Both the Service Design Package (SDP) and the Service Catalog are produced in the service design stage of the service lifecycle and to some extent both drive the activities that happen in all subsequent stages of the service lifecycle.   The SDP will detail all aspects of a service and its requirements throughout the entire lifecycle.   A service design package is produced for all new services, major changes to an existing service or the removal of a retired service.    From a high level the service design package will contain the following: ·     Business requirements ·     Service applicability requirements (how/where used) ·     Service contracts ·     Service functional requirements ·     Service and operational management requirements ·     Service design and topology (including service definition and model ·     Organizational readiness assessment ·     Service Program (timescales and phasing of transition, operation and improvement of the new s

One of the key processes in the ISO/IEC 20000 standard is Business Relationship Management. This process “establishes and maintains a good relationship between the service provider and the customer based on understanding the customer and their business drivers.” Business Relationship Management (BRM) within ISO/IEC 20000 is one of the Relationship Processes (along with Supplier Management). These processes help to establish the links in what Harvard Professor Michael Porter described as the “value chain”. BRM creates the link between the service provider (including IT, but full delivery may involve other organizational functions) and the customers and users, both internal (“the business”) or external (“the end customer”). Business Relationship Management is now a formalized process in newest (2011) edition of ITIL. With the newest edition, the authors recognized the importance of having BRM as an extent process, rather than as guidance embedded in other ITIL processes (such as Ser

In a previous blog we discussed the revised 7 step improvement process.  Step 6 of that process is to present and use the information.  There are various levels of management in an organization. When presenting this information and implementing improvements it is important to understand which level to focus on and have a good understanding of the perspectives of each level and what their drivers are. This will enable us to derive the maximum value and benefit out of the information delivered. First order drivers:   At the highest level of the organization are the strategic thinkers.  The reports delivered at this level need to be short, quick to read and deliver precise data about risk avoidance, protecting the image or brand of the organization, profitability and cost savings.  These are the drivers that will support your reasons for improvement efforts. Second order drivers: The second level of management is occupied by vice presidents and directors.  Here, reports can be more

When I teach, I like to talk about knowledge and wisdom and the value that they bring to the organizational table.   A lot of the time people give me a quizzical look, Knowledge? Wisdom?   Where is this conversation going?   I ask people how they capture the knowledge or do they even capture the knowledge that is gained when they develop a new service, application or when some new technology is introduced into their live environment. Although what we deliver can sometimes be intangible (availability, capacity, security) it is very complex and can take years to build up the know-how on how to deliver these elements and continually meet the changing needs of our customers.    However you need knowledge, born from experience, to solve problems, to always improve, to use your wisdom to answer the question of why should we make one choice over another? Like any other organization we must brand the product we deliver.   This brand will then garner a reputation; the reputation will be b

George Santayana, the Spanish American philosopher, wrote the famous saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”   This really is the underlying basis for the process of knowledge management.   It plays a key role in CSI but data must be captured in each of the service lifecycle stages.   This D ata capture must then be processed into I nformation, synthesize the information into K nowledge and applied to the context of the environment we are supporting to create W isdom.   This is known as the Data-to-information-to-Knowledge-to-Wisdom structure. DIKW.   Wisdom (not repeating the past) will allow us to make more informed & better decisions around improvements in our processes, functions and services. The purpose of knowledge management process is to quantify all of this D-I-K-W and then to share perspectives, ideas, experiences and information at the right time in the right place with the right people to enable informed decisions efficiently by no

I recently had a question regarding the inclusion of Service Requests into metrics for First Call Resolution. As always, the answer is “it depends”! ITIL now treats Service Requests and Incidents as two different processes – Service Request Fulfillment and Incident Management. Both are generally logged into the same tool and owned by the Service Desk. They are also measured by their own key performance indicators and metrics. ITIL does not consider first call resolution as a process metric - it is more of a service desk performance measurement. First call resolution historically helps measure the handling of incidents by the Service Desk. The definition of an incident is usually pretty clear. However, since the definition of a service request can vary greatly from organization to organization, the value of including requests in incident metrics may also vary. If your definition of a service request includes pre-authorization and funding, then the Service Desk’s ability t

A learner who is working towards developing a Cost Management department recently asked about key performance indicators (KPIs) for the Financial Management and Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) processes.      ITIL 2011 actually maps Critical Success Factors (CSFs) to KPIs for each process.   Key performance indicators for Financial Management can be found in section 4.3.8 of the Service Strategy book while those for SACM can be found in section 4.3.8 of the Service Transition book. While I cannot list all of the KPIs for both processes, here is a good sample: Financial Management The financial management for IT services framework specifies how services will be accounted for, and regular reports are submitted and used as a basis for measuring the service provider’s performance. All strategies have a comprehensive analysis of investment and returns, conducted with information from financial management for IT services. Internal service providers receive the fu