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

Maturing and incrementally adding capabilities

Previously in this chapter, we covered the service management roadmap and provided an example. It happened to be an 18-month view, broken down into 6-month increments, and we understood various performance checkpoints (of 30 to 60 days). In reality, the efforts continue beyond 18 months. By the end of the first 6-month interval, an additional 6 months should be added to reflect the 18-month lookahead. Ideally, the same group that was involved in creating the first roadmap would also be involved in creating the subsequent 6-month additions. This is an indicator of maintaining the formal service management capability. The trapped data is an indicator of the value being provided by the capability with continued governance in place. It is also practical for new process owners to be introduced, and existing process owners might move to a different process, whether existing or newly added, creating continuity within the governing body. This...