TECHNOLOGY BRIEF: SERVICE TRANSITION AND SUPPORT
Service Transition and Support:
A CA Service Management Process Map
JUNE 2009
Malcolm Ryder
A R C H I T E C T C A S E RV I C E S
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 1
SECTION 1: CHALLENGE 2
Simplifying ITIL
How to Use the CA Service Management
Process Maps 2
SECTION 2: OPPORTUNITY 4
Service Transition and Support
Develop Strategy 5
Preparation and Planning 6
Knowledge Transfer 6
Monitor and Report 7
SECTION 3: BENEFITS 7
Benefits
A Key to Achieving IT Service Excellence 11
SECTION 4: CONCLUSIONS 11
Conclusions
SECTION 5: ABOUT THE AUTHOR 11
About the Author
Executive Summary
Challenge
The Information Technology Infrastructure Library version 3 (ITIL® V3) process framework approaches IT Service Management (ITSM) in terms of the lifecycle of a service. The Service Lifecycle is an organization model providing insight into the way ITSM is structured, and embodies critical guidance for IT organizations seeking to improve service quality and align more closely with business goals to create value for the business and its customers.
However, ITIL V3 best practice guidelines across the five phases of the service lifecycle are complex and challenging to interpret. Moreover, they are not designed to provide definitive advice about implementing ITSM processes. Many IT organizations consequently undertake an ITIL journey without a firm idea of their goals and the path to achieve those goals.
One of the key ITIL management processes, Service Transition Planning and Support, presents its own special challenges. Participants in the effort to bring a new service to availability must co-operate; therefore they must see the business benefit in sharing authority across functions or reorienting their responsibilities, while maintaining the efficiency of their specialties.
Opportunity
The primary objective of the Transition Planning and Support process is to plan and coordinate resources to ensure specifications for the service design are realized and, starting with the transition phase, to identify, manage and limit risks that could interrupt the service in operation.
CA has developed a unique approach to representing the ITIL framework and its interdependent IT Service Management (ITSM) processes at a high level in the form of an easy-to-use subway map. This map is an ideal starting point for understanding and communicating about ITIL in support of successful program planning and implementation.
Benefits
Following the Transition Planning and Support map provides guidance to:
• Improve business process capabilities
• Effectively upgrade the IT infrastructure in timely alignment with business needs
• Foster the efficient delivery of multiple IT services
• Improve the quality of technical support
Simplifying ITIL
The ITIL V3 process framework focuses on the service lifecycle and the way that service management components are structured and linked. It embodies critical guidance for IT organizations that are seeking to improve service quality and align more closely with business goals
But, the ITIL V3 best-practice guidelines across the five phases of the service lifecycle are complex and challenging to interpret. Moreover, they are not designed to provide definitive advice about implementing IT Service Management (ITSM) processes. Many IT organizations consequently undertake an ITIL journey without a firm idea of their goals and the path to achieve those goals.
CA has developed a unique approach to charting the ITIL journey through a visual representation of the ITIL framework and its interdependent ITSM processes modeled after an urban subway system. This three-part map (Figure A) presents an easy-to-navigate, high-level view of the ITIL terrain. IT executives, strategists and implementers can use these Service Management process maps along with the family of CA Service Management process map technology briefs that expand on them. The maps and technology briefs provide a common reference point for understanding and communicating about ITIL and help you with program planning and implementation.
How to Use the CA Service Management Process Maps
CA’s Service Management process maps (Figure A) illustrate every process (or track), each activity (or station) and the key relationships that are relevant to navigating continuous IT service improvement. The ITIL quality cycle takes the form of a “circle” with each Plan-Do- Check-Act (P-D-C-A) step as a process integration point (junction) on the line. Junctions serve both as reference points when assessing process maturity, and as a means to consider the implications of implementing a process in isolation.
Strategic controls (Service Portfolio Management, Demand Management and Financial Management) are needed to reduce risk and optimize integration across the service lifecycle, as illustrated on the three points of the triangle centered in the P-D-C-A quality circle (seen more easily in Figure B). These strategic controls help in evaluating, prioritizing and assuring the appropriate levels of financial and human resources for existing and new services.
This paper is part of a series of Service Management Process Map technology briefs. Each brief explains how to navigate a particular ITIL process journey, reviewing each process activity that must be addressed in order to achieve process objectives. Along each journey careful attention is paid to how technology plays a critical role in both integrating ITIL processes and automating ITIL process activities.
SECTION 1: CHALLENGE
CA ITSM Process Maps
illustrate at a high level
how best to navigate a
journey of continual service
improvement guided by
strategic controls throughout
the service lifecycle. Each
map describes the relevant
ITIL processes and activities
you’ll need to work with to
reach your goals.
