Book Image

A Practical Guide to Service Management

By : Keith D. Sutherland, Lawrence J. "Butch" Sheets
4 (1)
Book Image

A Practical Guide to Service Management

4 (1)
By: Keith D. Sutherland, Lawrence J. "Butch" Sheets

Overview of this book

Many organizations struggle to find practical guidance that can help them to not only understand but also apply service management best practices. Packed with expert guidance and comprehensive coverage of the essential frameworks, methods, and techniques, this book will enable you to elevate your organization’s service management capability. You’ll start by exploring the fundamentals of service management and the role of a service provider. As you progress, you’ll get to grips with the different service management frameworks used by IT and enterprises. You'll use system thinking and design thinking approaches to learn to design, implement, and optimize services catering to diverse customer needs. This book will familiarize you with the essential process capabilities required for an efficient service management practice, followed by the elements key to its practical implementation, customized to the organization’s business needs in a sustainable and repeatable manner. You’ll also discover the critical success factors that will enhance your organization’s ability to successfully implement and sustain a service management practice. By the end of this handy guide, you’ll have a solid grasp of service management concepts, making this a valuable resource for on-the-job reference.
Table of Contents (28 chapters)
1
Part 1: The Importance of Service Management
6
Part 2: Essential Process Capabilities for Effective Service Management
18
Part 3: How to Apply a Pragmatic, Customized Service Management Capability
Appendix B: SLR Template

Summary

Service management, no matter the level of formality, is in play at all times and is all around us in many different scenarios. It is incumbent upon service providers to maintain this capability, especially for those that have formalized their practice. That said, a service provider’s market consists of stakeholders that are key to the success of a formal service management capability. Formal service management is not specific to IT. In fact, and as mentioned, many of its included concepts originate from other industries. Culture also plays a key role in the success of managing services. Once human resources get entrenched in formal service management situations across an ecosystem of service providers, it becomes contagious, in that the quality of the service being delivered is judged. Applying common sense concepts from formal service management can have a significant impact on work/life balance.

In the coming chapters, we will build on these concepts of service management, including related frameworks/standards/methods, systems thinking, and design thinking. Now that your curiosity has been piqued by the general idea of service management, let’s explore what is meant by formalizing these concepts from an IT service management perspective, often referred to as ITSM.