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The outcomes that customers want to achieve are the reason why they
purchase or use a service. Typically this will be expressed as a specific business
objective (e.g. to enable customers of a bank to perform all transactions and
account management activities online or to deliver state services to citizens in a
cost-effective manner). The value of the service to the customer is directly
dependent on how well a service facilitates these outcomes. Although the
enterprise retains responsibility for managing the overall costs of the business,
they often wish to devolve responsibility for owning and managing defined
aspects to an internal or external entity that has acknowledged expertise in the
area. This is a generic concept that applies to the purchase of any service.
Consider financial planning. As a customer, we recognize that we don’t have the
expertise, or the time, or the inclination to handle all the day-to-day decisionmaking
and management of individual investments that are required. Therefore,
we engage the services of a professional manager to provide us a service. As
long as their performance delivers a value (increasing wealth) at a price that we
believe is reasonable, we are happy to let them invest in all the necessary
systems and processes that are needed for the wealth creation activities. In the
past, service providers often focused on the technical (supply side) view
of what constituted a service, rather than on the consumption side. Hence
it was not unusual for the service provider and the consumer to have different
definitions and perceptions of what services were provided, or for the provider to
know all about the cost of individual components, but not the total cost of a
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service that the consumer understood.
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defined six overall levels of I&O maturity, with the following objectives for each
level:
Level 0, Survival — Little to no focus on IT infrastructure and operations.
Level 1, Awareness — Realization that infrastructure and operations are critical
to the business; beginning to take actions (in people/organization, process and
technologies) to gain operational control and visibility.
Level 2, Committed — Moving to a managed environment, for example, for
day-to-day IT support processes and improved success in project management
to become more customer-centric and increase customer satisfaction.
Level 3, Proactive — Gaining efficiencies and service quality through
standardization, policy development, governance structures and implementation
of proactive, cross-departmental processes, such as change and release
management.
Level 4, Service-Aligned — Managing IT like a business; customer-focused;
proven, competitive and trusted IT service provider.
Level 5, Business Partnership — Trusted partner to the business for
increasing the value and competitiveness of business processes, as well as the
business as a whole.
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Another important aspect of an IT maturity model is the need for a rapid ROI.
Because of the rate of technology change, the change in business requirements
and operational processes, and the need for new skills and collaboration
methods, IT projects that require many years of implementation and expect a
long-term ROI inevitably fail, as tools change or goals shift. An IT maturity model
must provide for smaller steps, implementable in no more than two or three
years, that generate measurable, rapid ROI.
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As a strategic facet of the business, IT must be flexible and agile o support the
rapid change and growths in business models. The challenge is to increase
agility and responsiveness to business requirements while reducing costs and
improving efficiency – essentially to “do more with less”.
The right approach to service management can help organizations achieve
customer orientation and innovation while driving greater efficiency.
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A service model may include:
• process maps;
• workflow diagrams;
• queuing models;
• activity patterns.
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Whether services are being provided by an internal unit of the organisation or
contracted to an external agency, all services should be driven solely by
business needs and judged by the value that they provide to the organisation.
Decision-making therefore rests with the business. Within this context, services
must also reflect the defined strategies and policies of the service provider
organisation, which is particularly significant for external providers.
This Figure illustrates how the service lifecycle is initiated from a change in
requirements at the business level. These new or changed requirements are
identified and agreed at the service strategy stage and documented. Each of
these ‘packages’ will have an associated defined set of business outcomes.
The package is passed to the service design stage where a service solution is
produced, defining everything necessary to take this service through the
remaining stages of the lifecycle. Solutions may be developed internally or
consist of bought-in components that are integrated internally.
The design definition is passed to the service transition stage, where the service
is built, evaluated, tested, validated and transitioned into the live environment,
where it enters the live service operation stage. The transition phase is also
responsible for supporting the service in its early life and the phasing out of any
services that are no longer required.S
ervice operation focuses on providing effective and efficient operational services
to deliver the required business outcomes and value to the customer. This is
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where any value is actually delivered and measured.
Continual service improvement identifies opportunities for improvement (which
may arise anywhere within any of the lifecycle stages) based on measurement
and reporting of the efficiency, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and compliance
of the services themselves, the technology that is in use and the service
management processes used to manage these components. Although the
measurements are taken during the operational phase, improvements may be
identified for any phase of the lifecycle.
