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

Systems Thinking in Terms of Service Management

The most successful service providers with a formal service management capability in place have long realized that no one framework, method, movement, or standard will be enough to establish and maintain success. At the same time, as there are competitive solutions and continually emerging ways of working, service providers must be diligent in selecting which of these approaches make the most sense for them (e.g., including where they currently are and where they are going). Systems thinking requires that service providers are clear with the business strategy of the enterprise and which approaches make the most sense for both their service management plans and their plan for services.

In this chapter, we’re going to cover the following main topics:

  • Systems thinking in terms of service management
  • The convergence of strategies (e.g., business, IT, service management, and services)
  • Evolution in the use of multiple...