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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCING ITIL
ITIL is:
- Best practice for IT service management
- Developed by the UK government
- Globally adopted in the public and private sectors
- Not prescriptive
- A framework that organisations adopt and adapt.
Best practice is “proven activities or processes that have been successfully used in multiple organisations”. Best practice available in the public domain supports organisational improvement. Sources include public frameworks (ITIL) and standards like ISO/IEC 20000.
ITIL is successful because it’s:
- Vendor neutral
- Non-prescriptive
- Best practice.
ITIL is preferable to proprietary information held within organisations, which may not be documented, challenged or improved.
Figure 1 shows the many sources of service management practice. Best practice must be passed through a filter of the drivers and scenarios relevant to the organisation before it is fit for purpose.
Figure 1: Sources of service management best practice
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CHAPTER 2: SERVICES
“A service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks.”
For example, a customer using a data centre service does not want to take ownership of the costs of individual hardware elements, or manage risks related to power, etc. The customer wants to pay for, and use, the service.
IT service:
- Provided by IT service providers
- Made up of IT, people and processes
- Customer-facing IT services directly support the business processes of customer(s), according to SLA targets
- Supporting services are used to deliver customer-facing services.
Service providers define results-based services focused on customer outcomes.
Outcome:
“The result of carrying out an activity, following a process or delivering an IT service. Outcome can refer to intended or actual results.”
Customer expectations change. Service providers must update services so that they continue to deliver value.
Service classifications
- Core services: deliver basic outcomes desired by customer(s). They represent what the customer wants and will pay for. For example: e-mail.
- Enabling services: Required for the core service to be delivered. For example: the network used to access e-mail.
- Enhancing services: Non-essential services are added to the core service to tempt or excite customers. For example: mobile e-mail may be an optional extra.
Service providers use service packages to help organise services for customers. Service packages combine core, enabling and enhancing services. The package contains two or more services bundled together to meet customers’ needs.
Service providers can be:
- Type 1 or Internal: has a one-to-one relationship with a business unit it provides services to, often embedded in the unit.
- Type 2 or Shared Service Unit: has a one-to-many relationship with internal business units.
- Type 3 or External: provides IT services to external customers.
Internal and external services
Internal services are delivered to departments or business units in the same organisation as the service provider. They support internal activity.
External services are delivered to an external customer, who could be an individual or another organisation. They support business outcomes.
Figure 2: Internal and external services
Types of service
- Supporting services:
- Often infrastructure services
- Required for other services to be delivered
- Customers may not be aware of them
- Internal customer-facing services
- Used by customers in the same organisation as the service provider
- External customer-facing services
- Customers are from different organisations.
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CHAPTER 3: SERVICE MANAGEMENT
“A set of specialised organisational capabilities for delivering value to customers in the form of services.”
Service management can include, for example, the staff skills and processes used to manage and support IT services.
Organisations develop service management capabilities and skills to respond to challenges including:
- The intangible nature of the output of a service process
- Customer assets that drive demand. Service providers have to balance supply and the cost of delivery
- Service provider and consumer have a high level of contact, often informal and not managed
- Service output is perishable and cannot be stockpiled.
Service management as a professional practice
Service management is supported by knowledge, experience and skills that have built up as the IT industry developed a service focus.
A global community of professionals supports service management, including the IT Service Management Forum (www.itsmfi.org).
Service management is also supported by a scheme that provides education, training and certification. Available service management information includes academic research and standards, such as ISO/IEC 20000.
IT service management
“The implementation and management of quality IT services that meet the needs of the business. IT service management is performed by IT service providers through an appropriate mix of people, process and information technology.”
IT organisations must understand customer requirements. Service providers use service management to deliver customer outcomes, and need to be efficient and effective, delivering high quality IT services.
Service providers balance three areas:
- Customer needs
- Service performance
- Customer budget.
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CHAPTER 4: STAKEHOLDERS
“… any person who has an interest in an organisation, project, IT service or other area. Stakeholders may be interested in activities, targets, resources or deliverables.”
Examples of stakeholders are customers, partners, employees, shareholders, owners.
IT must understand internal and external stakeholders. Internal stakeholders are from the same organisation as the service provider.
External stakeholders are from a different organisation.
Stakeholders include:
- Customers: buy goods or services/define what services must do
- Us...
