IT service Value System

SVS ensures  that the organization continually co-creates value

with all stakeholders through the use and management of products
and services

SVS Components

1. Guiding Principles
2. Governance
3. Service Value Chain
4. Practices
5. Continual Improvement
Characteristics of SVS

SVS represents  How various components and activities of an

organization work together to provide value creation through IT
enabled services

SVS  Provides strong, unified, value based direction to an

organization

1. Coordination of components and activities of organization

2. Multiple combination of components and activities
3. Integration of teams, authority and responsibility
4. Can be combined in multiple value streams
5. Enhances flexibility and discourages siloes working
6. Supports approaches like Agile, DevOps and Lean
7. Can be whole organization or a smaller subset of that organization

For an organization to be successful

1. Achieve organizational agility to support internal changes

2. Achieve organizational resilience to withstand and even thrive

in changing external circumstances

3. Understand its role as part of a larger ecosystem of organizations,

all delivering, coordinating, and consuming products and services
Achieve organizational resilience to withstand and even thrive in
changing external circumstances
Organizational Agility

The ability of an organization to move and adapt quickly, flexibly,

and decisively to support internal changes

These internal changes include

 Changes to scope of the organization

 Mergers and acquisitions
 Changing organizational practices
 Technologies requiring different skills
 Organizational structure
 Changes to relationships with partners and suppliers

Organizational Resilience

The ability of an organization to anticipate, prepare for, respond to,

and adapt to both incremental changes and sudden disruptions from
an external perspective

These external changes include

Political
Economic
Social
Technological
Legal
Environmental

Resilience cannot be achieved without a common understanding of the

organization’s priorities and objectives, which sets the direction and
promotes alignment even as external circumstances change.
Service Value Chain

 Service Value Chain  The central element of the Service Value

System.

 Service Value Chain include  Third party resources, processes,

skills and competencies, from one or more practices

 It represents an operating model which outlines the key activities

required to respond to demand and facilitate value realization through
the creation and management of products and services.

 The value chain activities represent  the steps an organization takes

in the creation of value

 Each activity contributes to the value chain by transforming

specific inputs into outputs

 These inputs could be demand from outside the value chain or

outputs of other activities

 Thus, the activities are connected to, and interact with, one another

Service Value Chain Activities

1. Plan
2. Improve
3. Engage
4. Design & Transition
5. Obtain / build
6. Delivery & Support

Plan
To ensure a shared understanding of the vision, current status, and
improvement direction for all four dimensions and all products and
services across the organization

Inputs

 Policies, requirements, and constraints provided by the organization’s

governing body

 Consolidated demands and opportunities

 Value chain performance information and improvement initiatives

 Improvement status reports

 Knowledge about new and changed products and services

 Knowledge about third-party service components

Outputs

 Strategic, tactical, and operational plans

 Portfolio decisions

 Architectures and policies

 Improvement opportunities

 Product and service portfolio

 Contract and agreement requirements

Improve
To ensure continual improvement of products, services, and
practices across all value chain activities and the four dimensions of
service management

Inputs

 Product and service performance information provided

 Stakeholders’ feedback

 Performance information and improvement opportunities

 Knowledge about new and changed products and services

 Knowledge about third-party service components

Outputs

 Improvement initiatives and plans

 Improvement status reports

 Value chain performance information

 Service performance information

 Contract and agreement requirements

Engage

To provide a good understanding of stakeholder needs,

transparency, and continual engagement and good relationships with
all stakeholders.

Inputs

 Demand for services and products

 Requirements for services and products

 Requests and feedback from customer

 Incidents, service requests, and feedback from users

 Information on completion of user tasks

 Contract and agreement requirements

 Knowledge about new and changed products services

 Improvement initiatives, plans and reports

Outputs

 Consolidated demands and opportunities

 Product and service requirements
 User support tasks
 Improvement opportunities and stakeholders’ feedback
 Change or project initiation requests
 Contracts and agreements with external and internal suppliers and
partners
 Knowledge and information about third-party service components
 Service performance reports for customer
Design & Transition

To ensure that products and services continually meet stakeholder

expectations for quality, costs and time to market.

