Service Management - Framework 2013

Getting Started Right with Service Management

System

Network

Firewall Software
App
Service
Management

With the right framework, enterprises of almost any size – small to large – can
implement effective functional Service Management organizations. The framework described in this article
enabled a successful implementation at a large financial services company. As a result, the company has
realized important benefits. In addition to cutting operational costs, it increased efficiency and
effectiveness by shifting the model from having separate support functions for each line of business to
relying on well-integrated functional groups and promotes shared knowledge management processes and
tools. This approach fosters consistency and enhances the quality of the transition of assets to
production. In addition, it improves mean time to repair (MTTR) production.

This article describes the role of a quality Service Management organization, the structure that needs
to be put in place, and the related enterprise-level process integration needs.

Common Service Management Model

Service Management groups most commonly are structured around incident, problem, change, and
release and deployment management, as shown in Figure 1. A key to success that many
organizations overlook is the need to address the people, processes, and tools required to integrate
and operate the Service Management group effectively.

Release &
Deployment
Management

Change cision Na Incident

Configuration
Management Management
Management Dashboard

Problem
Management Reporting

Service Management Service

Desk

Figure 1: Common Service Management Model

Standing up a support group without integrated processes and clear ownership and hand-offs can lead
to its failure. For example, the support model can be aligned by business function. This model typically
works for small organizations. As the organization grow and more systems transition to Service
Management group for support, overall performance around support will likely decline.
 Service Management - Framework 2013

Functional Service Management

Be sure to do your homework before implementing a Service Management model within your
organization. To implement a well-integrated enterprise-level Service Management organization,
you need to have background information around the following points:


Knowing vs. Understanding Your Customer
Knowing your customers is important; understanding your customers is equally
important. To understand the value proposition, you must understand your
customers and their needs. Without knowing who the customers are, it becomes
impossible to do this.


Your Customer’s Needs
Make sure to create services based on your customer’s current and future
needs. Communicate upfront what services are offered and the cost associated
with those services. It is important to make sure service level agreements
(SLAs) around those services are built in as part of the service delivery process.


What Services You Are Able to Provide
Be innovative when it comes to implementing new services for your customer.
Develop high-value services to successfully build your customer base. If you are
providing support services in the cloud, it becomes more important to consider
reusable, high-value services that can serve multiple customers.


Value of the Services Provided
The services that you provide should benefit the customer and improve process
and efficiency.

Impact on the Enterprise
Make sure to automate end-to-end service delivery strategy along with support
service which can make a positive impact on the enterprise as it drives new
changes in a rapid market. At the end, it comes down to how you are reducing
the total cost of ownership.

Service Value
Customers will evaluate the performance of the services that you provide based on the value and quality
of the services that the Service Management division offers. The success of a Service Management
division is based on how well it is integrated within the enterprise and supports the business by providing
services that the customer wants and needs. You can provide consistent support services to your
customers only when standard processes, policies and procedures are well defined with clear hand-offs
between groups. Figure 2 shows some of the common high-level services that IT organizations provide. If
you focus on IT services first to make sure the support foundation is strong, everything else will fall in
place.
 Service Management - Framework 2013

IT Services

Hosting Workplace Applications Reporting Security Network

Figure 2: Core IT Service

It is critical to communicate your service management mission and vision to your enterprise. If the goal is
to provide help desk, end-user computing or application-related support, the message needs to be clear
about the services that will be delivered to the enterprise that support your mission and vision. The key
is how the Service Management group will add value to the organization. If you are not demonstrating
the value, the future of the department is at risk. The value for your organization might be based on how
enterprise-wide support services have saved time and customer frustration around issues and how the
those values have created new opportunities by reducing cost and time to market new business
opportunities. Perceived value can be calculated based on the following formula:

As a service provider, service management play a critical role when it comes to keeping all there users
informed around the health of the IT systems that they support. Make sure that right information is
available at the right time. When it comes to providing services to customers, the value of the services
also depends on how many people are dependent on your service. In the telecom industry, for instance,
the value is based on the usage of the communication network and the number of interactions between
people in the same network. This shows how much customers rely on a given service. The value of a
service based on its network usage can be calculated as follows:

(N = Number of users using a given service)

Framework for Service Management

Once you have a clear understanding of the services that are going to be offered to customers, the next
step is to create an effective support model within the organization. The goal is to make sure that all
areas within Service Management will work together to form a cohesive and consistent operating model
focused on improving the overall service around support.

