The Keys to Planning, Building, and Maturing your Service Catalog

Transcription

1 The Keys to Planning, Building, and Maturing your Service Catalog 1

2 In this ebook The Service Catalog, a component of the Service Portfolio, is a critical tool that IT organizations use to define and communicate about the services offered and their relationships to the work of the business. Defining services continues to be one the most common failure points in IT Service Management (ITSM) adoption, yet without a clear definition of services ITSM is not really achievable. Attempts to build a catalog of services often stop at technical services and automation of workflow, a knee-jerk reaction to the short-term need to do more with less. This ebook will explore why creating a service catalog is so important and provide best practice guidance for how to create and mature an effective service catalog that will be a true link between IT and the business and enable the continuous improvement of service delivery. pg 3 Chapter 1 Justifying a Service Catalog Initiative pg 10 Chapter 2 Service Catalog 101 pg 21 Chapter 3 Creating & Maturing a Service Catalog pg 30 Chapter 4 The One-Stop IT Shop Approach pg 36 How Third Sky Can Help Creating a Flight Plan & Technology EXCELerators Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

3 The Service Catalog has been around now for a while. If you re getting around to starting the journey toward one, this chapter will help you answer the question how to justify a properly developed and integrated service catalog. According to Merriam-Webster, justification is defined as: to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable. Other definitions include the words warranted or well grounded. Lovely but how do justify a proposal to introduce a service catalog? With proper integration with Request fulfillment, the service catalog becomes actionable, meaning users can order some things directly from the integrated interface. Essentially, a service catalog describes what IT does to support Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

4 business capabilities. It s well-organized, user friendly, and supports multiple views with a robust search engine. The service catalog matches IT competencies to business needs, and the links to Request Fulfillment allow direct ordering by users to meet day-to-day operational needs. The differences between the two can be that the service catalog is considered strategic and allows customers an outside-in view of IT in a language they can understand. Request Fulfillment is tactical in that it allows users to engage IT directly to meet daily needs. How do we justify something so common sense? I suggest by showing that it is unreasonable to not have one. After all, when was the last time you went to a restaurant that did not provide a menu of what they had to offer? You may be disappointed when after ordering you re informed the restaurant doesn t have the item you requested. One other outcome would be that in order to meet any request, they must have available any ingredient to meet any request, which would mean a significant cost to the customer. Or would you fly with an airline that didn t tell you what destinations were available or provide a published schedule? This actually does exist by way of aircraft charters, but again, the cost is much higher than scheduled air carriers. These are two examples of unreasonable conditions - and an IT department without a service catalog is just the same. Justification Justifying a service catalog starts with determining if you can continue to do business the way you are now. Ask your business partner and ask the individual users. Ask the business if they are clear about what IT does for them and how that supports their business results. Ask them if they are satisfied with the cost of the services they receive in relation to the value those services provide. Ask if they are confident that IT is doing the right things at the right levels of cost and warranty. Chances are you find many in the user community that are unhappy with the some service levels they re experiencing Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

5 You re also going to need support from key stakeholders. Portfolio Management is one such member of that group. Part of their charter is the management of past, present and future services. The service owners and service managers are also key supporters as they are the point of contact, strategically and tactically, for the service offerings contained in the catalog. To gain their support, talk to them in terms of how the catalog will benefit them. For example, Portfolio Management will benefit by having a single source of record for current IT services. Service owners and managers will benefit because customers will have useful information about the services under their care. Each group will be able to market their services via the catalog and model their success. The role of Business Relationship Management will prove to be a strong supporter of the service catalog as it will represent a major communications tool for them to use in their discussions with the business. Management is going to want answers to questions like how much is this going to cost, how long will it take, what problems are we trying to solve and what is the ROI? These are good questions, but are they the right ones to ask for this work-stream? It would be very difficult to put your hands on the financial data that lays out your departments cost per incident, change, problem or knowledgebase article. Determining a hard ROI is going to be tough. The issue before management isn t the sticker shock to produce a catalog; it s getting IT to run like a business. Instead focus on the benefits of having a service catalog, including proper integration with Request Fulfillment and a service catalog Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

6 Creating a Business Case It is important to understand that a business case is a decision support tool that is used to manage investments over time; it is not something that is looked at once and then put on a shelf. Complexities for Service Catalog initiatives include the intangible nature of benefits, the relationship between the catalog and other ITSM processes, and the diversity of stakeholders that leverage its information. At the heart of the Service Catalog is the value of becoming service-oriented; greater alignment/integration with the business so stakeholders understand how IT contributes to the value created with the business. Value-Of-Investment (VOI) is essential to the business case. Figure 1: Value-Of-Investment Drivers View a full size version of this image As a subset of VOI, Return-On-Investment (ROI) is the traditional business case metric. Many Service Catalog initiatives incorporate benefits from the implementation of other ITSM processes, such as Request Fulfillment Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

7 While this may seem like a tempting target the real potential of a Service Catalog initiative lies in the Value-Of-Investment analysis. In fact, customers often calculate ROI using benefits that may be VOI oriented and require full implementation of a solution (or other process) rather than merely installing a software product (see Figure 2). Figure 2: ROI vs. VOI The results can be disappointing since costs associated with process improvement required for fully realizing the ROI are not factored into the business case. These investments frequently require some analysis of the Value-Of-Investment. If required, there are techniques for measuring the intangibles associated with VOI to calculate more traditional ROI metrics for your business case. These techniques should be used if possible, since focusing purely on ROI can alter your path to the point of missing the true value of the Service Catalog Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

