ITIL®4 Management Practices

ITIL®4 defines 34 management practices to adopt the modern organization dynamics. It considers all the dynamics of the current organization scenarios like innovation, speed to market, responding to the market dynamics quickly, scaling resources dynamically etc.

This needs appropriate management practices for services, projects, products, design, transition, build, test, delivery, support by adapting and adopting to drastic changing scenarios. IT Service management defined in ITIL®4 considers the concepts defined in DevOps, Agile, Lean.

High-velocity service delivery is the need of the modern business (& service) environment which influences all the practices of a service provider by;

1. Focusing on fast delivery of IT services; both new and changed; in time
2. Establishing the mechanism to analyze the feedback on performance of IT service continually throughout its lifecycle
3. Adopting the concepts of agility for continual and fast improvement in IT services, by processing the feedback quickly and timely.
4. Visualizing and defining an end-to-end approach (i.e. entire service lifecycle, from ideation, through creation and delivery, to consumption of services)
5. Integrating the product and service management practices
6. Digitalizing the IT infrastructure by adopting the modern technology practices like cloud computing, microservices, containerization etc.
7. Seeking opportunities (continually) to enable automation across the service delivery value chain.

These require enabling the organization for adoption of a product-based organizational structure, defining flexible architecture, adoption of latest technology practices like cloud computing, microservices, agile way of doing project management, financial management, adaptive risk management, human-centered design etc.

The management practices can be defined as a set of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective. The management practices are segregated into three parts. They are;

1. General Management Practices (14), which are applicable across the organization for the success of business and services provided by the organization.
2. Service Management Practices (17), which are applicable for specific services being developed, deployed, delivered and supported in an organization environment.
3. Technical Management Practices (3), have been adapted from technology management domains for service management purposes by expanding or shifting their focus from technology solutions to IT services.

Color codes (legend)

The above color code is used to represent the contribution of service value chain activities in each of the practices which will be discussed in subsequent sections, where “0” being the lowest and “3” being the highest.

8.1 General Management Practices (14)

The 14 general management practices are considered commonly across all services and are applicable for the organization as a whole. These provide the views which are to be practiced throughout, irrespective of the type of services or products the organization provides.

For example Information Security Management – Every organization that embraces modern technology needs to practice this and safeguard the organization’s information from unauthorized access. It is not just applicable to service; it has to be practiced in the entire organization

8.1.1 Architecture Management

Purpose
To provide an understanding and view of all the different elements of an organization as a whole and how each of those elements interfaces or interrelate, to enable the organization to achieve its objectives, continuously. It refers to the applicable principles, tools, standards which enable an organization to be managed in a structured way and also enable agility.

Description
While we mention architecture management, it refers to all the domains. That is business architecture, service architecture, information architecture, technology architecture, and environment architecture. These can be defined as an integrated architecture in less complex environment of an organization.

1. The business architecture is defined for creating value to an organization and its customers, aligning to strategy of an organization.
2. The service architecture is defined for each service provided by an organization and it has to be fit in and align to the business architecture. It defines service models, structure, activities, flow of resources, their interactions, templates required etc.
3. The information architecture considers the logical & physical data assets of an organization and depicts how the information; which is a valuable asset of an organization; is managed and measured to create value. It is also important to consider the importance of accuracy, completeness, and accessibility of information while defining the Information architecture.
4. Environmental architecture considers the external factors that impact the organization which includes organizational, political, legal, regulatory, ecological, social, technological etc., These cannot be defined, but have to be considered, while defining, developing and managing the organization, services, products etc.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities’ contribution to architecture management are mainly plan, improve, design and transition activities.

1. Plan focuses on developing and maintaining the current and target architectures.
2. Improve focuses on identifying the improvement opportunities in all the architecture types.
3. Engage focuses on obtaining a better understanding of the current and target architectures.
4. Design & Transition focuses on designing, developing & transitioning the architecture aligned with investment & service objectives.
5. Obtain/build focuses on identifying the architectural components.
6. Deliver & support focuses on operation, management & maintenance.

8.1.2 Continual Improvement

Purpose
To ensure continuous alignment of service and practice of an organization, by identifying and improving them on a continual basis. This requires Purpose consideration of changing business needs, consumer behaviour, changing market scenarios etc. The improvement opportunity has to be looked at by considering all the components of services, products, processes and service as a whole.

Description
The improvement of services is a continual affair, this cannot be ignored. It is essential to keep the demand for the services high and there should be an established continual improvement practice across the organization. It should be an induced ability in the organization, so that every service action (activities, processes, products, people) is always subject to improvement.

As part of continual improvement practices, an organization should ensure that there is a dedicated effort on continual basis to improve services through continuous measurement. Teams have to dedicate a certain amount of time for focusing on improvements. It is to be understood, “At any given point in time, there are opportunities for improvement” and keep identifying the improvement opportunities.

Continual improvement is not a single team or individual’s job; it should be the way of providing services and responsibility of everyone.

Continual improvement practice shall consider various techniques to identify, assess, analyze, recommend and implement the improvements at various levels.

The techniques like SWOT (analyzing strength, weakness, Opportunities & Threats), proactive problem management, PDCA, Improvement Kata, Lean methods, concepts of DevOps etc.are the few techniques, which can be used for continual improvement.

If the thought of continual improvement is induced into the staff members of the organization as a whole, by establishing that as the culture, the contribution towards continual improvement and alignment will become the way of doing the services and conducting the business.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities' contribution to continual improvement are all the activities.

1. Plan focuses on the continual improvement of the planning techniques, methods, activities and ensures they are relevant to the objectives and contexts of the organization.
2. Improve is the key activity of SVC, it emphasizes on continual improvement practice SVC.
3. Engage focuses on improving engagement approaches and practices Activity’s.
4. Design & Transition focuses on improving the approaches and practices involved in Contribution design, develop & transitioning.
5. Obtain/build focuses on improving the approaches and practices of obtain /build.
6. Deliver & support focuses on improving the approaches and practices of operation, management & maintenance

8.1.3 Information Security Management

Purpose
To ensure the protection of the information of an organization throughout the information lifecycle. In a way ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, purpose and availability of information, so that the organization’s information is safeguarded from unauthorized access and misuse.

Description
The information security management has become the de-facto requirement of modern organizations (irrespective of their business), with the advancement of technology & adoption of IT systems more and more. These technology platforms and IT systems are used for processing data & information, in every transaction of the business.

Whether it’s a bank, an organization of civil construction business, entertainment houses like movie theatre, television, or a retail store, Irrespective of the type of business the organization is into, the adaption & adoption of technology platforms and IT systems for conducting their business transaction has become common. With this modern outlook, organizations come across new challenges and to protect the interest of the business Information security framework, policies, procedures have been established. These information security management practices consider & maintain the balance between Prevention, Detection and Correction.

Information security management practices should consider all the aspects of an organization and its dynamics so that it remains aligned with organization strategy & protects the interest of the organization. These should apply across the organization and should not be just limited to one or few aspects.

In order to support information security enablement in the organization, there should be consideration for establishment of information security framework, policies, processes, risk management, identity and access management, event management, structured (controlled) review & reporting.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to information security management are all of the following activities.

1. Plan focuses on considering the information security across all the planning activities.
2. Improve focuses improvement of information security throughout the lifecycle of the information by continually improving the information security practices and platforms.
3. Engage focuses on engaging all levels (i.e. strategic, tactical, operational,SVC transactional etc.) to enable the information security mindset and Activity’s compliance.
4. Design & Transition focuses on considering the need of information security while designing and transitioning activities.
5. Obtain/build focuses on building information security in all components of an IT service, including the services supplied by suppliers.
6. Deliver & support focuses on detecting incidents related to information security and correcting them quickly to protect the information.

