Data Gathering Instrument Service Portfolio Management Information Technology Services Strategy Case studies in Nicaraguan municipal governments ALP (provisionally hidden) PhD Student National University of Engineering (UNI) - Nicaragua Royal Technological Institute (KTH) - Sweden Stockholm University (SU) Sweden Email: provisionally hidden Reviewed by Dr. LPP (provisionally hidden) Managua, 2 October 2009 (updated 30/12/09) 0
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) SERVICE MANAGEMENT AND IT SERVICE STRATEGY: In general, the managers of Information Technology 1 (IT) service providers face the challenge of demonstrating the value that information technology produce, or have the potential to produce, for their client organization (the organization attended). This is due, in part, to the relatively recent existence of IT organizations as a support area within organizations compared to other traditionally included areas (such as human resources and accounting, among others). The use of best practices and standards is common in diverse areas of these organizations to improve the way of working. In the area of IT management, there are various proposals for best practices and standards that have been used in both public and private sector organizations, for example ITIL, COBIT and ISO. ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is widely accepted and promotes an information technology service 2 approach to achieve a better position for the IT with clients 3 /users. ITIL proposes a series of best practices, which are called information technology service management, to administer information technology over the life cycle of the IT services provided. Information technology service management takes into account all people, processes and technologies that cooperate to ensure the quality of such IT services, meeting the service levels agreed to with the clients. ITIL proposes various compendiums of best practices for managing IT services throughout their life cycle. They are organized into: service strategy, service transition, service operation, service design and continual service improvement. Among these best practices, the focal point of the IT service life cycle is the service strategy, which must be planned and optimized to actively support fulfillment of the goals and objectives of the client organization. The IT services strategy focuses on guaranteeing that IT managers can design a strategy to follow consistently and justifiably, with value for the client organization. For this, ITIL suggests integrating a series of processes/activities for the definition and monitoring of the service strategy using information coming from activities directly linked to the clients. The best practices related to the IT services strategy suggest the definition of strategic principles, demands management, financial management and IT services portfolio management. Given that the best practices contained in ITIL are suggestions, it is necessary to analyze which elements are useful for each context, and this requires knowing ahead of time the current situation of the existing management practices for decision-making about the desired state. The sections below present more details about the best practices of the services strategy and a questionnaire to analyze each topic addressed within the organization under study. 1 IT providers can be departments, divisions, directions, areas, entities, etc. within or outside the organization that provide information technologies. 2 Information technologies services are delivered using a combination of hardware, software, networks, individuals, documentation and other means, and have characteristics such as capacity, performance, security and availability. 3 The term client is used to refer to the organization, department or division purchasing the service. The User is the person who makes use of the services on a daily basis. (The client in this case would be the municipal government, which is concerned about better service for its different units as end users). September 2009. Managua, Nicaragua. 1
IT SERVICE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT The information technologies services portfolio is the list of information technologies projects and services that are selected to best support the client organization (or organization attended). (2 p. 33) When an IT provider has established the strategic principles to guide the IT services, the client organization and IT provider must determine which projects and services must be included in the IT services portfolio. This requires the following (2 p. 20): Project proposals that are aligned with the IT strategic initiatives. A list of pending projects, services implemented and services planned to be cut. A measuring system for determining the value of the services relative to the goals of the client organization. The services portfolio permits the aligning of: (i) IT resource consumption, (ii) the operational budget and (iii) an investment strategy that supports the IT services strategy. The primary users of the IT services portfolio are the authorities of both the IT provider and the client organization to understand the value provided by the investment in IT. Questionnaire 1. Does the information technology department 4 have an IT service portfolio (list of services aligned with the organizational goals containing the description, alleged value, business cases, priorities, risks, supply and packages, costs and prices for each service)? Is the service catalogue a sub-product of this component? 2. If the answer to (1) was YES, is an inventory taken of the IT services provided for the preparation of the service portfolio? 3. If the answer to (1) was YES, Is an economy feasibility evaluation done before adding a new service, project or change in the service portfolio? 4 The term information technology department used in these questions refers to the internal IT organization (internal IT services provider). This term is used generically and can correspond to Systems Direction, Information Technology Department or Information Technology Direction, among others. September 2009. Managua, Nicaragua. 2
4. If the answer to (1) was YES, does the information technology department validate the services portfolio data? 5. Does the information technology department do an analysis to maximize the value 5 of the IT services portfolio for the institution? 6. Does the information technology department do an analysis to align and prioritize the IT services provided with the organizational goals? 7. Does the information technology department do an analysis to balance service demand and delivery? 8. Does the information technology department do a final review to approve the proposed service portfolio? 5 Value: The value that IT services have for a given organization depends on the results they produce for the clients, and on the perception the client has of them. In the services area, the value has two major components: utility and guarantee. Utility refers to the results the services have actively helped achieve and/or the costs of having the service charged to it vs. the risks avoided. Guarantee is considered to regard the availability, capacity, continuity and security offered by providing a service. (1 pp. 31,32) September 2009. Managua, Nicaragua. 3
9. If the answer to (8) was YES, does this final review and approval process consider the detail of authorizing each service and the associated resources? 10. Does the information technology department communicate decisions about renting the necessary resources and services for the operation of the IT department and/or institution? 11. Is the information technology department in charge of finding the resources and services to be rented? BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. OGC (Office of Government Commerce). Service Strategy. London : TSO (The stationery office), 2007. ISBN 978 0 11 331045 6. 2. Microsoft Corporation. Business/IT Alignment Service Management Function. Microsoft Operations Framework, Version 4.0. April 2008. 3. OGC. Service Delivery. 4. Microsoft Corporation. Financial Management, Service Management Function. Microsoft Operations Framework, Version 4.0. April 2008. 5. OGC. Best Management Practice: IT Service Management -ITIL. Best Management Practice. [Online] 2009. [Cited: May 15, 2009.] http://www.best-management-practice.com/it-service-management-itil/. September 2009. Managua, Nicaragua. 4