Inputs

 Portfolio decisions

 Architectures and policies

 Product and service requirements

 Improvement initiatives and plans

 Improvement status reports

 Service performance information

 Service components

 Knowledge about third-party service components

 Knowledge about new and changed products, services

Outputs

 Requirements and specifications

 Contract and agreement requirements

 New and changed products and services

 Knowledge about new and changed products and services

 Performance information and improvement opportunities

Obtain & Build

To ensure that service components are available when and where

they are needed, and meet agreed specifications.

Inputs

 Architectures and policies

 Contracts and agreements with suppliers
 Goods and services provided by external and internal suppliers
 Requirements and specifications
 Improvement initiatives, plans, and reports
 Change or project initiation requests
 Change requests provided
 Knowledge about new and changed products and service

Outputs

 Service components
 Knowledge about new and changed service components
 Contract and agreement requirements
 Performance information and improvement opportunities
Delivery & Support

To ensure that services are delivered and supported according to

agreed specifications and stakeholders expectations

Inputs

 New and changed products and services

 Contracts and agreements with external and internal suppliers
 Service components
 Improvement initiatives, plans, and reports
 Improvement status reports
 User support tasks
 Knowledge and information about new and changed service
components,

Outputs

 Service delivered to customers and users

 Information on the completion of user support tasks
 Productand service performance information
 Improvement opportunities
 Contract and agreement requirements
 Change requests
 Service performance information
Service Value Stream

Service value streams are specific combinations of activities and

practices, and each one is designed for a particular scenario.

Once designed, value streams should be subject to continual

improvement.

Example :

A value stream may be created for a situation where a user of a service

needs an incident to be resolved.

The value stream will be designed specifically to be used in this

scenario, and will provide a complete guide to the activities, practices,
and roles involved in resolving the issue.
4 Dimensions of Service Management

Critical for effective and efficient facilitation of value for customers and
stakeholders in the form of product and services

Representative perspectives which are relevant to the whole service

value system, including the entirety of the service value chain and all
ITIL practices.

Constrained or influenced by several external factors which are out of

control in service value system.
Organization & People

 Structured and well defined roles and responsibilities. (Teams

must know what their customer feel about product / service)

 Leaders of the organization champion and advocate values which

motivate people to work in desirable ways

 Organization carries out its work that creates shared values and
attitudes, which over time are considered the organization’s culture

 Adopting the ITIL guiding principles can be a good starting point for
establishing a healthy organizational culture.

Organization & People include

 Skills and competencies

 Management and leadership styles

 Communication and collaboration

 To ensure proper levels of collaboration and coordination people

should understand the interfaces between their specializations and
roles

 Every person in the organization should know their contribution

towards creating value for the organization, its customers and
stakeholders

Essential for creation, delivery and improvement of service

1. Roles & Responsibilities

2. Culture
3. Structure
4. Staffing and competencies
Information Technology

This dimension includes the information and knowledge necessary

for the management of services, as well as the technologies required

It also incorporates the relationships between different components

of the service value system, such as the inputs and outputs of
activities and practices

The information created, managed and used in the course of service

provision and consumption

The specific information and technologies depend on the nature of the

services being provided

For many services, information management is the primary means of

enabling customer value

Technologies supporting service management include:

1. Workflow management system (JIRA, Clarity)

2. Communication system (Teams, Skype)
3. Knowledge base (Confluence)
4. Analytical tools (Power BI, Qlikview)

With respect to information the following questions need to

considered

 What information is managed by the services?

 What supporting information and knowledge are needed to deliver
and manage the services?
 How information is exchanged between different services and
service components?
 How will the information and knowledge assets be protected,
archived, and disposed of?
 What are the security and regulatory compliance
requirements?
With respect to technology for use in planning, design, transition, or
operation of a product or service the following questions may help:

 Is this technology compatible with the current architecture of the

organization and its customers?

 How are emerging technologies likely to disrupt the service or the

organization?

 Does this technology raise any regulatory or other compliance

issues with the organization’s policies and information security
controls, or those of its customers?

 Is this a technology that will continue to be viable in the

foreseeable future?

