ITSM – IT Service Management

Complete set of activities required to provide service to an organisation including policies and strategies to:

Plan, design, deliver, operate and control the IT services it offers to its customers

ITIL introduced 25 years ago developed as a framework to use in order to perform ITSM.

ITIL is guidance for ITSM, flexible, comprehensive compilation of best practices. Vendor neutral framework, large amount of sw solutions.

ITIL is not a standard like ISO or a regulation its best practice. It is not a substitute for vision, leadership or management.

Framework to make service management more efficient and effective.

Best Practice sources:
Standards (ISO/IEC 2000), academic research, industry practices, training and education, internal experience

Proven activities or processes that have been successfully used by many different organisations in a specific industry.

Enablers: employees – automation is great but still need employees

customers

suppliers – must enable your vision for ITIL in organisation

advisors – guidance from own research and education or outside advisors

technology – manage sw tools but with clearly documented processes

Sources and enablers allow the organisation to fully understand and implement effective best practices.

ITIL definitions

Service delivering value to customers giving outcomes they want w/o ownership of costs/risks

Outcome can be intended or actual result

Types of providers

Type 1 – Internal

Type 2 – Internal serve more than one business unit

Type 3 – external

A stakeholder is a customer, user or supplier

Process – Set of co-ordinated activities combining resources or capability to produce outcome that creates value for customer. Key point value for customer.

ITIL covers 27 processes 22 of them are in the foundation.

A process responds to an event called a trigger and is measurable. It produces a specific result and delivers to defined customer expectation.

Function is a unit that performs certain types of work and responsible for specific outcomes.

They perform the activities of processes.

Roles within a process or function:

Service owner, Process Owner, Process Manager

RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed.

ITIL Lifecylce: Service strategy, design, transition, operation, CSI.

Service Strategy

Type 2 example service desk.

Utility is functionality of a service, fit for purpose. Warranty is fit for use.

Creating value is a balance between utility and warranty.

Always try to understand the utility and warranty of a new or changed service to understand the best value. Tradeoffs are made.

Service Portfolio Management

Ensure correct mix of services to balance IT investment to support business objectives. 2 big pieces in services: the service pipeline and catalog info on all services from concept to operations.

Restricted visibility to those who need to know.

Service catalog can be viewed by customers.

Service Portfolio Management begins in service strategy and then in every stage of service lifecycle. Since resources are allocated throughout the lifecycle of every service. Monitor resources and where they are used.

Business Relationship Management – maintain business relationship between service provider and customer. Identify needs and ensure service provider can meet the needs. Identify trends and changes.

Financial Management – relevant in all stages

Budgeting – forecast cost to support services

Accounting – Money divided into cost centres

Charging – Type 3 service provider always charge

Type 1 and 2 sometimes charge

Business case – ROI, VOI – Value on Investment (reputation, awareness)

Roles in S. Strategy – Recommended

Process Owner > Process Manager

Processes can own multiple services

Co-ordinate design activities

Policies and standards

Process quality control – assess effectiveness and efficiency of the eight design processes

Complete Service Design – 5 parts:

Service Solutions, Management Information Systems and Tools, Technology Architecture and Management Architecture, Processes, Measurement and Metrics.

Management Info Systems – Service Portfolio, SKMS, CMS.

We need to align our management structure with existing business processes. Needs of the business comes first. Each of the 26 processes must be designed properly.

4 P’s – People, Processes, Products, Partners of Service Design.

Service Design Packages (SDP’s)

Part of migration from design to transition.

A blueprint that will guide us in the transitiion phase. Also used for service retirement.

Service Level Agreements – SLA’s are in SDP’s

Design Co-ordination

Service Catalog overview, informs customers, SLA targets, Manage customer expectations

CMS – close relationship to catalog but more detailed

Service Level Management (SLM)

Ensure SLM and BRM are aligned, negotiation is key

3 key docs in SLM:
Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Operational Level Agreement )OLM)

Underpinning Contracts (UC)

Service Reviews:

SLA Charts, Service Improvement Planning

Each Service has its own SLA

3 sub processes of Capacity Management

Availability Management – Reactive and Proactive

Risk Management – Avoid, Mitigate, Accept

Component Failure Impact Analysis (CFIA)

Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) Identify Single Point of Failure

Expanded Incident Lifecycle

Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF)

Mean Time to Restore Servie (MTRS)

Mean Time Between Service Incidents (MTBSI)

Improve MTBF

Availability Measurement – Mostly %

IT Service Continuity Management ITSCM – Disaster Recovery

Risk Analysis focuses on likely events. ITSCM looks at unlikely events

Info Security Management – Compliance, legislation

CIA Triad – Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability

Supplier Management

4 supplier types: Strategic, Tactical, Operational, Commodity

ITIL likes tools

Service Transition

Physical Development, Testing, Config documented, Operations trained

Manage Risks

Plan/Manage service changes efficiently and effectively

8 processes in S. Transition

Customer involved in pilots and acceptance testing

Outsourcing Contracts

Transition Planning – Co-ordinate Resources, agreed time, cost, quality

Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS)

Data comes from many sources

SKMS houses CMS and CMS contains CMDB’s

Service Asset and Config Management (SACM) – vital to knowledge management

SACM definitions and concept

SKMS can only have one CMS but CMS can have multiple CMDB’s

CMS includes info on incidents, service requests, changes, problems, releases, errors and more

Definition Media Library (DML) – Licensing, software

SACM 5 Principles

Planning and Management

Identification, Control, Status Accounting, Verification Audit.

Change Management – Modify, Add, Remove

Changes happen at every stage – emergency, normal or standard

change priority done by Transition Planning and Support – Recorded in CMS

CAB – Members, PSO – Project Service Outage

CAB Chairman

CAB is not change authority – RFC states this

5 change docs:
Request for change, change record, CAB Minutes, change schedule, projected service outage

Release and Deployment Management

Physical/Virtual assets, SW, documentation, user training, contracts and agreements, testing is completed

R&D policy, plans, define create and test packages

Integrity of live environment, deploy sw from DML only

Track Progress with SACM

Definitive Spares

Phased Releases

Service Operations

Processes:
Event Management

Incident Management

Problem Management

Request Fulfilment

Access Management

Major Incidents

Models – Generic or Specific

Incident Matching

Problem Management

KEDB – Known Error Database

Request Fulfilment Process

IT Operations Management

Technical Management – Infrastructure Knowledge

Applications Management – Application Knowledge

Continual Service Improvement (CSI)

Occurs at all stages and on itself

Dening cycle – Plan, Do, Check, Activation

Continual Service Improvement Register

Documents all potential improvement opportunities

CSI is the only process within CSI

CSI Metrics and Measures

Baselines

Technology Metrics

Process Metrics

Service Metrics

KPI – Key Performance Indicator

CSF – Critical Success Factor

Ketters 8 steps to change

Build a culture of change and improvement

Look for efficiencies and quick wins

Categories of events: Informational, warning and exception

DIKW – Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom

DML – Media config items (CI’s) are stored

Process Practitioner carries out activities of a process

Incident Model – steps to resolve incident

Knowledge Management

RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

All processes deliver specific results to stakeholders

Sources of best practice – Standards, industry practice, academic research, training and education, internal experience

Service Portfolio Management – A correct mix of services to balance IT investment to support the business objectives.

Includes Service Pipeline (strategy and design)

includes Service Catalog (Transition and Operation)

Service Catalog – Info on all services in operational environment. Customers can view this

Service Portfolio Management begins in strategy but occurs in all other stages (Resource allocation)

Utility – fit for purpose

Service catalog is widely available

CMS contains detailed info on components of each service

Catalog publishes key SLA targets

Types of Catalog – Simple, Biz or Customer Service, Technical

Event Definition – Change of state that has significance for the management of an IT Service

CSI – 7 Steps Improvement Process

1. Define what you should improve

2. Define what you will measure

3. Gather the data

4. Process the data

5. Analyse the information

6. Present and use the information

7. Implement improvements

7 Steps to Service Improvement

1. Define Vision

2. Define what is measured

3. Gather data

4. Process data

5. Analyse data

6. Assess knowledge and service improvement plans

7. Implement agreed changes/improvements

Approach to CSI

What is the vision?

Where are we now?

Where do we want to be?

How do we get there?

Did we get there?

How do we keep the momentum going?