ITIL Reviewer by Christian Joseph Lopez 1. Key Concept of Service Management 1.1 Service: • • • A means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes that customers want to achieve, without the customer having to manage specific costs and risks Service Management: • • • A set of specialized organizational capabilities For enabling value for customers In the form of services Utility: • • • • “What the service does” fit to purpose Functionalities Supports performance of consumer and remove constraints Warranty: • • • • “How the service performs” fit for use Availability, Capacity, Security, Continuity Assurance that product or service will meet agreed requirements Customer: • • • The role that defines the requirements for a service and takes responsibility for the outcomes of service consumption. Define requirements Responsible for outcomes User: • • The role that uses service. Submit requests Sponsor • The role that authorizes budget for service consumption. 1.2 Organization: • • • A person or a group of people that has its own functions with responsibilities, authorities, and relationships to achieve its objectives. Varies in size and complexity Uses function to achieve its objectives Value: • Outcomes, costs, and risks Cost: • • • • The amount of money spent on specific activity or resource Can be expressed in non-monetary terms, such as time spent, people allocated, etc. Removing costs from consumer can be part of value proposition Cost imposed vs Cost reduced Output • • A tangible or intangible deliverable of an activity. Contribute to the achievement of outcomes Outcome • • A result for a stakeholder enabled by one or more outputs. Service providers help service consumers achieve outcomes Risk • • A possible event that could cause harm or loss or make it more difficult to achieve objectives. Risk introduced vs Risk removed 1.3 Service Offering: • A description of one or more services, designed to address the needs of a target consumer group. A service offering may include goods, access to resources, and service actions. Goods – Laptop, software, license Access to resources – Login credentials Service Action - Support Service Relationship: • Service relationships include service provision, service consumption and service relationship management. Service Provision: • Activities performed by an organization to provide services Service Consumption: • Activities performed by an organization to consume services. Service Relationship Management • Joint activities performed by a service provider and a service consumer to ensure continual value co-creation 2. Guiding Principle 2.1 Guiding Principle • Guiding principles should be used and considered in ALL initiatives and circumstances. This helps an organization in decision making to adopt and adapt ITIL guidance. 2.2 Focus on value • • • Focus on customer and user experience at every step of improvement. Concern about consumer’s revenue and growth First step is always to know who your consumer is Start where you are • • • • The use of measurement should support, not replace what is observed (direct observation) Use measurement data to assess the current state Assess what can be reused based on data Use existing services, processes, and tools as much as possible Progress iteratively with feedback • • • • The ability to discover failures and respond fast (Fail fast, learn fast, improve fast) Organize work into small and manageable sections Important to do work instead of spending too much time analyzing Each improvement iteration should be continually re-evaluated based on feedback Collaborate and promote visibility • • • Increase collaboration and visibility for improvement. Better information is available for decision making Decisions can only be made on visible data Think and work holistically • • • • • Consider the 4 dimensions of service management and ensure their coordination for every initiative Focus on the end-to-end service delivery Recognize the complexity of the systems Collaboration is key to thinking and working holistically Where possible, look for patterns in the needs of and interactions between system elements Keep it simple and practical • • • • • First step is to understand how each element contributes to value creation. Use minimum number of steps to create value, but do them better Ensure value Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication Respect the time of people involved Optimize and automate • • • • Starting point is to understand company vision and objectives Standardize before automating Define your metrics Use the other guiding principles 3. Four Dimension Organizations & People • • • • Roles and responsibilities Governance, management, and communication Organization structure, culture, and leadership Required staffing & competences Information & Technology • • • • Information and knowledge Technologies Information security compliance Management systems Partner and Suppliers • • • Understand the level of integration and formality involved in the relationships between organization Evaluation of contracts Contract Management Value Streams & Processes • Focus on activities/workflows and how these are coordinated Value Stream – A series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver products and services to consumers Process – A set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform input into outputs 4. Service Value System Service Value System • • The purpose of the SVS is to ensure that the organization continually co-creates value with all stakeholders