201 0
TERM PAPER ON:ON:INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICE MANAGEMENT THIS TERM PAPER INCLUDES THE BASIC OVERVIEW OF ITSM, ITS IMPORTANCE AND VARIOUS COMPONENTS. A CASE STUDY HAS BEEN PRESENTED IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE PRACTICAL NATURE OF ITSM
Submitted To:Submitted By:MS TEENA BAGGA Praveen-F-38
Pranav
Eshan Bhateja-F-39 Ribhu Mahajan-C-44 10/20/2010
Contents
Overview of ITSM Various Elements Involved ITSM Service Delivery:•
Financial Management
•
Service level Management
•
Availability Management
•
Capacity Management
•
Continuity Management
Case study of successful implementation Conclusion
Overview of ITSM IT Service Management (ITSM) is a process-based practice intended to align the delivery of information technology services with needs of the enterprise, emphasizing benefits to customers. ITSM involves a paradigm shift from managing IT as stacks of individual components to focusing on the delivery of end-to-end services using process models. Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a globally recognized collection of best practices for information technology (IT) service management. ITSM audits are based on analysis of four key performance indicators in specific ways: •
Growth and value, which involves tracking revenue growth against investment
and utilization. •
Budget adherence, which involves optimizing the use of available funds and
avoiding unnecessary expenditures. •
Risk impact, which involves identifying and evaluating the consequences of
risks taken or avoided. •
Communication effectiveness, which involves examining customer feedback
and gauging customer satisfaction and awareness. A thorough ITSM audit allows enterprise executives and management personnel to determine the status of various processes and identify potential problem areas. In order to function well, ITSM requires in-house expertise. One way to ensure this is to have key individuals within the organization obtain ITIL Foundation certifications regulated by the ITIL Certification Management Board (ICMB). Third-party auditing is another option, although it carries some risk of product bias because outside auditors may have vendor-specific knowledge or preferences.
ITSM is process-focused and in this sense has ties and common interests with process
improvement
movement
(e.g., TQM, Six
Sigma, Business
Process
Management, CMMI) frameworks and methodologies. The discipline is not concerned with the details of how to use a particular vendor's product, or necessarily with the technical details of the systems under management. Instead, it focuses upon providing a framework to structure IT-related activities and the interactions of IT technical personnel with business customers and users. ITSM is generally concerned with the "back office" or operational concerns of information technology management (sometimes known as operations architecture), and not with technology development. For example, the process of writing computer software for sale, or designing a microprocessor would not be the focus of the discipline, but the computer systems used by marketing and business development staff in software and hardware companies would be. Many non-technology companies, such as those in the financial, retail, and travel industries, have significant information technology systems which are not exposed to customers. In this respect, ITSM can be seen as analogous to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) discipline for IT - although its historical roots in IT operations may limit its applicability across other major IT activities, such as IT portfolio management and software engineering.
The following diagram provides an overview over the processes supported by ITSM. Starting with incidents, change requests and project proposals, ITSM provides a continuous process chain covering the planning, priorization, distribution, execution and rollout of changes throughout the IT service organization
Service Management (ITSM) as the descriptive framework that would enable IT to begin the transformation into an internal service provider. A recent Gartner report examined long-term trends in IT. It concluded that over the next five years IT would transform itself into a business focused, process-oriented organization delivering the agility and innovation enterprises need to maintain their competitive advantage in the marketplace. In effect, IT would be delivering
Business Technology solutions that would exploit technology in support of business objectives. When examined in detail, the Gartner report predicts that IT as we know it will evolve into a Business Technology organization (BTO), integrating itself into the enterprise or mission value chain. The enterprise’s focus will shift from Return-OnInvestment (ROI) on technology projects to total business value delivered to the enterprise or mission. In turn, IT will shift its focus from the internal delivery of
technology to the brokering of services in a multi-source environment. To support this transformation, Gartner is also predicting that the IT profession itself will split into four domains; technology, information, process and relationships. Whether IT evolves into a BTO or into an “internal outsourcer ” is more a matter of semantics than a critical differentiator. The fact of the matter is that the convergence of several external forces are creating an environment that is forcing IT to change the way it does business with its clients and the value it needs to deliver to the enterprise going forward. Charles Darwin astounded the world when he theorized, in his book “The Origins of Species,” that species evolved over time in response to their environment through