8 The True Value of a Service Catalog There are many benefits to the service catalog, but the most important one is an honest, two -way relationship building between the IT organization and customers. Try putting a price tag on that. Here are some tangible, and not so tangible, benefits: Significant improvement in internal and external communications As mentioned above this is IT and Business speaking business language to solve problems, create value and enable opportunities. Leave the technicians to talk their special language, let s talk to the business in language they understand. This may need some time to adjust to by IT. Foster a better understanding of business requirements and challenges With IT and the business speaking a common language, dialog now becomes more meaningful because IT now understands the business objectives and not just the problem to be solved. Ability to allocate and match costs to specific business departments / units This is an effort that is better suited for a matured service catalog, but one has to start somewhere. At some time during the journey, start looking as costing models for your various services. They don t have to be dead on accurate at first or even real charges. Just an exercise in the development of the models that will, one day, lead to the real deal. Positively (and significantly) alter end-user consumption and behavior What do you think happens when the business starts to see what the services they are consuming are costing them? They consume less or look at options available to them within the service offering as a way to reduce cost. Integration of both the service catalog and service request catalog levels provides comprehensive information that can influence consumption and behavior Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

9 Standardized IT services The catalog will be presenting the offering to the business in a standard, well designed format. It will spell out available service levels, unit cost, support options and other aspects of the service that the customer can tailor their order to suite their requirements. The same clarity of format on the service request catalog level will allow the similar balance of standardization (to support efficient request fulfillment) and tailoring to meet the needs of many different types of users. Reduced costs Because the business is resourceful, you may find process duplication. For instance, one business unit may have developed a mini IT effort to meet a specialized need such as reporting. Often another business unit will do the same thing. This results on two groups doing the same type of activity. If the service catalog offers reporting that allows customization, then a cost savings can be realized. Automated request fulfillment One thing you will see in any service catalog is a link to the Request Fulfillment process. It makes perfect sense because your service catalog organizes information about what IT does in a meaningful way that can easily be linked to operational actions related to services. The only difference is your catalog contains end-to-end service offerings with titles like Transaction Processing, Claims Processing, and Customer Intake. From an end-to-end process point of view, it will also contain all of the ancillary support services. Request Fulfillment is facilitated by a service request catalog for identifying and fielding service requests from individual users, such as send us another toner cartridge, or may I have a new cell phone, or I need Visio, please. Both levels of information and interaction have to be managed and a service catalog properly integrated with a service request catalog can make it easier to automate to operational fulfillment in practical and meaningful ways Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

10 Developing and publishing a Service Catalog is an important step on an organization s journey to becoming an IT Service Provider. But what is a Service Catalog? What is a service? And how do I go about identifying services? How does a Service Catalog relate to the Service Portfolio? How do Service Requests fit into the picture? This chapter provides some considerations to answer these questions and helps you get on your way to producing and publishing a Service Catalog Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

11 What is a Service? Before we can go about defining a Service Catalog, we should have a clear definition of what a service is. ITIL provides a definition for a service as follows: What does that actually mean? Imagine the outcome you would like to achieve is a new roof on your house. You could do all the work yourself, which would mean that you would have to take on the specific costs (shingles, tar paper, nails) and the specific risks (potentially falling off the roof). The alternative would be to find a roofing company and have the work done by them. The outcome would be the same (or perhaps even better), but with a roofing company, they would take on those specific costs and risks. ITIL would say that they offer a roofing service. When defining services in the IT environment, it is important to keep the customer perspective in mind. Services need to be recognized by customers as such, providing value by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve. Let s think about the roofing service again. One of the activities the roofing company would perform is to remove the old shingles before putting on the new. As a customer, you would not recognize Shingle Removal as a service in this context, because the outcome you want to achieve is a new roof. Translated to the IT environment, that means that patching server operating system, for example, is probably not recognized as a service by IT s customers. Instead, customers would probably expect this activity to be part of a larger service that provisions, installs, configures and maintains servers in a data center. And even that may not be recognized as a service by the customer. The service that the customer perceives may be the system that allows them to take and manage sales transactions from their clients. The outcome supported is successful sales activity, but the customer doesn t have to take direct ownership of all the bits and pieces of technology and technology maintenance that cause that outcome to be produced. This means that services should be defined based on outcomes for the customer. Doing so will ensure that an IT Service Provider will manage all the aspects of service management with these outcomes in mind, which will provide value to the customer. Before discussing the different levels of communication between IT and its customers, let me insert a quick word on the difference between customers and users. In ITIL, a customer is defined as someone who buys goods or services, and being the group or person who negotiates and agrees to Service Level Agreements. A user, on the other hand, is someone who uses the service on a day-today basis. For instance, the customer of an HR Enablement service may be the Director of HR in a company, while the users are the HR staff Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

12 Communication Between IT and its Customers If we establish that a service is what IT provides to its customers, then there are different levels of communication around services that happen between IT and its customers. At the very top of the organization, there is a strategic level of communication, which essentially happens between the board and C-level executives on the customer side and the CIO and the IT Leadership on the IT side. A level down we find a more tactical level of communication which happens between customers (in the ITIL sense of the one who pays for the service ) and the Business Relationship Management (BRM) and Service Level Management (SLM) processes on the IT side. Finally, at an operational level, there is communication between the users of the services on the customer side and the Service Desk function on the IT side. The different levels of communication are shown in Figure 3. Figure 3: Levels of Communication Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

