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

Evolution in the use of multiple approaches to sustain a successful service management capability

In upcoming chapters, service management processes will be discussed in detail. They are what bring consistency and predictability across the ingredients of a product or service while ensuring that value is realized and improvement opportunities are surfaced.

Multiple service management frameworks have emerged in recent years (e.g., ITIL, VeriSM, FitSM, USM, and more), representing a continued evolution in best practices for service management. IT service providers must put a stake in the ground in terms of what framework makes the most sense for their respective organizations.

In previous decades, one could debate whether IT advanced incrementally, but today it advances faster than ever. IT must take advantage of new opportunities for value creation. Organizations must balance the need for stability and predictability with operational agility and increased velocity. In terms of...