the process of natural selection. Only those organisms that successfully adapt to the environment survive and pass their genes onto the next generation. One could argue the point that natural selection is at work in the business and information technology worlds. History is littered with the bones of successful businesses that failed to adapt to changing marketplaces. IT organizations have shared a similar fate. If IT is going to survive and
pass on its genes,” it needs to adapt to this new ecological niche before the one it currently occupies closes up. Shaping the Future – The Business Technology Ecosystem
Before IT can adapt and transform itself to support this new business technology ecosystem it must rationalize the predictions Gartner is forecasting with something that is actionable. In order to operate as a service provider, organizations must demonstrate three main characteristics; an unambiguous understanding of their customer’s need, repeatable processes to ensure consistency of execution, and the ability to innovate in a structured manner. In effect this becomes the model for the delivery of business aligned-processes and technology. In order to achieve an unambiguous understanding of the customer’s needs, the service provider must, in a structured repeatable manner, define and categorize the enterprise process, technology and capability requirements. The next step is to compare these requirements to the existing environment to understand what it will take to achieve and manage the required capability. The provider must do this in the context of governance based on enterprise goals and achievement measured against expected outcomes. Repeatable processes are required to ensure consistency of execution. This is critical because day-to-day business processes rely so much on embedded technology that failure to execute consistently directly impacts the enterprise’s ability to deliver its product or service. Finally, the service provider must develop a utility grade delivery platform and process management model that is capable of supporting emerging hardware and software architectures such as Real Time Infrastructure (RTI) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). A service provider provides the portal through which the enterprise receives its enabling business technology. The service provider brokers those services
irrespective of their source, internal or external. Therefore, the provider can deliver utility grade, enterprise-aligned services as needed, and manage technology investments and innovation in a structured manner. Underpinning all of this is the need for a model that helps identify what services need to be sourced internally and what services can be sourced externally. This model will provide the guidance the enterprise needs to classify the services and processes that are critical to quality service delivery and differentiation in the marketplace (See Figure 1). The internally sourced services are prime candidates for investment, as they are critical to the success of the business. The business may source other activities according to the capability of the enterprise using established sourcing policies and guidelines (using Carnegie-Mellon’s eSCM – capability model). Figure 1
ITSM SERVICE DELIVERY SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT:-
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Provides a way to align the IT services with the business requirements. Customers and IT personnel can discuss and asses how well a service is being delivered. Primary Objective: Provide a way for setting clear expectations with both customers and user groups The primary management of IT services Service Level Management is dependent upon all the other areas of service delivery Business processes associated with SLM: Reviewing existing services Negotiating with the customers Implementation of Service Improvement policies and processes Planning for service growth Involvement in accounting to asses costs of services
Financial Management:•
•
•
•
•
Financial Management includes budgeting, accounting, and charging for IT services being delivered to the customers. Budgeting and accounting involves understanding the costs of providing various services Financial Management ensures that any IT service proposed is justified from a budget point of view. Allows IT departments to function as a business unit. The discipline of ensuring the IT infrastructure is obtained at the most effective price
•
•
Not necessarily the cheapest! Calculating the costs of providing the service so the organization can justify the costs of its IT services
•
Costs can then be recovered from the customer of the service
•
IT Costs can be divided into different units:
•
Equipment
•
Software
•
Organization (staff, overtime, etc.)
•
Transfer (costs of 3rd party service providers)
•
Costs can also be divided into direct and indirect costs, and can be capital costs or ongoing cost
Availability Management •
•
•
Main goal is to ensure the IT services are available to users when they need them. Availability is usually calculated and reported as a percentage of the agreed service hours for which the service was available Measuring availability: •
Agreement statistics – what is included within the agreed service
•
Availability – agreed service times, response times
•
•
Help Desk Calls – number of incidents raised, response times, resolution times Capacity – performance timings for online transactions, report production, numbers of users, etc.
