Reader Question:  I want to understand how service catalog management process works. Which teams in an organization get involved in the process?

Third Sky Expert:  John Worthington, Director of Consulting, Third Sky

The Service Catalog Management (SCM) process has as its objective to "provide and maintain a single source of consistent information on all operational services and those being prepared to run operationally, and to ensure that it is widely available to those who are authorized to access it." ITIL Service Design, Section 4.2

Most people tend to focus on the Service Catalog as an artifact, and sometimes on Request Fulfillment (a different process; SCM does not include detailed attention to the capturing, maintenance and fulfillment of requests). Perhaps what goes to the heart of this question is SCM's contribution to the definition of services.  

Reader Question: What's the most important thing when selecting metrics?

Third Sky Expert Answer:

Kai Holthaus, Director of Consulting, Third Sky

I think the first question you should ask yourself when thinking about metrics is “what do I want to achieve?”

There’s a reason for why you want to put a metric in place. For example, you’re measuring CPU utilization to ensure that your server has enough computing power at all times. When that metric crosses a threshold, you spring into action.

Third Sky Expert:  John Worthington, Director of Consulting, Third Sky

OK, the New Year is over, and I’ve been asked to re-name a TIPA™ webinar (since we’ve had to re-schedule it to February 20^th… don’t miss it!). The original title, “Time for a New Year's Resolution: Time for TIPA™!” may not resonate in February, however this session is relevant for any time of the year.

The webinar --- in fact the entire TIPA™ webinar series --- is based on my strong believe that most ITIL^© improvement programs are screaming for an organizational capability to self-assess process capability and maturity…. and that drives the need for a standard approach to assessment.

Think about the consequences of not having the capability to assess processes:

Reader Question: Why should I assess my process performance? I already have a good idea of how well our processes perform and where the gaps are.

Third Sky Expert Answer:

Kai Holthaus, Director of Consulting, Third Sky

Process assessments are actually really important. As you know, in order to improve anything, you first have to know what your starting point is. Case in point – if I told you that after a recent process improvement, an IT department now resolves 65% of all calls to the service desk at first contact. What would you say? Good? Bad? So-so? The issue is that with that statement we are lacking the reference point. 65% might sound rather good, but if the company was doing 65% before the improvement initiative, then we might be able to say that the initiative didn’t produce benefits.

So, process assessments give you this kind of baseline information. And if you have a ‘good idea’ of how well your processes perform, that’s great. But do you actually have hard data? Or is it based on anecdotal evidence? Process assessments can not only help you to establish a baseline to start your improvement from, they also might tell you what areas of improvement you should focus on first.