I was recently asked about how to measure service management maturity when the maturity of individual processes is not equal. Frankly, it’s a bit of chicken and egg. It can be difficult to define where your organization is as a whole compared to each individual process when the processes are at different levels. When we look at a specific process we have to judge it against a specific set of criteria. Each organization will develop this criteria based on the organizational goals and objectives. Each process may have a different set of criteria, different levels of benefit or impact so therefore a different level of need-based maturity. For example, for organizations that are highly dependent on suppliers and outsourcing, the need for a mature Supplier Management process is critical. Other organizations may not focus on Supplier Management but invest their focus and resources on other processes such as Configuration Management. The maturity of individual Service Management process...

What is the difference between a service and a good? When answering questions like these, I attempt to look at things from a simplified view. I try to stay away from complexity and decompose or deconstruct the parts of an answer to its most basic form. As a result, for me the difference between a service and good is very simple. A service is intangible (an abstraction or an idea) while a good is tangible (having physical characteristics). In terms of the creation or production of each, they are both “manufactured” or “created” using the exact same approach. Raw materials are “processed” into a finished output. So both services and goods could be considered “products” of a manufacturing “process.” In this way services and goods are the same thing. The difficulty arises for many people when it comes to the idea of “manufacturing” services. Because they can see, taste, smell or feel a service as it makes its way through the “manufacturing” process, they end up thinking or believing that...