THE DEMING CYCLE
The objective is continual service improvement. This relates to the services
provided by the organization and also to the processes used to deliver those
services. The Deming Cycle may be used to improve, for example, an online
ordering service or the service level management process within an organization.
KEY ACTIVITIES
The integration of the Plan–Do–Check–Act cycle with the seven-step
improvement process identifies the activities of each stage as follows:
Plan1. Identify the strategy for improvement.2. Define what you will measure.
Do3. Gather the data.4. Process the data.
Check5. Analyse the information and data.6. Present and use the information.
Act7. Implement improvement.
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A. The ability to provide data and information that is both timely and accurate is
a critical criterion. Critical particularly for IPC (incident, Problem, Change),
Release and Configuration Management. Highlight CMDB (Configuration
Management Database) – many IT Processes and functions rely on CMDB
data.
B. CMDB accuracy – data quality and completeness!
C. Notice – completeness includes the ability to continuously aaa new
capabilities and improved functionality.
D. Can be described as applying an ITSM service model to use cases beyond
IT to include Business Services in “horizontal” perspective (i.e. HR, Facilities,
Field Services etc.). Such and expanded perspective greatly assists in
enabling all the benefits provided by automation and end-to-end integration
as applied to Business Services and associated processes.
E. ….
F. The percentage of scheduled operational time that the service in question is
operational.
G. When operations of the service become unavailable it becomes critically
important to restore availability as rapidly as possible. The time from when
Operational Availability is lost go the time it is restored is known as Time to
Recover (or Recovery Speed).
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H. Visualization often presents itself as graphically oriented displays and
dashboards. It enables not just effective reporting but also improved insights
that help organizations identify and address problems or potential problems
sooner. Performance Analytics include KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
and metrics visualization that are related to any service management process
and derived from Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
I. Usability – in relation to SW tools of Service Management
J. Productivity or the efficiency of any effort is a critical success factor for all
operations.
K. NO two customers are the same. Extensibility represents the ability for a
system capability to be customized or localized for the particular and unique
requirements of each customer’s environment. Discovery functionality plays a
key role within any ITSM solution.
L. The term compliance describes the ability to act according to an order, set of
rules or request. Compliance assurance is a very costly effort when done
reactively and out-of-compliance penalties can have dramatically negative
financial legal impact.
M. Automation in this context is that the ITSM solution mimizes the amount of
manual (human) interaction or control and instead works based on its own
processes and functionality – e.g. cognitive solution etc. Automation of
technical, administrative and management processes from service request to
configuration changes to any repetitive task is cornerstone of any viable
ITSM service solution. There is also a strong connection between Automation
of processes and the assumed, integrated quality of the database or CMDB.
Automation is also important for the overall cost-effectiveness of any operatio
from a cost of the workforce perspective. Most if not all of the key ITSM
attributes described above are generally enhanced through use of Automated
systems.
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• Gartner recongises other “types” of IT Governance too : IT demand
governance (ITDG—what IT should work on) is the process by which
organizations ensure the effective evaluation, selection, prioritization, and
funding of competing IT investments; oversee their implementation; and
extract (measurable) business benefits. ITDG is a business investment
decision-making and oversight process, and it is a business management
responsibility. IT supply-side governance (ITSG—how IT should do what it
does) is concerned with ensuring that the IT organization operates in an
effective, efficient and compliant fashion, and it is primarily a CIO
responsibility.
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one of the IT Governance goals is to align with the business objectives defined
by the Enterprise Governance. These high-level organizational goals and
objectives are used as
input to derive goals, objectives and performance metrics needed to manage IT
effectively. At the same time, the auditing processes are put in place in order to
measure and analyze the performance of the organization. Conceptually, the
process can be seen as an “IT results chain”. Recursively, ITSM, its people,
processes and technologies manage and control the IT services and the IT
infrastructure according to the objective received from the governance. Another
IT results chain is design to link ITSM with the service and infrastructure.
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The proprietary knowledge of enterprises and individuals is usually customized
for the local context and specific business needs of an organization. It may only
be available to a wider market under commercial terms and may be poorly
documented and hard to extract. If embedded within individuals it may not be
documented at all.
