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To ITIL® V3 and Beyond: Travels with Rob Stroud
Service Catalogs Come of Age
Imagine receiving a catering bill for a large party you hosted. On the check is a single dollar figure that is significantly higher than the original estimate. No additional detail is provided. Is the amount correct? Were you charged the appropriate price per person? Did you receive your volume discount? Would you turn over your credit card, no questions asked?
By reducing a business service to a single line item on an expenditure report, IT has in effect been presenting its business customers with unsubstantiated bills containing no details on what was consumed, by whom and at what rate—a practice that, though prevalent, is unacceptable in an increasing number of fiscally responsible organizations.
Some of these organizations are leveraging ITIL®—and the Service Catalog detailed in ITIL v2 as part of the Service Level Management (SLM) process—to present relevant metrics to the business before services are selected, and to track and report on metrics associated with business service consumption.
Organizations’ experiences implementing the SLM process presented in v2 demonstrated that developing, delivering and maintaining the Service Catalog were absolutely critical to the alignment between IT and the business. As a result, in ITIL v3, the Service Catalog was split out from SLM to become its own unique process. ITIL’s increased emphasis on the Service Catalog encourages IT to track service details and metrics, and use a relevant subset of that information to document business services in terminology that business service consumers understand.
While providing too little relevant detail to the business is problematic, the reverse, providing too much information, is also a poor practice that detracts from IT’s ability to align with the business. Information that may be important to IT, may be irrelevant to business users. According to ITIL v3 guidance, determining the appropriate level of detail for the Service Catalog is critical, with the objective being to empower business users with the data needed to make informed choices.
A CIO recently shared with me that since implementing the Service Catalog, his business consumers have ceased questioning the technology used to provide a service and have started focusing on the business metrics associated with that service, such as the value delivered in relation to the cost. This is a sure sign that Service Catalogs have “come of age.”
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About Robert Stroud
Robert Stroud is Vice President and IT Service Management and IT Governance Evangelist at CA. In this role, he helps ensure that the company’s solutions adhere to best practices and mentors organizations on driving maximum business value from their ITIL initiatives. A 25 year IT veteran, Robert was recently elected International Vice President of ISACA (previously known as the Information Systems and Control Association) and Vice President of ISACA’s research affiliate, the IT Governance Institute (ITGI). He is a recognized industry speaker and leader, serving on the USA itSMF Advisory Board, its Governance Committee and the COBIT Steering Committee. He worked on the ITIL Version 3 project as part of the ITIL Advisory Group and as a Mentor and Reviewer for some of the newly published ITIL V3 volumes. He has authored several titles on ITIL and COBIT and served as a reviewer of the COBIT 4.0 to ITIL Version 2 mapping document.
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Comments
Morgan Langley said:
Metrics and visability can releate to increased customer satisfaction but, just as important is the ability to set an expectation and deliver it time and time again. Moving to a standardized delivery not only saves money, increases satisfaction, but also reduces the amount of effort or cycles spent on delivery of tactical efforts (new hire processing is a good example). This increases the time available for more strategic efforts that add value to the business by providing bandwidth for higher end stratigic projects. This could be a new ERP system or enhancements to a highly profitable service that the business provides to outside consumers.
Robert Stroud said:
Good point--your comment reflects the changing role of IT. One of the advantages of using a Service Catalog is that it sets the expectation for the user. If an expectation is not set, then by default the expectation is perfection--and failure in the eyes of the user is virtually guaranteed.