DevOps and the Service Desk

DevOps is a cultural and professional movement that stresses communication, collaboration, and integration between software developers and IT operations professionals. DevOps responds to the demands of application and business unit stakeholders for an increased rate of production software releases. Driven by the adoption of agile development processes by IT development organizations, DevOps aims to help organizations rapidly produce quality software products and services.

Although the “Ops” in DevOps is often viewed as the technical and application management professionals that deploy and manage applications and their associated infrastructure (e.g., application servers, web servers, and database servers), the service desk supports the goals of DevOps in a number of ways. A goal of DevOps is to produce more frequent software releases. This means the service desk must be prepared to handle a faster rate of change. One way to ensure the service desk is prepared is to engage the service desk earlier in the service lifecycle. For example, some organizations are involving the service desk in testing activities. This enables the service desk to gain early exposure to releases and also capitalizes on the service desk’s ability to log and track incidents. In some organizations, incidents logged during testing are referred to as pre-production incidents. The service desk can also log problems and known errors. Although some problems and known errors may be resolved before a release is moved into production, some may be carried forward into the production environment. Before the service is even deployed, the service desk can ensure knowledge articles are in place that enable efficient handling of those errors when they are encountered. The service desk plays another invaluable role in that it captures data and about incidents and problems affecting production systems. This data not only allows the handling of those incidents and problems, it is also an important part of the feedback loop that enables the development team to improve the quality of the next release and reduce the cost of handling errors associated with that release.

DevOps aims to not only improve Ops’s visibility into development activities, it also aims to improve Dev’s visibility into the impact of changes on the production environment; particularly during early life support. ITIL defines early life support (ELS) as the stage in the service lifecycle that occurs at the end of a deployment and before the service is fully accepted into operation. During ELS the service desk works closely with development and deployment teams to ensure incident and problem management activities are occurring as efficiently and effectively as possible. This includes using and refining provided diagnostic tools and knowledge resources, ensuring clear escalation procedures are in place, and capturing and communicating user and customer complaints.

Key goals of DevOps include better alignment of IT responsiveness and capabilities to business needs and enabling companies to gain a competitive advantage by delivering better software, faster. To contribute to these goals, the service desk must build solid working relationships with development teams and other IT operations teams.

Four Service Characteristics

Recently I came across several articles by researchers and experts that laid out definitions and characteristics of services. ITIL provides us with a definition that can help drive the creation of value-laden services: A means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks. An area that ITIL is not so clear is in terms of service characteristics. Several researchers and experts put forth that services have four basic characteristics (IHIP): Intangibility—Services are the results of actions not things. They have no physical presence and represent a logical set of elements. One way to think of service is “work done for others.” Heterogeneity—Also known as “variability”; services are unique items because of the mechanisms used to deliver services, which is people. Because the people element adds variability, the service is variable. This holds true, especially for the value proposition—not eve...

What Is A Service Offering?

The ITIL 4 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 1. 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. ...

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

This article was originally published in 2015. With the Introduction of ITIL 4, some of this best practice has changed. See ITIL 4 and the Evolving Role of Roles . Updated Definitions in ITIL 4: Process Owner: In ITIL 4, the concept of 'processes' has expanded into broader 'practices.' Consequently, the Process Owner is now often referred to as the 'Practice Owner.' This individual is accountable for the overall design, performance, integration, and improvement of a specific practice within the organization. They ensure that the practice achieves its intended outcomes and aligns with the organization's objectives. Process Manager: Now commonly known as the 'Practice Manager' in ITIL 4, this role is responsible for the day-to-day management of the practice. The Practice Manager ensures that activities are carried out as intended, manages resources assigned to the practice, and oversees the practitioners performing the work. Process Practit...

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