Operational Support and Analysis (OSA)

What if we did not build an operational support system to meet current business requirements? That might sound a bit outrageous and contradictory to everything we have learned.

If you are a service provider than you are aware that what we consider premium service support today could be accepted as the norm and sometimes can be outdated before it becomes a reality. The key to sustaining underpinning operations for any industry is in the constructs of the system. If we build a system to provide what the customer and business outcomes require now then that is what we will have. The likelihood is that we will have a system that provides for a service that will render itself less than optimized in a shorter time than we would like to think.

What is required is an operational support system that can deliver fast but also one that is able to shift, bend and weave with the ever-changing environment and outcomes that it supports. We need a growing living moving system that can adapt to changing business and customer requirements. A dynamic, not static support system.

At the core this system will need to have the capability to monitor, analyze, predict and most importantly to act. All of this must be done at an exponential rate in order to meet the dynamic needs of our customers and strategic business requirements. But wait… isn’t that what we have always done?

In order to build a system that is not static to today’s requirements, but rather one that can adapt to changing requirements, the core principles of best practice still apply. For example what if we exploit Event, Incident and Problem Management systems to monitor and analyze patterns of business activity and forecast what would be required to meet future changes? What if we could automate the feedback loops and adjust our service assets to provision and optimize business assets ahead of time? It is difficult to exploit and build upon an operational system if our baseline is reactive or chaotic.

It all starts with knowing the important role of Operational Support and Analysis in service provision and understanding how processes interact with other Service Lifecycle processes.

Long gone are the days when the data center was in the basement and the help desk was a necessary evil. Today, businesses are irreversibly dependent upon technology and real dollars are lost when IT services are not available.

To gain knowledge and certification in OperationalSupport and Analysis.

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