What's the Scope of this SPM/ ITSM Blog Anyway?!!!

In the last posting, I laid out some of the primary drivers for ITSM adoption among IT organizations. That general articulation of the problem statement will continue to be the context for all content posted hereafter in which we discuss approach and methodology to the design, plan, deployment and continual improvement of the Service Provider Model.

In an effort to bring some focus to the broad ITSM topic, this blog will initially focus on the following ITSM sub-topics:

• Service Level Management
• IT Services Development
• Service Catalog Development, Deployment and Maintenance
• Service Performance Monitoring and Reporting
• Services Costing
• Service Level unit costing, capacity, run rate, cash flow
  
• Future state investment modeling (TCO, ROI, NPV)
• Activities based budgeting and costing
• IT Service Selection process engineering and deployment
• IT Service Demand Planning process engineering and deployment

To set expectations accurately, it should be noted that in order to cover these sub-topics with any degree of completeness, we will be referencing other ITIL processes such as capacity management, availability management, IT service continuity management, business relationship management, service portfolio management, configuration management, change management, incident management, problem management, and release management. After all, these processes play an important part in sustaining desired service level performance.

For those just beginning the journey into the practical implementations of the SPM/ ITSM you will likely find yourself overwhelmed by a plethora moving parts that require integration for success. To keep your sanity and clarity, I offer this bit of advice that I still observe on a frequent basis.
The sole purpose of every activity and investment of a service provider must exist for the sole purpose of meeting or exceeding the published service level targets of all active customers of that service provider. If that correlation does not exist, then that activity and/or investment should be eliminated.

However, my little filtering tip comes with the following key assumption:
The IT service provider's published service levels, which drive all activities and investments, had better address 80% or more of their customers' needs. In other words, before you start investing in technology, process or people, validate your standard service offerings with the market that you serve.

I will use my next post to describe this dual level rationalization process that is the prerequisite for successful implementation of the Service Provider Model.