When ITIL 4 was introduced, one of its biggest - and most misunderstood - shifts was moving away from processes to a broader, more flexible concept: practices .   See also What is the difference between Process Owner, Process Manager, and Process Practitioner? In earlier versions of ITIL, each process had a clear sequence of activities, inputs, and outputs. That approach helped organizations standardize service management but often led to rigidity,  especially as digital transformation accelerated and work became more cross-functional. ITIL 4 recognized that service management isn’t just about what we do, but also who , how , and why . A practice is a holistic set of organizational resources -  people, processes, information, and technology -  working together to achieve outcomes. Processes still exist, but they now sit inside practices rather than defining them. What This Means for the Service Management Office (SMO) For many SMOs, this shift...

By Donna Knapp and Jeff Jensen Let’s answer the obvious question first. What is a service management office (SMO)? ITIL® describes an SMO as a “group or department that functions as a center of excellence for service management, ensuring continual development and the consistent application of management practices across an organization.” So given that service management is a “set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value for customers in the form of services”, it is the SMO that helps the organization to develop these capabilities. A SMO can be formalized and have significant authority to drive service management in the organization, or it can be less-formal teams focused on continual development of the organization’s management practices. In some organizations, the SMO provides a management structure for the various practice/process owners and managers to report into. This also allows for a roll-up of enterprise metrics and reporting, and in some cases provides...