Operation staff involvement in Service Design and Service Transition

Providing service

All Service Operation staff must be fully aware that they are there to ‘provide service’ to the business. They must provide a timely (rapid response and speedy delivery of requirement s), professional and courteous service to allow the business to conduct its own activities – so that the commercial customer ’s needs are met and the business thrives.

It is important that staff are trained not only in how to deliver and support IT service s, but also in the manner in which that service should be provided. For example, staff that are capable and deliver service effectively may still cause significant customer dissatisfaction if they are insensitive or dismissive. Conversely, no amount of being nice to a customer will help if the service is not being delivered.

A critical element of being a proficient service provider is placing as much emphasis on recruiting and training staff to develop competency in dealing with and managing customer relationship s and interactions as they do on technical competencies for managing the IT environment.

It is extremely important that Service Operation staff are involved in Service Design and Service Transition and potentially also in Service Strategy where appropriate.

One key to achieving balance in Service Operation is an effective set of Service Design processes. These will provide IT Operations Management with:

• Clear definition of IT service objectives and performance criteria
• Linkage of IT service specifications to the performance of the IT Infrastructure
• Definition of operational performance requirements
• A mapping of services and technology
• The ability to model the effect of changes in technology and changes to business requirements
• Appropriate cost models (e.g. customer or service based) to evaluate Return on Investment and cost-reduction strategies.

The nature of IT Operations Management involvement should be carefully positioned. Service Design is a phase in the Service Management Lifecycle using a set of processes, not a function independent of Service Operation. As such, many of the people who are involved in Service Design will come from IT Operations Management.

This should not only be encouraged, but Service Operation staff should be measured on their involvement in Service Design activities – and such activities should be included in job descriptions and roles, etc. This will help to ensure continuity between business requirements and technology design and operation and it will also help to ensure that what is designed can also be operated. IT Operations Management staff should also be involved during Service Transition to ensure consistency and to ensure that both stated business and manageability requirements are met.

Resources must be made available for these activities and the time required should be taken into account, as appropriate

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23