2 What is IT Service Management?

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What do people mean when they refer to “Service Management”?

Different people use the term in different contexts. Some use it to refer specifically to just the content of the Service Delivery and Service Support ITIL books while others use it to include all of ITIL. In reality, Service Management should refer to any aspect of the management of IT service provision and therefore should include the whole of ITIL and not be limited to just two of the core modules. This is the definition and interpretation of the Service Management term used throughout this guide and is a core principle of ITIL.

Another core principle of ITIL and IT Service Management is the provision of quality Customer service. This is achieved by ensuring that Customer requirements and expectations are met at all times. The satisfaction of business and Customer requirements is fundamental to the whole of ITIL and there are a number of key activities that are vital to the success of ITIL processes within this area:

• Documenting, negotiating and agreeing Customer and business quality targets and responsibilities in Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

• Regular assessment of Customer opinion in Customer feedback and Customer Satisfaction Surveys

• IT personnel regularly taking the ‘Customer journey’ and sampling the ‘Customer experience’

• IT personnel taking the Customer and business perspective and always trying to keep Customer interactions as simple and enjoyable as possible

• Understanding the ICT infrastructure.

Tip: To keep interactions as simple and enjoyable for the Customer as possible use language that they understand and don’t use technical IT terms.

ITIL recognises that there is no universal solution to the design and implementation of an optimised process for the management and delivery of quality IT services. Many experts, authorities, leading practitioners and exponents within the IT industry have contributed to the development of ITIL and the result is a framework that provides a “common sense”, structured approach to the essential processes involved. ITIL has been developed to be process driven and yet scalable and sufficiently flexible to fit any organisation from Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to global Multi-National Organisations.
Each organisation whether an internal service provider or an external third party service provider should adopt the guidelines, principles and concepts of ITIL and adapt them to fit their own unique environment – “adopt and adapt”.

IT management must recognise the importance of their role in underpinning the operation of the business. They must co-ordinate and work in partnership with the business, facilitating growth, rather than letting the technology and IT dictate and drive the business. It is essential therefore that the issues and expectations of business managers are closely aligned with the objectives and deliverables of IT management. Therefore IT processes must be developed based on their ability to deliver true business benefit.

The only way of achieving this is to design, plan and implement IT services using ICT infrastructure and management processes that deliver the information and solutions required by the business. The more effective organisations of today design the people’s roles, partner’s roles and the processes first and then configure the technology to support and automate them. In the truly efficient organisations these roles and processes are aligned to the business, the business requirements and the business processes. This ensures that the business and IT management processes and systems have aligned targets and goals.

ITIL provides “best practice” guidelines and architectures to ensure that IT processes are closely aligned to business processes and that IT delivers the correct and appropriate business solutions. ITIL is not a standard, nor is it rules or regulations and therefore neither tools, processes or people can be deemed “ITIL compliant”. Processes and organisations can be assessed against BS 15000, the IT Service Management standard. However, neither tools nor individuals can be certified against BS 15000. Further information about BS 15000 is contained in section 12 of this guide.

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