8.1.4 Knowledge Management

Purpose
To ensure the maintenance and improvement of information and knowledge effectively and efficiently for the convenient usage of the information and knowledge throughout the organization.

Description
Knowledge and information being the most important and valuable assets of an organization, it is very important to identify, capture, process, maintain and improve these aspects.

An organization should consider adapting and adopting a structured approach and ensure defining, building, using (& reusing) and sharing. This involves data processed into information, leading to the creation of knowledge. These are required for all the processes, practices, and services of various forms.

Further with the advancement of technology & management practices, and organizations embracing more and more solutions that are technology-driven & use complex systems, the knowledge of management practices have become a critical need. It is important to understand that knowledge is not just information. Knowledge is the application of the information in a specific context. This requires the understanding of the scenario of information processing and application of knowledge.

For example: For a service desk, a number of incidents logged during the specific period is information (like during the week 1 the number of incidents logged are 100). Using this information, setting the context to reduce the number of incidents and applying the actions for identifying the possibility of reducing the number of incidents and further applying to reduce the incidents is possible only through knowledge.
Note: Information provides the message, whereas knowledge is the know-how.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities' contribution to Knowledge management is to improve and deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on considering the knowledge required for planning; like portfolio decisions.
2. Improve focuses setting a context for assessing achievement and planning for improvement.
3. Engage focuses on relationships at all levels that are strategic to operations and to understand and communicate context to stakeholders for right actions.
4. Design & Transition focuses on the knowledge required for effective design and transition.
5. Obtain/build focuses on knowledge required for effective solutions and technologies used to obtain and build.
6. Deliver & support focuses on identifying and using the knowledge required for delivery and support. Here the need for information and knowledge is very dynamic, and requires continual evaluation of situations for applying knowledge accordingly.

8.1.5 Measurement and Reporting

Purpose
To measure and report the performance of the business or services, which would help in making decisions and improving the services & business performance. Further, this will also reduce the level of uncertainty.

Description
According to Peter Drucker, an American Management consultant, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it”. This saying, emphasizes on the importance of measurement.

Measurement is an essential need for all types of organizations irrespective of their size and complexities. The measurement should be represented or conveyed in a specific way which is readable (to make right interpretation) by the intended personnel. The metrics considered to measure differs at various levels. This is because, the context at each level varies and accordingly the metrics has to be considered to make the right representation and interpretation.

For example: While measuring a service as a whole, one would look at the availability of the services as one of the metrics. Whereas, a number of incidents occurred, the time taken to resolve & restore the services will become metrics to measure the operational performance. These metrics measured at operational level have to complement the next levels. In the given example, the reduction in the number of incidents or reduction in time to restore services or both should be complemented by improving the availability of the services.

Accordingly, the critical success factors and key performance indicator has to be identified and defined at all levels. Each of the metrics defined should have the right description to interpret. If the target metrics for measuring availability is 95%, then its impact on business has to be described, explained and justified. Only then the metrics of 95% makes sense.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Measurement & Reporting are Plan. Improve, Design & Transition and obtain/build activities.

1. Plan focuses on metrics which help to measure the performance of products that enable the decisions made for strategy & Portfolio.
2. Improve focuses on measuring the metrics at all levels to identify and improve.
3. Engage focuses on producing the reports as per the agreed frequency and templates and updating stakeholders from time to time.
4. Design & Transition focuses on metrics which help in monitoring and managing the performance of service or products before going live and design contribution & transition activities as well.
5. Obtain/build focuses on considering the metrics which ensures transparency of development and procurement activities.
6. Deliver & support focuses on metrics which are used to measure the performance of the product or services in a live environment which would lead towards uniform customer experience and value realization.

8.1.6 Organizational Change Management

Purpose
To ensure managing the human aspects of an organization while introducing, managing, modifying a service or a product. This needs an effective change management (for required transformation) of organization to achieve the lasting benefits through smooth and successful implementation of changes.

Description

While the business environment is subjected to change and evolution, it is very important to understand these dynamics and ensure the organization will also evolve & align with the change. In addition to that, improving the services, service performance, performance of service assets, etc., are also important.

This further emphasizes on transforming people in the organization in terms of behavior and culture for success. People are at the core of organizational change management. So, Organizational change management should ensure establishing, clear and relevant objectives, strong and committed leadership, willing and prepared participation and sustained improvement.

Moreover, organizational transformation is not an overnight accomplishment, it is a journey. For an effective organizational change management, there are many models that the organization adopts. One such model which is adopted and organizations are successful in accomplishing the intended objective of transforming an organization is 8 steps model of John P Kotter.

While initiating the organizational transformation, identification of the audience who are affected by this transformation, the individuals who can become the champions for the successful transformation, creation of vision and communication of the same effectively, creating quick wins and celebrating quick wins, and continuing to produce more wins has to be ensured by an organization.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Organizational Change management mainly is to Improve, Plan, Engage, Design & Transition. Further, there is a focus on obtain/build and deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on impact of changes at strategic and portfolio levels.
2. Improve focuses on ensuring the success of organizational change management movement, since it is an initiative of improvement on continual basis and aligns with the organization’s need of transformation.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with all the stakeholders at all levels in organization.
4. Design & Transition focuses on the change required for implementation of new services and changes to an existing design.
5. Obtain/build focuses on engaging within and across the projects.
6. Deliver & support focuses on ensuring continued support to existing services which are operational with minimum or no impact.

8.1.7 Portfolio Management

Purpose
To ensure that the organization has the right mix of programs, projects, products, and services to execute the organization’s strategy within its funding and resource constraints.

Description
Portfolio management focuses on defining, analyzing, approving and and services introduced, monitored, managed and retired by an

organization. These decisions are taken after, a thorough analysis of services or products, which are being considered for introduction, modification, improvement etc., if they make sense for the organization strategically, in investment perspective and value. Else the service or products will be retired.

The portfolio management can be defined as the coordinated collection of strategic decisions that together enable the most effective balance of organizational change and business as usual. Portfolio management achieves this through:

1. Developing and applying a systematic framework
2. Clearly defining products and services and linking them to the achievement of agreed outcomes.
3. Evaluating and prioritizing incoming product, service, or project proposals and other change initiatives.
4. Implementing a strategic investment appraisal and decision-making process
5. Analyzing and tracking investments based on the value of products, services, programs, and projects to the organization and its customers.
6. Monitoring the performance of the overall portfolio and proposing adjustments in response to any changes in organizational priorities.
7. Reviewing the portfolios in terms of progress, outcomes, costs, risk, benefits, and strategic contribution.

The different portfolio involved are producing/service portfolio, project portfolio, and customer portfolio.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Portfolio management mainly is Plan, then Improve, Engage, Design & Transition and Obtain/Build.

1. Plan focuses on deliver & support activities. or product portfolio i.e. service in pipeline, service in operation & retired services.
2. Improve focuses on identifying the improvement opportunities for services.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with all the stakeholders at all levels to decide upon the portfolio decisions.
4. Design & Transition, Obtain/build, Deliver & support focuses on ensuring products and services are clearly defined and linked to the achievement of business outcomes, so that these value chain activities are aligned with value.

8.1.8 Project Management

Purpose
To ensure success of all the projects in the organization through adaption and adoption of formal project management approach and also ensure keeping the motivation of the people high.

Description
Projects are formally defined as a temporary organization formed to produce results & accomplish the outcomes which are unique and create value. This requires the involvement of initiating, planning, delegating, executing, monitoring and controlling all the aspects of the project.

