Service Operation fundamentals

2.4.1 Purpose/goal/objective

The purpose of Service Operation is to coordinate and carry out the activities and processes required to deliver and manage services at agreed levels to business users and customers. Service Operation is also responsible for the ongoing management of the technology that is used to deliver and support services.

Well-designed and well-implemented processes will be of little value if the day-to-day operation of those processes is not properly conducted, controlled and managed. Nor will service improvements be possible if day-to-day activities to monitor performance, assess metrics and gather data are not systematically conducted during Service Operation.

Scope

Service Operation includes the execution of all ongoing activities required to deliver and support services. The scope of Service Operation includes:

• The services themselves. Any activity that forms part of a service is included in Service Operation, whether it is performed by the Service Provider, an external supplier or the user or customer of that service
• Service Management processes. The ongoing management and execution of many Service Management processes are performed in Service Operation, even though a number of ITIL processes (such as Change and Capacity Management) originate at the Service Design or Service Transition stage of the Service Lifecycle, they are in use continually in Service Operation. Some processes are not included specifically in Service Operation, such as Strategy Definition, the actual design process itself. These processes focus more on longer-term planning and improvement activities, which are outside the direct scope of Service Operation; however, Service Operation provides input and influences these regularly as part of the lifecycle of Service Management.
• Technology. All services require some form of technology to deliver them. Managing this technology is not a separate issue, but an integral part of the management of the services themselves. Therefore a large part of this publication is concerned with the management of the infrastructure used to deliver services.
• People. Regardless of what services, processes and technology are managed, they are all about people. It is people who drive the demand for the organization’s services and products and it is people who decide how this will be done. Ultimately, it is people who manage the technology, processes and services. Failure to recognize this will result (and has resulted) in the failure of Service Management projects

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 927