Cabinet Office let the 51% of ITIL/PRINCE2 to Capita plc

Her Majesty decided to let the 51% of ITIL/PRINCE2 ownership to Capita plc, a company selected after an extensive procurement process to create a new Joint Venture organization. 

Cabinet Office will get 10 million pounds advance and three additional annual payments of 9,4 million pounds. In return, Capita will own 51% of a new Joint Venture (JV) organization. Government Office keeps 49%.

That's a lot of money. And this transaction opens a lot of questions, for all involved subjects. What will change for ATOs, authors of central and complementary publications, certified companies and individuals? Who will write new versions?

How is the new JV going to triple the revenue in next ten years? Who is going to receive the short end of the stick? Furthermore, why is Cabinet Office selling a piece of a golden goose?

We on ITIL side of the fence recognized the V3 and 2011 pumped up the pyramid of revenue-generation. Owner of ITIL will earn much more in this new frame. Is the government really that bad in managing money generators as ITIL and PRINCE2 after thirty-something years of experience?

Time will probably tell. But I have a huge problem with patience...

ITIL 2011: Free Mind Map

Surprisingly lot of you people asked for my refreshed ITIL 2011 edition mind map.
Since you have seen pictures of it in my previous posts, you know I have it ;)   I've put it here for free download.


ITIL 2011 Mind Map

Mind you, this is still my working version, so please let me know if you find any typos or errors.




Of course, if you decide to dig deeper, I recommend buying a full set of books from TSO or Amazon.

Download my ITIL 2011 Mind Map here.

If you don't have a MindJet MindManager, you can have a look in flash here (it will ask you for a viewer installation). Hope you enjoy it!

ITIL Continual Service Improvement

CSI is not strictly a lifecycle stage, since it spans through all four other stages. It is mainly a set of Quality Management skills put together to make better Strategy, Design, Transition and Operation. Therefore the main tool is Deming's circle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) together with Seven-step Improvement process.

Continual Service Improvement relies also on change management and capability improvement methodologies. Everything is oriented to align processes from Strategy to Operation, and thus comply to changing business requirements.

Purpose

Purpose of ITIL Continual Service Improvement is to ensure IT Services alignment with business needs. This is  done via improvements to IT services through Strategy, Design, Transition and Operation stages. We want to improve effectiveness of service, process and cost.

Objectives

I will quote these in a best effort to provide quality info under 'fair use' terms

• Review, analyze, prioritize and make recommendations on improvement opportunities in each lifecycle stage
• Review and analyze service level achievement
• Identify and implement specific activities to improve IT service quality and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the enabling processes
• Improve cost effectiveness of delivering IT services without sacrificing customer satisfaction
• Ensure applicable quality management methods are used to support continual improvement activities
• Ensure that processes have clearly defined objectives and measurements that lead to actionable improvements
• Understand what to measure, why it is being measured and what the successful outcome should be

Scope

• Overall ITSM health
• Alignment of Service Portfolio with changing business needs
• Organization maturity and capability
• Continual improvement of all aspects IT services and supporting assets

Value

• Continual service quality improvement
• IT Services alignment to business needs
• Cost effectiveness
• Identification of improvement opportunities in all processes via monitoring and reporting
• Identification of improvement opportunities org. Structures, resources, partners, technology, training and communications

Principles

Here are some Key principles:

CSI approach
It is a somewhat changed improvement approach from V2. here are steps and deliverables:

• What is the vision? - Align with business vision, mission, goals and objectives
• Where are we now? - Baseline assessments
• Where do we want to be? - Measurable targets
• How do we get there? - Service and process improvement
• Did we get there? - Measurement and metrics
• Feedback branch to beginning is How do we keep the momentum going? - Manage the implementation of improvement changes

ITIL Continual Service Improvement Mind Map

Service Measurement

Why do we Measure?

• To validate
• To direct
• To justify
• To intervene

Baseline - current state of CI used as reference value for future comparisons

Vision to measurements:

1. Vision
2. Mission
3. Goals
4. Objectives
5. CSF
6. KPI
7. Metrics
8. Measurements

The seven-step improvement process

This is the only process in CSI, as title says it consists of seven steps, nicely mapped to a Deming's PDCA cycle and Knowledge management DIKW cycle. Picture is worth 1000 words. Enjoy:

 CSI Seven-Step Improvement Process diagram

ITIL Service Operation

Finally! Service Operation is a real man's book. This is where it happens. Here we make money. All we do in Strategy, Design and Transition makes sense here. Service Provider does day-to-day activities of keeping the service available and customer happy.
If you are going to read any of the five books, my bet is that this will be the one. Since in the beginning we are all interested in consequences more than causes. 

