See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/224202028

Implementing the Service Catalogue Management

Conference Paper · November 2010

DOI: 10.1109/QUATIC.2010.31 · Source: IEEE Xplore

CITATIONS READS

14 9,462

2 authors:

Carlos Manuel Martins Mendes Miguel Mira da Silva

Technical University of Lisbon University of Lisbon
24 PUBLICATIONS   61 CITATIONS    237 PUBLICATIONS   1,516 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

The Role of the Chief Information Security Officer View project

Healthcare Digital Transformation View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Miguel Mira da Silva on 22 May 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Implementing the Service Catalogue Management
Carlos Mendes1, Miguel Mira da Silva2
Information Technology Department, Instituto Superior Técnico
Avenida Rovisco Pais, Lisboa, Portugal
1
[email protected]
2
[email protected]

Abstract – The Service Catalogue is a fundamental need of catalogue can also be related with the following advantages
Information Technology (IT) organizations because it describes [6] [7]:
in a formal document the available services that these • Cost reduction: by the automation of the service
organizations have to provide. The catalogue contains the
subscription and delivery processes;
respective Service Level Agreements (SLA) that should be met,
setting expectations between clients and providers of services. • Transparency of costs: by the use of chargeback
The Service Catalogue is integrated with other processes, mechanisms;
including Service Level, Financial, Demand and Request • Increase of operational efficiency: by the services
Management – all these perfectly described in the ITIL books. standardization and by the delivery process
However, about 30% of IT Service Management (ITSM) projects optimization;
do not finish as a result of poorly defined IT services. This • IT recovery: because IT begins to be seen as a
research proposes some solutions that try to mitigate the risks of
partner and a business facilitator;
a service catalogue implementation. The proposed solutions
include a service definition, its components, the roles involved in • Increase of users’ satisfaction: by the processes
its management, an identification process and a lifecycle process. transparency and by the expectations’ alignment.
The proposal was implemented in a private company, where we
identified the services that composite the service catalogue. II. PROBLEM
The Service Catalogue and Level Management are crucial
Keywords— Service Definition, Service Catalogue, Service IT management processes because most of the other processes
Level Agreements, Service and Service Request Lifecycle are based on these. So, if these processes are poorly
Processes implemented, many other processes will suffer. For example,
it has been reported that about 30% of ITSM projects do not
I. INTRODUCTION
finish because of problems caused by the service definition [8].
This research focuses on IT departments that provide Although ITIL and other frameworks, such as CMMI for
services to other (primarily non-IT) departments of the same Services, describe how to manage IT services, these
company. The application of the proposals to other frameworks do not describe how to implement them – not to
environments (e.g., in multi-business situations) will be mention how to integrate them in practice with all other
studied in the future. processes. For example, in a study with around 100 companies
The need to describe a service is like the need to label that tried to implement a Service Catalogue, only 57%
goods or products in a supermarket. A product label provides reported the project was successful while 12% reported the
a brief summary of the good to which it is attached. project was completely unsuccessful. Furthermore, 34% of
Prospective buyers can use this information, together with the those companies mentioned service definition as one of the
price, to make a rational purchasing decision. Product labeling "top risks" for successful catalogue implementation [8].
occurs for the safety and benefit of purchasers and providers. When IT leaders confuse assets (that is, technology) with
The same reasoning can be made with services [1][2]. services, they confuse the business value of those assets with
Describing the services’ attributes requires a clear service the business value of the managed activities around those
definition and a service identification process [2]. assets. The business value of technology is ultimately
The act of transforming resources into services is the base determined by how it is used (or not). This accountability rests
of the service management and without it an organization is with the business; IT has little or no control over it. What IT
just an aggregate of resources that by itself does not bring does control is its own organizational effectiveness in
value to the business [3]. Nowadays, IT departments are provisioning and managing those assets [9].
imposed to justify their services and to analyze them from a On other hand, if IT does not understand the difference
cost-benefit point of view [4][5]. For that reason a service between a service and the elements that allow to provide it
catalogue is a key element of an organization. The service (process and assets), then they will tend to classify these
catalogue may also be seen as a structuring element, because elements as services. But the clients of IT have little interest in