 Does this technology align with the strategy of the service provider,
or its service consumers?

 Does the organization have the right skills across its staff and
suppliers to support and maintain the technology?

 Does this technology have sufficient automation capabilities to

ensure it can be efficiently developed, deployed, and operated?

 Does this technology offer additional capabilities that might be

leveraged for other products or services?

 Does this technology introduce new risks or constraints to the

organization?
Partners and Suppliers

 Every organization and every service depends on services

provided by other organizations

 The dimension includes an organization’s relationships with

other organizations that are involved in the design, development,
deployment, delivery, support and/or continual improvement of
services.

 It also incorporates contracts and other agreements between

the organization and its partners or suppliers

 One method an organization may use to address the partners and

suppliers dimension is service integration and management

 This involves the use of a specially established integrator to

ensure that service relationships are properly coordinated

 Service integration and management may be kept within the

organization, but can also be delegated to a trusted partner.

OLA – Internal & Internal

SLA – Internal & External

Underpinning contracts – Service provider and its suppliers

Relationship between organizations at various levels:

Factors that may influence an organization’s strategy when using
suppliers include:

 Strategic focus
 Corporate culture
 Resource scarcity
 Cost concerns
 SME
 External constraints
 Demand patterns

Value streams and processes

 This dimension defines the activities, workflows, controls, and

procedures needed to achieve objectives

 This dimension is concerned with how the various parts of the

organization work in an integrated and coordinated way to
enable value creation through products and services

 The dimension focuses on what activities the organization

undertakes and how they are organized, as well as how the
organization ensures that it is enabling value creation for all
stakeholders efficiently and effectively.
IT Service Value Chain

An operating model that covers all the key activities required to manage
products and services effectively

It is generic in nature

It can follow different patterns and these patterns within the value chain
operation are called value streams.

Value Stream

A series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver

products and services to customers.

A value stream is a combination of organization’s value chain

activities.

Characteristics of Value streams

 Add values to activities

 Make changes to existing activities
 Eliminate waste activities
 Define value to product and service
 Re define value streams
 Process automation

Processes
A process is a set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform
inputs into outputs.

Information Security Management

 Purpose  Protect the information by organization

 Required security is established by means of policies,

procedures, behaviour, risk management, and control which must
maintain balance among (PDC)

o Protection – Ensure incidents don’t occur

o Detection – Detect incidents that cannot be prevented
o Correction – Recover incidents which are detected

 Understanding and managing risks to CIA

o Confidentiality
o Integrity
o Availability

Characteristics of Information Security

 It is driven from the most senior level in the organization,

based on governance requirements and organizational
policies.

 Interacts with ALL other practice in the system.

 Dependent on the behaviour of people throughout the

organization.
  Achieve a balance between
o Protecting the organization from harm  allowing it to
innovate

Relationship Management

Purpose  To establish and nurture relationship / links between the

organization and its stakeholders at strategic and tactical level

It includes the identification, analysis, monitoring, and continual

improvement of relationships with and between stakeholders.

Relationship Management ensures:

1. Stakeholders’ satisfaction is high and a constructive

relationship between the organization and stakeholders is
established and maintained

2. Whether Stakeholders’ needs are understood

3. Whether Conflicting stakeholder requirements are refereed

appropriately.

4. Any stakeholders’ complaints and escalations are handled well.

5. Customers’ priorities for new or changed products and

services, in alignment with desired business outcomes, are
effectively established and articulated

6. Whether Products and services are prioritized appropriately

7. The organization facilitates value creation for all stakeholders,

in line with the organization’s strategy and priorities
Supplier Management

Purpose  ensure organization’s suppliers and their performances

are managed appropriately to support the seamless provision of quality
products and services.

This includes creating closer, more collaborative relationships with

key suppliers to realize new value and reduce the risk of failure.

Activities in Supplier Management practice

1. Negotiating & agreeing contracts

2. Managing

a. Supplier performance
b. Relationships and contracts with internal & external
suppliers
c. Supplier strategy, policy and contract

In sourcing  Products / services developed internally

Outsourcing  Having external suppliers to provide products / services

that were previously developed internally
Single source / Partnership  Procurement of product / service from
one supplier

Multi source  Procurement of product / service from multiple

suppliers

Service Configuration Management

Purpose  To ensure that Accurate and Reliable information about

the configuration of services, and the CIs that support them, is available
when and where it is needed

This includes information on how CIs are configured and the

relationships between CIs.