Purpose
To do everything necessary for service delivery at agreed levels.

Objectives

• Minimizing the adverse impact of service outages on business activities
• Delivering and supporting the agreed services effectively and efficiently
• Maintaining access to services for authorized customers (and no one else)

Scope

• People
• Processes (Service Management)
• Technology
• Services

Value

• Reduced outage duration and frequency
• Operational results and data provided
• Enforcement of security policy

ITIL Service Operation Mind Map

Service Operation Processes:

Incident Management
Key process, one of the oldest Service Support processes. If you know anything about ITIL, odds are that you know Incident Management. It is in charge of restoring disrupted service as soon as possible.

Event Management
This process was added in V3 to address emerging use of monitoring tools in IT and describe the relation to Incident Management from V2.

Request Fulfilment
This is another offspring of the holly Incident Management, cause of many an internet forum discussion 'What is Request Fulfilment?" or likes.  Definition is simple: Request Fulfilment manages customer requests. Which by definition can be: requests for info or advice; for a Standard Change or for access to an IT Service. Simple. Have a look at article about password reset.

Problem Management
As opposed to Incident Management, Problem Management seeks underlying causes of one or more incidents and through lifecycle of known error-workaround-permanent fix,  strives to minimize the adverse impact of problems to the business process. Problem Management can be reactive and proactive.

Access Management
Another new one in V3. This is actually a process which spends a lot of Operations time - handling customer access rights . New users, approvals, identity statuses, logging and tracking, removal of rights.


Service Operation Functions:

Service Desk
The only function in V2, Service Desk is the single point of contact (SPOC) and an interface to a user for all communication with service support, all Operation and most of Transition processes. With accent to Incident Management, Request Fulfilment and Event Management.

Technical Management
Technical Management takes care of technology competencies. It identifies, develops and refines the knowledge needed to design, test, manage and improve the service. It also manages trainings and deployment of resources.

IT Operations Management
Operations Management does daily operational activities needed for IT Infrastructure management. It consists of Operations Control which performs routine operational tasks, and Facilities Management which manages physical environment.

Application Management
Application Management was a separate book in V2. It is responsible for managing Applications across their lifecycle (Requirements-Design-Build-Deploy-Operate-Optimize).

ITIL Service Transition

Service Transition is a stage which gives most pain to the IT Service Provider. Transition (add new, change existing, retire old service) is a source of many service disruptions. So we want our transition of service to be planned, built, tested, evaluated and deployed in an organized and controlled manner.

  

Purpose

To ensure that new or modified services are in conformance with business requirements, as defined in previous Strategy and Design stages, and that services which are no longer needed are properly retired.

Objectives

• Efficiently and effectively plan and manage service changes
• Manage change risks
• Release planned changes
• Manage expectations on new or changed services
• Manage accurate knowledge and info on changed services and assets

Value

• Better estimation of cost, timing, resource requirement and risks
• Higher volumes of successful change
• Reduce delays from unexpected clashes and dependencies
• Reduced effort spent on managing test and pilot environments
• Improved expectation setting for all stakeholders
• Increased confidence that new or changed services can be delivered to specification without unexpectedly affecting other services or stakeholders
• Ensure that new or changed services will be maintainable and cost- effective
• Improved control of service assets and configurations.

Scope

Creating new and changing existing services, implementing new and changed services, service retirement. Plan-build-test-evaluate-deploy.

Key principles

• Align service transition plans with the business needs
• Implement all changes through transition
• Adopt a common framework and standards
• Maximize re-use of established processes and systems
• Manage relationships with stakeholders
• Manage systems for transfer of knowledge and decision support
• Plan release packages
• Proactively manage resources across transitions

ITIL V2011 Service Transition Mind Map

Service Transition Processes:

  

Transition Planning and Support

Since Transition is so important, ITIL  defines the separate Transition Planning and Support process in order to manage and control changes and releases, from overall planning to specific transition resources management. The accent here is on standardization and best practices, managing of overall resources and helping with major changes and releases but not detailed planning of individual changes.

  

Change Management

Change Management is the key Transition process, and one of the key ITIL processes altogether. Since changes are the main cause of service disruptions, we want as much control of change as possible. In Change Management we ensure that all changes are recorded and evaluated. Authorized changes are prioritized, planned, tested, implemented, documented and reviewed. This way number of failed and unauthorized changes is significantly reduced, as well as number of resulting incidents and problems.