Costing Details – charges for the service, and any penalties should service levels not be me •
Calculating availability:
– Serviceability – when a service is provided by a 3rd party, this is the
expected availability of those components – Reliability – how long a component can be expected to perform under
certain conditions without failing – Recoverability – how long it should take to restore a component back
to its normal state after a failure – Maintainability – how easy a component can be maintained, which can
be both corrective or preventative – Resilience – the ability to withstand failure – Security – the ability of components to withstand breaches of security
CAPACITY MANAGEMENT
•
Includes planning, sizing, and controlling service solution capacity to satisfy user demands. This requires a collection of information about usage scenarios and patterns as well as stated performance requirements
•
Inputs: – Performance monitoring – Workload monitoring – Application sizing – Resource forecasting – Demand forecasting – Modeling
IT SERVICE CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT •
Also known as contingency management – Focuses on minimizing the disruptions to businesses caused by failure
of “mission-critical” systems – Deals with planning to cope with and recover from an IT disaster
– Provides guidance on safeguarding existing systems – Also considers what activities need to be taken in the event certain
services are not available •
Basic steps: – Prioritizing the businesses to be recovered by conducting a Business
Impact Analysis (BIA) – Performing a Risk Assessment (Risk Analysis) for each of the IT
Services to identify the assets, threats, vulnerabilities and countermeasures for each service. – Evaluating the options for recovery – Producing the Contingency/Recovery Plan – Testing, reviewing, and revising the plan on a regular basis •
•
Continuity management and disaster recovery are important, yet often overlooked, part of IT security and risk analysis Inadequate contingency planning is looked at as a risk to the business, and is often overlooked until it is too late. – When a security or other breach results in the loss of supporting IT
systems or valuable information
A Case Study on a Successful ITSM Intervention
This case study will showcase how an ‘ITSM’ intervention that Senthil Kumar carried out for a leading multi-national company resulted in an average Objective:
During Senthil’s international tenure as an ITSM Consultant with a Global Fortune 500 organization, a reputed international client requested for consultation to improve its Service Desk quality. Client Background:
This client is a mining and building construction materials group. The annual revenue of this company is about $10 billion . Challenges Faced:
The client claimed that despite all their efforts, an average of 46% of the total internal customer calls in a month was getting dropped or unattended to. Before consultation with Senthil, the procedure for Service Desk enquiry was such that when an internal customer called the front line helpdesk, the front line employees would take the call and try to resolve the query and close the case, provided the query was within their scope. On the other hand, for complicated queries, front line employees from the Service Desk would note customer details and then log the call to the concerned technician who was in-charge of that particular IT PLATFORM. This takes considerable amount of time and slows down the front line employees’ ability to handle the call volume. Due to this procedure, all calling customers calling at a time when a technician was handling a complicated query would be made to wait in queue. This led to a lot of
disgruntlement and dissatisfaction amongst customers. Hence call quality and service delivery levels were well below optimal levels. They had also outlined that the employees needed to have a professional approach to customer service, problem solving and call handling as part of the IT Helpdesk operations. This included a change in the mindset toward a ‘culture of customer service’, and also taking ownership. Solution:
After consultation with the various managers and employees, Senthil and his team of consultants suggested that the client should perform a procedural change with respect to call handling in order to reduce waiting time. It was suggested that when the internal customers get on line with IT Service Desk for sorting out a query, they would have to choose from a range of options that cater to their IT platform. When this number is pressed on their handset that corresponds to a particular IT platform, the call would directly get routed to the technician incharge of the same. In this way, the waiting time was reduced. If more than one customer calls at the same time requiring support for a particular IT platform resulting in the technician being busy, the call would get routed to the front line Service Desk employees. They would then try to solve the customer’s query. If the query was beyond their scope of work, they would log the call to the concerned technician. Results:
In this way, calls were being effectively routed; this resulted in increasing the response rate of customer calls by over 90%. This, in turn, increased the call quality and effectiveness of IT support rendered. It also reduced the burden of call logging. Senthil’s consultation with this organization also helped to enhance the customer service mindsets in the employees bring about a change in employee mindsets towards developing a sense of teamwork and a ‘Culture of Customer Service’. They also understood the need to take ownership for all queries that came their way.
Conclusion:
The client organization was delighted with the results. Senthil has handled many more cases from diverse organizations during his 9 year spell with leading multi national companies. Through his experience, he has the knowledge and competency that is aiding him to successfully spearhead training of IT Service Management at MMM Training Solutions.
In the End:-
Although managing the technology itself is a necessary component of most ITSM solutions, it is not a primary focus. Instead ITSM addresses the need to align the delivery of IT services closely with the needs of the business. This transformation of a traditional "business - IT paradigm" can be depicted by some of the following attributes: Traditional I/T
becomes
ITSM Process
Technology focus "Fire-fighting" Reactive Users Centralized, done in-house Isolated, silos "One off", adhoc Informal processes IT internal perspective Operational specific
Process focus Preventative Proactive Customers Distributed, sourced Integrated, enterprise-wide Repeatable, accountable Formal best practices Business perspective Service orientation
The ITSM module combines and integrates all important processes necessary to run IT operations
