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

Remember that the design thinking method, for a service provider, is about the ability to see the products/services they create through the lens of their consumer audience. There is also a strong relationship between design thinking and systems thinking (the systems thinking method is discussed in the next chapter). Within each of the two, there are various disciplines (e.g., frameworks, methods, and bodies of knowledge) that provide assurance of integration within and across both methods. The prudent skills and competencies must be in place for this to occur and tend to happen through internal and external relationships.

In this chapter, we discussed the concepts of design thinking, UX, CX, and customer (including users) journey mapping. All speak to the concept of empathy and solidify service management more as an art form than a science, although there are scientific aspects. Think of the long-standing reputation of the IT industry, where IT service provider resources...