Common tools and processes

The Service Desk does not have responsibility for all the processes and procedures that it initiates. For example, a Service Request is received by the Service Desk but the request is fulfilled by the internal IT Operational team.

If the Service Desk is outsourced, care must be taken that the tools are consistent with those still being used in the customer organization. Outsourcing is often seen as an opportunity to replace outdated or inadequate tools, only to find that there are severe integration problems between the new tool and the legacy tools and processes.

For this reason it is important to ensure that these issues are properly researched and the customer’s requirements are adequately scoped and specified before the outsourcing contract. Service Desk tools must not only support the outsourced Service Desk, but they must support the customer organization’s processes and business requirements as well.

Ideally the outsourced desk should use the same tools and processes (or, as a minimum, interfacing tools and processes) to allow smooth process flow between the Service Desk and second- and third-line support groups.

In addition, the outsourced Service Desk should have access to:

• All incident records and information
• Problem Records and information
• Known Error Data
• Change Schedule
• Sources of internal knowledge (especially technical or application experts)
• SKMS
• CMS
• Alerts from monitoring tools.

It is often a challenge integrating processes and tools in a less mature organization with those in a more mature organization. A common but incorrect assumption is that the maturity of the one organization will somehow result in higher maturity in the other. Active involvement to ensure alignment of processes and tools is essential to a smooth transition and ongoing management of services between the internal and external organizations. In fact, if this is not directly addressed, it could result in the failure of the contract.

It is also often incorrectly assumed that the proof of Service Management quality and maturity in an external outsource partner can be guaranteed by stating requirements in the procurement process for ‘ITIL conformance’ and / or ‘ISO/IEC 20000 certification’. These statements may indicate that a potential supplier uses the ITIL Framework in its delivery of services to customers, or that they have achieved standards certification for their internal practices, but it is equally important to have the enabling technology in place and being used that demonstrates a service provider’s capability to manage services and interface to internal practices harmoniously. There is no standard of compliance that ensures this and so procurement efforts should include specific queries to satisfy this requirement. More information on outsource provider acquisition can be found in the Service Design publication.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 956