  

Service Asset & Configuration Management

This process was previously named Configuration Management and dealt with Configuration Management Database (CMDB). It looked and sounded too technical which scared off some new business-minded people in ITIL. In fact, Conf. Management was in charge of our knowledge of infrastructure: what do we have, where it is and how it works. To be more in spirit of the business aspect of this process, Asset management flavor was added, so now we follow lifecycle of IT assets from cradle to grave and actual info on this assets is available from all processes, any time.

  

Release and Deployment Management

Previous Release Management was the most difficult to explain in an "Elevator presentation", so deployment was added in order to enable Americans to get it quicker. It would be less confusing if it was called only Deployment management from the beginning. In a nutshell (or elevator :)) RDM deals with consequences of Change Management process: build, test and deployment of releases.

  

Service Validation and Testing

This one is a separate process since it is a discipline used throughout the lifecycle, mainly from Change and Release management. Service Validation and Testing will ensure that the service will deliver expected outcomes, and that it is 'fit for purpose' and 'fit for use' (Utility and Warranty, remember them from Strategy?).

  

Change Evaluation

This was 'Evaluation' in V3, and probably since no one knew what it relates to, they added 'Change' in 2011. So now we know it is a process which deals with evaluation of change. It is implemented to identify all predicted and unpredicted change effects. Smaller changes can be evaluated within Change Management, and for more significant changes (up to company to decide).  It is triggered before every approval point.

  

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management was such a hype in 90's! Here in ITIL Service Transition, it is added as a nice to have process which is even in the foundations syllabus. General idea is to capture and manage knowledge as Service Provider's intellectual property. Methods are classic KM, I even recommend the reading since it is digest version of all I once knew about Knowledge Management.

ITIL Service Design

Service Design connects the Strategy with Transition and Operation, providing tools to create and redesign services aligned with strategic objectives. It takes care that service management is fully aligned with business needs and uses its capabilities in an efficient and resilient manner.

Purpose
To design IT Services in a cost-effective, secure manner and in accordance to Service Strategy, and to take care of designed service delivery having in mind customer satisfaction.
A set of design governance documents is defined: methods, best practices, procedures and policies.

Objective
Effective IT Service design using continual improvement methods, ensuring service alignment with existing and new business requirements.

Five Aspects of Service Design
deal with designing:
 • service solutions for new or changed services
 • management information systems and tools
 • technology architectures and management architectures
 • processes
 • measurement methods and metrics

Four Ps:
(we remember them as People, Processes, Technology from last version)
 • People
 • Processes
 • Products (services, technologies, tools)
 • Partners (manufacturers, supplier,  vendors)

Service Design Package (SDP)
Definition: "Service Design Documents defining all aspects of an IT Service and its Requirements through each stage of its Lifecycle. A Service Design Package is produced for each new IT Service, major Change, or IT Service Retirement"

ITIL V2011 Service Design Mind Map

Service Design processes:

Service Catalogue Management
Deals with management of information about all live services. Info has to be accurate and current.

Availability Management
One of the oldest ITIL processes, connected to SLM. Ensures that delivered services availability is in accordance with the agreed levels. Of course, in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Capacity Management
Another V2 veteran: Capacity Management wants to ensure that IT capacity (infrastructure and services) meets the agreed requirements in a cost effective (and timely, of course) manner. Capacity management spans through all ITIL lifecycles, since cost-effectiveness and efficiency are among the basic reasons for ITIL existence.

IT Service Continuity Management
IT Service Continuity Management (ITSCM) process is responsible for the alignment of IT services to Business Continuity Management.

Service Level Management
This is a matured key process, SLM ensures that all services are delivered as agreed. It is tightly coupled with other processes emerged from Service Delivery group. Main purpose of SLM is to improve communication and understanding of Business and Service Provider.

Design Coordination
New in ITIL 2011, this process became the central point of communication and control for all processes in Service Design stage.
Design Coordination process is in charge of all design activities, whether they are done through projects or Change Management. It ensures consistent design of services which are aligned with Service Strategy and will be properly prepared for Transition.

Information Security Management
ISM is a governance process which ensures that information security policy  is aligned with business security. ISM maintains and enforces the security policy.

Supplier Management
A fresh process which was probably introduced for better compliance with ISO/IEC 20000, same as Business Relationship Management in Service Strategy. Supplier Management ensures getting value for money from suppliers. All activities are included: negotiation, agreements, supplier performance management, seamless integration of underpinning contracts and delivered services.

ITIL Service Strategy

Service Strategy has the central position in the circular ITIL lifecycle model.
By a broader definition, strategy is a plan devised to achieve a long-term aim. Service strategy is therefore a systematic long-term plan designed by the IT service organization to achieve defined objectives.

A good service strategy should define a way to create and deliver a better value to the customer.
Main objective of service strategy is to recognize competitors and have them in mind when considering services which will in some way be better than the competition's.