it allows a cost projection and it captures indicators of how to provide the services, because they only concern with
consumption and efficiency of the processes. A service results [10]. By consuming the limited interest of the clients
with things that do not capture their attention (software,
hardware, process and more), the IT are undermining its • The time taken to receive the meal (and was it what we
credibility and inhibiting a better alignment with the business asked for?).
[11]. Then the business fails to optimally use the IT skills and If just one of these factors does not meet the clients’
everybody loses. expectations then ultimately the perceived quality and value
IT cannot manage what it does not understand. If IT does being delivered are negatively impacted. If IT staff focus on
not have an articulated IT Service Portfolio then IT managers the application or hardware elements being provided and
cannot establish relations between the service results and the forget or ignore the importance of the surrounding elements
elements that work together to achieve those results. When that make up the end-to-end service, just like in the example
this happens, IT has no frame of reference for knowing what of the restaurant, the customer experience and perceived
matters to its customers, how well IT is performing in relation quality and value will be also negatively impacted [13].
to expectations, or what needs to change to meet or improve
expected results. B. Service Catalogue Management Process
Distinguishing between assets and services is critical for The Service Catalogue Management process provides a
the evaluation of an internal IT performance against other unique information source of the agreed services and it
external alternatives, allowing better sourcing decisions [9]. ensures that the catalogue is available for users to consult [14].
The service catalogue is formed by the active services and
III. RELATED WORK by the ones that will be active in short term. In some cases it
The service concept is fundamental to understand the main can be very detailed and describe besides services, politics,
principles of the best practices that the IT industry tries to prices, service level agreements and sourcing conditions
follow. In order to comprehend this concept a new way of [15][16].
thinking is necessary and it contrasts with the traditional The service catalogue can have two levels:
instincts of the IT experts (that normally consists in • Business Service Catalogue:
components, such as software and hardware) [12]. This o Contains details regarding the available services,
mindset requires instead an alternative outlook to be relations with business processes and represents the
maintained, with the focus being the service-oriented or end- customer view of the catalogue;
to-end view of what their organizations actually provides to its • Technical Service Catalogue:
customers. In other words, it is focused in the results/value o Contains information about available services,
that IT can provide [13]. relations with the support processes and the
respective Configurations Items;
A. IT Services o It is not visible by the customers.
According to ITIL, a service is “a means of delivering Although ITIL and CMMI identify the principal aspects of
value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to what a service catalogue is, they fail to explain how to
achieve without the ownership of specific costs or risks” [14]. implement this concept. For example, in the case of the
Although this definition represents a good start to comprehend service identification process, ITIL only says that the
the general lines of what a service is, it is an abstract integration between the business needs and the IT capabilities
definition and does not identify all the service features, must be done. And the CMMI defends that when identifying
components and relations with the IT assets. the services it is necessary to respect the organizational
In the majority of the dictionaries the “service” concept is politics, standards and models. Neither explains how to
associated with intangibility, being defined as an action, not a identify the services of an organization.
thing, which cannot be stored or reused. It responds to user
needs by adding benefits to their operations. C. Related Processes
To explain the key features of a service it is helpful to use There are several processes related to the service catalogue
an analogy with the food industry. When we cook at home, we management, because it runs as the base for some of these and
need to go to a grocery store, buy the ingredients, take these also because it needs some input of others.
ingredients home, prepare and cook the meal, set the table and
clean up the kitchen afterwards. As alternative, we can go to a 1) Request Management
restaurant that delivers a service that provides us with the According to ITIL, a service request can be defined as a
same outcome (a nice meal) without the time, effort and “request from a user for information, or advice, or for a
general fuss if we were to cook it ourselves. However, the standard change or for access to an IT Service” [17]. From
quality of a restaurant is not only influenced by the value of the customer point of view this definition makes sense,
the food, but also by: because all the requests made by him to the IT are service
• The cleanliness of the restaurant; requests, although some may correspond to incidents or
