Goals of ITIL

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT GOALS

Here is the goal for ITIL Incident Management as quoted in the ITIL publication Service Support:

The primary goal of the Incident Management process is to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimize the adverse impact on business operations, thus ensuring that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained. 'Normal service operation' is defined here as service operation within Service Level Agreement (SLA) limits.

Let us break this down into its fundamental components and see what we can identify to help justify ITIL:

1. Restore normal service operation
2. Quickly and efficiently as possible
3. Minimizing the adverse impact on the business and operations
4. Ensuring best levels of service quality and availability are maintained
5. Business alignment indicator

PROBLEM MANAGEMENT GOALS

Here is the goal for ITIL Problem Management as quoted in the ITIL publication Service Support:

The goal of Problem Management is to minimize the adverse impact of Incidents and Problems on the business that are caused by errors within the IT Infrastructure, and to prevent recurrence of Incidents related to these errors. In order to achieve this goal, Problem Management seeks to get to the root cause of Incidents and then initiate actions to improve or correct the situation.

The Problem Management process has both reactive and proactive aspects. The reactive aspect is concerned with solving Problems in response to one or more Incidents. Proactive Problem Management is concerned with identifying and solving Problems and Known Errors before Incidents occur in the first place.

Let us break this down into its fundamental components and see what we can identify to help justify ITIL:

1. Minimize the frequency and impact of IT problems on the business
2. Initiate actions to correct each situation
3. Find the root cause of Incidents
4. Prevent the recurrence of Incidents
5. Both reactive and proactive

CHANGE MANAGEMENT GOALS

If you are not familiar with ITIL Change Management then you should understand the difference between Change Management and Change Control under ITIL if you want to maximize your chances of producing a strong argument to justify ITIL Change Management.

ITIL defines Change Control as:
"The procedure to ensure that all changes are controlled, including the submission, analysis, decision making, approval, implementation and post implementation of the change."

Whereas ITIL describes Change Management as:
"The process of controlling changes to the infrastructure, or any aspect of services, in a controlled manner thus enabling approved changes to be implemented with minimum disruption."

Change Control is a procedure whereas Change Management is a process.

In other words there may be many changes being controlled under the Change Management process. Each change needs good Change Control but the Change Management process oversees all of the changes. It is possible to have good Change Control but failures because there is no Change Management.

With Change Management the fact that two teams were going to change the status of the same server would have been noticed and those teams would have been asked to liaise and communicate with each other and therefore eliminate the change failure. So in any way you could say that Change Management simultaneously manages the life cycle and status of many controlled changes because Change Control is a component of Change Management.

It is particularly important that Change Management processes have high visibility and open channels of communication in order to promote smooth transitions when Changes take place.


CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT GOALS

Many ITIL experts argue that Configuration Management is the ITIL sun around which the other ITIL planets revolve. Certainly this is a strong argument because all of the other ITIL processes do come into regular contact with Configuration Management. Therefore meeting the goals for Configuration Management is critical for success when implementing ITIL but are you currently meeting those goals?

Let us have a look at the ITIL Configuration Management goals:

Configuration Management provides a logical model of the infrastructure or a service by identifying, controlling, maintaining and verifying the versions of Configuration Items (CIs) in existence.

The goals of Configuration Management are to:
1). Account for all the IT assets and configurations within the organization and its services
2). Provide accurate information on configurations and their documentation to support all the other Service Management processes
3). Provide a sound basis for Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management and Release Management
4). Verify the configuration records against the infrastructure and correct any exceptions.

Let us break the goal for Configuration Management down into its fundamental components and see what we can identify to help justify ITIL:

1. Configuration Management provides a logical model of the infrastructure or a service by identifying, controlling, maintaining and verifying the versions of Configuration Items (CIs) in existence
2. Account for all the IT assets and configurations within the organization and its services
3. Provide accurate information on configurations and their documentation to support all the other Service Management processes
4. Provide a sound basis for Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management and Release Management
5. Verify the configuration records against the infrastructure and correct any exceptions
6. Business alignment indicator

RELEASE MANAGEMENT GOALS
Release Management is often seen as a subset of Change Management but in reality is an important ITIL element because it is often the release of a change that fails rather than the change itself.

