The Role of Process Practitioner

The role of the Process Practitioner is by far one of the most critical, and is sometimes overlooked in lieu of others such as Process Managers and Process Owners. Don’t misunderstand, Managers and Owners are important and are key success factors, but the Process Practitioner role is where the rubber meets the road. This is the role assigned to individuals who will be performing the work on a day to day basis. ITIL has always emphasized the need for clearly defined roles for Process Owners and Process Managers. ITIL also speaks to the role of Service Owner, an individual who is accountable for and represents the end-to-end service. Within each process, there may also be roles that are designed to carry out certain process activities … these are the “Practitioners”. Without this role and skill set everything else becomes a moot point.

Successful service management dictates that specific individuals are assigned to specific roles with specific responsibilities for one or more processes. But what about the rest of us? Where do we fit into the service management program? What role do we play?

ITIL defines a key role for anyone that executes any activity within any process – the Process Practitioner.

The Process Practitioner:

Carries out one or more process activities
Understands how his or her role adds to value creation
Works with other stakeholders to ensure contributions are effective
Ensures inputs, outputs and interfaces for activities are correct
Creates or updates activity-based records

Process Practitioners can be internal or external staff, suppliers, consultants - even potentially users and customers. They are the "doers" of the process and their activities may cross into multiple groups and multiple processes.

However you choose to define your Process Practitioners, this role must be considered when designing, implementing and managing your processes. The inclusion of a Process Practitioner role should also help organizations build and manage a RACI matrices. If you recall, a RACI model maps roles and responsibilities to tasks or activities. Leveraging the Process Practitioner role at the highest RACI level can determine workloads and potentially identify process bottlenecks. The feedback that is provided by the Process Practitioner is crucial for any organization that wants to continue to evolve and emerge with the ever changing business requirements and customer needs.

Practitioners must be able to apply their knowledge. The ITIL Foundation course enables IT professionals to learn the basics of IT Service Management (the what) and the business value of well-designed and delivered services (the why). Leveraging candidates’ existing ITIL knowledge, and based on a new publication – ITIL® Practitioner Guidance – the ITIL Practitioner course goes beyond the what and the why and provides practitioners a methodical way (the how) to use the ITIL guidance to improve whether by introducing new or by changing existing services or processes. Throughout this sixteen (16) hour case study-based course participants learn about and then apply nine guiding principles to the planning and implementation of service improvements. Participants also gain a practical understanding of how three critical competencies contribute to improvement.

For more information on ITIL Foundation please click here and for ITIL Practitioner please click here.

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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