13 There are three different tools which are instrumental in facilitating these different levels of communication: Service Portfolio The Service Portfolio facilitates the strategic level of communication by providing information on which services should be offered and to whom. Service Catalog The Service Catalog facilitates the tactical level of communication by providing information on all live IT services, and those about to become operational. Request Catalog The Request Catalog facilitates the operational level of communication by enabling users to submit Service Requests for fulfillment. Let s take a look at each of these in turn. The Service Portfolio ITIL defines the Service Portfolio as the complete set of services managed by a service provider. (ITIL, Service Strategy, section 4.2) This would include services currently in operation, but also proposed services, or services that are in design or transition life cycle stages. The Service Portfolio therefore is a decision making tool, which allows an IT Service Provider to make decisions in which services to invest, and which services to retire. It provides insight into how the resources of a Service Provider organization are spread across all the different services that are managed by that provider. Strategic decisions about the services are facilitated by information contained in the Service Portfolio Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

14 The Service Catalog The Service Catalog is part of the overall Service Portfolio. ITIL describes it as the customer-viewable portion of the Service Portfolio. ITIL describes the purpose of the Service Catalog to provide and maintain a single source of consistent information on all operational services and those being prepared to be run operationally, and to ensure that it is widely available to those who are authorized to access it. (ITIL, Service Design, section 4.2.1) Customers should be able to find a description for each service in the catalog, along with information on how it is intended to be used, which business processes it enables, and the level of service customers can expect. The Service Catalog is an excellent one-stop source of information for all things related to services. This means that a service listed in the Service Catalog can also include information such as price, performance reports, benchmarks, and a description on how to order the service. Not all the information needs to be in the Service Catalog directly, it is possible to provide hyperlinks to the information that is of interest to a customer. The Request Catalog As stated before, the Request Catalog is one of the tools that facilitate the operational-level interaction between users and IT, usually through the Service Desk. The Request Catalog contains pre-defined Service Requests, which have pre-defined fulfillment processes. Typically, the Request Fulfillment processes for these requests are automatically tracked by a workflow engine in the Request Catalog tool. The requests contained in the Request Catalog are related to the services in the Service Catalog. Going back to the roofing example, the Service Catalog would describe what customers would get if they were to order the roofing service. The Request Catalog would allow them to actually submit a request for quote, a request to have a new roof installed or a request for repairs of a roof. The Service Catalog and Request Catalog may be presented to the business in the same tool or interface Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

15 Types of Services & Service Requests Customer Facing vs. Supporting Services At a very high level, there are two types of services that an IT organization offers: Customer Facing Services and Supporting Services. Customer Facing Services are the services that are actually consumed by customers. Typically, these services enable one or more business processes to be executed, as shown in Figure 4. Figure 4: Processes and Services For example, IT may provide a Payroll Enablement service, which the business can then use to enable the execution of the payroll process, so that employees get their salaries on time. Supporting Services are services that are not directly consumed by the customers, but instead are consumed by other parts of the same IT organization. Supporting Services are named that way, Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

16 because they support the delivery of the Customer Facing Services. Examples of such Supporting Services are Database Administration, Network, or Storage. It is important to note that the border between Customer Facing Services and Supporting Services is not a very well defined one. Often, the customers will consume some or all of the Supporting Services as well. Where exactly the border lies between Customer Facing Services and Supporting Services is also a function of organizational responsibilities as well as organizational policy. Service Requests If Services are a means of delivering value to customers, then Service Requests can be seen as the vehicles by which users can request some of the value to be delivered. In the Service Operation book of ITIL, Service Request is used as a generic description for many different types of demands that are placed upon the IT organization by the users. (ITIL, Service Operation, section 4.3) In the context of a Service Catalog, it is beneficial for an IT Service Provider to define specific requests that can be submitted by the users with regards to a particular service. In the service example, there are a variety of requests that can be defined, such as New inbox, New Resource Inbox (for scheduling resources, such as conference rooms through an and calendaring client), New shared folder, or New distribution list. Such Service Requests should be published in a Request Catalog, which is related to the Service Catalog, in the sense that all these Service Requests are related to a specific service. Figure 6 shows the relationship between Services, Service Requests and Bundled Requests. Figure 6: Relationship between Services, Service Requests & Service Bundles Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

17 Request Bundles One of the points of providing a Service Catalog and a Request Catalog to customers and users is to make it easy to interact with the Service Provider. Therefore, it is frequently desirable to package service requests into Request Bundles in logical ways. A very popular example is a New Hire request, which would start a number of other requests, such as New cubicle, New network logon account, New inbox, New phone, and / or New Hire Orientation Scheduling. This is convenient for users, who would only have to fill out one request form, and have the Request Fulfillment process take care of all the specifics necessary for a new hire. When defining Service Requests, one must define a request form to be filled out by the requester, a fulfillment workflow, including specific tasks to be performed, role responsible for fulfilling the tasks and expected delivery times. Finally, if there is information that needs to be captured during the fulfillment process, for instance to aid in cross-functional collaboration on a fulfillment request, the information requirement should also be defined. It should be noted that requests for tactical or strategic changes by the customer (as opposed to dayto-day users) are not typically submitted through the Request Catalog, but rather as service change requests. Each organization defines their procedures for managing these change requests, perhaps through Business Relationship Management or submitting ideas to service owners and sometimes directly into a change management tool. Creating a Service Catalog Service Catalog Structure Figure 7 shows the structure of a Service Catalog from a business or customer-facing perspective. As discussed before, IT customer-facing services are being provided to enable the business to execute business processes. The information about which business processes are being enabled should also be captured in the Service Catalog. As you can see in Figure 7, there is no clear one-to-one relationship between business processes and services, but instead any number of services can enable any number of business processes Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

