What is IT Service Management?

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IT Service Management (ITSM) comprises the processes, methods, functions, roles and activities that an IT Service Provider uses to deliver services to clients.

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This tends to suggest that it may only apply to an outsourced arrangement where an external IT service provider is providing some level of service to an organisation. It could however, be argued that also applies to an internal IT team, proving service back to the business.

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Going beyond “just delivering services”, service management also assumes that each service, process or infrastructure component has a lifecycle. Therefore, service management also considers the entire lifecycle from strategy through design and transition to operation and continual improvement of each service, process or infrastructure component.

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The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a best practice framework for IT service management. It provides governance of IT, the ‘service wrap’, and focuses on the continual measurement and improvement of the quality of IT service delivered. Importantly it focusses from both a business and a customer perspective, not the IT perspective, ensuing IT services meet the business need.

 

Why have IT Service Management?

 

It can help a to create an effective service management system, delivering:

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• increased client and user satisfaction with IT services

• improved service availability, directly leading to increased business profits and revenue

• financial savings from reduced rework, lost time, improved resource management and usage

• improved time to market for new products and services

• improved decision making and optimised risk.

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The ITIL Lifecycle

 

Service Strategy is at the start of the ITIL Lifecycle. It defines the plan created by the IT service provider to create services that are better than their competitors. It defines what the service(s) to be delivered is, and how it will work.

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Service Design functions create a new service or makes changes to an existing service. It seeks to establish best practices for designing services according to both the needs of clients and the competencies and capabilities of the service provider.

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Service Transition builds and deploys the designed IT services and ensures that changes to services are undertaken in a coordinated and controlled manner.

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Service Operation ensures that IT services are delivered effectively and efficiently. It includes fulfilling user requests, resolving service failures, fixing problems, as well as carrying out routine operational tasks.

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Continual Improvement aims to continually improve the effectiveness and efficiency of IT processes and services. It uses methods from quality management, such as monitoring, reviewing and evaluating to learn from past successes and failures.

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