The success of a project is determined by the accomplishment of the ultimate objective of the project which is defined while triggering the project. Further a project has to ensure;

1. Maintaining the current operations of the business effectively and efficiently.
2. Transforming/Changing the business operations to ensure sustained growth and ability to compete in the market place.
3. Improving the products and services, continually.

Basically, the project approaches are predictive (or waterfall) and adaptive (or agile). The organization can adapt & adopt the specific approach as per the need of the organization or project and its dynamics. What so ever the approach is, it is required to ensure the consideration for project constraints carefully. That is scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, and risk.

Stakeholder engagement and communication also plays a very important role during the project management, this requires continual identification, analyzing and defining the stakeholder engagement strategy and communication management approaches.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Project management mainly are design & transition, obtain/build, along with plan, Improve, Engage. Further, the focus on deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on strategic and tactical planning.
2. Improve focuses on improvement initiatives of project throughout its lifecycle.
3. Engage focuses on effective stakeholders’ engagement, which is important for success of the project.
4. Design & Transition focuses on designing the practices, products or services that need to be delivered through the project.
5. Obtain/build focuses on acquiring the required resources which are required for the project.
6. Deliver & support focuses on ensuring products and services are monitored and managed after the delivery of the project. It has to ensure the readiness to take over while the project is being managed.

8.1.9 Relationship Management

Purpose
To ensure engaging and establishing the relationship with all the stakeholders at all levels, right from strategic to tactical levels. This includes the customer, supplier, partner, and functions within the organization.

Description
A stakeholder is any entity or individual existing internally and externally, who is impacted or impact and influenced or influence at all levels, because of the action organization takes while doing business, services, or projects.

The relationship with the stakeholders has to be established & maintained, for successful management. This includes identifying, analyzing, monitoring and improving relationships throughout. Relationship management is required in all types of business organizations, for achieving success.

The relationship management practice has to ensure that all the stakeholder needs, drivers & triggers are well understood. The satisfaction Description and involvement of stakeholders are very crucial and there should be a constructive relationship established between them. This should lead to achieving the desired outcomes of the business effectively and efficiently.

An organization should always focus on creating high stakeholder value.

That is,

1. By facilitating value creation for service consumers.
2. Prioritizing the products and services as per the needs of the stakeholders.
3. Mediating the conflicting stakeholder requirements.
4. Effective handling of any stakeholder complaints and escalations.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Relationship management mainly are Plan, Improve, Engage, design & transition, along with obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on the requirement for relationship management, which would be assisting in strategic assessment and prioritization across the portfolio.
2. Improve focuses on improvement of relationships through organizing and synergizing various relationships across organization.
3. Engage focuses on establishing & engaging with the stakeholders existing both internally and externally.
4. Design & Transition focuses on relationship required for coordinating the contribution internally and externally for effective design and transition.
5. Obtain/build focus on relationship management which helps to select the products, services or service components to be obtained or built.
6. Deliver & support focuses on the relationship between the organization and the service provider, so that service providers can ensure the value realization of services by service consumers leading to high customer satisfaction.

8.1.10 Risk Management

Purpose
To ensure the efficient and effective handling of risks of an organization throughout the service value chain and the entire lifecycle of the services/products and business.

Description
The term, “risk” refers to the uncertainty of outcomes which are both positive and negative. The positive risks are called opportunities and negative risks are called as threats.

The interesting part is that generally the negative risks are mostly considered by organizations ignoring the existence of positive risks. Missing or ignoring to consider the positive risks as risks may result in bigger risks as organizations may fail to take advantage of the positive effects of opportunities.

The organization should give high importance for managing risks, so that it can ensure the ongoing sustainability and continuously create value to customers. It should be an integral part of every action (or activities) that the organization performs at all levels. Risk is a part of business, it should be consistent across all levels of an organization, and a culture has to be built in an organization supporting risk management.

For effective risk management, the organization should adapt and adopt a practice, supporting the achievement of objectives of organization. Risks are to be identified, assessed and treated throughout the service value system. Risk is central to service value system defined in ITIL^®4.

For every risk identified, there involves a cause that has to be found through risk assessment and appropriate risk action has to be defined. The assignment of risk owner and risk actionee, ensures the demonstration of accountability towards effective risk management.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Risk management mainly are Plan, Improve, Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on providing the required inputs to strategy & planning, so that, the risks that can affect the outcomes are identified and treated.
2. Improve focuses on the improvement of risk management practices and also improving services through effective risk management.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of risk management so that risk appetite and risk profiles can be understood.
4. Design & Transition focuses on considering the risk factor of products or contribution.
5. Obtain/build focuses on considering the decisions regarding obtaining or building products, services & service components.
6. Deliver & support focuses on ensuring the consideration of risks at the operation level which would impact the service and service performance and has to be treated appropriately.

8.1.11 Service Financial Management

Purpose
To ensure that all the financial investments and resources are effectively used and support the strategy and plans of an organization.

Description
The service financial management mainly focuses on Budgeting, Accounting and Charging for the service of products which are newly conceptualized, designed, transitioned, delivered and supported throughout the service value system. All the investments made on services should be justified.

1. Budgeting refers to the approved financial resources for the service & products & their management throughout their lifecycles. The approximation of the financial resources and analysis will be done before allocating and approving the budget.
2. Accounting refers to the activity which focuses on monitoring, managing and controlling the financial resources like comparing the actual transaction with budgeted. It would involve accounting of systems, ledgers, journals, chart of accounts etc.
3. Charging refers to the charges claimed from the consumer for the services and products which would involve invoicing. This can be an optional practice, as the services always are not provided to external customers only.

Further financial management should be managed effectively and efficiently and financial objectives have to be accomplished. Modern technology environment has impacted the practice by broadening the perspective & applicability.

A modern organization uses the latest technologies like cloud, big data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI), block chain technologies etc. All these technologies have made the practice more advanced. Consideration of these technologies and practices has become crucial and advantageous for organizations.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Service financial management mainly is Plan & further focus is on Improve, Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on funding requirements at all levels based on the financial information, which requires for allocation of budget of services. It also focuses on forecasting the financial requirements and producing financial reports.
2. Improve focuses on improvements which are essential to justify return on investment.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with stakeholders relating to the financial aspects.
4. Design & Transition focuses on financial management which helps keep activity cost-effective and provides the means for financial planning and controlling.
5. Obtain/build focuses on acquiring the resources for which budgeting is done and accounting for them.
6. Deliver & support focuses on financial transactions (i.e. operational cost) required during delivering and supporting the services & products.

8.1.12 Strategy Management

Purpose
To ensure the establishment of the strategy and directions for organizations and define goals and objectives, the course of actions to accomplish those goals.

Description
For an effective strategy management, one has to define & understand the contexts of the organization and define the strategies which are essential to achieve the objectives and goals of the organization, by creating value to the consumer of products and services.

The strategy should also establish the criteria and mechanisms that would support the organization for prioritizing the resources, capabilities and do the necessary investments to produce the required outcomes. The strategy management practice would focus on achieving & managing these.

The strategy management has to consider and analyze the organization and its environment, the constraints, understanding of the vision & principles established in organization which set the direction. Further, understanding the perspectives and directions and setting up the strategy, so that, it can be translated to tactical and operational plans.

In modern fast-changing dynamics of the business environment, the strategies defined traditionally may not make any significant contributions. It requires thorough research, careful deliberation which would help in bringing the fluency and alignment to the required dynamics. This is so that the organization can respond to the changed scenario quickly at all times and remain aligned to the objectives always.