Enterprises deploying solutions based on good and best practice should, in
theory, have an optimal and unique solution. Their solution may include ideas
that are gradually adopted by other enterprises and, having been widely
accepted, eventually become recognized inputs to good and best practice.
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Enterprises operating in dynamic environments need to improve their
performance and maintain competitive advantage. Adopting practices in
industry-wide use can help to improve capability. The term ‘best practice’
generally refers to the ‘best possible way of doing something’. As a concept, it
was first raised as long ago as 1919, but it was popularized in the 1980s through
Tom Peters’ books on business management.
The idea behind best practice is that one creates a specification for what is
accepted by a wide community as being the best approach for any given
situation. Then, one can compare actual job performance against these best
practices and determine whether the job performance was lacking in quality
somehow. Alternatively, the specification for best practices may need updating to
include lessons learned from the job performance being graded. Enterprises
should not be trying to ‘implement’ any specific best practice, but adapting and
adopting it to suit their specific requirements. In doing this, they may also draw
upon other sources of good practice, such as public standards and frameworks,
or the proprietary knowledge of individuals and other enterprises. More recently,
the ITIL framework has offered a supplementary list
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1972: IBM starts research on quality service delivery called Information Systems
Management Architecture (ISMA).
1980: IBM publishes Volume I of the IBM Management series titled "A
management System for the Information Business", first public edition of
ISMA.
1986: CCTA authorizes a program to develop a common set of operational
guidance with the objective of increasing efficiencies in Government IT.
1988: "Government Infrastructure Management Method (GITMM)", is formalized
and issued as 'guidelines' for Government IT operations in the UK focused on
Service Level Management. Same year, the development team was expanded
and work continued on Cost, Capacity, and Availability.
1989: GITMM title is inadequate. It is not a method, (last M), and it should lose
its G letter in order to be marketable out of government. Renamed to ITIL.
1989: First 'ITIL' book published, Service Level Management, then Help Desk
(incorporating the concepts of Incident Management), Contingency Planning,
and Change Management. Books had 50-70 pages.
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1990: Problem Management, Configuration Management and Cost
Management for IT Services published.
1991: Published - Software Control & Distribution, on 89 pages.
1992: Availability Management, 69 pages.
1996: (July) First ITIL Service Manager class delivered in US by US company,
ITSMI, 16 attended, 10 candidates, nine passes, one distinction, first US
company authorized as an ITIL accredited course provider - ITSMI.
1997: Customer focused update to the Service Level Management book, 106
pages.
1997: ITIMF legally becomes what we know today as the IT Service
Management Forum (itSMF UK).
2000: Service Support V2 published, 306 pages.
2001: Service Delivery V2 published, 376 pages.
2001: CCTA became a part of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC)
2002: Application Management, 158 pages, Planning to Implement IT
Service Management, 208 pages and ICT Infrastructure Management, 283
pages, published.
2003: Software Asset Management, 146 pages, published.
2004: Business Perspective: The IS View on Delivering Services to the
Business, published, 180 pages.
2006: (June) ITIL Glossary V2 published
2006: (June) APM Group Limited announced as preferred bidder of ITIL
accreditation & certification program, over the itSMF International (expectant
winner)
2007: (May) ITIL V3 five core books published.
2011: (July) ITIL 2011 update published.
Let's analyse this timeline a bit:
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ITIL V1 was rather similar to IBM's ISMA, especially in support/delivery domain.
Core ITIL V2 books did not differ much from ITIL V1. Only a few processes were
altered slightly, but the focus and perspective was pretty much unchanged. And
this process lasted for some 20 years.
ITIL V3 approximately doubled the scope, almost tripled the number of
processes and functions and introduced a few new dimensions and perspectives.
We have the first set of core books now, but a lot of time will be needed to
develop all the complementary books, to groom and mature the training
materials and to polish best implementation practices.
ITIL 2011 books grew 57% in weight and 46% in number of pages due to rewrite
and redesign (larger font).
