How to Implement A Service Catalogue

IT departments have never before had so many competitors for their role e.g. outsourced services, who expect more for less and (believes) it is more educated than ever before on what IT can do for them. As business change continues to accelerate, and the reliance on IT services becomes more and more a prerequisite for any organisation to stay in business, the challenges on the IT department keep growing.

 

For IT to counter against this, there are two goals that need to be satisfied:

 

• IT needs to provide business value to the organisation for outcomes it wants to achieve
• IT must demonstrate its value to the business, in order to be seen by the business as an enabler of desired outcomes
Delivering a Service Catalogue for an IT organisation will help to:
• Build a clearer picture of the business services required
• Report and manage performance, quality and efficiency of the services delivered
• Apply an appropriate commercial model for the management of the services
• Focus and motivate IT staff to achieve real business success for customers
• Improve the relationship between the business and IT by being service focused

 

The definition of a service catalogue, as defined by ITIL, is an exhaustive list of IT services that an organisation provides or offers to its employees or customers. Although it is quite acceptable to create an environment that is asset orientated rather than service orientated, from a business perspective it is more logical to support the community from a services point of view.

 

There are basically three views of a service catalogue:

 

• User – generally the most common type of service, i.e. request for folder access.
• Business – available for a more senior user i.e. email service.
• Technical – the service that unpins the above two points which contains technical details that’s relevant to the service required.

 

 

The catalogue is the only part of the Service Portfolio that would be published to customers and is used to support the sale and/or delivery of IT services. Service Portfolio Management defines and describes all of the services provided by IT. A service portfolio is the complete set of services that is managed by a service provider and is used to manage the entire lifecycle of all services, which includes three categories:

 

1. Service Pipeline (proposed or in development)

2. Service Catalogue (live or available for deployment)

3. Retired Services

 

Each service within the catalogue would typically include:

 

• A description of the service
• A categorisation or service type
• Any supporting or underpinning services
• Timeframes or service level agreement (SLA) for fulfilling the service
• Costs (if any)
• How to request the service and how its delivery is fulfilled
• Escalation points and key contacts
• Hours of service availability

 

The following 5 basic steps are proposed to develop an initial service catalogue:

 

1. Obtain Management Support This is not only an authorisation from IT: it is imperative to involve the business in the process as well. Working with management, choose a person(s) to build the initial catalogue and identify the Customer(s) or Business Unit(s) you wish to involve in the process. Make a formal presentation about the benefits of the Service Catalogue, how you plan to use it and why you need business participation.

 

2. Establish A Service Catalogue Team The initial service catalogue team should represent various viewpoints from within IT and from the business. Choose members from IT at all levels and functions; invite members from the business unit as well. Often, the business perceives things very differently from IT.

 

3. Define IT Services The team should examine IT and Business activities in an effort to document the major IT services in production. For example, “email”, “SAP”, “Internet”, etc. Be aware that business and IT could have different names for the same service. Using the inventory of services, the team must work to achieve consensus on the services and their names. Once the names are clear, document what the users of the service perceive as their needs.

 

4. The Dry Run After the completion of an initial catalogue, review it to ensure that it is clear and easy to understand. The catalogue may cause a change for some – old service names, for example “email” that IT uses may be different than the new name, for example “Exchange”. It is important to handle these changes through engagement and not through edict.

 

5. Implement Ensure all access points to IT e.g. the Service Desk understands and has implemented the new service names and associated processes.

 

6. Publish the Service Catalogue to the business by posting it to the company intranet, if available, and solicit the business input about its contents.

 

One of the most important threads through the above steps is to ensure appropriate change controls are in place as the service catalogue is a moving target. Depending on the size of the business it may be worth phasing in the changes across the business units to reduce the risk and introducing a pilot scenario.

 

Should you require any further information on Implementing a Service Catalogue please contact Celerity Limited.

 

Kevan Dix - Project Manager - Celerity Limited

 

To view this article on Celerity Limited's website <<click here>>