18 IT Customer-facing Services in turn are enabled or supported by Supporting Services. Typically, customers do not have a view into the Supporting Services, but as discussed before, the border here is not always very clearly defined and policies must be established. Figure 7: Service Catalog Structure & Views Identifying Services & Requests When identifying services and service requests, there are a number of places to start from, as depicted in Figure 8. First, the current IT organizational structure is a way to identify services. IT teams usually form around a common theme or task they need to perform. Most IT organizations will have an team, for example. Looking at the IT teams currently in place will therefore yield a list of services that are currently delivered to customers. Another place to start is to look at other examples of Service Catalogs. There are a number of publically available IT Service Catalogs that can easily be found on the Internet, by simply feeding IT Service Catalog to the search engine of your choice. The examples provided can be used as a starting point for identifying services that an IT organization delivers. Figure 8: Identifying Services & Requests Finally, it s important to remember that the Service Catalog is mainly there for the IT Service Provider s customers. Customers use the IT Customer Facing Services, as described in Figure 1 to enable their Business Processes. Asking your customers which IT Services they consume today can also yield a starting point for a Service Catalog. While talking to your customers, it also makes sense to also ask them about what they would like to consume on top of what it currently being provided Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

19 Each of these approaches will yield a starting point for a Service Catalog. Care must be taken to understand that it truly only can be a starting point. Starting with the organizational structure can lead to a Service Catalog that mirrors the way IT thinks about what they deliver today, but it may not make a lot of sense to customers. For instance, IT may have an organization that handles all network login accounts and manages a directory server, such as Active Directory. IT may also have a different team that manages an server, which uses the account information stored in the directory server. If you are only looking at the IT organizational structure, you may be tempted to list two different services in your Service Catalog. However, customers will probably not consider the directory server management and maintenance a service, because it is always part of a different service, such as . Looking at external examples is a good way to see what other organizations have defined as their IT Services. Care must be taken here to not just copy and paste what other organizations have done. Many factors can influence the structure of an IT Service Catalog, mostly the business in which the corporation actually is. Different types of business will yield different services. Also, the IT organizational structure may play a role in the structure of the Service Catalog, as will the maturity of the IT Service Provider organization publishing the catalog. Finally, when asking your customers, you should be prepared to receive a wish list as much as a list of things that are actually being consumed today. Ideally, you will use a combination of all of these things to identify your services and create your Service Catalog. Similar approaches can be used for identifying Service Requests. The IT teams currently chartered to perform the delivery and maintenance of the services being identified should be able to provide a list of typical Service Requests they fulfill on a regular basis. For instance, the Telephony team will be able to provide a list of requests, such as New phone or Move phone that they regularly work on. The Service Desk team as well will be a critical source of information about what kinds of service requests users place in relation to the services. These team members will also be able to describe which information is needed to process the request and what the steps are to fulfill the request Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

20 Yet, it is important that the list of Service Requests will also be validated with your customers and users. This can be done in a variety of ways, such as workshops or straw man documentation examples. In the end, the Request Catalog will be a tool that is used by your users, and if they are unable to find the requests they are looking for, the Request Catalog will end up being useless. Which also means that continual improvement, as described by ITIL, needs to be implemented on the Service and Request Catalogs, by creating processes to maintain and improve the catalogs as well as the services, requests and fulfillment processes listed within them. This is not a trivial task, and will involve much more detail than this whitepaper can hold. To make things even more complex, there is no one correct way of doing it, as every organization implementing these catalogs has its own unique culture and history, which will influence the best way to design and publish a Service and Request Catalog. Seriously This is Important! Delivering services without a Service Catalog is like navigating without a compass. Creating and publishing a Service Catalog should be one of the first steps on a journey to become an IT Service Provider organization. For the definition of services it is important to understand what services actually are, and how they are used by customers to enable their own business processes. This understanding will help in identifying services and service requests to the benefit of customers and users Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

21 Developing a service catalog can seem like a simple marketing and communications activity or a daunting challenge. Both are true, and at the same time neither is true. A service catalog is an excellent marketing and communications tool and a small effort can result in a big improvement in communications between IT and the business customer. A fully matured service catalog that defines all of an organization s IT services, associated service level agreements and unit costs can be a game changer in terms of the effectiveness of the relationship between IT and the business and in terms of identifying opportunities for improvement across an entire organization Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