Configuration Item

 Any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver

an IT service

 E.g. Laptops, servers, systems, Organizational policies, structure,

anything that is part of the service

 For service based company anything is considered as CI

Configuration Management System

 A set of tools, data, and information that is used to support

service configuration management

 CMS must be updated after any changes

  CMS should be referred before any changes to be implemented

Configuration Management Database

 A repository where configuration information is stored,

accessed, and used.

 All CI are listed in this CMDB with their configuration details

Characteristics

1. Service configuration management Collects and manages

information about a wide variety of CIs, typically including
hardware, software, networks, buildings, people, suppliers, and
documentation

2. Services are also treated as CIs, and configuration management

helps the organization to understand how the many CIs that
contribute to each service work together

3. Configuration management provides information on  the CIs

that contribute to each service and their relationships
a. How they interact
b. Depend on each other to create value for customers and
users

4. The value created by configuration management is indirect,

but enables many other practices to work efficiently and
effectively.

Configuration Management Process

1. Identify new CI
2. Add CI into CMS
3. Update configuration data when changes are deployed
 4. Verify that configuration records are correct
5. Audit to identify which are not documented

Any CHANGE to CI should only go through CHANGE CONTROL

PROCESS

IT Asset Management

Purpose  To Plan and manage the full lifecycle of all IT assets, to

help the organization

 Maximize value
 Control costs
 Manage risks
 Decision-making about purchase, re-use, and retirement of assets
 Meet regulatory and contractual requirements

This includes creating closer, more collaborative relationships with

key suppliers to realize value and reduce risk of failure.

Asset Management refers to the acquisition, operation, care, and

disposal of organizational assets, particularly critical infrastructure.

IT Asset Management

It is a sub-practice of asset management that is specifically aimed at

managing the lifecycles and total costs of IT equipment and
infrastructure.
Software Asset Management

It is aimed at managing the acquisition, development, release,

deployment, maintenance, and eventual retirement of software
assets.

IT Asset

Any valuable component that can contribute to the delivery of an IT

product or service.

The activities and requirements of IT asset management will vary for

different types of assets

Hardware assets

 It must be labelled for clear identification.

 Their location must be tracked to help protect them from theft,
damage, and data leakage

Software assets

 It must be protected from unlawful copying, which could result in

unlicensed use.
 The organization must ensure that licence terms are adhered to

Cloud-based assets

 Must be assigned to specific products or groups so that costs can

be managed
 Contractual arrangements must be understood and adhered to

Client assets

 It must be assigned to individuals who take responsibility for their

care.
  Processes are needed to manage lost or stolen devices, and tools
may be needed to erase sensitive data form them.

The scope of IT asset management typically includes all software,

hardware, networking, cloud services, and client devices

Understanding the cost and value of assets is essential to understanding

the cost and value of products and services, and is therefore an
important underpinning factor in everything the service provider does
IT asset management must maintain information about the assets,
their costs, and related contracts.

IT asset management requires accurate inventory information, which

is generally maintained in an asset register

Organizations need to ensure that the full lifecycle of each asset is

managed
Monitoring and Event Management

Purpose  Observe service and service components and record

and report selected changes

This practice identifies and prioritizes infrastructure, services,

business processes, and information security events, and establishes
the appropriate response to those events, including responding to
conditions that could lead to potential faults or incidents.

Event

Any change of state that has significance for the management of a

service or other configuration item (CI)

Events are typically recognized through notifications created by an IT

service, CI, or monitoring tool.

The monitoring and event management practice manages events

throughout the lifecycles to prevent, minimize, or eliminate their negative
impact on the business

Events are classified into informational, warning, and exceptions

Informational events

Do not require action at the time they are identified

Analyse the data gathered from them at a later date may uncover
desirable, proactive steps that can be beneficial to the service

E.g. – Antivirus updates (just keep a log of it)

Warning events

Allow action to be taken before any negative impact is actually

experienced by the business
Exception events

Indicate that a breach to an established norm has been identified.