The ITIL goals are comprehensive but very precise:

1) To plan and oversee the successful rollout of software and related hardware
2) To design and implement efficient procedures for the distribution and installation of Changes to IT systems
3) To ensure that hardware and software being changed is traceable, secure and that only correct, authorized and tested versions are installed
4) To communicate and manage expectations of the Customer during the planning and rollout of new Releases
5) To agree the exact content and rollout plan for the Release, through liaison with change management
6) To implement new software Releases or hardware into the operational environment using the controlling processes of configurations management and Change Management - a Release should be under Change Management and may consist of any combination of hardware, software, firmware and document CIs.
7) To ensure that master copies of all software are secured in the Definitive Software Library (DSL) and that the Configuration Management DataBase (CMDB) is updated
8) To ensure that all hardware being rolled out or changed is secure and traceable, using the services of Configuration Management.


SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT GOALS
SLM is a key process within the ITIL framework because it defines the levels of service that the rest of the processes have to strive to deliver. It is primarily concerned with setting the goals for Service Management in conjunction with the customer community. The goals for SLM as stated by ITIL are:

The goal for SLM is to maintain and improve IT Service quality, through a constant cycle of agreeing, monitoring and reporting upon IT Service achievements and instigation of actions to eradicate poor service - in line with business or Cost justification. Through these methods, a better relationship between IT and its Customers can be developed.

Not a huge goal but every word is loaded with meaning. Often the expectations and aspirations of the business community regarding IT performance is their perception of the quality Service and Support rather than the scope of technology solutions available to them. To leave expectations as the yardstick is very dangerous. It is important to convert those expectations into realities and this is really what these goals are all about. Let us have a look at a breakdown of the goals.

SLM is to maintain IT Service quality -

Complacency is the enemy of us all especially when it comes to maintaining quality, true winners are never complacent. Before we can begin to improve the quality of IT services we must make sure that we have in place processes, working practices and metrics that will ensure that we continue to maintain the levels of service that we have agreed with our customers. That is what this element is stating.
1) Do you communicate regularly with your customers to check whether you are maintaining your levels of services?
2) Do you set service targets that are challenging?
3) Do you survey your customers often?

SLM is to improve IT Service quality -
Note that this element is not talking about new technologies but current technologies. So we maintain and improve not stay stagnant. Too often IT sets targets that are easy to hit and then congratulates itself every month when those targets are met. However if those targets are not 100% then those congratulations are not deserved. Even worse is that the figures have been hit so often that nobody cares any more they just go through the motions of producing and issuing the metrics. You must have a clear policy statement to improve the levels of quality if you want top meet this goal element.

Through a constant cycle of agreeing, monitoring and reporting upon IT Service achievements –
Agreeing, monitoring and reporting this element could not be clearer nor could it be much simpler. It is about constant communication with your customers to understand their technology requirements required to meet their business objectives. Too often the only communication between IT and its customers is when things go wrong, which is why so much conflict exists in many organizations. A relationship based on confrontation will always fail which is why this element is so important.

You cannot manage expectations but you can manage realities so it is important that the agreeing, monitoring and reporting be formalized to remove any confusion and provide a concrete base for future relationships.

Can you answer these three simple questions successfully?
1) Are you meeting regularly with your customers to agree, and document, service levels?
2) Do you then implement the necessary monitoring to measure those agreed service levels?
3) Do you then issue reports with recommendations and suggestions to ensure that any failures to the agreed levels of services are eliminated?

If you cannot a resounding yes to each of these questions then you’re not meeting these elements. Remember this should be a constant cycle of events not just a once a year visit. It is through this constant cycle that we create the information that drives the final two elements of these SLM goals so failure here is not acceptable.

Instigation of actions to eradicate poor service in line with business or Cost justification –
This element relates to the actions that we take as a result of agreeing, monitoring and reporting. To meet this element you will need a Service Improvement Program (SIP), normally run in conjunction with problem and availability management.

SIP components must also be in line with business or cost justification.

1) Are you meeting this goal element?
2) Do you make sure that you are constantly improving service in line with business or cost justification?
3) Do you have an active Service Improvement Program? Or do you only react when all else fails?

Through these methods, a better relationship between IT and its Customers can be developed –
This element is more of conclusion than anything else. If you are meeting all of the other elements in this goal then this last element will the natural result. When you have a good relationship between IT and its customers then you will have more contented staff and more interesting challenges. This element is the litmus test for all of the others in the SLM goals if you are meeting it then you are most likely to be meeting all the others.

Business alignment indicator –
The prime focus for SLM is business alignment but there is one point of alignment that needs to be discussed here to meet the SLM goals and that is Customer responsibility. Many of the items in an SLA or a Service Catalog can only succeed if the Customers fulfill their roles and responsibilities.

For example:
1) How can ITSM meet their Release plan commitments if the customer is not available as agreed in the plan?
2) How can ITSM solve Incidents if they are not reported? How can ITSM keep an accurate CMDB if customers do not report upgrades to their assets?