through the use and management of products and services. All components of the Service Value System work together to facilitate and ensure continual value co-creation. Guiding Principles Governance Service Value Chain Practices Continual Improvement 5. Service Value Chain Service Value Chain • • • An operating model which outlines the activities to respond to demand and facilitate value realization. Each value chain activity uses a different combination of practices to convert input to outputs. Outputs helps to deliver an expected outcome which is business VALUE REALIZATION Plan • To ensure a shared understanding of the vision, current status, and improvement direction for all four dimensions and all products and service across the organization. Improve • To ensure continual improvement of products, services and practices across all value chain activities and the four dimensions of service management. Engage • To provide a good understanding of stakeholder needs, transparency, and continual engagement and good relationships with all stakeholders. Design and Transition • To ensure that products and services continually meet stakeholder expectations for quality, costs, and time-to-market. Obtain/Build • To ensure that service components are available when and where they are needed and meet agreed specifications. Deliver and Support • To ensure that services are delivered and supported according to agreed specifications and stakeholder’s expectations. 6. ITIL Practices 6.1 Purpose Information Security Management • To protect information needed by the organization to conduct its business. Relationship Management • Establish and nurture the links between the organization and its stakeholder at strategic and tactical level Supplier Management • Manage suppliers and their performance through contracts/agreements to ensure seamless provision of all products and services IT Asset Management • • Manage lifecycle of all IT assets Optimize cost, manage risks, and maximize value Monitoring and Event Management • Detect change of state that has a significance Release Management • Make new and changed services available for use Deployment Management • Move components into live environments Service Configuration Management • Accurate and reliable information is available about configuration items and relationship between them Continual Improvement • Continually improve alignment between business and IT Change enablement • To maximize the number of successful IT changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed, authorizing changes to proceed, and managing a change schedule. Incident Management • • Restore normal service operation as soon as possible Incident is an unplanned interruption or reduction in quality Problem Management • • • Management of vulnerabilities that were not identified before the service went live Identify the underlying cause of incidents Reducing the likelihood of incidents Service Request Management • Manage the lifecycle of service requests Service Desk • • Capture demand for incident and service requests Single point of contact for service consumers and all users Service Level Management • Set clear business-based targets for service performance and assess, monitor, and manage service delivery against target 6.2 Definition IT Asset • Anything that is financially valuable Event • An event can be defined as any change of state that has significance for the management of a configuration item or IT service Configuration Item • Any component that needs to be managed to deliver an IT service. Change • The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on services. Incident • An unplanned interruption to a service, or reduction in the quality of a service. Problem • A cause of potential cause of prior, current, or future incidents. Known Error • A problem that has been analyzed and has not been resolved. 7. Understand 7 ITIL Practices Continual Improvement • Purpose - Continually improve alignment between business and IT Activities o Encouraging continual improvement across the organization o Securing time and budget for continual improvement o Identifying and logging improvement opportunities o Assessing and prioritizing improvement opportunities o Making business cases for improvement action o Planning and implementing improvements o Measuring and evaluating improvement results o Coordinating improvement activities across the organization Continual Configuration Model A set of defined steps for implementing improvements o What is the vision? - Translation of organization’s vision and objectives - High-level vision for improvements o Where are we now? - Current state assessment o Where di we want to be? - GAP analysis - Defining measurable targets o How do we get there? - Define improvement plan - Plan to deliver in small iterations o Take action - Execution of plan - Achieving desired results o Did we get there? - Evaluate metrics and KPIs - Validating success o How to keep the momentum going? - Focus area on marketing success, reinforcing new methods, and institutionalize new behavior. Change Enablement • Purpose - To maximize the number of successful IT changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed, authorizing changes to proceed, and managing a change schedule. Change Types o Standard Changes - These are low-risk, pre-authorized changes that are well-understood and fully documented and can be implemented without needing additional authorization. They are often initiated as service requests but may also be operational changes. When