Service management is regarded as a strategic asset in the service strategy stage.

Service Strategy deals with

• developing service markets
• service provider types
• development of a service portfolio
• financial aspects of service management
• business relationships and others.

Strategy provides the tools and guidance to an organization to step back from daily operation and view existing services in terms of

• costs
• risks involved
• their performance

Strategy is about the pure cause of services, not about effects and how-to’s.

Service Strategy deals with some key principles:

• Utility and warranty
• Utility is "what is the service"/fit dor purpose.
• Warranty is "how it works"/fit for use.
• Value Creation - what does the service do for the customer and how he/she sees it.
• Assets -anything that can help us to deliver the service. Assets are either resources or capabilities.
• Resource - a kind of physical assets: infrastructure elements, people, financial capital, applications.
• Capabilities - intangible assets: usualy the ability to create value.
• Patterns of Business Activity (PBA) every cutomer has activities which generate demand for services.
• Governance - defines how we implement and follow strategy, policies and processes.

ITIL V2011 Service Strategy Mind Map

Service Strategy Processes:

Service Portfolio Management
A service organization manages investments in services across the lifecycle by exercising Service Portfolio Management.
Service Portfolio Management enables customers to understand what services are available, why they should use them (and why from this provider) and what will be the costs. Also to govern the services in such a way to support Service Strategy.
It enables a service organization to determine weaknesses and strengths of their portfolio, what the priorities and weaknesses of their investment are and how to allocate resources according to these priorities and risks.
Service Portfolio Management deals with

• services which will be delivered (pipeline)
• services which are being delivered (catalogue)
• withdrawn services (retired)

Financial management for IT services

Financial management enables the service organization to measure the value of IT services and underpinning assets. It manages cost-effectiveness of IT Service Management.

Service organizations use Financial management  to achieve Better decision making, Change Speed, Better Service Portfolio Management, Financial and Operational control, Sense of service value.

In ITIL 2011 returned to key activities from earlier versions:

• Accounting
• Budgeting
• Charging

Demand modeling is focused on TCO of service provision to the customer.

Return of Investment (ROI) is the main value of an investment.

Business Relationship Management
This is a newly defined process in Service Strategy. Here is the culprit for the fact that Measurement and Reporting are not in CSI any more. Anyway, this is a welcome change. BRM existed for some time in ISO/IEC20000 and is widely recognized as a crucial process in IT Service Management. Its main purpose is to support most of other processes in all lifecycle stages - by helping Service organization and Business to better understand each other. Which is, as we know, the basic means/goal to all ITSM organized voyages. If Business and IT don't make an effort to speak the same language, to understand each other's pains, then all the other endeavors are meaningless.

Demand Management
Another new  process! Previously, Demand Management was dealt with inside of Capacity Management. On primary ITSM levels, it is the right place for Demand Management. But since we started dealing with Strategy and Design lifecycle stages, we saw Demand as the crucial driver for them. So here it is.

Service Strategy is the most boring ITIL book. It was most thoroughly rewritten in 2011., and it still helps me to fall asleep when all other methods fail :)
On the other hand, it contains some very important concepts and aspects of Service Management which tend to be more and more interesting as you gather experience working in IT industry.

ITIL 2011 Processes

Here is a clear and organized table of ITIL 2011 processes for you. What is where, what is important, what is old and new:

ITIL 2011 Processes Table

There are some changes from 2007 edition.

What is not so obvious from this table, most of the changes happened in Service Strategy. Strategy Generation is not treated as a process any more, rest of the processes are more uniformly described. New processes are Strategy management for IT Services and Business Relationship Management.

Some interesting changes in Service Design also: processes are better described and aligned, I like to see clarified Pipeline to Catalogue transition. New process is Design Coordination.

Less radical changes in Service Transition. Understandable, since these were mature processes. Except for Evaluation, which is now called Change Evaluation process.

Least changes in Service Operation. Of course, new Service Fulfillment and Event Management additionally clarified. Interesting , but not unexpected, Problem Management was polished some more. Looks like Problem Management was problematic from the beginning :)

Continual Service Improvement: of course, more changes. CSI model is now CSI approach. 7-step process has seven steps :)  What bothers  me a little is that Service Measurement and Reporting are not processes any more. Where I work, these are most important processes and the right place for them is in CSI.

Functions

All four functions are still Defined in Service Operation:

• Service Desk
• Technical Management
• IT Operations Management
• Application Management

Generally, I like the way things are developing. This is probably not the last of changes we will see in ITIL. TSO and Cabinet Office people are taking care of their baby.