The value, should be the prime focus and the strategy should enable this on continual basis. The consideration for continual innovation and improvement to the service value, should be both for service provider and consumer of the services through innovative products and services. A high performing service strategy is the need of modern business environments to ensure uniqueness and to continuously outperform the alternatives.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to strategy management mainly are Plan & further focus is on Improve, Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on ensuring the translation of organization strategy into plans (operational and tactical), which support delivering the strategy.
2. Improve focuses on providing a strategy to identify and evaluating improvement opportunities.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with stakeholders at a strategic level, so that strategic decisions are aligned to organizational objectives.
4. Design & Transition, Obtain/build, Deliver & support focuses on ensuring the strategic objectives are achieved and realized through the actions performed while designing, transitioning, developing, delivering and supporting the services and products.

8.1.13 Supplier Management

Purpose
To ensure the management of supplier and their performance to support the seamless provisioning of quality products and services.

Description
Supplier management practice being one of the key service management practices focuses on supplier lifecycle management which includes identification, evaluation, establishing a contract or agreement, reviewing the performance of the supplier, the products & services provided by supplier, periodically and finally renewing or terminating the contract of the supplier. This involves Supplier Planning, evaluation and of supplier contracts, supplier categorization, contract management, performance management, contract renewal or termination. This helps in establishing the single point of control for supplier management by defining and maintaining the strategy, policy for supplier management.

Various different type of supplier’s relationship exist based on the supplier strategy. That is,

1. Insourcing – refers to the supply of the services which are developed and provisioned internally within the organization.
2. Outsourcing – refers to the supply of the services which are developed and provisioned external to the organization
3. Single source of partnership – refers to the procurement of services or products from the single supplier or partner
4. Multi-sourcing – refers to the procurement of services or products from more than one supplier or partner

Further, Service integration has to be performed by orchestrating all the suppliers involved in developing and delivering the products and services. It has to focus on provisioning the services end to end and ensure the control on all the interface and integration points which facilitate the required collaboration among all the services and supplier of the services.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to supplier management mainly are Plan, Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities & further focus on Improve activity.

1. Plan focuses on providing the strategy for sourcing.
2. Improve focuses on improving the performance of the supplier and the product or services provided by the supplier.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with all the suppliers throughout the supplier lifecycle. That is right from identification, evaluation, negotiation & establishment of contracts or agreements, and ongoing management of suppliers.
4. Design & Transition focuses on defining requirements for establishing contracts and agreement with suppliers.
5. Obtain/build focuses on procuring the products or services, service assets or components from suppliers which are needed for building or developing the services.
6. Deliver & support focuses on monitoring and managing the performance of the suppliers, while services or products are received from supplier, which should be in line with the agreement established with the supplier.

8.1.14 Workforce and Talent Management

Purpose
To ensure that the organization has the right set of people with appropriate skills, capabilities and knowledge that support the business objectives.

Description
The workforce and talent management practices involve the activities which focuses on engagement of people and employees of the organization, enabling them to perform with continued motivation and knowledge, and ensuring the availability of the right set of capabilities in the organization.

This includes thorough planning, recruiting, onboarding, training, performance monitoring and management etc. The skills and capability of people resources are key to the success of the organization, which helps in establishing the required velocity (The speed, effectiveness, and efficiency with which an organization operates. Organizational velocity influences time to market, quality, safety, costs, and risks).

The workforce and talent management include the activities mentioned in the below picture. That is,

1. Workforce management – refers to the translating strategies of organization to desired capabilities of organization.
2. Recruitment – refers to identification and selection of right set of people resources with right set of skills and capabilities.
3. Performance measurement – refers to continual monitoring and measurement of the performance, based on the skills, competencies required to assigned role.
4. Personal development – refers to continual development of individual skills and capabilities suitable for assigned job role.
5. Learning and development – refers to the methods and approaches adopted by an organization to enable employees of organization with specific area of expertise and specialization.
6. Mentoring & succession planning – refers to the plan and activities applied for formal mentoring, engaging and enhancing the ability of leadership capabilities.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to work and talent management mainly are Plan and improve activities. Further focus is on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities

1. Plan focuses on evaluating the current organizational capabilities and complementing the service portfolio.
2. Improve focuses on improving the skills and capabilities of the people resources and their motivation.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with all practices such as service desk, service request management etc., to identify and enable the required capabilities for the service management practices.
4. Design & Transition focuses on skills and capabilities required for designing and transitioning.
5. Obtain/build focuses on specific knowledge, skill and capabilities related to collaboration, quality, speed, cost, customer focus etc.
6. Deliver & support focuses on skills and capabilities required for delivering the services and support.

8.2 Service Management Practices (17)

The 17 service management practices are considered for all the services and applicable for the service in specific. These provide the views which are to be practiced throughout, while managing the services & products.

For example: Monitoring and event Management – The practices focus on monitoring the events of a specific service, perform the event correlation and trigger appropriate action as configured in the services.

8.2.1 Availability Management

Purpose
To ensure service availability meets the needs of the business i.e. customer and users.

Description
Availability of the services, as needed by business, is the outcome of the availability of the service assets (components), serviceability of the supplier, reliability of the service, effectiveness and efficiency of the service practices and design. Availability means, “available when needed”.

For example, the availability requirement of a bank’s (over the counter) services is from 9:00am to 3:00pm. During this service window, the availability of the services should be 100%. It is only possible, if the application, computer systems, bank premise, people, electric power etc., are available without any disruption or degradation. So, the organization should understand the availability requirement of the services (firstly), and accordingly services have to be defined, designed & deployed. It involves;

1. Discussing, negotiating, establishing and agreeing the availability of targets, which are achievable.
2. Defining and designing IT infrastructure and software applications which can deliver the required availability levels.
3. Identification and collection of data which are required for measuring availability i.e., number of incidents occurred, time taken to restore services etc.
4. Enabling the continuous monitoring which helps in continual assessment, analysis of availability of services and service components.
5. Continual measurement & reporting.
6. Identifying & improving the service availability continually.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to availability management mainly is Plan activity. Further focus is on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities and improve.

1. Plan focuses on considering service portfolio decisions, setting goals and direction for services and practices.
2. Improve focuses on improving the availability of the services.
3. Engage focuses on identifying and engaging with stakeholders understanding for availability requirements.
4. Design & Transition focuses on defining, designing and transitioning the services as per the availability requirements of the services.
5. Obtain/build focuses on acquiring and building the components supporting the service availability.
6. Deliver & support focuses on monitoring and managing the services and ensure that the services are available as per the requirements.

8.2.2 Business Analysis

Purpose
To ensure analyzing the business & business elements and ensure the recommendation of solutions which will address and solve the business.

Description
Further the value is enabled in alignment with the objectives of the business and organization.

Business analysis, should consider the overall perspective (holistically), which includes people, process, policies, technology, organization, information etc.

Business analysis practices have to ensure considering the overall contribution to the business rather than one area or at one level.

For example: restricting the business analysis to the product development will not result in the solution which is not complete in all aspects of the business alignment and value creation.

This involves;

1. Analyzing services, service architecture, systems, process which contributes to business considering the various different contexts of the business.
2. Considering all the SVS components for analysis that needs treatment to improve, identifying opportunity to innovate etc.
3. Continually monitor, measure, report, and document, to ensure the performances are in line with the business requirement.
4. Continually recommending the solution through thorough analysis i.e. by validating the achievement with the respective stakeholders.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Business analysis mainly are Plan, Engage, design & transition, obtain/build activities. Further focus is on improve, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on enabling the strategic decision for what needs to be done and how it has to be done.
2. Improve focuses on evaluating the entire system for improving at all levels, mainly strategic and tactical levels.
3. Engage focuses on engaging throughout the SVC activities to gather requirements.
4. Design & Transition focuses on defining and designing the appropriate contribution solution by gathering, prioritizing and analyzing the requirements.
5. Obtain/build focuses on identifying, obtaining, building the skills required for performing the business analysis activities.
6. Deliver & support focuses on gathering the data of the ongoing delivery, and analyzing it continually for understanding the performance & enabling continual improvement.