the procedure for a standard change is created or modified there should be a full risk assessment and authorization as for any other change. o Normal Changes - These are changes that need to be scheduled, assessed, and authorized following a standard process. Change models, based on the type of change determine the roles for assessment and authorization. Some normal changes are low-risk, and the change authority for these is usually someone who can make rapid decisions, often using automation to speed up the change. Other normal changes are very major, and the change authority could be as high as the board management. o Emergency Changes - These are changes that must be implemented as soon as possible, for example, to resolve an incident or implement a security patch. As far as possible, emergency changes should be subject to the same testing, assessment, and authorization as normal changes, but it may be acceptable to defer some documentation until after the change has been implemented and sometimes it will be necessary to implement the change with less testing due to time constraints. Incident Management • Purpose – To minimize the negative impact of incidents by restoring normal service operation as quickly as possible Types of Incidents o Resolved by the user themselves, using self-help. o Resolved by the service desk. o Escalated to a support team for resolution o Escalated to suppliers or partners o Major incidents may require a temporary team to work together o In some extreme cases, disaster recovery plans may be invoked Problem Management • Purpose – To reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of incidents and managing workarounds and known errors. Problem Management – Phases o Problem Identification – activities identifying and log problems o Problem Control – activities include problem analysis, and documenting workarounds and known errors. o Error Control – activities manage known errors. Problem • A cause of potential cause of prior, current, or future incidents. Workaround • A solution that reduces or eliminates the impact of an incident or problem for which a full resolution is not yet available. Known Error • A problem that has been analyzed and has not been resolved. Service Request Management • Purpose – To support the agreed quality of a service by handling all pre-defined, userinitiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner. Types of Requests o A request for a service delivery action o A request for information o A request for provision of a resource or service o A request for access to a resource or service o Feedback, compliments, and complaints Service Request Management – Guidelines o o o o Standardization and automation Limited or even no additional approvals User expectation setting regarding timescales Reduction of fulfillment times (improvements) Service Desk • Purpose – To capture demand for incident resolution and service requests. It should also be the point of communication for the service provider with all its users. In other words, it should act as the entry point/single point of contact for the IT or service organization. Service Desk – Channels o Phone Calls o Service Portals and Mobile Applications o Chat, through live chat and chatbots o Email o Walk-in service desks o Text and social media messaging Service Desk – Types o Local Service Desk – This is where a desk is co-located within or physically close to the user community it serves. o Centralized Service Desk – It is possible to reduce the number of Service Desks by merging them into a single location or into a smaller number of locations by drawing the staff into one or more centralized Service Desk structures. This can be more efficient and cost-effective, allowing fewer overall staff to deal with a higher volume of calls, and can also lead to higher skill levels through great familiarization through more frequent occurrence of events. o Virtual Service Desk – Through the use of technology, particularly the internet, and the use of corporate support tools, it is possible to give the impression of a single, centralized Service Desk when in fact the personnel may be spread or located in any number or type of geographical or structural locations. This brings in the option of ‘home working’, secondary support group, off-shoring, or outsourcing – or any combination necessary to meet user demand. o Follow the Sun – Some global or international organizations may wish to combine two or more of their geographically dispersed Service Desks to provide a 24-hour follow-the-sun service. Service Level Management • Purpose – To set clear business-based targets for service performance, so that the delivery of a service can be properly assessed, monitored, and managed against these targets Service Level Management Provides the end-to-end visibility through o Establishes a shared view if the services and target service levels with customers o Collection, analysis, storage, and reporting of the relevant metrics o Performs service review o Captures and reports on service issues Successful SLA Requirement o They must be related to a defined ‘service’ in the service catalogue o They should relate to defined outcomes and not simply operational metrics o They should reflect an ‘agreement’ o They must be simply written and easy to understand Types of Metrics o Operational Metrics – These are the low-level indicators of various operational activities. o Business Metrics – Useful or valuable by the customer and used as a means of gauging the success of the service.