22 This is often too much for an organization to accomplish initially. A middle ground that identifies a starting point for the catalog and a path to maturity is a reasonable approach that keeps the catalog from being either too simple or overly complicated, yet yields incremental benefits with each improvement to the catalog. As always, the effort should be initiated by answering the basic questions: What is the Vision?, Where are we now?, Where do we want to be?, How will we get there? and How will we know when we ve arrived Key considerations when developing the catalog include: The catalog is a key communication tool in the effort to demonstrate IT s commitment to providing business value by supporting required business outcomes. The catalog is a foundational element that can dramatically impact the relationship between IT and the business. In recent years, IT delivery models have matured from focusing on component delivery to models that focus on delivering end-to-end business-focused services. This transition reshapes the IT operating model as services cut across traditional boundaries both within the IT organization and within the business. The relationship with the business transforms to a partnership with IT helping to support the business in meeting their objectives. Catalog maturity is directly tied to the maturity of other ITIL processes and functions. The full benefit of a service catalog can only be realized with the implementation of associated processes. In undertaking a catalog effort, therefore, it is important to realistically assess the status of the other processes and set reasonable goals for the service catalog. Defining services is only the first step toward developing the catalog. Maturing service management processes such as Service Catalog Management, Service Portfolio Management, Service Level Management, Demand Management, Financial Management, and others are critical steps in both service maturity and service catalog maturity. With disparate technologies in the environment, IT costs rising, resource/organizational challenges, and vendors providing more services via the cloud, effectively partnering with the business to meet their objectives becomes an urgent need as they demand transparency of both the cost of IT and the value it brings to the business. The organizational implications of the transition to business focused IT services should not be taken lightly. Assigning a single point of accountability for the maturity and performance of a service becomes a necessity for success. A broader restructuring may be a natural outcome of the transition to this approach as business partnering matures Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

23 The Catalog & Other ITSM Processes As noted above, the value of the service catalog is truly realized when the related ITSM processes are matured. These processes provide key information relating to the service descriptions and commitments that are documented in the catalog. The ITSM process relationships to the catalog are described below. Financial Management for IT Services Financial Management provides the means for mapping money spent to business value as it relates IT services to business activities. It provides the Business and IT with the quantification, in financial terms, of the value of IT services, the value of assets underlying the services, and operational costs. The more precisely an organization can capture the costs of a service, the more accurately and transparently they can communicate with the business about the service. Planning Ahead Consider whether the cost of the service will ultimately be determined and published in the catalog as part of the service identification process. In addition, determine if options exist relating to this service. Service options will allow the business to select only the level of service necessary. Providing costs for service options allows for the business to understand the financial implications of their selection. Demand Management Demand Management provides the means for mapping demand for IT services to business activity which illuminates opportunities to optimize. The overarching goal of demand management is to influence and optimize customer demand for IT services and enable the provisioning of capacity to meet the demand. Strategic level demand management involves the analysis of patterns of business activity and user profiles. Planning Ahead As services are introduced into the catalog, consider any comments that should be included regarding demand management and any recommendations to include for the customers and users regarding potential cost savings by adjusting demand patterns Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

24 Service Level Management (SLM) Service Level Management ensures that all current and planned IT services are delivered to agreed, achievable targets. This is accomplished through a constant cycle of negotiating, agreeing, monitoring, reporting on and reviewing IT service targets and achievements, and through instigation of actions to correct or improve the level of service delivered. The Service Catalog allows Service Level Management to: Develop meaningful and achievable service level targets with the customer to ensure that service warranty will match business needs Understand the impacts of delivering service warranty, allowing the customer to make informed decisions about what levels of warranty they are willing to fund Monitor and develop meaningful baseline metrics for IT service provision Understand and manage the abilities of internal groups to support IT service provision to customers Understand the impact of Suppliers delivery on IT service provision to customers Mature Service Level Management processes and performance reporting that are routinely reviewed with the business clearly indicate a Service Provider that is accountable for end-to-end results. Planning Ahead Recognize that you can t manage what you can t measure. Therefore in the earliest stages of service definition, ensure that the service, as it is defined, will be measurable from a performance, availability, cost, capacity, etc., perspective Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

25 Incident Management/Service Desk The purpose of incident management is to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimize the adverse impact on business operations, thus ensuring that agreed levels of service quality are maintained. The service catalog identifies these agreed service levels that represent normal service operation and provides the service desk contact information as a next step. Planning Ahead The service desk tool should be able to link incidents and requests to services. In the early stages of defining services, it is important to think through the implications for the service desk tool and to proactively plan for any necessary changes. Request Fulfillment Service request is a generic description for many different types of demands that are placed upon the IT organization by the users the day-to-day consumers of the services. Many of these are typically requests for small changes that are low risk, frequently performed, low cost, etc. or perhaps they are informational requests. The scale and frequent, low-risk nature of a request means that they are better handled by a separate process, rather than being allowed to congest and obstruct the normal incident and change management processes. Effective request fulfillment has a very important role in maintaining end user satisfaction with the services they are receiving and can directly impact how well IT is perceived throughout the business Planning Ahead Requests support the services identified in the services catalog and can inform service definition and service selection activities. As part of the initial identification of services, consider the most frequently requested items, this may illuminate some opportunities for quick wins. Publishing end user services for frequently requested items and clearly articulating provisioning expectations, service levels, costs, and other key information will reduce confusion and my ultimately, reduce the number of requests in the pipeline Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

26 Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) SACM is a critical contributor to success for virtually all ITSM processes again, you can t manage what you can t measure. The key output of SACM is a configuration management system (CMS) which is core to understanding how all configuration items (CIs) are interconnected, allowing SLAs to be developed and performance measured. At the same time, SACM is often one of the most challenging processes to implement. Integration of business-focused IT services into the CMS is core to understanding the impact of changes to the services. If each infrastructure component of a service is tracked as a CI within the CMS, modifications to the environment are tracked through the change management process and, therefore, understood when responding to or evaluating service performance or creating cost models. Planning Ahead In progressing toward a mature catalog, decide if services will be recorded as configuration items. Where possible identify supporting services and associated configuration items. Create a service catalog taxonomy that can be reflected in the CMS, and link the CMS and service catalog data. The Road to Maturity The matrix below indicates how the various processes relate to improving the maturity of a service catalog. Identified/ Defined Services Incident/Serv ice Desk Request Fulfillment Service Level Management SACM Service Portfolio Management Financial Management Beginning Service Catalog Efforts undertaken to identify services (could be supporting or customerfacing IT Services only, depending on goals) General information is available about hours of support and priority approach Basic request processes are identified in the service catalog There are some agreements (formal and informal) regarding service provision Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