8.2.3 Capacity and Performance Management

Purpose
To ensure that sufficient capacity is available to the services and that service performs at the level expected and achieves the objectives demanded by the services in a cost-effective way.

Description
Service Capacity and Performance management practices consider the performance related to a number of service actions performed within the given timeline-- the time required or taken to complete the service actions at the load (various levels of demand).

For example: How long it took for a webpage to appear after entering the URL, which depends on the capacity of server hosting webpage, application, internet bandwidth, storage, systems used to connect and browse the webpage etc.

Service capacity is the result of the various different capacities at different levels. That is, capacity of the various components configured to create a service (as indicated in the example above). Each of these components Description perform at a certain level based on the utilization and availability of the capacity in these service components.

The capacity and performance management practice include the activities that are required for;

1. Checking the performance of the service and analyzing the capacity.
2. Monitoring and managing the service performance by ensuring sufficient capacity required for service performance.
3. Researching, analyzing and forecasting the requirement of capacity on continual basis by modelling performance.
4. Planning and implementing the capacity.
5. Identifying and improving the capacity

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities’ contribution to Capacity and performance management mainly are improve activities. Further focus is on Plan, Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on planning capacity at tactical and operation level, to ensure sufficient capacity, by analyzing the service performance (capacity), based on the demand and current utilization of the capacity.
2. Improve focuses on identifying and improvement capacity to improve the service performance.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with the stakeholders like customers & users and manage their expectations.
4. Design & Transition focuses on designing and transitioning the service that has sufficient capacity and is also scalable.
5. Obtain/build focuses on acquiring and building the service components that has sufficient capacity for services to perform.
6. Deliver & support focuses on monitoring, measuring and managing the service and service component capacity, that are required for performance of the services at required level.

8.2.4 Change Control

Purpose
To ensure maximizing the success rate of the changes, being executed in a service environment through the proper assessment, analysis and authorization of all the changes.

Description
Change refers to the add, move, modify, improve, remove etc., the features, functionalities of a services & service components. This includes hardware, software, process, products, documents etc. which are used to form a service. All the changes implemented have to have the formal authorization before they are implemented. This is essential to ensure the integrity of the systems, so that all the changes are controlled and done through involvement of right stakeholders.

Change control should aim at success of the changes being executed. This requires raising change requests, reviewing, analyzing and approving these changes before they are implemented. All the changes implemented should result in accomplishing the intended objectives of the change. It should be justifiable, beneficial and successful. No changes should result in failures of the services or service components which are attributable to change. Changes are of three types. They are Standard Change, Normal change and Emergency Change.

Standard Changes are the changes that are pre-approved, pre-authorized, low impact and low risk.

For example: resetting a password of a user system. The standard changes are executed through request management practice.

Normal Changes are the changes that have significant impact to business and needs analysis and authorization from the authorized. These changes are executed after raising the formal change request, their analysis and authorization.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
Emergency changes are the changes that are raised during the emergency scenarios like incidents resolution, reactive problem management etc. These types of changes are also to be approved by change authority like normal change, but they are stakeholder specific for the emergency change raised.

The service value chain activities’ contribution to work and talent management mainly are Plan, improve activities. Further focus is on the engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on modeling the change control for changes to process, products, service portfolio etc. at all levels.
2. Improve focuses on improvement of change control practices, i.e., the way change is being handled.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with the stakeholders required for execution, informing, consulting etc. while doing the change.
4. Design & Transition focuses on defining & transitioning the change.
5. Obtain/build focuses on acquiring & building the service components required for proposed change.
6. Deliver & support focuses on informing, coordinating, communicating, monitoring the changes & its impacts, before and after the execution of change.

8.2.5 Incident Management

Purpose
To ensure restoration of services to normal working conditions by resolving and restoring the services during the incidents, and minimizing the impact to business, which occurs due to the incidents, as per the business need.

Description
The term, “Incident”, refers to the interruption to the IT services or degradation of the service performance. The interruption or degradation of the service & service performance would result in negative impact to business. For example: Users are unable to access their email.

Incident management practices should aim at restoring the services quickly, and ensure services are available to business (users), as defined. The occurrence of the incidents may result in impact to a user or many. These may result in influencing the value perception of the customer. It is essential to ensure the availability of the services to customer as defined and agreed.

Incident management practices should ensure, all the incidents are logged, categorized, prioritized and resolved. The time taken to respond during (& resolving) an incident, should be analyzed based on the scenario. Usually it is based on Impact and urgency. These needs to be defined and agreed for every service, according to, what make sense to business.

Incident management practice should also provide the appropriate management and allocation of different resources, for different types of incidents. Impact of incidents may vary from low to very high. Requirement of resources to resolve the incidents depends on the complexity involved in resolving them. Accordingly, resources are utilized during the incident resolution. Major incidents which will have major impact to the business would require separate process or procedure. Similarly, to manage the incidents related to information security, information related to incidents has to be stored, recorded, and reviewed regularly to ensure the incident reduction, reducing resolution time etc. Approaches like improving first level call resolution and establishing known error database would bring in signification contribution.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Incident management mainly are Engage, Deliver & support activities. Further focus is on improve, design & transition, obtain/build activities.

1. Improve focuses on improvement by reducing the incident resolution time, improving the user experience etc.
2. Engage focuses on engaging, coordination and communication with the users and subject matter expertise while resolving incidents.
3. Design & Transition focuses on resolving the incident which would occur during the design and transition.
4. Obtain/build focuses on resolving the incident which would occur in the development environment.
5. Deliver & support focuses on identifying and resolving the incidents.

8.2.6 IT Asset Management

Purpose
To plan and manage the entire life-cycle of all the IT Assets, and ensuring maximizing the value, control costs, manage risks, enable decisions related to procurement, utilization & retirement of assets, and meet contractual & regulatory requirements.

Description
IT Asset refers to any valuable services component which contributes to the delivery of the service or an IT Product. This includes hardware, software, services provided by suppliers etc. IT assets involves cost and value that comprehend the cost and value of service or product. It will be an underpinning factor based on which service provider can make decisions.

IT Asset Management focuses on capturing the details of all the IT Assets in a register and same is updated regularly. This involves entire life-cycle of the asset right from acquiring, utilizing (implementing and operation), and disposing the asset. This contributes to the visibility of assets and their value.

The IT Asset Management is a sub-practice of Asset management, which is aimed at IT related assets, whereas Asset management is applicable for all types of assets in the organization. Further, IT Asset Management involves sub-practices within, like software asset management.

The integrity of an IT Asset has to be maintained. All the hardware assets should be tagged with unique identification number, protecting software asset for unlawful copying, grouping assets using the category etc. This will help in better management of IT assets through-out its lifecycle. It should also provide the details of the IT Assets like current and historical data, reports, and support to other practices about IT assets, which is a key element to successful service management as well as being useful to other practices.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to IT Asset Management mainly are design & transition, obtain/build activities. Further focus is on Plan, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on considering & planning the IT Asset Management based on the policies defined in service financial management practice, information security management etc., which helps in strategic management costs, risks and value associated with IT Assets.
2. Improve focuses on considering impact of IT Asset and Improvement.
3. Engage focuses on handling the relationship of users using the IT Asset etc.
4. Design & Transition focuses on driving most of the value chain activities of the IT Asset Management.
5. Obtain/build focuses on procurement of IT Assets and tracing throughout the life-cycle.
6. Deliver & support focuses on locating the IT Assets, monitoring their usage, status of the IT Asset in the organization.

