Service Continuity vs. Incident Management

According to ITIL 4 best practice, Service Continuity focuses on events that would impede business operations so drastically that it would be considered a disaster. Other events that have a less significant impact on the business might be considered incidents to be managed through the Incident Management Practice or the Major Incident Management Practice.

This means that there are different levels of importance and that the distinction between what is a normal incident, major incident, or one that might require disaster recovery must be predefined and agreed upon. Documentation then must include clear thresholds and triggers to provoke the appropriate response and recovery into action without delay and additional risk.

There is no question that your organization is increasingly dependent on services that are tech-enabled. The need for resilient solutions is critical to success. A combination of business planning as well as being proactive with security, incident, and problem management will be required. High-availability solutions require upfront proactive design!

ITIL 4 takes a holistic approach to service management (Read What Is ITIL 4) with the constructs of an overall Service Value System. Included in that Value System is a Value Chain. The power of the Value Chain is that it contains elements that can be applied to all of service management.

Service Continuity is applied to all elements of the Value Chain including and not exclusive to:

Plan – The organization's leadership and governing body establish an initial risk appetite with a defined scope, policy, supplier strategy, and investment in recovery options.

Improve – Service Continuity Management ensures that continuity plans, measures, and monitors to ensure ongoing improvement to align with the business strategy.

Engage – Engagement of all stakeholders necessary to ensure readiness for major incidents and disasters!

In order to truly “manage” Service Continuity, Disaster Recovery, and Major Incidents; We must consider Security, Compliance, and High Availability as REQUIREMENTS at the front of the pipeline. Requirements infer that these are considered before the development of software and before the architected solution. We should then be better enabled to design in such a way that would reduce if not eliminate the need for reactive firefighting that frequently spins the support organization out of control!

… Educate & Inspire!

Comments

The Four Ps of Service Design - It’s not all about Technology

People ask me why I think that many designs and projects often fail. The most common answer is from a lack of preparation and management. Many IT organizations just think about the technology (product) implementation and fail to understand the risks of not planning for the effective and efficient use of the four Ps: People, Process, Products (services, technology and tools) and Partners (suppliers, manufacturers and vendors). A holistic approach should be adopted for all Service Design aspects and areas to ensure consistency and integration within all activities and processes across the entire IT environment, providing end to end business-related functionality and quality. (SD 2.4.2) People: Have to have proper skills and possess the necessary competencies in order to get involved in the provision of IT services. The right skills, the right knowledge, the right level of experience must be kept current and aligned to the business needs. Products: These are the technology managem

What Is A Service Offering?

The ITIL4 Best Practice Guidance defines a “Service Offering” as a description of one or more services designed to address the needs of a target customer or group . As a service provider, we can’t stop there! We must know what the contracts of our service offering are and be able to put them into context as required by the customer. Let’s explore the three elements that comprise a Service Offering. A “Service Offering” may include: Goods, Access to Resources, and Service Actions Goods – When we think of “Goods” within a service offering these are the items where ownership is transferred to the consumer and the consumer takes responsibility for the future use of these goods. Example of goods that are being provided in the offering – If this is a hotel service then toiletries or chocolates are yours to take with you. You the consumer own these and they are yours to take with you. Note: Goods may not always be provided for every Service Offe

What is the difference between Process Owner, Process Manager and Process Practitioner?

I was recently asked to clarify the roles of the Process Owner, Process Manager and Process Practitioner and wanted to share this with you. Roles and Responsibilities: Process Owner – this individual is “Accountable” for the process. They are the goto person and represent this process across the entire organization. They will ensure that the process is clearly defined, designed and documented. They will ensure that the process has a set of Policies for governance. Example: The process owner for Incident management will ensure that all of the activities to Identify, Record, Categorize, Investigate, … all the way to closing the incident are defined and documented with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, handoffs, and deliverables. An example of a policy in could be… “All Incidents must be logged”. Policies are rules that govern the process. Process Owner ensures that all Process activities, (what to do), Procedures (details on how to perform the activity) and the

Search