uw. scribbles: March 2018

At its core, the ITIL Life-cycle consists of:

Service Strategy
Service Design
Service Transition
Service Operation and
Continual Service Improvement

Service Strategy

Service Strategy provides guidance on how to view service management not only as an organizational capability but as a strategic asset. Topics covered in Service Strategy include

Financial Management
Demand Management
Organizational Development
Strategic Risks
Development of service markets
Characteristics of internal and external provider types
Service assets
Service portfolio and
Implementation of strategy through the Service Life-cycle

Service Strategy is about ensuring that organizations are in position to handle the costs and risks associated with their service portfolios, and are set up not just for operational effectiveness but for distinctive performance. It is about thinking WHY something needs to be done before HOW to do it!

Service Design

Service Design is the stage in the life-cycle that turns Service Strategy into the blueprint for delivering the business objectives. Services provide value to the business by delivering their (strategic) business objectives. Service Design covers design principles and methods for converting strategic objectives into portfolios of services and service assets. Among the key topics in Service Design are

Service Catalogue
Availability
Capacity
Continuity and
Service Level Management

Service Transition

Service Transition provides guidance for the development and improvement of capabilities for transitioning new and changed services into live service operation, while controlling the risks of failure and disruption. Key topics are:

Change Management
Configuration Management
Asset Management
Release Management
Deployment Management
Risk Management
Program Management

It provides guidance on managing the complexity related to changes to services and service management processes; preventing undesired consequences while allowing for innovation. Guidance is also provided on transferring the control of services between customers and service providers.

Service Operation

Service Operation is about management of the day-to-day operation of services. It includes guidance on achieving effectiveness and efficiency in the delivery and support of services to ensure value for the customer and the service provider.

Organizations are provided with detailed process guidelines, methods and tools for use in two major control perspectives: reactive and proactive. Managers and practitioners are provided with knowledge allowing them to make better decisions in areas such as managing the availability of services, controlling demand, optimizing capacity utilization, scheduling of operations and fixing problems. Guidance is provided on supporting operations through new models and architectures such as shared services, utility computing, web services and mobile commerce.

key topics are

Event Management
Incident Management
Problem Management
Request Management
Application Management and
Technical Management

Continual Service Improvement

Continual Service Improvement provides guidance in creating and maintaining value for customers through better design, transition and operation of services. It combines principles, practices and methods from quality management, change management and capability improvement. Organizations learn to realize incremental and large-scale improvements in service quality, operational efficiency and business continuity.

Life-cycle Quality Control

ITIL Service Life-cycle approach embraces and enhances the interpretation of the Deming Quality Cycle of Plan-Do-Check-Act

The Deming Quality Cycle is applied to the ITIL Life-cycle stages which helps aligning the ITIL practices to external practices such as COBIT.

Continual Service Improvement improves the ITIL Maturity Level of the enterprise over time, which improves value for the customers and business.

Get ITIL certified by completing your accredited training online and on-demand at https://www.telepackets.com/itil/

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The author is a Senior Business Solutions Architect with AT&T Global Services and an IT Consultant/Trainer at TELEPACKETS INC. He is a Professional Engineer with APEGA, holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from UET, Lahore and a Master’s degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Concordia University, Montreal. His interests include reading, writing, photography, painting, promoting human development using Information Technology, Applied Research, Innovation, Leadership, Investing and Religion. He lives in Calgary, Canada and can be reached at uwaqar@gmail.com. He tweets at https://twitter.com/engruw

IT Service Design and IT Service Management (ITSM) are about preparing and planning the effective use of 4 P's!

People (resources/capabilities)

People are both a resource and a capability, therefore Service Designers must consider:

How many people will be required to support the new service (people as resources)?
What skill set they will require to do so effectively (the capabilities people have)?
Is training required in any specific processes to support the service?

It is equally important to communicate the strategy and road map to the 'people' so that they be successful. That involved effective leadership. I'll write about that in another blog.

Processes

Processes may need to be designed to support the service. As part of service design, processes should be documented, together with the interfaces between them and other processes. Existing processes should be assessed to identify if any changes are required, and all processes should be examined to ensure that the activities described are measurable.

Processes, their interfaces, inputs/outputs as well as message within and cross functional teams should be well understood by people. This is critically important otherwise it will affect the quality of the resulting product (or service). To ensure consistent understanding of the processes, a standard modeling notation is required. The Object Management Group (OMG) has released a standard Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). Latest standard is BPMN 2.0 (http://www.bpmn.org/). You can get accredited training in BPMN 2.0 at https://www.telepackets.com/bpmn/

Products (or Services - Value!)

The term “products” includes not only the services that result from the service design stage itself, but also the technology and tools that are chosen to assist in the design, or to support the service later. For example, the service design may be for an on-line shopping service, the other products may include a credit-card processing application, an automatic stock re-ordering service when stock levels reach a threshold, monitoring tools to alert the service provider if user response time exceeds a set time and so on.

Partners

The “partners” referred to are those specialist suppliers, usually external third party suppliers, manufacturers and vendors who provide part of the overall service. Ensuring the correct supplier is chosen is essential, as failure by a supplier will lead to a failed service level to the customer. External suppliers are managed through the supplier management process, which ensures that the necessary contracts are put in place, and monitors the delivery by the supplier against the contract terms.

Why ITIL?

Customers do no buy products or services any more - they buy Value! An Enterprise must create Value by deploying the right resources (people) using well understood processes to create products and services. In doing so an enterprise may have to rely on and coordinate with its suppliers (or Partners). ITIL provides a standardized framework to align people, process, products and partners to create value for the enterprise. ITIL certified architects are scarce and much in demand as the industry is transforming exponentially. Such a pace of transformation can only be sustained by referencing and adopting a standardized IT Service Management Framework such as ITIL.