8.2.7 Monitoring and Event Management

Purpose
To ensure the services and service components are observed systematically, detect & report the change of state which has significance to service, service performance and contribution to business.

Description
The monitoring and event management practice manages the events throughout the life-cycle to ensure prevention or elimination of negative impact to the business.

“Event”, refers to the change of state that will have significant impact to the management of an IT service or service component. Events are of three types. That is informational, warning and exceptional.

Information events are those which will not have any serious impact to the services, but service personnel should be communicated upon occurrences of such events. For example: back-up completed etc.

Warning events are those, which if not treated now, may lead to failure of an IT Service. For example: if the utilization of a storage reached 80%, it has to be checked, so that appropriate action can be initiated to reduce the impact because of increased utilization beyond 80%.

Exceptional events refer to the scenarios of failure of an IT service or service component, resulting in impact to business, which needs to be resolved and restored.

Monitoring and event management practices detects these changes of state, makes sense out of them and triggers the control actions required to address the scenarios. Control actions depends on the type of events and the actions configured for these event types.
Note: All the incidents are events, but not all the events are incidents. Similarly, all the alerts are triggered by events, but not all events generate alerts.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to monitoring and event management mainly are deliver & support activities. Further focus is on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build activities.

1. Improve focuses on observing the environment and evaluating proactively to improve the performance of service and service component.
2. Engage focuses on engaging with the other practices required for a control action based on the event type.
3. Design & Transition focuses on obtaining that information for design contribution consideration and status of the transition.
4. Obtain/build focuses on supporting development environment, by ensuring the transparency and manageability.
5. Deliver & support focuses on managing the identified events, by triggering the appropriate practice.

8.2.8 Problem Management

Purpose
To identify the potential & actual causes of incidents and reduce the probability of the impacts of incidents by providing the solutions and workarounds, including the creation of known errors.

Description
Problem refers to an underlying cause or potential cause of one or more incidents. Problem management practice focuses on identifying these causes, so that, those can be analyzed to resolve the incidents, by providing the workaround or permanent fix. The practice involves three distinct activities. That is problem identification, problem control and error control.

Problem identification involves identifying & logging problems, performing the trend analysis of the incidents, detection of duplicate or recurring incidents, identifying the risks involved in major incident scenarios, analyzing the information provided by suppliers, developers, partners, etc.

Problem control involves, analyzing the problem, identification of workarounds or permanent fix to the identified problem. It may or may not provide solutions to known errors that have been identified.

Problem control should consider all the risk, relationship between the various incidents, performance of the services, assumption to understand the potential causes which would result in impacting to the services.

Error control focuses on assessing and analyzing all the errors which are identified regularly; so that overall impact can be understood and worked upon by identifying a permanent fix and workaround.

Problem management practice contributes to other practices also, by providing the visibility towards the underlying causes. For example, incident management practices can reduce the impact of incidents by elimination of causes through the fix provided by problem management. Similarly, problem management support continual improvement practice etc.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities’ contribution to problem management mainly are improve, deliver & support activities. Further focus is on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build activities.

1. Improve focuses on identifying the probable causes for potential incidents and improve the availability of the services.
2. Engage focuses on involving the required stakeholders for problem prioritization and resolution.
3. Design & Transition focuses on providing the information that will help in improved testing and knowledge transferring.
4. Obtain/build focuses on managing the product defects identified by problem management.
5. Deliver & support focuses on preventing recurrence of incidents and supporting timely incident resolution.

8.2.9 Release Management

Purpose
To ensure that the new or changed services and their features are available to use.

Description
The term “Release”, refers to the specific version of a service or a configuration item or collection of configuration items which are made available to use.

A release would comprise of various different infrastructure and application components which should work together to deliver a services or service functionality. This may include processes, tools, documents, training including the those developed internally and supplied by the supplier or partner.

The release management practices work closely with deployment management practice. This depends on the approaches required in the given environment for releasing and deploying a services or service component to service environment.

Release management typically involves activities like, release planning, release packaging, release scheduling etc., so that the objectives, features, functionalities of the release are well understood by the users.

The release approach may include big bang or phased, manual or automated, push or pull depending on the size, complexity, speed etc., needed in release and deployment. In scenario of DevOps, CI/CD tool chain is considered.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Release management mainly are design & transition activities. Further focus on plan, improve, engage, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on policies, guidelines, & timelines for releases which are driven by strategy of organization and service portfolio, where the scope, size and content of release are planned and managed.
2. Improve focuses on the releases considered for improvement and improving the release management practice itself.
3. Engage focuses on involving the customers and users who are benefited by the specific release.
4. Design & Transition focuses on ensuring that the new or changed services are available to customers in a controlled way.
5. Obtain/build focuses on components that are required for a specific release and ensuring they are available to customer in a controlled way.
6. Deliver & support focuses on impact of release on delivery and support Releases may have an impact on delivery and support, which involve user guides, documentation, training, release notes known errors, scripts etc., that are required to practice and facilitate service resolution and restoration.

8.2.10 Service Catalogue Management

Purpose
To provide the single source of information for all the services and service offerings, consistently and ensure that it is available to the authorized.

The service catalogue captures the details of services, which are operational and is the single source of information for all the services and services offerings.

Description
Service catalogue management practices should ensure the updating, modifying and maintaining the description of the services and service offerings regularly. So that, the information captured in the service catalogue about the services are latest, updated and up to date.

The services catalogue is created to fulfill the specific needs of the specific kind of service consumers. For example: while visiting the website of a mobile service provider, one can find the various plans and descriptions of mobile services which are applicable to retail customers. Whereas same is not referred if there is an engagement with a corporate organization. Here the discussion and details differ compared to retain list.

This means, that the service catalogue should provide different views and different levels of detail to different stakeholders. Examples of views include:

1. The user views which provide the information of service offerings that can be requested by user, and the details of provisioning.
2. The customer views which would provide the details of service level, financial, and the detail of service performance, which would help customer to choose the specific service offering
3. The technical or IT to IT customer views which provides the technical, security, and process information for use in service delivery.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to service catalogue management mainly are Plan, improve activities. Further focus on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on enabling the strategy and decisions for decisions made for investments, by providing the necessary details required about the service and service offering.
2. Improve focuses on constant evaluation and monitoring which would support continual improvement, alignment and value creation.
3. Engage focuses on enabling the relationships strategically, tactically and at operation level contribution.
4. Design & Transition focuses on ensuring that the utility and warranty aspects are considered.
5. Obtain/build focuses on supporting value chain activities by providing the view required for procurement of service components.
6. Deliver & support focuses on delivering the services based on the agreements and performance.

8.2.11 Service Configuration Management

Purpose
To ensure the availability of the information related to service configuration and the configuration items (CI) which are used to form service, when needed, including the relationship between CIs, i.e. the way they are configured.

Description
Service configuration management identifies, captures and establishes the configuration database which stores information about all the configuration items and their relationships. Configuration item, refers to all the software, hardware, people, documents, building etc.which are used to form a service.

It is essential to ensure that the integrity of all the CI’s and their configurations are safeguarded, and at the same time the details captured in configuration management database are accurate, up to date, relevant and updated. It should provide the details, which is as per the actual implementation, always.

The Service configuration management should establish the snapshot of configuration and relationship with configuration items and help get the visibility into, how each of the service components (& CIs) are connected and contribute to the service and service performance.