• The friendliness and customer service skills of the changes. But the same is not applicable to the IT employees,
waiters and other staff; because they mostly understand what represents each request.
• The environment of the restaurant (lighting, music, ITIL starts to address it, but does not explain how to manage
decorations etc.); each concept. Some key questions remain without answer:
• The variety of meal and drinks; What is the difference between incident, change and service
request? How and where should those concepts be recorded?
When a standard change is made, should it be recorded as a • Categories – All services should have defined a
service request? category and a subcategory. This allows to aggregate
services in groups, which can optimise a service search;
2) Service Level Management
• Base Cost – Represents the cost of the base features;
Service Level Management intends to define, to document, • Base Features – List of the base features that compose
to agree, to monitor, to measure, to report and to review the the service;
quality level of the services. In its context it should be defined
• Optional Features – List of optional features from
a Service Level Manager (SLM) employee, who acts as the IT
which a service requester can choose when requesting
representative inside the business and vice-versa. SLM has the
a service. The respective cost must be defined for each
responsibility to manage the business expectations and to
optional feature;
ensure that the services are delivered according to these
• Exclusions –Identifies the features that the service does
expectations [18].
not offer (when relevant to mention);
3) Others • Prerequisites – List of prerequisites necessary for the
There are others processes related to the service catalogue, service request;
such as financial management, demand management or • State – Identifies the state of the service;
suppliers management, but the scope of this paper does not • Service Level Agreements (SLA) – List of SLAs from
include them. which a user can choose only one. Each SLA should
have three indicators: Maximum delivery time,
IV. SERVICE MANAGEMENT PROPOSAL incident resolution and service availability; Each SLA
This section describes the service management proposal must have an associated cost;
that tries to respond to the referred problem. • Penalties – Penalties that the service provider should
pay if the SLA is broken;
A. Service Management • Validity – List of periods that indicate the time during
This section identifies the service definition proposed, as which a user can enjoy the service value. Each period
well the service components, the involved roles, the service must have an associated cost;
identification process and the service lifecycle process. • Service Owner – IT employee accountable for the
1) Service Definition service. He must maintain the service information
updated and ensure the achievement of the SLAs.
After analysing several service definitions, the proposed
• Requester – Identifies who has permissions to request
definition is that every service:
the service;
• Is an action not a thing and is intangible;
• Needs Approval – Defines if the service needs
• Is simultaneously produced and consumed, so it cannot approval or may be requested and executed without a
be stored or reused; superior involvement;
• Responds to identified needs; • Delivery Process – Identifies the tasks needed to
• Can be sold to external companies; deliver the service.
• Uses capabilities and resources (people, tools,
information, etc); 3) Roles
• Follows a delivery process; In the following sections are mentioned some roles that
• Adds value to buyers (this value may be valid for an intervene in the service management. These are:
agreed period); • User – Employee that requests services;
• May contain tangible results; • Receiver – Employee that needs the service (may be
• Is described with user terms. the same that the user);
As service examples may be considered: access and support • Approver – Chief of the user’s department. The
to computer, application, printer or phone, and project or employees with this role are accountable to
formation assistance. There are some examples of things that approve/reject the users’ service requests. This role
should not be classified as services: software XPTO, send represents the IT customer (pays for the services);
email, change password or server. • IT Technician – IT employee that delivers the services;
2) Service Components • Service Owner – IT employee accountable for one or
more services provisioning;
Each service should have defined the following • Service Provider – Principal accountable for the
components: service provisioning. Has the responsibility to approve
• Name – The service name must be defined in user or reject the publication of services in the catalogue.
terms and it has to identify the business value of using Normally the Chief Information Officer (CIO).
the service;
• Description – Short description of the service; 4) Service Identification Process
• Image – Each service should have an image associated The proposed process is an iterative process compound by
that helps to identify it; five steps: definition of the general lines of the offering,
identification of the business needs, annalysis of the IT 5) Service Lifecycle Process
capabilities, documentation of the serviice catalogue and This process identifies the seervice states, the activities that
catalogue acceptance. change these states and who haas permissions to perform these
Lines of activities.
Offering

