Blackhawk Technical College. Information Technology Services. Process Improvement Visioning Document

Transcription

1 Blackhawk Technical College Information Technology Services Process Improvement Visioning Document December 12, 2008 Steven Davidson Chief Information Officer Blackhawk Technical College (608)

2 Document Changes Version Date Page Section Change /11/2008 Original Document /12/2008 Added: Document Changes table /12/ Service Design Last sentence: defined stakeholders as faculty, staff, and administrators /12/ What is IT Service Management? Last sentence: changed cost constraints to resource constraints. Page 2 of 9

3 Executive Summary This document outlines the vision of improving processes within the ITS/media MIS departments. Successful improvement of processes will mean that change must take place to bring about desired outcomes; to move from current state to a desired [future] state. The vision is to improve IT processes to better deliver support and service to our customers. The approach to implementing change will be the Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) philosophy; using Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) as the framework in defining and implementing process improvement. Even though technology is the impetus for ongoing institutional change with respect to the delivery of educational services, driven by the respective needs of students, business, industry, and the community (SBCTC, 2006), and managing technology is a necessary component of ITSM, it is not a primary focus. Therefore, the focus of our process improvement will be to align the delivery of IT services closely with Blackhawk Technical College s business and learning needs. An Information Technology Service Strategy and IT Service Design will be developed to address improvement opportunities in the functional areas of IT Service Delivery and IT Service Support. Initial processes will be focused on 1) developing an effective ITSM communication plan, 2) determining the current, existing IT infrastructure, processes, and services, 3) developing some desired future state of IT and the services that it needs to provide, 4) developing a "roadmap" that depicts how to get from the current state to the to the desired state, and 5) determining the steps needed to execute the "roadmap." Page 3 of 9

4 Introduction This document outlines the vision of improving processes within the ITS/media MIS departments. Successful improvement of processes will mean that change must take place to bring about desired outcomes. Introducing change means that we will need to move from current state to a desired [future] state. The starting point for any change is to define the vision of what is to be. The vision is to improve IT processes to better deliver support and service to our customers. The approach to change will be the Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) philosophy; using Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) as the framework in defining and implementing process improvement. Business Impact Even though technology is the impetus for ongoing institutional change with respect to the delivery of educational services, driven by the respective needs of students, business, industry, and the community (SBCTC, 2006), and managing technology is a necessary component of ITSM, it is not a primary focus. Instead, ITSM addresses the need to align the delivery of IT services closely with the College s business and learning needs. This transformation of a traditional "business - IT paradigm" can be depicted by some of the following attributes (Leopoldi, n.d.): Traditional I/T becomes ITSM Process Technology focus > Process focus "Fire-fighting" > Preventative Reactive > Proactive Users > Customers Centralized, done in-house > Distributed, sourced Isolated, silos > Integrated, enterprise-wide "One off", adhoc > Repeatable, accountable Informal processes > Formal best practices IT internal perspective > Business perspective Operational specific > Service orientation Page 4 of 9

5 Service Strategy During the Service Strategy development phase, identifying and balancing short term gains with strategic gains will be emphasized. Process improvement opportunities will be identified as we define the current state as well as the desired state. Before entering the Design phase, we will review and assess our current service strategy and mission. Service Design During the Design phase, we will define the appropriate IT services, including their architecture, processes, policies, and documentation to meet current and future needs of the agreed business and academia requirements. The design process may include new roles, responsibilities, metrics, reporting, new technologies, workspace allocation and relocation. Successful implementation may result in many changes in how we go about doing our work. In addition to the impact that it will have on IT and MIS, change will have an impact on external stakeholders, as well as our internal [college] stakeholders; faculty, staff, and administrators. What is IT Service Management? IT service management is the understanding of high quality IT service and managing the IT infrastructure components so as to provide quality IT service in the most effective and efficient manner. High quality IT services must be delivered in a means that meets the customer expectations within resource constraints. What does ITSM involve? ITSM involves adopting a set of well-defined best practices like ITIL that enables delivery of cost effective, quality IT services. Best practices should be adapted within an organizations environment by addressing a combination of people, process and technology issues. How are ITSM and ITIL related? ITSM is a structured approach to IT service delivery and support. The ITSM concept can be realized by adopting the ITIL best practices framework. At the core of ITIL framework are the two Service Management modules called Service Delivery and Service Support. ITIL framework takes a comprehensive view of ITSM and also includes other areas like application management, infrastructure management and security management. Page 5 of 9

