Business Improvement in Uncertain Times

What are the goods or services your organization provides to its customers? How are these products provided in a consistent manner leading to quality results? What is quality?

These are all elements of what is often referred to as Service Management. In particular, for Information Technology (IT) departments within the organization (or supplying computing power as an external group) service management principles and activities are known as IT Service Management, or ITSM.

When considering what ITSM principles and activities might be useful a source of collected practices such as CobiT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology) or ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) can be used as a reference and a benchmark.

[Don't let the big titles bother you; this is all just good business practice applied to IT.]

Often IT departments following the guidance for ITSM suggested by ITIL [are you keeping up with the acronyms?] wonder how they are doing as viewed by an objective outsider. To what extent are they following the best practices suggested? Given what they are doing, in the provision and delivery of IT Services, are they missing anything important? What does the ITIL Framework suggest as potential improvement for them?

Sounds like Adaptive Action doesn't it?

In the inner circles of this IT Service Management container, the above questions are addressed by conducting an ITIL Assessment by specialists in this body of knowledge such as yours truly.

But clear away all the certifications, the acronyms, the complexities of data processing / the management of information systems in house, outsourced, in the cloud, etc., etc. and an ITIL Assessment becomes: What? So what? Now what?

Simple!

Paul Reeves
www.businessimprovementresults.com