lesson-2-service-management-and-stakeholders.pdf

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Lesson 2 Study Guide ^D^

The ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management

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Welcome to the second chapter of your Study Guide. This document is supplementary to the information available to you online, and should be used in conjunction with the videos, quizzes and exercises.

After your subscription to the course has finished online, you will still have the Study Guide to help you prepare for your exam - if youve not taken the exam by the time your subscription expires.

Youll download a Study Guide at the end of most Lessons as you progress through the course.

This Chapter contains the Study Guide information for Lesson 2 Service Management and Stakeholders.

Use this Study Guide in conjunction with your own notes that you make as you progress through the course. You may prefer to print the Study Guides out, or use them on-screen.

After each Lesson, you can consolidate what you have learnt whilst watching the videos and taking the quizzes by reading through the chapter of the Study Guide.

If you progress on to the formal exam, your Study Guide will provide you with vital revision information.

Remember, your Study Guide is yours to keep, even after your subscription to the course has finished.

Service Management and Stakeholders





Study Guide Icons 3

Lesson Contents 4

Service Management 5

IT Service Management 7

Stakeholder 9

Exercise Stakeholders 10

Customers 11

Table of Contents





Watch out for these icons as you use your Study Guide. Each icon highlights an important piece of information.

Tip this will remind you of something you need to take note of, or give you some exam guidance.

Definition key concept or term that you need to understand and remember.

Role a job title or responsibility associated with a process or function.

Exercise Solution suggested solution to one of the exercises you will complete throughout the course.

Goal or Objective for a particular process or core volume.

Study Guide Icons





This Lesson looked at some ITIL key concepts.

We studied:

Service management Stakeholders

Text in "italics and quotation marks" is drawn from the ITIL core volumes Quoted ITIL text is from Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement Crown copyright 2011 Reproduced under license from OGC.

Lesson Contents





ITIL is described as best practice for the management of IT services. It doesnt matter what job you have in IT, you are part of the overall service that is being offered to the customer.

Most modern organizations rely on IT to be effective. They expect IT to be available, responsive and communicate with them regularly.

Technology alone does not deliver a good service. Technology needs to be managed in order to meet the customers needs.

Service Management

A set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of services.

Remember: Services deliver value to customers, and Service Management provides a way to make sure that value is delivered.

Service Management Challenges

Organizations develop service management capabilities and skills so they can respond to challenges.

There are 4 specific challenges that shape an organizations service management capabilities, and we studied them in detail. They are:

The intangible nature of the output of a service process Demand for services is tightly coupled to the customers assets The high level of contact between the service provider and the customer or service

consumer The perishable nature of service output and capacity

Service Management





Professional Practice Elements of Service Management

Service Management is defined as a professional practice supported by an extensive body of knowledge, experience and skills that have built up as the IT industry matured and developed a service focus.

There is a global community of professionals that support service management, including organizations like the IT Service Management Forum.

You can read more about the itSMF at www.itsmfi.org - including finding out about your national chapter.

Service Management is also supported by a scheme that provides quality assured education, training and certification.

There is a wealth of service management information available including academic research and formal standards such as ISO/IEC20000.

Whatever area of service management you work in, a quick web search will reveal supporting material that will be useful to you as you develop processes and procedures.

Service Management is seen as having developed in the traditional service industries - such as airlines, banks and hotels.

IT focus has moved from a technology-centric approach to an end-to-end service approach that focuses on the customer and the quality of service they receive.

IT is increasingly seen as a vital business enabler, and IT plans must be aligned to overall business models, strategies and plans.

Another factor that has contributed to the advancement and development of service management is the increasing complexity of service delivery. More and more organizations use shared services or outsourced service providers, leading to a requirement for ever more sophisticated service management.

The more complex the supply chain for service delivery, the better the service management processes need to be. This increased complexity has strengthened and improved service management, as well as imposing greater challenges on it.





Information Technology or IT means different things to different people. It can refer to staff, or technology, or a department.

Different interpretations of IT include:

IT is a collection of technology which makes up a larger product IT is an organization with skills and resources IT is a type of service used by the business IT is a type of business asset that can make money for the

business

IT organizations need to work hard to understand what their customer needs from them. They are a service provider to their customer, using service management to deliver the necessary outcome.