These need to be acted upon though business impact may not yet have
been experienced.

Incidents are considered as Exception events

Monitoring Event Management

Systematic Observation of Recording and managing those
services and CIs monitored changes in events,
determine their significance,
identify and initiate correct control
actions
Monitoring can be performed in
highly automated manner actively
or passively
Continuous process Event Based triggering

Monitoring is necessary for Event management to take place but

Not all monitoring results into detection of an event.
Incident Management

Incident

Any unplanned interruption to service or reduction in a quality of

service

EVERY Incident should be logged and managed to Service Desk to

ensure 
Incidents are resolved in time that meets customer and user
expectations

Target Resolution Times  Should be agreed, documented and

communicated to ensure that expectations are realistic

Incidents are prioritized based on  Agreed classification to ensure


Incidents with the highest business Impact will resolve first

Incident Management

Purpose  To minimize the negative impact of an incident by

restoring service operation as quickly as possible
Take QUICK Actions

There should be a Formal process to log and manage incidents

There may be scripts for collecting information from users during

initial contact and this may lead to diagnose and resolution of simple
incidents

Information about incidents should be stored in a tool which is linked

with related CIs, Changes, problems, known errors (Service Now)

Good quality updates in a timely fashion about incidents to be provided

by teams working on incidents
Updates include
Symptoms, Business impacts, CIs affected, actions taken, etc.

Effective Incident management requires  High level of

collaboration within teams of Service Desk, Technical support,
Application support, suppliers etc.

Swarming  Involve many different stakeholders working together until

it becomes clear and problem is resolved

Use tools to actually map Incidents with problems

Problem Management

Purpose  To reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by

identifying actual and potential causes of incidents, and managing
workarounds and known errors.

Problem

A cause or potential cause of one or more incidents

Known Error

A problem that has been analysed but has not been resolved

Workaround

A solution that reduces or eliminates the impact or problem for

which complete resolution is not yet available

3 Phases of Problem Management

Problem Identification

1. Identify and log problems

2. Perform trend analysis of incident records
3. Detect recurring and duplicate issues
4. Identify a risk if incident could recur
5. Analyse information received from supplier and partners
6. Analyse information received from developers, testers and
other teams

Problem Control

1. Analyse problem, document workarounds and known errors

2. Problems are prioritized for analysis based on  Risk and also

managed as Risks based on their impact and probability

3. It should consider all contributory causes, including causes that

contributed to the duration and impact of incidents as well as those
that led to the incident occurring

4. When a problem cannot be resolved quickly, it is often useful to

find and document a workaround for future incidents based on
understanding of the problem

Error Control

1. Error control activities include management of known errors as

well as identification of potential permanent solutions

2. Identification of potential permanent solutions may result in a

change request for implementation of the solution

3. Error control regularly re-assesses the status of known errors

that have not been resolved, including overall impact on
customers, availability and cost of permanent resolutions, and
effectiveness of workarounds
 4. The effectiveness of workarounds should be evaluated each time a
workaround is used, as the workaround may be improved based
on the assessment

Change Management

Purpose 
To
1. Maximize the number of successful IT changes by
2. Ensuring that Risks have been properly assessed, authorizing
changes to proceed, and managing the change schedule.

It include IT infrastructure, applications, documentation, processes,

supplier relationships, and anything that might directly or indirectly
impact a product or service.

Change

The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a

direct or indirect effect on services.