RELATED MATERIAL
Apart from the ISO/IEC 20000 standard, ITIL is also complementary to many
other standards, frameworks and approaches. No one of these items will provide
everything that an enterprise will wish to use in developing and managing their
business. The secret is to draw on them for their insight and guidance as
appropriate. Among the many such complementary approaches are:
Balanced scorecard: A management tool developed by Dr Robert Kaplan and Dr
David Norton. A balanced scorecard enables a strategy to be broken down into
key performance indicators (KPIs). Performance against the KPIs is used to
demonstrate how well the strategy is being achieved. A balanced scorecard has
four major areas, each of which are considered at different levels of detail
throughout the organisation.
COBIT: Control OBjectives for Information and related Technology provides
guidance and best practice for the management of IT processes. COBIT is
published by the IT Governance Institute.
CMMI-SVC: Capability Maturity Model Integration is a process improvement
approach that gives organisations the essential elements for effective process
improvement. CMMI-SVC is a variant aimed at service establishment,
management and delivery.
EFQM: The European Foundation for Quality Management is a framework for
organisational management systems.
eSCM–SP: eSourcing Capability Model for Service Providers is a framework to
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help IT service providers develop their IT service management capabilities from
a service sourcing perspective.
ISO 9000: A generic quality management standard, with which ISO/IEC 20000 is
aligned.
ISO/IEC 19770: Software Asset Management standard, which is aligned with
ISO/IEC 20000.
ISO/IEC 27001: ISO Specification for Information Security Management. The
corresponding code of practice is ISO/IEC 17799.
Lean: a production practice centred around creating more value with less work.
PRINCE2: The standard UK government methodology for project management.
SOX: the Sarbanes–Oxley framework for corporate governance.
Six Sigma: a business management strategy, initially implemented by Motorola,
which today enjoys widespread application in many sectors of industry.
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According to the survey, there is a noticeable difference in the number of
business drivers each type of organization can satisfy. Restated from Figure 22
in the Forbes Insights survey, here are the most important business drivers
listed for less advanced ITSM organizations (by percentage reported for each
business driver) versus the percentages that more advanced ITSM
organizations reported.
The most interesting thing is that there are only two business drivers (cost
reduction and minimizing risk) that less advanced ITSM organizations reported
more often than more advanced ITSM organizations. Conversely, the other
seven business drivers were reported more often for more advanced ITSM
organizations versus less advanced ITSM organizations. And two of the
business drivers were reported at a significantly higher rate for more advanced
organizations (i.e., increasing operational efficiency at a 52% difference and
increasing employee productivity at a 16% difference).
The lesson we can draw here is that less advanced ITSM organizations are
mostly concerned with the starter business drivers of ITSM (employee
productivity, cost reduction, minimizing risk, moving to a digital enterprise, etc.)
and in fewer business drivers overall. More advanced organizations are also
concerned with these items, but in much higher numbers. In short, the longer an
organization runs an ITSM environment and the more centered ITSM
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implementation is around the entire enterprise and its competitive strategy, the
more business drivers it can satisfy within that environment.
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There’s a similar difference when you look at the ITSM benefits incurred
between less advanced and more advanced ITSM organizations. Restated from
Figure 24 of the Forbes Insight survey, here are the top ITSM benefits
experienced for less advanced ITSM organizations versus more advanced
organizations.
Here the differences are more stark. In four out of six benefit categories, more
advanced ITSM organizations are experiencing benefits at a greater level than
less advanced ITSM organizations. And most of the differences are in double
digits.
The finding here is clear. More advanced ITSM companies experience more
benefits than less advanced organizations.
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The term ‘best practice’ generally refers to the ‘best possible way of doing
something’. As a concept, it was first raised as long ago as 1919, but it was
popularised in the 1980s through Tom Peters’ books on business
management.The idea behind best practice is that one creates a specification
for what is accepted by a wide community as being the best approach for any
given situation. Then, one can compare actual job performance against these
best practices and determine whether the job performance was lacking in quality
somehow. Alternatively, the specification for best practices may need updating to
include lessons learned from the job performance being graded.Enterprises
should not be trying to ‘implement’ any specific best practice, but adapting and
adopting it to suit their specific requirements. In doing this, they may also draw
upon other sources of good practice, such as public standards and frameworks,
or the proprietary knowledge of individuals and other enterprises.
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