To effectively deliver IT enabled business service it is imperative that the service is fit for the purpose. Too often I have been involved in service delivery that is perfectly specified, technically, yet the user aspects are almost an afterthought. Now with IT "in-house" we are able to rapidly transition our resources to transition the solution to soften the blow. The same is true of additional capacity or a broken service level, where we can simply roll in another server or apply some additional capacity or, worst case, hire some more staff. As we leverage cloud computing, many of these same options are true. That said, there will be significant additional expenditure.  

The role of Service Management is transitioning to focusing more on service design, which ensures that the appropriate decisions are taken to select the correct partners to design the service so that SLA's are delivered at the appropriate cost and with fiscal transparency back to the business.

Recently I was speaking to a colleague from a manufacturing organization that has decided to leverage the cloud for email. Now you might think that the decision was made simply for the reasons of cost. Certainly, cost was a consideration, but not the only one. Email has for some time been an issue in terms or archiving, deletion and of course availability and independent device access. Risk is another element. Organizational "secrets" must be protected and it's imperative that this has been taken into account for the solution as well. The good news here is that the resources dedicated to formally delivering email have now been released as a result of value adding processes in the organization. Now the organization simply pays for the consumption of email to the third party. As the IT organization was involved in the design, the cutover to the third party was delivered seamlessly leveraging the organizations single sign-on. A new mailbox is requested through the service catalog where the cost and service level expectations are clearly set.

Within the ITIL Service Design book there are a number of critical processes identified including Availability Management, Capacity Management, IT Service Continuity Management, Information Security Management, Supplier Management, Service Catalog Management and Service Level Management. Now, they are all important, but the Service Manager in the cloud world is going to have to focus on Supplier Management. I am not simply referring to "after the fact" monitoring of the suppliers performance, although this is important, focus must be on the careful inspection of external cloud computing contracts before they are signed. This diligence is the only opportunity for the contract term to ensure that the contract will effectively meet business commitments. The team will need to ensure that effective measurement processes are implemented to assure delivery against the terms of the contract.

Remember, once the contract is in place, it is in effect for the terms of the contract. The contracts may be short but they certainly add up when many smaller contracts are signed and organizational procurement processes are not leveraged for buying value.

The trick here to keep agile is to streamline the process. My tip for service management organizations to effectively leverage the cloud and to transition the organization from resolving incidents and problems is to focus on the design of your services. If you do not, the cost for change will be expensive and potentially unbudgeted.