Change Management focuses  Changes in products and services

Organizational Change management  People aspects of change

Improvements and org
Initiatives implemented
Properly
Any IT Changes are part of Change management

Change Authority

The person or group who authorizes a change

i.e. Change Manager

Change Schedule

A document or tool used to help plan changes, assist in

communication, avoid conflicts and assign resources
Types of changes

Standard Changes (initiated as Service Request)

1. Low risks
2. Pre-authorized
3. Well understood
4. Fully documented
5. Can implement without authorization
6. Initiated as Service Request

E.g. Laptop request, Pwd changes, any operational changes

Who performs standard changes  Service Desk (Pool of different

people)

Normal Changes (initiated as Change Request)

1. Medium risks
2. Authorization required
3. Scheduled and assessed properly
4. Follow standard process

E.g. Re segment of network, upgrade the system, patch updates

Budget is also required for this changes

Change manager should be knowing if sufficient budget is there for
implementing changes

Emergency Changes

1. High risks
2. Implemented ASAP
3. Authorization is expedited
4. Separate change authority for emergency changes

Even for emergency changes, approval must be there and hence should
wait for the approval and then implement the changes

For ALL changes Change Request is MUST

Deployment Management

Purpose  To move new or changed hardware, software,

documentation, processes, or any other component to live
environments.

It includes deploying components to other environments like testing

Remember

Deployment management  Components

Release management  Whole service

Deployment management closely work with  Change & Release

management

Components which are available for deployment should be maintained in

one or more secure locations to ensure they are not modified before
deployment

Deployment refers to both  Infrastructure & software deployment

E.g.
Upgrade office’13 to office’19  Release management
Windows 7 to Windows 10  Release management
Update antivirus  Deployment management
Small software updates  Deployment management
Definitive Media library  For software

Definitive hardware store  For hardware

Types of Deployment

Phased Deployment

 The new or changed components are deployed to just one part

of the production environment at a time,

 Interval and frequency NOT fixed

 E.g. for users in one office, or one location.

Continuous Delivery

 Components are integrated, tested, and deployed when they

are needed, providing frequent opportunities for customer
feedback loops.

 Interval and frequency are FIXED

Big Bang Deployment

 New or changed components are deployed to all target

location/systems at the same time.
Pull Deployment

 New or changed software is made available in a controlled

repository, and users download the software to client devices
when they choose.

Release Management

Purpose  To make new and changed services and features

available for use.

Release

A version of a service or other configuration item, or a collection of

configuration items that is made available for use

Release Plan

Specifies the exact combination of new and changed components

to be made available, and the timing for their release

Release Schedule

Documents the timing of the releases.

This schedule should be negotiated and agreed with customers and
other stakeholders

Release Post-implementation Review

Enables learning and improvement, and helps to ensure that customers

are satisfied

Release Management features

1. Comprises many different infrastructure and application components

that work together to deliver new or changed functionality

2. Each component of the release may be developed by the service

provider or procured from a third-party and integrated by service
provider

3. Includes documentation, training (for users or IT staff), updated

processes or tools, and any other components that are required

4. Releases can range in size from a very small, involving just one minor
changed feature, to a very large, involving many components that
deliver a completely new service
Service Request Management

Purpose  To Support the agreed quality of a service by handling

all pre-defined, user-initiated service requests in an effective and user-
friendly manner.

What is Service Request

A request from a user or a user’s authorized representative that

initiates a service action which has been agreed as a normal part of
service delivery.

Service Requests may or may not required approvals

e.g. HSBC laptop, HSBC portal access, LTI laptop request

Service Request Management is dependent on well-designed processes

and procedures

Service Requests are

Normal part of service delivery

Pre-defined
Pre-agreed
SOP for initiation, approval, fulfilment of service requests

Service Request includes

1. A request for a Service delivery action –

providing a report or replacing a toner cartridge

2. A request for Information –

Providing an access a portal or document

3. A request for Provision of a Resource or service –

providing a laptop or phone

4. A request for Access to a Resource or service –

providing access to a file or folder

5. Feedback, compliments, and complaints –

complaints about an interface or feedback about
support team

Service Request Management guidelines

1. Service Requests and their fulfilment should be standardized and

automated to the greatest degree possible
2. Policies should be established regarding what SR will be fulfilled
with limited or no additional approvals so that fulfilment can be
streamlined
3. User expectations regarding fulfilment times should be clearly set,
based on what org can deliver at best
4. Opportunities for improvement should be identified and
implemented
5. Policies should be defined for documenting and redirecting of any
requests that are submitted as SR but which should actually be
managed as incidents or changes
Service Desk

Purpose  To capture demand for incident resolution and service

requests.