27 Service Catalog Partially implemented Service catalog completely implemented Service Catalog integrated in tool set Mature Service Catalog Identified/ Defined Services Supporting services are identified Catalog sets clear, accurate expectation s for the customer. Incident/Servic e Desk Incident reporting system can track incidents to the services in the catalog they impact (may be a manual process) Service desk staff can easily and readily respond to questions about the service catalog and offerings Links exist on the catalog to allow self help and incident reporting Request Fulfillment Begin to identify easy way to initiate requests from catalog Requests can be initiated from catalog Requests are identified and listed within the service catalog Request and Service catalog are fully integrated Service Level Management SACM OLAs are in place with providers of supporting services SLAs are developed and socialized with the appropriate customers SLA commitments are clearly defined within the catalog framework. Clearly defined SLAs. Historical performance data is provided. Configuration items are identified Service architecture is known and tracked in the CMS. Configuration items are clearly identified and linked with each service they impact. Service Portfolio Management The organization can link all services to business strategies The organization s project portfolio is directly linked to the services portfolio Planned services and retired services are included in the service catalog Financial Management Cost information is provided for each service. Service options are provided. Costs for a service fully incorporate the lifecycle costs of the service, include supporting services and chargeback is possible The economics of provisioning a service against adoption and value metrics are understood Continual Service Improvement Underpins all Elements of the Service Catalog Implementation and Operations Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

28 Who should be involved in Service Catalog management? The Service Catalog Management (SCM) process has as its objective to "provide and maintain a single source of consistent information on all operational services and those being prepared to run operationally, and to ensure that it is widely available to those who are authorized to access it." ITIL Service Design, Section 4.2 Most people tend to focus on the Service Catalog as an artifact, and sometimes on Request Fulfillment (a different process; SCM does not include detailed attention to the capturing, maintenance and fulfillment of requests). Perhaps what goes to the heart of this question is SCM's contribution to the definition of services. SCM has among its activities: Agreeing and documenting service descriptions Interfacing with Service Portfolio Management to agree on the contents of the portfolio and catalog Producing an accurate Service Catalog Interfacing with the business, support teams, suppliers, business relationship management, service level management as well as service asset & configuration management --- specifically to make sure that dependencies between external/internal customer-facing services and supporting services are understood Many view SCM as simply a process that manages content, when in fact it is much more than that. For example, SCM's involvement with business relationship management and service portfolio management would ensure that service descriptions have clearly stated utility and warranty statements. SCM would also provide the documentation and agreement on the definition of a service as one of its key outputs. So, while SCM does not get into capturing and maintaining detailed configuration data, it absolutely must understand desired customer outcomes, supporting service dependencies and is very much engaged with many stakeholders in the strategic and design stages of the service lifecycle Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

29 Recommendations Areas for focus when initiating a service catalog can include: Establish a governance structure for the catalog initiative. Governance is necessary for strategic direction, decision making, and organizational planning. Consider having business representation within the governance structure. Align the definition of a service with the industry. Consider including services that are not necessarily a rigid productized offering. Projects can be performed in the context of a service, e.g., to implement an instance of the service, and this does not distract from managing the service using ITSM best practices. This will enable clear expectations on offerings and it will help to ensure a common language going forward. Assign a single service owner for each of the services defined. A Service Owner has responsibilities in all of the ITSM processes. They are accountable for service maturity and performance. Establish baseline metrics for end to end service delivery. For services that exist in the environment today, establish baseline metrics. If new services are being introduced as part of the catalog initiative, establish targets for service delivery. Compare actual service delivery against baseline and/or targets to highlight areas for improvement. Manage organizational implications of providing end to end services. Delivering end-to-end services requires synchronized, seamless delivery of components of service across traditional IT silos (e.g., applications, infrastructure, etc.). Monitor and measure the delivery of each component to illuminate areas for improvement or potential organizational challenges. Identify a taxonomy or structure for the catalog and validate it with the customer and user communities. By knowing the structure the catalog will follow, it will be far easier to add in future services. In addition, by engaging the customer and user communities in the discussion, it will increase buy in for the effort. Create a marketing and communication plan for the initiative. The introduction of a catalog and the delivery of the services within the catalog can represent a significant, positive step for the organization. For IT, there are organizational implications. A marketing and communication plan can help to create awareness within both IT and the business Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

30 IT s customers are confused and frustrated. Depending on what they want to ask IT for, they may need to contact this person or that person, or call the Service Desk, or a specific IT team, or fill out this online form, or was it that online form which is located somewhere different on the Intranet? Even if they do figure out the appropriate channel, they cannot go to one place to see the status of all their IT requests. Things are lost in the black hole of IT with no overall visibility or transparency. Providing customers with a One-Stop IT Shop, or IT Portal, one place online to go to engage IT, can reduce the confusion and frustration Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