Configuration Management database has to be updated regularly i.e. while implementing a change for resolving incidents, updating or modifying the services and service attributes etc.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to Service configuration management mainly are Plan, improve activities. Further focus is on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on planning new or changed services.
2. Improve focuses on improving the performance of services through improving configuration and performance of CIs.
3. Engage focuses on engaging with the stakeholders required to manage CIs.
4. Design & Transition focuses on designing the services considering the configuration and configuration items required for the services.
5. Obtain/build focuses on configuring the CI and creating configuration records and create code or artifacts that is being built.
6. Deliver & support focuses on monitoring and managing CIs to ensure early restoration of services by resolving the incidents due to CI failures.

8.2.12 Service Continuity Management

Purpose
To ensure the availability of minimum services at a sufficient level for business to sustain in the event of disasters.

Description
The service continuity management practices aim at providing the framework, which helps in building the resilience required, with the capability of producing the responses, that safeguards the reputation of organization & its brand, the interests of stakeholders, and support activities which create values.

The service continuity management practice should support the overall business continuity and consider the risk associated with the business. This practice is triggered in the scenarios where the disruption has occurred at the level where its severity is beyond the ability of the organization to fix with normal response procedures.

Service continuity management should focus on those events that would have the significant impact to the business i.e. business cannot continue its operation, during those scenarios that include flood, hurricane, earthquake, etc. During these scenarios, business has to ensure availability of services which are at least required to reduce the impact of those events, with (minimum) or without impact to the business and its sustenance.

To understand this, the organization has to conduct Business impact analysis (BIA) and Risk analysis, and make themselves ready by establishing disaster recovery plans. It should define the required recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO).

Recovery Time Objective (RTO), refers to the time period (maximum) that can elapse after occurrences of the disaster event before it impacts the business seriously due to lack of business functionalities.

Recovery point objective (RPO) refers to the point to which information utilized by an activity has to be restored for resumption of the activity.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities’ contribution to service continuity management mainly are Plan, improve, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities. Further, the focus is on Engage activities.

1. Plan focuses on considering the organization’s appetite, policies, strategies, investment which will have impact due to disastrous events & plan accordingly.
2. Improve focuses on improving the continuity plans and readiness of organization, time to time continual monitoring and improvements.
3. Engage focuses on engaging to provide assurance to stakeholders about the readiness of the organization to handle disaster scenarios.
4. Design & Transition focuses on products & services designed and tested to ensure they support organization’s continuity requirements.
5. Obtain/build focuses on building the service continuity in organization’s services and components.
6. Deliver & support focuses on performing ongoing activities required for service continuity.

8.2.13 Service Design

Purpose
To ensure designing the services and products that has utility (fit for purpose) and warranty (fit for use), which will facilitate the customer to achieve the outcome required.

Description
Service design practice focuses on designing the products & services considering the people, practices, products, suppliers, partners, information & communication, processes required to fulfill the requirement of the customer, so that customer can get the value required. Designing solution architecture, service architecture, technology architecture, management information systems, tools, processes, measurement methods, metrics (CSF & KPI required to measure the services) etc., are essential.

The services designed should address the need of both customer and service provider, in a cost-effective way. Service should be designed to have the resilience, security, availability, capacity, continuity required to fulfill the need of the business.

Further, it is essential to holistically visualize the service through end to end value streams (i.e. Demand to value), so that all the dynamics of the services & service environment are correctly understood and considered while designing the service. It is very important to understand and focus on the experience of customer & users.

So, service design should support the services and products that support business and service orientation, is cost-effective, user friendly, adaptable & adoptable, secure enough, manages risks, is scalable, and flexible so that changes can be done quickly etc.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to design management mainly are Plan, improve activities. Further focus on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on planning & organizing for an effective design of service or products.
2. Improve focuses on designing the services for improving the services performance by modifying the service attributes.
3. Engage focuses on engaging to incorporate the better experience to customer & users.
4. Design & Transition focuses on designing the products or services that has contribution the service utility & warranty, is easy to use, manageable etc.
5. Obtain/build focuses on identification and building the service components, services and products that are required to create a service, deliver, monitor and manage services.
6. Deliver & support focuses on managing the user’s full journey, through operation, restoration, and maintenance of the service

8.2.14 Service Desk

Purpose
To ensure there is a single point of contact for users of the services to contact during service interruption, service queries etc.

Description
Service desk practice provides the required channel for users to contact for reporting issues, requests, queries. Further service desk will acknowledge & log, classify, prioritize and action to resolve & fulfill (incidents & requests respectively), as applicable.

With the advancement of technology and every business being a technology enabled organization, it has become important to consider the impact that is made to the business and organization, and service desk should focus on providing the support to business and people to enable them to be successful. The focus should be beyond the action limited to the resolution of technical issues alone.

It is essential to establish a culture of collaboration, so that service desk staff and the other executives with different capabilities can work together to add value to business and provide good user experiences. Service desk uses telephone, emails, chatbots, ticketing tools etc., which support them while providing the services.

Service desk should have a clear understanding of the wider organization, the business process and user base who use the services and need support from service desk. Further to improve the service desk practice performance, service desk has to consider monitoring and measuring its performance capturing and producing the records, achievements, identifying the opportunities for improvements.

The service desk types are many, and some of those are local service desk, centralized service desk, virtual service desk, follow the sun service desk, and specialized service desk.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to service desk practice mainly are Plan, improve activities. Further focus is on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Improve focuses on constantly monitoring and evaluating for continual improvement of service desk practice.
2. Engage focuses on engaging with users and address their requests, queries and resolve incidents.
3. Design & Transition focuses on the involvement of the service desk to communicate the new or changed services to users.
4. Obtain/build focuses on acquiring the service components required for fulfilling service requests and resolving incidents.
5. Deliver & support focuses on coordinating for receiving, logging, resolving the incidents and queries of the users.

8.2.15 Service Level Management

Purpose
To define, set and agree clear targets for services, so that services performance can be monitored and managed throughout the life-cycle of the service, against these targets.

Description
The service level management practice defines, documents and manages the service levels of all the services and products. Service level management should provide the end to end visibility of all the organizational services. Service level management has to establish and provide the service views with service level target ensure meeting defined service levels by collecting, analyzing, storing and reporting all the defined target metrics of the services regularly (periodically) perform the service reviews and ensure the services meet the organization’s needs continuously identify, capture, review & report the issues related to services, its performance against the defined service targets.

The success of service level management will be based on the effectiveness of the interfaces established with other practices like relationship management, business analysis, supplier management etc. Further, service level management should focus and put efforts to engage and understand the requirements and concerns correctly. This would provide better insight towards the actual requirements & concerns of the customers and stakeholders.

Service level agreements have to be established by understanding the nature of the business, business dynamics, technology environment, what makes the business successful, insights obtained while engaging with the customer and their feedback through survey etc. This should help in establishing the measurement metrics i.e. business metrics, service metrics, and process metrics etc., which can be measured in the perspective of business performance, service performance and process performance (operational performance) respectively. Each of these metrics should complement and align towards a common objective.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to service level management mainly are Plan & engage activities. Further focus on improve, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on planning the service levels required for services, products, service portfolio, service offerings and measuring actual performance of the services.
2. Improve focuses on measuring the SLA continually & understanding the service experience by obtaining the feedback for improving the services.
3. Engage focuses on ongoing engagement with users and customers, to understand their view & experience with service performance.
4. Design & Transition focuses on designing and transitioning the services to meet service level targets.
5. Obtain/build focuses on building the services & service components to meet service performance.
6. Deliver & support focuses on monitoring and managing the services performance and report the achievements against the target SLA.

8.2.16 Service Request Management

Purpose
To support the agreed quality of the service by handling the pre-defined user requests, which are initiated by users in a professional and friendly manner.