It should also serve as the entry point and single point of contact for
the service provider with all of its users.

Service desks provide a clear path for users to report issues,

queries, a request, and have them acknowledged, classified, owned
and actioned

Service desk has a major influence on user experience and how the
service provider is perceived by the users

The service desk should be the empathetic and informed link

between the service provider and its users

A key aspect of a good service desk is its practical understanding of

the wider organization, the business processes, and the users
In case of escalations, support and development teams need to work in
close collaboration with the service desk to present and deliver a
‘joined up’ approach to users and customers

Service Desk channels access

Phone calls, which can include specialized technology, such as

interactive voice response (IVR), conference calls, voice recognition, and
others

Service portals and mobile applications, supported by service and

request catalogues, and knowledge bases

Chat, through live chat and chat bots

Email for logging and updating, and for follow-up surveys and
confirmations

Walk-in service desks

Text and social media messaging

Public and corporate social media and discussion forums

Call recording and quality control

Remote access tools
Dashboard and monitoring tools
Configuration management systems
Broad technical and business area knowledge

Key Skill:

Ability to fully understand and diagnose a specific incident in terms of

business priority and to take appropriate action to get this resolved,
using available skills, knowledge, people and processes.
Service Level Management

Purpose  To Set clear business-based targets for service

performance, so that the delivery of a service can be properly
assessed, monitored, and managed against these targets.

This practice involves the definition, documentation, and active

management of service levels

It requires pragmatic focus on the whole service and not simply its
constituent parts.

It provides the end-to-end visibility of the organization’s services.

Service Level Management Characteristics

1. Establishes a shared view of the services and target service
levels with customers

2. Ensures the organization meets the defined service levels

through the collection, analysis, storage, and reporting of the relevant
metrics for the identified services

3. Performs service reviews to ensure that the current set of

services continues to meet the needs of the organization and its
customers

4. Captures and reports on service issues, including performance

against defined service levels

Skills & Competencies for Service Level Management

1. Relationship management
2. Business liaison
3. Business analysis
4. Commercial/supplier management
Service Level Agreement

A documented agreement between a service provider and a

customer that identifies both services required and the expected level of
service

Service Level Management requires focus and effort to engage and

listen to the requirements, issues, concerns, and daily needs of
customers.

Key requirements for successful SLAs

1. They must be related to a defined ‘service’ in the service

catalogue

2. They should relate to defined outcomes and not simply operational

metrics
3. They should reflect an ‘agreement’, i.e. engagement and
discussion between the service provider and the service
consumer

4. They must be simply written and easy to understand and use for
all parties

It involves collating and analysing information from a number of sources:

Customer Engagement

This involves initial listening, discovery, and information capture on

which to base metrics, measurements and ongoing progress
discussions.

Customer Feedback

This is ideally gathered from a number of sources like surveys, key

business-related measures, etc.

Operational Metrics

These are the low level indicators of various operational activities and
may include system availability, incident response and fix times, change
and request processing time, and system response times.

Business Metrics

These can be any business activity that is deemed to be useful or

valuable to the customer and used as a means of gauging the success
of the service.
Continual Improvement

Purpose 

To Align the organization’s practices and services with changing

business needs through the ongoing identification and improvement
of services, service components, practices, or any element involved in
the efficient and effective management of products and services.

Continual Improvement – Scope

It includes the development of improvement-related methods and

techniques

The propagation of a continual improvement culture across the

organization, in alignment with the organization’s overall strategy

Continual improvement is everyone’s responsibility – TQM

The highest levels of the organization need to take responsibility for

embedding continual improvement into the way that people think and
work

The continual improvement practice is integral to the development and

maintenance of every other practice
Organization should try and practice selected frameworks

Organization should NOT depend on any single framework

There has to be a Business case for Continual Improvement

Continual Improvement – Key Activities

1. Encouraging continual improvement across the organization

2. Securing time and budget for continual improvement

3. Identifying and logging improvement opportunities

4. Assessing and prioritizing improvement opportunities

5. Making business cases for improvement action

6. Planning and implementing improvements

7. Measuring and evaluating improvement results

8. Coordinating improvement activities across the organization

Continual Improvement Model

1. Continual improvement takes place in all areas of the organization

and at all levels

2. The continual improvement model applies to the SVS in its entirety

3. The continual improvement model applies to all of the

organization’s products, services, service components, and
relationships

4. This model can be used as a high-level guide to support

improvement initiatives
5. The continual improvement model supports an iterative approach
to improvement, dividing work into manageable pieces with separate
goals that can be achieved incrementally