Catalogue Business
Acceptance Needs

Catalogue IT
Documentation Caapabilities

Figure 1 – Service Identification Process

P

The first step, the definition of the geeneral lines of the

offering, corresponds to the identificationn of the categories
and subcategories in which the services are a divided. These
categories should name the main areas wheere the IT acts and
that are visible to the customers. This activiity may be done by
the IT managers as preparation for the next stage. It should not
define services, only categories and subcateegories, because the
first sketches of services should be achieveed with the help of
the customers.
The second step involves interviews withh the business units
in which the consumption needs (seervice name and
description), the historical relationship, the expected service
levels, the business process that triggers thhe service requests Figure 2 – Servicce Lifecycle Process
and some improvement suggestions shouldd be identified and
documented. As the first service descriptionns are defined with This process starts when ann IT employee (with Service
customers’ help, it is guaranteed that theese definitions are Owner permission) fills the seervice attributes. Then he can
business oriented [19]. On the other hand, thhe impact of the IT submit the service for publicattion, which would change the
services in the business processes becomes clear. Because this state of it to “Submitted”, or he may save the inputs as “Draft”
phase is where the customers became aw ware of the service and ask for publication later. When submitted, the service
catalogue project it is important to taake some change must be validated by the Serviice Provider. If he approves it
management actions, such as explaining thhe importance and then the service state changes to t “Published” and it becomes
advantages of a service catalogue. available for user requests. But if the Service Provider rejects
In the IT capabilities identification stepp the IT managers the service then its state changees to “Rejected” and it does not
should identify the IT capabilities annd resources, the stays available for the users. Alll the published services can be
underpinning contracts, the customer relatioon systems and the unpublished by the respectivee Service Owner without the
IT processes maturity. This analysis checks c if the IT Service Provider’s approval, which
w allows to mitigate some
capabilities can correspond to the customeers’ expectations or errors that may occur in the pubblication phase.
not. This step can use existing audit techniques and V. SERVICE MANAGEEMENT EVALUATION
frameworks like COBIT [20].
The fourth step proposed is the docuumentation of the The big flaw of the current service catalogue literature is
remaining services’ components. In this step IT managers the lack of examples. This secction introduces some practical
should compare the business needs with the IT capabilities examples based on the proposall section.
and they should document the services’ com mponents according A. Service Summary
to this comparison.
The last step of this process is to validatee with the business In the next table is an examplle of a service summary.
units if the documented service catalogue can be officialised
and if it can be used in other processes. If all the business Service Access to a Standdard Desktop Computer
units agree with the service catalogue thenn the process ends, Installation and support
s of a Standard Desktop
Description
but if not a new cycle must be started. Computer
 7. Close request
Table 1 – Example of a service summary
Image
B. Service Catalogue
This subsection lists a hypothetical service catalogue that
Category Job Position an IT department can have. As the majority of the services
Subcategory Desktop provided by the IT companies and departments are similar
Base Cost 250 € then this list can be used as a base for the service
Standard Desktop Computer identification process.
Screen The services should be grouped by categories, such as Job
Keyboard Position, Applications, Communications, Consulting and
Mouse Support to the previous.
Base
Standard software installation 1) Job Position
Features
Corporate network access
These services are directly related with job positions and
Installation and configuration
give the basic utilities to customers. These services are
Hardware updates during 4 years
normally the ones that the user easily associates with IT. In
General Support Level 1
this list are the supply of computers (desktops and laptops),
Second screen 50€ which can have several versions, the installation of printers
Optional General Support Level 2 100€ and the support to videoconferences and formations.
General Support Level 3 150€
Exclusions None • Desktop Computer
Prerequisites Available corporate network infrastructure o Standard Desktop Computer
State Published o Executive Desktop Computer
• Laptop
20 business
Delivery o Standard Laptop
days
o Executive Laptop
o Industrial Laptop
Option 1- 50€ Availability 24/7 • Printing, Scanning and Fax
o Shared Printing
Incident o Standard Individual Printing
24 hours
Resolution o Executive Individual Printing
SLA o Individual Fax
10 business • Corporate Videoconference
Delivery
days o Standard Videoconference
o Premium Videoconference
Option 2- 100€ Availability 24/7 • Others
o Formation Support (logistics preparation)
Incident 2) Applications
12 hours
Resolution This category identifies the services related to applications.
Penalties Not applicable In this section, one should only define as services the main
applications and systems that IT can give access to and
365 days 100€
support. For remain applications that are less important we
Validities 132 days 50€
propose the definition of a service named “Installation of a
90 days 25€
requested software”, which lists in its optional features all the
Service existing applications. This section is also composed by the
Employee X
Owner Development subcategory, which includes the services of
Requester User with chief position software development.