31 Why create a One-Stop IT Shop? A successful IT Portal: Makes it easier and faster for customers and users to get what they need from IT Helps the business decide what IT services they need and how much they need by providing the appropriate and accurate information about IT services and processes Creates consistency and reliability for all stakeholders Reduces overall cost through self-help capabilities Provides a gateway for customers and users to initiate human interaction if self-help isn t enough However, creating a successful One-Stop IT Shop is not trivial because of the diversity of stakeholders and their requirements, the number of legacy entry points into IT that need to be consolidated, and the complexity of creating a comprehensive solution. This chapter discusses some key steps to creating an IT Portal: from understanding what the customer wants, to understanding why customers engage IT, and why a pretty front-end will not solve all your problems Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

32 What value should the One-Stop IT Shop create for the customer? The primary purpose of the One-Stop IT Shop should be to create value for the customer. For example, a portal that helps streamlines IT processes while making it more difficult for the customer to make a request misses the point about the mission of the IT organization. Understanding the value created helps establish the strategy for the IT Portal. If the value the customer is looking for is make submitting requests easier and faster, the One-Stop IT Shop initiative may prioritize requests that are complex and can be simplified and/or high volume requests. If the value the customer is looking for is manage my most strategic requests, the One-Stop IT Shop initiative may want to put less emphasis on high volume requests (e.g. service requests) and more emphasis on creating transparency for requests that are strategically important to the business (e.g. visibility into the status of project requests). This analysis of customers and their use cases leads to the concept of user profiles or personas. Each user profile will have different requirements and priorities for the IT Portal. Ideally, their view of the IT Portal, e.g. what they see on the home page and subsequent pages, should be personalized / tailored to their requirements, i.e. a one-size fits all approach to an IT portal may end up fitting noone. Different Reasons Customers Engage IT Many people, when they hear the term IT Portal, focus on service requests, i.e. operational requests that are generally low risk and small in scope such as new desktop/laptop, access to an enterprise application, etc. However, service requests are not the only reason customers want to engage IT. The table below describes other IT processes that may integrate with the IT Portal. IT Process Project Requests One-Stop IT Shop Capabilities If the One-Stop IT Shop is to become the one place to go to engage IT, it needs to accept project requests. The portal should provide the customer transparency into the estimation, prioritization and governance approval processes. Once a project is chartered, the portal can be the one place to go for customers to see project status and project plan and view/contribute to the project issue/risk register Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

33 IT Process Service Catalog One-Stop IT Shop Capabilities The Service Catalog describes what services IT provides, what to expect (i.e. service levels), pricing, etc. It should be integrated with Service Requests, e.g. if the user is reading about the service, with one click, they should be able to request a new account. The Service Catalog can also provide integration points with Service Level Management, i.e. provide access to the SLA for the service, and Knowledge Management, i.e. provide knowledge articles on the service, e.g. how to use the service, how to self-help troubleshoot, FAQs, etc. The Service Catalog provides a good opportunity to employ user profile views, i.e. if the user s role can be determined, only show services (and service requests) that the user is entitled to. Service Level Reporting Provide customers transparency into the level of service being delivered. This helps stakeholders have discussions on service performance based on facts instead of just perceptions. Different user profiles will want to see different types of service level reports. For example, business executives may want to see a high-level dashboard containing a SLAM chart (Service Level Agreement Monitoring) chart also known as a RAG chart (Red-Amber-Green). These charts use a simple traffic light color analogy to indicate service performance over time. Mid-level business managers may be interested in details such as availability, transaction throughput / application performance, number of incidents and whether incidents are being resolved according to agreed SLA targets. Again, analyze user profiles to determine what aspect of Service Levels is of most interest to each stakeholder. Enhancement Requests / Defect Reporting Too often, IT Service Management and the Application side of the IT organization do not integrate their efforts. The One-Stop IT Shop provides an opportunity to present a united IT front-end to the customer. Customers should be able to use the One-Stop IT Shop to submit requests that are typically fulfilled by Application Development, e.g. enhancement requests, defect reporting, etc. The One-Stop IT Shop can also facilitate the prioritization of the requests and provide transparency into the status of these requests. It can even provide the feedback loop for the testing/uat cycle Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

34 IT Process Change Requests One-Stop IT Shop Capabilities Change Requests may have some overlap with other types of requests, e.g. enhancement requests, project requests, but there may also be Change Requests that are not application or project related, e.g. Change Request to the infrastructure team to network a new office, change the call center PBX, etc. Again, if the goal is to create one place to go to engage IT, the One-Stop IT Shop should handle Change Requests and provide transparency into the approval and fulfillment of those Change Requests. Service Requests As mentioned before, when people think of an IT Portal, they commonly think of a channel to handle Service Requests. Capabilities to consider include shopping cart, i.e. the ability to make multiple service requests at the same time, and get them approved and fulfilled together; and bundling, the ability of the One-Stop IT Shop to package together multiple requests, e.g. new hire might be a bundle of new desktop/laptop, new phone, new network/ account, and access to certain enterprise applications. Incident Management Knowledge Management Users should be able to use the One-Stop IT Shop to submit Incidents online and track the status of the Incident. Advanced portals proactively suggest knowledge articles based on keywords and categories selected by the user. This may help the user self-resolve, getting them productive faster while reducing the cost to provide support. IT Portals provide an excellent entry point for users to search knowledge articles. However, knowledge does not need to be limited to just formal knowledge articles. Users may have expertise in using and applying specific applications and/or technologies so look for ways to crowd source knowledge so it can be shared across the enterprise. IT does not have to be the sole owner of technical knowledge in the enterprise. IT can, however, play a facilitating and coordinating role in capturing institutional knowledge about technology Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

