People, Processes, Products and Partners - The 4 P's of IT Service Design

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.  

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