How IT service management works and how to kick start the program?

If you are concerned about IT service delivery and its impact to your business – this is for you!

IT service management system (ITSM) practices brings speed and business alignment to the IT service delivery. Implementation of ITSM should result in IT service delivery improvement (I call it speed) by 30-50% if not more.

The journey begins with a simple agreement between business and IT using a service catalogue. Service catalogue is synonymous to any other catalogue that you are aware – it is an outcome of an agreement between an IT  customer (a user group) and a vendor in this case IT team.

ITSM implementation fulfils different stakeholder interests.

For the CEO it means IT organisation is delivering in alignment with business. The implementation of ITSM ensures customer ‘voice’ in designing and delivery of IT services. Customer satisfaction is assured through processes such as Business relationship management. Financial Control is assured through processes such as Budgeting and Accounting.

For the CIO it brings an order to the house. Each service in the service catalogue is aligned with the 15 processes(see below). In fact every time a new service is to be added the CIO or the IT service delivery manager thinks of these 15 processes as part of the service design. Alignment of the IT service delivery to the processes bring robustness and risk control.

Processes such as configuration management database (CMDB) and known error  database (KED) form the foundation of IT delivery. CMDB helps in improving response time for change and release. KED helps in resolving incidents and problem faster.

For the Technical administrator it means alignment with number of good practices of change management, configuration management, release management practices. No more does ‘ i know the technical guy’ so ‘I will get my work done’ – everyone speaks the language of ticket, service, response time and resolution time.

Not sure how to start? Start with your service catalogue – it is the beginning!

ISO 20000 Processess that you pick and chose as applicable for your business

Design and development of new or changed services

Transition of new or changed services

Service level management

Service reporting

Service continuity and availability management

Budgeting and accounting for services

Capacity management

Information security management

Business relationship management

Supplier management

Incident and service request management

Problem management

Configuration management

Change management

Release and deployment management

If you are seeking formal ISO 20000 compliance all the processes apply.

Hope this helps.