 it could be a hard job to talk to them and get their support, certainly, the first time around. But, you will see, every new try will give you more practical experience and sharpen your communication (i.e., managerial) skills. And, you know what? That\u2019s quite useful in your daily job as well. I would say \u2013 you\u2019re killing two birds with one stone.<\/p>\n<p><em>To implement ISO 20000 easily and efficiently, use our<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ISO 20000 Documentation Toolkit<\/a> <em>that provides step-by-step guidance for full ISO 20000 compliance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Involvement of your management during ITIL\u00a0or ISO 20000\u00a0implementation is \u2013 unavoidable. Sometimes you will need a (implementation) project budget and sometimes you will need a sponsor (your \u201cpolitical\u201d patron inside the organization). Whatever the reason, talking to them is not the same as talking to your colleagues. Why is that so? Your colleagues understand your &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":17389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[454,400,366,344,212],"class_list":["post-5718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-communication","tag-implementation","tag-iso-20000","tag-itil","tag-management"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5718"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18549,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5718\/revisions\/18549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}