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Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) Primer
What is ITSM?
ITSM is a
discipline for managing information technology products (hardware and
software), processes (management and technical) and resources (people
and organization). It is
based on a service centered philosophy of IT department's
contribution to the business rather than the traditional product centered
philosophy managed by very technically minded resources.
ITSM enables
quality services that provides the outcomes that the business wants to achieve.
It
enables regulatory
compliance, for example SOX (COSO), HIPAA, etc by establishing tangible deliverables,
quality management and control systems
for IT governance.
The Information Technology
Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a public domain ITSM framework that is
a globally recognized set of best practices for ITSM.
ISO/IEC 20000 is the
international standard for ITSM. Click
here for an Executive Overview of ITSM.
Why is ITSM
important?
The
rationale
for ITSM is due many IT challenges and the need to correct typical issues
such as:
-
Low customer
confidence/perception of IT
-
IT is unaware of
changes in the business
-
Same recurring
incidents that frustrate users
-
Uncontrolled
changes take place that disrupt services
-
Unclear staff
resource/cost requirements
-
Over
dependency on key staff
-
Out of date
customer support system
-
Under managed
support resources
-
Continual
fire-fighting and break-fix
-
Limited
information - based on 'I think' rather than 'I know'
-
Interrupt-driven
resources
-
Lack of
communication between resources
-
Lack of
cooperation between IT departments
-
Lack of
direction and focus
Business needs, First!
IT
service providers must provide value to the business by providing capabilities and
resources to manage services as well as manage the
technology and products that support these services. ITSM creates a quality
management system that assures alignment of IT services to business
needs.
The business uses IT "services" and not just "technology
products". IT must focus on Services and ensure alignment with the business
needs, however, IT organizations have traditionally focused on technology
products.
IT's focus on technology and products has lead to the many challenges.
For Continual Service
Improvement
ITSM promotes a service oriented approach that addresses
these challenges and improves the delivery of services that align with
business objectives. In
contrast, the method for delivering ITSM in the past has traditionally been
applied by major vendors using their proprietary frameworks such as Microsoft
Operations Framework (MOF), HP ITSM Reference Model, IBM IT Process Model (ITPM),
Deloitte CIO Framework, and many others that do not interoperate.
The terms ITSM and "IT Service Management"
are generic.
No one author, organization, or vendor owns these terms.
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