ITSM is Service Provisioning
IT Service Management is a strategy for managing the IT infrastructure through a customer focused, service driven methodology, enabled and supported by best practice based IT disciplines. A primary focus of ITSM is to enable IT to be a more effective service provider across the enterprise.

The Business Focus of ITSM
Although managing technology itself is critical, it is not necessarily the primary focus within an ITSM framework. ITSM addresses the need to align the delivery of IT services closely with the needs of the business. This transformation of the traditional Business - IT paradigm can be characterized as follows:

Traditional I/T

becomes

ITSM Process

Technology focus

è

Process focus

"Fire-Fighting"

è

Preventive

Reactive

è

Proactive

Users

è

Customers

Centralized, done in-house

è

Distributed, sourced

Isolated, silos

è

Integrated, enterprise-wide

"One-off", ad-hoc

è

Repeatable, accountable

Informal processes

è

Formal best practices

IT internal perspective

è

Business, organization perspective

Operational specific

è

Service orientation

Policy Based Service Management Methods

Requirements Definition Processes
Business Strategy - the organizations business strategy, how are the current business requirements are linked to technology infrastructure, what are the processes that do so 
Service Planning - how does IT provide services internally and externally for the organization, what are the processes for doing so, what is the Customer Relationship Management processes
Organizational Planning - how does the organization adapt to internal and external business factors that impact the IT infrastructure, what is the impact of corporate culture on IT, how is IT integrated within the organization
Technology Planning - how does IT plan its technology infrastructure internally and externally around the organizations business requirements and model

Service Support Processes
Incident Management - the day-to-day process that restores normal acceptable service with a minimal impact on business
Change Management - standard methods and procedures for effective managing of all changes
Problem Management - the diagnosis of the root causes of incidents in an effort to proactively eliminate and manage them
Release Management - testing, verification, and release of changes to the IT environment
Configuration Management - physical and logical perspective of the IT infrastructure and the IT services being provided
Performance Management - the day-to-day monitoring and reporting of resource performance and utilization
Service Continuity - managing an organization's capability to provide the necessary level of service following an interruption of service
Service Desk (Function) - a function not a process, this provides a central point of contact between users and IT

Service Delivery Processes
Service Level Management - maintain and improve the level of service to the organization
Availability Management - optimize IT infrastructure capabilities, services, and support to minimize service outages and provide sustained levels of service to meet business requirements
Capacity Management - enables an organization to tactically manage resources and strategically plan for future resource requirements
Financial Management - managing the costs associated with providing the organization with the resources needed to meet requirements

The Flow of Policy Based Service Management
Once the Requirements Definition is accomplished and Support Services is presented with delivering, managing, and supporting the IT services, best practices are employed to develop the necessary IT Services Support and Service Delivery processes. Together this provides an enterprise wide ITSM solution based on best practices tailored to the organization's specific and unique business and IT infrastructure requirements.

Additional Information
Visit www.itsm.info to learn about ITSM, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), and SolutionMethod™ (a Policy Based ITSM Approach). In addition, you can download free and informative white papers, questionnaires, and service briefs.

To learn how RL Consulting can assist in achieving IT Service Management goals and our full range of solutions:
Contact us at RL_Consulting@itsm.info or phone us at 602-996-6830

* In the upcoming months this newsletter will contain important information concerning the various aspects of IT Service Management. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter simply reply to this message with "REMOVE" in the subject line.

March, 2002