Needs
Yes • Enterprise Portal
Approval
1. Verify stock o Intranet
2. Assemble deliverables o Financial Management System
Delivery 3. Associate Configuration Items to user o Webmail
Process 4. Set the deliverables configurations o Documents Management System
5. Schedule day of delivery o Files storage
6. Deliverables installation o Internet
 o Extranet service agreements as a basis for planning and implementing
o Installation of requested software the service delivery. Without a unique and centralized
• Development comprehension of what IT provides to the business, the base
o Implement new features of the relation between the two becomes obsolete and
o Change existing features everything that is built on it will have problems. For example:
How can a chargeback process be accepted by the customers
3) Communications if the services are not documented and agreed? How to
IT departments may also be responsible to supply services maintain users of a Service Desk satisfied if the IT technicians
related with the communications: do not know who receives what (services)?
• Voice communications In the future we plan to integrate the proposals with
o Corporate fixed voice financial management (an ITIL strategy process) and with
o Standard corporate mobile voice ITIL operation processes such as request, incident, problem
o Executive corporate mobile voice and change management. We also intend to design an IT
o Corporate mobile voice and data (PDA) dashboard based on metrics from all these processes, to build
• Data communications a prototype that implements these proposals in practice, to
o Communications with external entities implement the prototype in a company and to analyse the
o Communications for Video vigilance results from the data collected to improve the processes.
4) Consulting REFERENCES
A group of services that usually the IT customers do not [1] O’Sullivan, J., et al. What’s in a Service? Towards Accurate
know that exists is the consulting services. This is because Description of Non-Functional Service Properties. Distributed and
these services’ deliverables are mainly intangibles. The Parallel Databases, 12, 117–133. 2002.
[2] O’Sullivan, Justin, Edmond, David and Hofstede, Arthur. Service
definition of this type of services is crucial to show to the Description: A survey of the general nature of services. 2002.
customers that the IT role goes behind the supply of [3] Goldstein, S. M., et al. The service concept: the missing link in service
technology: design research? . 2002 Journal of Operations Management.
• Projects’ support [4] Jauvé, J., et al. An Introductory Overview and Survey of Business-
Driven IT Management. IEEE, 2006.
o New project preparation support [5] Sallé, M. IT Service Management and IT Governance: Review,
o Support during a project Comparative Analysis and their Impact on Utility Computing. . HP
• Others Research Labs, 2004.
[6] GroÈnroos, C. The perceived service quality concept - a mistake? .
o New solutions’ consulting Filândia : Hanken Swedish School of Economics, 2001.
o Studies, opinions and IT politics [7] O’Sullivan, J. et al. Formal description of non-functional service
properties. Australia : Centre for Information Technology Innovation,
5) Support 2005.
Support could include some auxiliary services that only can [8] Cole, S. Service Catalog Trends and Best Practices Survey Highligths.
Enterprise Management Associates, 2008.
be requested as features of the main services. The support and [9] Young, Colleen M. Know Your Services; Know Your Customers.
maintenance of the deliverables are a clear example of this Gartner, 2006.
kind of services: [10] Peasley, J. and Fletcher, J. IT Service Management - And Beyond.
• General support Sidney, Austraulia : Macquarie University, 2004.
[11] Young, Colleen M. A Framework for Designing IT Service and
o General support level 1 Process Metrics. Gartner, 2006.
o General support level 2 [12] Young, Colleen M. Mature Your IT Service Portfolio. Gartner, 2006.
o General support level 3 [13] Engle, Claire, Brewster, Jackie and Blokdijk, Gerard. How to Develop,
The support is divided by levels of service quality. In the Implement and Enforce ITIL V3 Best Practices. The Art of Service,
2008.
level 1 the support is only done on business days and in labour [14] Office of Government Commerce. ITIL v3 – Service Strategy. The
hours, in the level 2 it is extended for the 24 hours and in the Stationery Office, 2007.
level 3 it is 24 hours per 7 days a week. [15] Bon, J.V., et al. Foundations of IT Service Management Based on ITIL
V3. ITSM Library, 2007.
VI. CONCLUSION [16] Software Engineering Institute. CMMI For Services. Carnegie Mellon,
2009.
The application of a service catalogue may have a huge [17] Office of Government Commerce. ITIL v3 – Service Operation. The
impact in an organization, because it defines the offer that a Stationery Office, 2007.
service provider has and it works as a formal communication [18] Office of Government Commerce. ITIL v3 – Service Design. The
Stationery Office, 2007.
means with the customers. This is important, because it [19] Curtis, Debra and Brittain, Kris. Document the IT Service Portfolio
contributes to a better alignment between the two through a Before Creating the IT Service Catalog. Gartner, 2009.
document that both comprehend. But for that to happen it is [20] Information Systems Audit and Control Association. Control
necessary that both understand the base concept that relate Objectives for Information and related Technology. [Online]
http://www.isaca.org/AMTemplate.cfm?Section=Downloads&Templat
them, the services. Analysing the gap model presented in [21], e=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=34172.
our proposal allows a service provider to close the Gap 1 [21] Zeithaml, V. A. and Bitner, M. Service Marketing. New York :
because it translates the customer’s service expectations into McGraw-Hill, 1996.
clear service agreements and also Gap 2 because it uses the

View publication stats