Description
A service request can be defined as “A request from a user or a user’s authorized representative that initiates a service action which has been agreed as a normal part of service delivery”. For example: requesting for an information, or an asset like laptop, printer cartridge etc.

Standard changes are also fulfilled by service request management. Generally, all the requests handled by service request management are pre-authorized, which are essential needs of regular operation of the business. This need of approval for all the request logged is not required repeatedly as they are standard and more repetitive in nature, thus pre-approved.

To fulfill a service request (simple or complex), the established steps need to be proven and agreed upon, so that the fulfillment of the requests is smoother and further they can be standardized and automated as needed by the organization.

Every type of service request should have the timelines established and agreed with customers, so that it can be fulfilled within the given time lines. For example: due to information security reason, if organization has the policy to block all the USB ports of employee’s laptops by default, and in the scenario of a roaming user, who needs the USB port to be opened while travelling, the employee should know the way the request has to be placed and the duration it takes to fulfill the request. This helps the employee to follow and avail the services accordingly. Further, request fulfilment practices should have the consideration emergency cases as well.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to work and talent management mainly are Plan, improve activities. Further focus on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Improve focuses on improving the customer experiences while fulfilling the service requests.
2. Engage focuses on engaging with the customer & users while identifying the user-specific requirements and while fulfilling the requests raised by users.
3. Design & Transition focuses on defining the standard changes, processes contribution for service requests.
4. Obtain/build focuses on acquiring the services components required for fulfillment of service requests.
5. Deliver & support focuses on fulfillment of the service requests placed by users.

8.2.17 Service Validation and Testing

Purpose
To ensure the new or changed services and products are validated, so that they meet the defined & agreed requirements.

Description
Service validation focuses on establishing the acceptance criteria defined in release management that is required for successful deployment (i.e. the conditions which has to be met for readiness for the production). These are verified through testing at multiple levels. The acceptance criteria will be focused on utility & warranty which are defined through understanding customer, regulatory, business, risk management, and security requirements.

The consideration of the environment, platform, individual or set of services has to be made while defining the testing strategy & further it has to consider overall approach. Testing has to be done for all the systems at all levels & it includes both developed in-house and supplied by external suppliers.

Testing consideration while testing the utility (functional test) of the services can be unit test, system test, integration test, regression test. Whereas the consideration while testing warranty (non-functional test) of the services can be performance & capacity test, security test, compliance test, operational test, warranty requirement test, user acceptance test.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to service validation and testing mainly are Plan, improve activities. Further focus on Engage, design & transition, obtain/build, deliver & support activities.

1. Improve focuses on improving the metrics defined for service validation and testing.
2. Engage focuses on engaging with stakeholders in service validation and testing and improve visibility of service performance and adoption of service.
3. Design & Transition focuses on designing service, knowledge management, release management, deployment management, performance management.
4. Obtain/build focuses on building the services by testing and validating the service & service components which are acquired both internally and externally.
5. Deliver & support focuses on the known errors shared by testing and validation to resolve the service incidents by which the time required for resolving the incidents can be improved/reduced.

8.3 Technical Management Practices (3)

The 3 Technical management practices are considered for all the services and applicable for the service in specific. These provide the views which are to be practiced throughout, while managing the services & products.

8.3.1 Deployment Management

Purpose
To ensure moving new or changed processes, software, hardware, documentation and any service components to product (live) environment.

Description
To ensure moving new or changed processes, software, hardware, documentation and any service components to product (live) environment.

The practices deployment management, release management and change control have a close interface while introducing a change to an environment. The deployment management practice deploys the components in the schedule proposed in a change request and approved by a change authority.

Deployment can be done in many approaches. It may be big bang vs phased, push vs pull, and manual vs automated deployment approaches.

1. Big bang approach refers to the deployment of all the components together.
2. Phased approach refers to the deployment of components one after the other in different schedules (phases).
3. Push approach refers to the deployment of components to the target systems, by pushing it from the central system.
4. Pull approach refers to the deployment of components to the target systems, by target systems pulling it from the central system.
5. Manual approach refers to the deployment approach which involves manual efforts while deploying.
6. Automated deployment refers to the deployment done in an automated way upon reaching certain conditions like time (schedule) etc.

Besides, modern scenarios of the organization are pushing organizations for becoming more responsive, due to which approaches like continuous delivery & continuous deployment are becoming popular. Communication around deployments is a part of release management. Individual deployments are not generally of interest to users and customers until they are released.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to deployment management mainly are design & transition, obtain/build activities. Further focus on improve activities.

1. Improve focuses on deployment requirement of service components for the improvement of performance of services & service components.
2. Design and Transition focuses on designing and transition of new or changed contribution services to the live environment.
3. Obtain/Build focuses on deployment of the service components as defined and agreed in the agreed schedule.

8.3.2 Infrastructure and Platform Management

Purpose
To ensure overseeing the infrastructure & platforms of an organization, so that it enables the monitoring and managing the technology solutions used by the organization.

Description
The IT Infrastructure which involves server, network, storage, middleware, operating systems, that are required for delivering the IT services and the configuration items used by customer to access the services, has to be monitored and managed through out to ensure their performance at higher level, so that service can continue to deliver value to the customers. The IT Infrastructure also involves those that are managed by external suppliers.

Modern IT environment comprises of many suppliers supplied services and components like cloud services ex. platform as a service, software as a service, infrastructure as a service etc. Further this would also involve technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, chatbots, enterprise mobility, mobile device management etc., which stress on managing those for the success of services

The infrastructure and platform management practice include the provision of technology needed to support activities that create value for the organization and its stakeholders.

The infrastructure and platform management interfaces with other management practices like financial management, supplier management, capacity and performance management, change control, incident management, deployment management etc.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to infrastructure and platform management mainly are design & transition, obtain/build activities. Further focus on plan, improve, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on providing the information about the infrastructure and platform which is required for planning, both strategic and tactical Improve focuses on information required for improvement through the opportunities offered by technology, improving constraints etc.
2. Design & Transition focuses on information provided by product and services improvement opportunities.
3. Obtain/build focuses on obtaining and building the resources required for service and service management.
4. Deliver and support focuses on monitoring, ongoing maintenance of the services, service infrastructure & platform.

8.3.3 Software Development and Management

Purpose
To ensure meeting stakeholder needs (both internal and external) by providing the required functionalities, which are reliable, maintainable, compliant and auditable.

Description
The software deployment and management focus on ensure the software application are fit for purpose and fit for use so that the customer can get the value. This involves the entire lifecycle, right from ideation till retirement as depicted in the picture “The software lifecycle”.

The software lifecycle includes ideation, design, develop, test, deploy operate and retire, which continually facilitate value creation for services and products delivered to customers. This also involves improvement of the services and service performances continually until it is retired.

SVC Activity’s Contribution
The service value chain activities contribution to software development and management mainly are obtain/build activities. Further focus on plan, improve, design & transition, deliver & support activities.

1. Plan focuses on providing the information about the software applications which is required for planning, both strategic and tactical.
2. Improve focuses on information required for improvement through the opportunities offered by software applications.
3. Design and Transition focuses on information provided by product and services improvement opportunities for designing application holistically.
4. Obtain/Build focuses on obtaining and building the software resources required for service and service management.
5. Deliver and Support focuses on monitoring, ongoing maintenance of the software application for co-creation of value.

Summary:

To summarize, in this module we looked at all the 34 management practices, their purpose, description and service value change activities related to the practices. The 34 practices are grouped into three. Those are:

1. General Management Practices (14)
2. Service Management Practices (17)
3. Technical Management Practices (3)