35 It is important to note that customers should not need to distinguish between the different types of requests, e.g. to the customer, project requests, change requests, and service requests are just requests. The adjective, i.e. project/change/service, should only be used internally within IT to clarify how the request will be handled. Lipstick on a Pig A common misperception is that if IT creates a nice front-end for customers and users, their frustrations with engaging IT will be solved. However, if the back-end process is broken, e.g. it takes too long to fulfill a request; a pretty front-end will not solve the issue. In fact, it may exasperate the issue as a professional looking front-end may set customer expectations higher, and therefore, they might feel greater disappointed when their experience with fulfillment does not go smoothly. Hence, without remediating the back-end processes, the One-Stop IT Shop may just be lipstick on a pig. The One-Stop IT Shop can create the opportunity and become the catalyst for remediating the backend processes. While controlling the scope of the One-Stop IT Shop initiative is important, it might help prioritize and trigger other improvement initiatives within IT. Another back-end concern is the tools that are used to manage the IT processes and fulfillment. A clear picture of existing tool architecture as well as current and future integration points is required to determine how the One-Stop IT Shop will front-end the tools. There may be opportunities to rationalize tools before integrating them with the One-Stop IT Shop thereby reducing the cost and complexity of the portal initiative. In short, the One-Stop IT Shop in and of itself will not fix the back-end issues; however, it can become the vehicle to trigger other improvement initiatives Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

36 A Service Portfolio/Catalog can be the backbone of a successful IT Service Management program, enabling customers to make a cultural shift from a system-oriented perspective to service-oriented perspective and create a foundation for the improvement all of the other ITIL/ITSM processes. Thirds Sky offers customers several options to aid in the development of a Service Portfolio, Service Catalog, and IT Portal that are tailored to meet our customer's specific needs. Chart a path toward reducing costs, improving quality of delivery, and achieving a true services orientation within your IT organization. 36

37 Service Catalog Flight Plan Third Sky's Service Catalog Flight Plan provides roadmap and approach for achieving a services orientation to help organizations: Improve IT s focus on customer outcomes Align IT with the business, and ultimately, the business with the external customers Reduce the costs and improve the quality of delivering the end-to-end services Increase service maturity Achieve a service-oriented culture that improves business/it agility Pick the key milestones most important to you, we ll help you get there. Third Sky s Service Catalog Flight Plan does more than establish a Catalog of Services, and is a coordinated set of actions tailored to client-specific requirements. Key milestones include: Charter the Flight Plan Business Service Mapping Develop a Service Catalog Assess Service Maturity Integrate with Service Level Management Establish a Request Catalog IT Process Automation Define and enable Service Owners Define and adopt a Service Lifecycle approach Establish Service Portfolio Management and Service Governance Visit info.thirdsky.com/sc-flight-plan.html for more details Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

38 EXCELerators for ServiceNow Best-Practice Process Adoption in Weeks Not Months Third Sky & Cloud Sherpa's EXCELerators for ServiceNow give organizations a turn-key approach to Service Catalog and Request Management with a combination of: Best Practice Process Documentation Roles, Responsibilities & Policies Training Materials Metrics & Key Performance Indicators Pre-Packaged ServiceNow Update Set Workflow Notification Configurations Form & Field Configurations Realize benefits such as: Pre-built Configuration & Documentation reduces the time it takes to create this in-house Eliminates the need for a gap analysis with established Requirements Baseline Documentation Educate yourselves on the process & build consensus/buy-in without the hassle of creating training materials from scratch Minimal to no configuration is required in ServiceNow to align your company to an ITIL Best Practice solution SERVICE CATALOG EXCELERATOR Publish Service Definitions to ESS Describing: -What does IT Provide? -What Service Levels to Expect? -Pricing REQUEST EXCELERATOR 40+ Request Items 20+ Workflows Ability to Easily Maintain Fulfillment Plans Links to Service Definitions to 1 or More Related Requests Service Definitions Build Upon Business Services in CMBD Visit info.thirdsky.com/excelerators.html for more details Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success

39 Additional Resources for IT Service Catalogs Service Catalog Flight Plan 4-Part White Paper Series Services and the Importance of Customer Outcomes: Download this white paper to explore what do our customers want from IT, who are the customers, where do outcomes originate, how to define services based on customer outcomes, and what services orientation challenges you may face. Services and the Importance of Process Capability & Maturity: In this paper we will discuss how the provisioning of IT services that enable these customer outcomes is in very large part dependent upon the effectiveness and efficiency of the enabling processes. Services and the Evolution of Service Ownership: In this third white paper in the series, we deal with the reality of service ownership, discus the critical nature of the role of Service Owner, and provide some examples of how this role can evolve over time and across the service lifecycle. About Third Sky Third Sky is a full service IT Service Management consulting, education and technology provider headquartered in San Francisco with offices across the US. Our approach to Business-Driven IT leverages frameworks such as ITIL, CobiT, PMBOK and ISO/IEC20000 as part of a hands-on, real-world approach to ITSM that has helped hundreds of companies transform their IT organizations into strategic, business-aligned service providers delivering the highest levels of service and support, all while lowering costs. For more information, call us at or visit us at Service Based Improvement Cycles: In this final whitepaper of the series, we get to what is really the end game --- beginning a never-ending series of service-based improvement cycles Third Sky, Inc. Service Catalog Success