6. Use of the model increases the likelihood that ITSM initiatives will be
successful, puts a strong focus on customer value, and ensures that
improvement efforts can be linked back to organization’s vision

Continual Improvement Register

Database or structured document used to track and manage
improvement ideas from identification through to final action

It is important that improvement ideas are captured, documented,

assessed, prioritized, and appropriately acted upon to ensure that
the organization and its services.

CIR brings visibility to what is currently being done and what has
already been completed

As new ideas are documented, CIRs are used to constantly reprioritize

improvement opportunities

There can be just one single master CIR or multiple CIRs maintained
on individual, team, department, business unit, and organization levels.

1. What is the Vision

 The first step of the continual improvement model is to define the

vision of the initiative.

 This provides context for all subsequent decisions and links

individual actions to the organization's vision for the future.

 This step focuses on two key areas:

1. The organization’s vision and objectives need to be translated

for the specific business unit, department, team, and/or
 individual, so that the context, objectives, and boundaries for
any improvement initiative are understood

2. A high-level vision for the planned improvement needs to be

created.

2 – Where are we now

 The success of an improvement initiative depends on a clear and

accurate understanding of the starting point and the impact of
the initiative

 A key element to this step is a current state assessment.

 Current state assessment includes:

Assessment of existing services
a. Users’ perception of value received,
b. People’s competencies and skills
c. Processes and procedures involved
d. Organization’s culture, and capabilities

 This assessment should be done through objective

measurement whenever possible.

 It enables proper measurement of the level of improvement

achieved by comparison with the initial state.

3 – Where do we want to go?

 Based on the results of the first two steps, a gap analysis can be
performed, which evaluates the scope and nature of the distance
to be travelled from the starting point to the achievement of the
initiative’s vision

 Identify and prioritize Improvement opportunities based on the

gap analysis, and improvement objectives can be set, along with
(CSFs) and (KPIs).
  The agreed objectives, CSFs and KPIs need to follow the
SMART principle –specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and
time-bound.

4 – How do we get there?

 Based on the understanding of the vision of the improvement and

the current and target states, and combining that knowledge with
subject matter expertise, a plan for addressing the challenges of the
initiative can be created.

 It is most effective to carry out the work in a series of iterations,

each of which will move the improvement forward part of the way.

 With each iteration, there is an opportunity to check progress, re-

evaluate the approach, and change direction if appropriate.

5 – Take Action

 In this step, the improvement is acted upon.

 It could be more appropriate to follow an agile approach by

experimenting, iterating, changing direction, or even going back to
previous steps.

 It is important to remain open to change throughout the

approach
  During the improvement, there needs to be continual focus on
measuring progress towards the vision and managing risks,
as well as ensuring visibility and overall awareness of the initiative

 Once this step is completed, the work will be at the end point of the
journey, resulting in a new current state.

6 – Did we get there?

 This step involves checking the destination of the journey to be

sure that the desired point has been reached.

 For each iteration of the improvement initiative, both the

progress (have the original objectives been achieved?) and
the value (are those objectives still relevant?) need to be
checked and confirmed

 If the desired result has not been achieved, additional actions to

complete the work are selected and undertaken, commonly
resulting in a new iteration.

7 – How do we keep the momentum going?

 If the improvement has delivered the expected value, the focus of

the initiative should shift to marketing these successes and
reinforcing any new methods introduced.
 This is to ensure that the progress made will not be lost and to
build support and momentum for the next improvements.

 The organizational change management and knowledge

management practices should be used to embed the changes in
the organization and ensure that the improvements and changed
behaviours are not at risk of reversion.

 Leaders and managers should help their teams to truly integrate

new work methods into their daily work and institutionalize new
behaviours.