IT service management needs to be efficient and effective, delivering high quality IT services.

IT service providers usually have to balance 3 areas:

What the customer wants How the service performs How much the customer is willing to pay

If IT cant deliver what the customer wants at the right price, they need to communicate this as soon as possible. Documents like Service Level Agreements can be used to help manage expectations.

IT Service Management





Recap

An IT Service Provider provides IT services to internal or external customers.

IT Service Management is used to implement and manage the quality of IT services that meet the needs of the business. IT Service Management is performed by IT service providers through a mix of people, process and information technology.





Stakeholder

Stakeholders are defined as any person who has an interest in an organization, project, IT service or other area.

Stakeholders may be interested in activities, targets, resources or deliverables.

IT needs to understand who its stakeholders are. They will include staff within IT who need to talk to each other for the service to be delivered.

Other stakeholders are external to IT. These include customers, users and suppliers.

Remember

Its important to understand the difference between customers, users and suppliers.

Customers buy goods or services. They will usually be involved in defining what they want the service to do, but might not use it regularly

Users use the service on a day-to-day basis Suppliers are third parties who supply good or services that

make up all or part of an IT service

Stakeholder





Exercise Stakeholders

This Lesson included an Exercise to look at your stakeholders. If you didnt have time to complete the exercise during the Lesson, why not attempt it now?

Exercise

Think about your current role, or your previous role in IT. Make some notes and answer these questions:

Who were your customers? Who were the users? Were there any suppliers who formed part of the service delivery?

Exercise Solution

Here are some suggestions remember your answer will depend on the type of organization you worked in.

Customers could include:

Internal department heads, budget holders, team leaders, board members

External shareholders, other companies, individuals

Users could include:

Staff who worked for your company or people who were paying for your services. For example, people who use internet banking, broadband, an online ticket service or a mobile phone are all users of services.

Suppliers:

You might have used third parties to provide elements of service delivery such as data centre management, cloud services, hosting, or support.

Remember, if you found this exercise challenging or have any questions, you can email a tutor at [email protected].





ITs most important stakeholders are usually the customers who decide what services are needed. These fall into 2 broad groups:

Internal customers who are part of the same organization as the service provider External customers who are not part of the same organization

Whether customers are internal or external, they still expect to get the level of service they need. Service providers must understand their customers expectations and work hard to meet them.

Remember

Being customer focused doesnt mean that the customer gets everything they want.

Sometimes the customer will ask for things that are unrealistic so the service provider needs to work with them to deliver an appropriate service for an appropriate cost.

We studied the main differences between internal and external customers.

Funding

Internal customers are part of the same organization as the IT service provider. IT is often set up as a cost centre, with budget allocated to it to deliver services.

Its still important for IT to understand the cost of services, so that improvements can be made.

External customers pay for services directly. This allows IT to generate income and profit. More customers can mean services are improved, as more money is available for investment.

Customers





Business Strategy and Objectives

Internal customers share objectives with the IT service provider - as they are part of the same organization. Business outcomes can be used to help IT set priorities.

External customers may have different objectives to their IT service provider. IT will have to work hard to understand its customers objectives.

If IT doesnt help the customer meet their objectives, the external customer can simply buy a service from someone else.

Accounting

Accounting is different for internal and external customers. The price of the service may be more important to an external customer, who can shop around with different providers.

Internal IT service providers dont usually try to make a profit from the services they provide.

Involvement with Service Design, Transition, Operation and Improvement

Internal customers may also be more involved with the design of services. External customers will provide requirements and expect the service to be designed to meet their needs.

Feedback is then used to improve the service in future for example, a new release of a software application will contain improvements.

Internal customers are also likely to be more involved in Service Transition and Service Operation. As part of the same organization, they will have more involvement in areas like deployment schedules.

External customers will have less involvement with the Service Transition and Service Operation processes, although they will still need to understand if any changes are happening.

Finally, internal and external customers will have different levels of involvement with improvement. Internal customers will support IT as they develop improvement plans.

External customers will provide feedback, but have less involvement in what the service provider does to act on their feedback.





Remember

Customers will be driven by their own objectives.

Some customers will use IT services to maximize profit and customer retention.

Other customers for example in charities or government organizations will use services to deliver value and wont be as concerned with profit.

lesson-2-service-management-and-stakeholders.pdf

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