ITIL is not an out of the box set of policies or procedures you implement and bam, your set. Its a framework which companies embrace and through this framework create best practices for your organization.
It’s important for companies to fully document, publish and maintain standards, policies, procedures, guidelines, roles & responsibilities, service level agreements, operating level agreements, etc. in order to maintain and improve the quality and availability of services offered to customers. Lack of published, updated and followed documentation is one of the key reasons the quality of business services are impacted and customers experience frustration.
Every company experiences outages due to bad code, failed patch, human error, vendor, etc., however the duration of the impact and the effectiveness to recover the impacted business services are directly related to well oiled and understood processes, procedures, roles & responsibilities, service level agreements, operating level agreements, etc. Knowing what to do, when to do it and who is responsible is critical during a crisis. Lack of published or updated documentation creates chaos, confusion and lack of accountability which will ultimately impact you business customer. Customers purchase services from your company with the expectation the service will be available when they need it. Further, customers will quickly jump to another service provider if they get frustrated with your inability to provide continuous high quality services on demand.
ITIL is a framework focusing around ensuring you have established tools in place to support services offered. The entire methodology focuses around service and the service management lifecycle: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Operation, Service Transition, and Continual Service Improvement. Within each defined area there are several functions, roles and processes supporting the overall concept which you will need to standup in your organization. For example, within Service Delivery, you will see categories such as Capacity Management, Service Level Management, etc. Additionally, IT Organizations will identify roles and responsibilities through the creation of a deliverable called a RACI or ARCI document which is used to clarify who is involved or is a player for that process. RACI or ARCI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed.
A service is a means of delivering value to a customer (internal or external) through the delivery of outcomes customers desire without the ownership of cost or risk. So basically a service is value delivered to customers, such as “make a payment.” As a customer I expect that service to function properly when I want to make an online payment for a product the company offers. Now that we know the ITIL definition of a service, its important to fully understand Service Management. Service Management is a set of specialized capabilities for providing value to a customer in the form of services. This is accomplished through processes, functions, roles, etc. used to manage these services throughout the ITIL lifecycle. The effectiveness of managing your service management lifecycle is critical for a successful delivery of business services to your customers.
As companies begin the journey to implement the ITIL framework, you will create a deliverable called an organizational matrix for each area within the ITIL lifecycle. For example, within Service Delivery, you will create a matrix indicating which functions, processes or roles an IT organization will participate in defining. So, the Service Desk will participate in standing up the Incident Management process. Through out this process, you will further define Process Owners and Service Owners. So, you will have one person own the Incident Management process and its their responsibility to ensure the process is optimized, documented, followed. They further own the quality of the service and will work directly with the Service Owner to ensure the delivery of the service to the customer. The Service Owner is responsible for the delivery of the service and will interact with the process owner throughout the service management lifecycle from Strategy to Implementation and Continual Service Improvement. The Service Owner is responsible for ensuring technology, OLA’s, IT processes, etc. are in place to support the SLA for the service.
As companies define their service offerings, they will create guiding principles for each service. This document will include a Principle Statement, Rationale and Implications which area agreed to by the process owner and business. This document helps clearly define and clarify the service value. The creation of these documents takes time and a lot of input from impacted organizations.
Once you have defined a service, created a principles document, define SLA’s and identified service owners, you need to create a service catalog. The service catalog is the key deliverable you will use to manage to your service offerings. This is your bible or go-to when you have a question about the service.
Companies will take the service catalog and continue to work through the ITIL framework and standup or refine the processes outlines within each Service Management lifecycle area.
Service Strategy:
- Service Portfolio Management
- Financial Management
- Business Relationship
- Demand Management
Service Design:
- Service Catalog Management
- Service Level Management
- Availability Management
- Capacity Management
- Continuity Management
- Crisis Management
- Security Management
- Supplier Management
Service Transition:
- Change Management
- Release & Deployment Management
- Service Asset & Configuration Management
- Service Knowledge Management
- Service Validation & Testing
- Transition Planning & Supporting
Service Operation:
- Incident Management
- Problem Management
- Request Fulfillment
- Event Management
- Access Management
- Storage Management
Continual Service Improvement:
- Service Reporting
- Service Measurement
- Performance Management
- Quality Management