The framework should be developed with one goal: for Service Management to provide all levels of
support, from facilities management to 24x7 application support, including incident, problem, and
change/release management, to business continuity management. Based on support SLAs, a 24x7
operation center function should be created to provide extended service desk support after
business hours. Figure 3 shows the high-level model of the framework that was adopted and
implemented successfully at a large financial services organization.
 Service Management - Framework 2013

New
Application

Project Management
Office

Incident Management Service Technology & Transition

Problem Management Service Continuity

Management
Release Management

Change Management App Support

Center
Help Desk

Operation
Desk

IPM
ITIL Processes Service Desk

Call HelpMe/Service
Request Portal

End User /
Application
Support

Figure 3: Service Desk Model

In this model, all transitions of enterprise assets move through the service transition process and service
desk handled all customer support function as depicted above. The service desk needs to be well
integrated to handle incident/problem management (IPMO) along with providing 24x7 support through the
operation center. Make sure you set a communication protocol in place so that customers are kept
informed on critical issues and their status.

This model was derived from the ITIL framework and was customized to ensure that the support
organization was in a position to improve operational efficiency by incorporating standards and focusing
on customer satisfaction, reducing operational support costs, and improving how issues and risks were
addressed. Figure 4 below shows a high-level view of all IT standards, enterprise policies and
procedures that should be considered as part of your transition requirement.

Standards In Place Focus Needed

Architecture Standards
Business Archiecture
Development Standards
Policies
Data Management
Procedures
Infrastructure Standards

Integrated Processes
Security Application
Development Systems
Service
Methodology Project Management
Testing Strategy Technology &
Tranisition

Figure 4: Enterprise Standards

 Service Management - Framework 2013

It is important to define operational requirements based on enterprise standards and guidelines along
with business and IT operational controls that are required to create a stable, reliable system that can be
supported by the service desk. If an organization has invested to create standards, guidelines and
operational controls to improve service quality, then you can measure service quality after those
standards, guidelines and controls are used. Next, you have to address how those standards, guidelines
and operational controls are incorporated into your adopted development methodology, such as SDLC or
Agile. In this model, as you can see in Figure 3, all projects move through the service transition group and
service quality checks are performed on all projects (Figure 4) before they are transitioned to the service
desk. Also, it is important for proper change and release management processes to be in place to make
sure Service Management has a full view into what type of changes are getting released and what new
information needs to be transitioned to the service desk.

STANDARDS SERVICE TRANSITION

Architecture Standards
Service Strategy

Development Standards
Change Management

Management
Release & Deployment

Service Design
Service

Data Management
Service Transition
Management

Infrastructure Standards
Service Operation
Security

Continual Service Improvement

Testing Strategy

Figure 5: Change and Release Management

Service Transition Role Is Critical

The service transition team needs to review and ensure that, in each phase of the project, there is clear
communication around what operational requirements need to be incorporated so that they can
transition those projects to the service desk smoothly. Here are the key high-level tasks that should be
part of service transition group.

Incorporate service transition design solution
o Design the automation needs around support.
o Eliminate manual processes to support a given system.
o Design a knowledge management strategy.
o Define governance around tracking assets and its relationship in CMDB.
o Discovery of assets and asset management design – CMDB
o Incorporate operational requirement based on the standards supported by the enterprise
o Incorporate release and deployment automation design and support


Conduct Operational Readiness Assessment o
Engage early in the project.
o Review solution architecture / environment design and assess impact to software
configuration management, processes, controls and automation.
o Identify training needs around products that will transition to the service desk.
o Ensure that operational standards and controls are enforced.
o Review solution architecture.
 Service Management - Framework 2013

o Ensure automated capabilities around performance, availability and capacity are in place
and monitored
o Understand the need to build and maintain support processes and tools.
o Ensure security access and password management including automation is in place.
o Confirm that disaster recovery standards and requirement are enforced and all
recovery-time objectives for critical systems along with disaster-recovery
documentations are in place.
o Review service management operational standards and requirements
o Review performance, availability and capacity requirements
o Ensure operational handbook are delivered as part asset transition effort
o Ensure security management procedures around segregation of duty are tested
o Enable tool to address unauthorized changes once an asset is in production
o Transition all knowledge articles to knowledge management tool for support needs

Additional Consideration
It is critical to integrate service management processes and tools so that the real-time health of the
managed assets can be communicated to customers. A centralized dashboard to show real time metric
and performance can really add value to your customer.

A high-level view of the process integration is shown below in Figure 6. There are many tools in
the market place to enable this process.

Tools
Application CI
SM Tools
Portal
SM Function

Application Portfolio
Management

Operational Impacts New Aproved Changes

Real time Operational View (Integrated Service View Portal) Uses

Data Collection
Applications
Incident Management

Configuration Management
Problem Management

Middleware
Change Management
Release Management

Service Transition
Release & Deployment
Asset Information

Security Management
Request fullfilment

Event Management

Service Continuity
Server Management
Performance/Capacity

Service Capability
Storage
SLA

Service Desk

Network

Uses
Discover Updates

CMDB

Figure 6: Process Integration

Service Management - Framework 2013

Saji Varghese, is a director in the Service Technology & Transition (Service Management)
area within Freddie Mac’s Information Technology division. He has more than 20 years of
experience in delivering technology solutions, mainly in the financial industry. Contact the
author by email at [email protected].