6 ITSM Methodology ITSM and ITIL are both based on an integrated, process based set of best practices to manage IT services. Whereas ITIL defines and documents the best practices, ITSM employs them to meet unique customer requirements and priorities. ITIL Fundamentals ITIL is a series of books based on industry best practices. ITIL is a coherent set of processes which defines a global standard for delivering effective IT Service Management. Although there are many supportive documents that have been developed surrounding the ITIL best practices, they are fundamentally organized into two functional areas: IT Service Support 1. Configuration Management - physical and logical perspective of the IT infrastructure and the IT services being provided 2. Change Management - standard methods and procedures for effective management of all changes 3. Release Management - testing, verification, and release of changes to the IT environment 4. Incident Management - the day-to-day process that restores normal acceptable service with a minimal impact on business 5. Problem Management - the diagnosis of the root causes of incidents in an effort to proactively eliminate and manage them 6. Service Desk (Function) - provides a central point of contact between users and IT IT Service Delivery 1. Availability Management - optimize IT infrastructure capabilities, services, and support to minimize service outages and provide sustained levels of service to meet business requirements 2. IT Service Continuity - managing an organization's capability to provide the necessary level of service following an interruption of service 3. Capacity Management - enables an organization to tactically manage resources and strategically plan for future resource requirements 4. Service Level Management - maintain and improve the level of service to the organization 5. Financial Management for IT Services - managing the costs associated with providing the organization with the resources needed to meet requirements Page 6 of 9

7 ITSM Implementation The high-level overview of ITSM implementation structure encompasses the following: 1. Determine the current, existing IT infrastructure, processes, and services 2. Develop some desired future state of IT and the services that it needs to provide 3. Architect a "roadmap" that depicts how to get to the desired state from the current state 4. Determine the steps needed to execute the "roadmap" The ITSM implementation framework for each of the IT Service Delivery and Service Support areas listed above is a five- phase model: 1. Assessment - determine the current state and begin to collect and understand the metrics for the future desired state 2. Architect and Design - develop a mature design for the future desired state 3. Planning - develop those plans necessary to achieve the future desired state in a phased evolutionary fashion 4. Implementation - implement and deploy the plans within IT and across the enterprise to achieve the future desired state 5. Support - manage, maintain, and improve the future desired state being able to adaptively integrate enhancements as needed or required Within this framework, effectively managing IT as an enterprise-wide, service-oriented entity comprises the following separate and distinct perspectives: 1. People - quantity and quality of expertise and knowledge 2. Process - IT and organization specific practices, procedures, guidelines, etc. and their level of complexity and sophistication 3. Technology - total logical and physical technology infrastructure consisting of hardware, software, communication networks, applications, DBMS, etc. 4. Organization - internal and external business factors that affect IT a) how IT and the organization interface, b) what is the organization s "corporate culture", and c) what is the organization's direction and its affect on IT 5. Integration - how is IT integrated within the business model, what services does IT provide, how are the services provided, and how are best practices employed within IT Page 7 of 9

8 Summary Implementing process change using the Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) philosophy and the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework will enable us to realize the vision of improving IT processes to better deliver support and service to our customers. Page 8 of 9

9 References Leopoldi, R. (n.d.). ITSM Service Management: Overview. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from IT Services Management Portal: SBCTC. (2006, September). Workforce Education. Retrieved March 20, 2007, from Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges : Page 9 of 9