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

Identifying and implementing tools and technology

Service management activities benefit from having the right tools and technology. Some of these tools include artifacts produced during planning sessions, architecture diagrams, process design documents, standards documentation, analysis documents, roadmaps, and assessment results. Some of these tools are technology platforms to support executing working instructions and delivering services.

There are tools needed to manage a program and projects that will be identified as part of your roadmap. These tools could include the following:

  • Project management software or spreadsheet software
  • Architecture design software
  • Process design software
  • Assessment tools such as a benchmarking approach
  • Metrics and measurement tools

Tools are needed for organizational change management activities. These tools could include the following:

  • Stakeholder mapping documents
  • A stakeholder power matrix
  • A stakeholder...