THREE MAPS
SERVICE TRANSITION MAP
Service Transition
Service Validation and Testing Service Asset and Configuration Management Change Management Transition Planning and Support Release and Deployment Management
Key Intersections
Strategic Controls
Strategic Inputs
Continual Service Improvement
Prioritize
Build Schedule Impact Analysis
Execute (Emergency/
Standard) Schedule
Change
CAB Review
Evaluation/
Decision
RFC Analysis
Categorize Planning
Preparation Develop
Strategy
Preparation and Planning
Knowledge Transfer
Monitor and Report
Manage Build/Release
Financial Management Demand
Management Service Portfolio
Management
Deploy Verify Perform
Tests
Validate &
Verify Adopt Best Practices
Ensure Release Value
Report/
Closure
Assure Quality Audit
Status Reports Maintain Accurate Service Configurations
Coordinate Resources
Business Responsiveness
Configuration Control
Identify Configurations
Manage and Plan
DO
CH EC
K
LAP
N A
T C Transition
Planning and Support Transition Planning and
Support Release and Deployment Management Release and Deployment Management
Change Management
Change Management
Service Asset and Configuration Management Service Asset and
Configuration Management
Service Validation and Testing
Service Validation and Testing
FIGURE A
CA has developed three maps:
Service Design, Service Transition and Service Operation since most ITSM discussions focus on these critical ITIL disciplines.
FIGURE B
The Service Transition map represents a journey of developing and improving capabilities for the transition of new and modified services to production.
Service Design
Service Catalog Management Service Level Management IT Service Continuity Management Capacity Management Info. Security Management Availability Management
Key Intersections
Strategic Controls
Strategic Inputs
Continual Service Improvement Service Level Management Service Level Management
IT Service Continuity Management IT Service Continuity Management Capacity
Management Capacity Management Info. Security Management Info. Security Management
Availability Management Availability Management
Service Catalog Management Service Catalog Management
Demand Management Service PortfolioManagement
Financial Management
Review and Audit Manage Security Incidents
Optimize Availability Mitigate Risk Monitor
Services
Methods/
Techniques
DocumentService Definition
Build CatalogContents
Business Service Views TechnicalServiceViews
Publish Live Services
Report Achievements Manage Issues
Catalog Operational Services
Monitor Performance Design SLAFramework Revise
SLAs / OLAs
Meet Business Requirements
Service Review SatisfactionCustomer Determine Vulnerabilities Assess Risk
Build Test
Maintain Business Services
Specify Continuity Requirements
Monitor Demand
Adjust and Tune Deliver Required Resources
Analyze Test Proactive Management Analyze Performance
Build Plan Forecast Requirements Set SecurityControls
Assess &
Classify Assets
Maintain Policy
Model/Trend
DO CHECK
PLAN A
CT
Service Operation
Problem Management Incident Management Event Management Request Fulfillment Knowledge Management Access Management
Key Intersections
Strategic Controls
Strategic Inputs
Continual Service Improvement
Informed Decisions
Fulfillment Approval (Financial, Compliance)
Capture Info.
Prevent and Eliminate Problems
Record Resolve Monitor / Track
Service Request (Incl. Self-Service)
Access Request Verify
Problem Control KnownErrors
Record Review/
Action Select Response
Filter / Correlate Detect (Incl. Fault Detection) Raise Incident
Investigate
Diagnose
Escalate
Resolve/
Recover Work Around
Restore Service Deliver Standardized Services
Automate and Control Secure Service Access
Error Control
Executive Policy Provide
Rights DisseminateTransfer/
Store Info.
Demand Management Transform to Usable Knowledge
Financial Management Service PortfolioManagement
DO CHECK
PLA
N ACT
Problem Management
Problem Management
Knowledge Management Knowledge Management Access
Management Access Management Request Fulfillment Request Fulfillment
Incident Management
Incident Management
Event Management
Event Management
Service Transition
Service Validation and Testing Service Asset and Configuration Management Change Management Transition Planning and Support Release and Deployment Management
Key Intersections
Strategic Controls
Strategic Inputs
Continual Service Improvement
Prioritize Build Schedule Impact Analysis Execute (Emergency/
Standard) Schedule Change
CAB Review
Evaluation/
Decision
RFC Analysis
Categorize Planning
Preparation Develop Strategy
Preparation and Planning
KnowledgeTransfer
Monitor and Report
Manage Build/Release Financial Management Demand Management Service PortfolioManagement
Deploy Verify Perform Tests
Validate &
Verify Adopt Best Practices
Ensure Release Value
Report/
Closure
Assure Quality Audit
Status Reports Maintain Accurate Service Configurations
Coordinate Resources Business Responsiveness
ConfigurationControl
Identify Configurations
Manage and Plan
DO CHEC
K
PLA
N AC
T
Transition Planning and Support Transition Planning and Support Release and Deployment Management Release and Deployment Management
Change Management
Change Management
Service Asset and Configuration Management Service Asset and
Configuration Management
Service Validation and Testing Service Validation and Testing
Finding the Right Path to IT Service Excellence
Many organizations have not formalized a Transition Planning and Support discipline. This is not so much due to a level of difficulty in carrying out the functions; instead, it is because many of the functions are active already but are not strategically coordinated to optimize their beneficial influence on driving future state development in alignment with the business. Key points in this optimization include:
•
Enabling Business-Oriented Investment Decisions
•
Managing Service Components using Business Priorities
•
Ensuring that Services are Compliant
One of the main outcomes of the Transition Planning and Support effort is a decrease in lost or conflicting opportunities to update the infrastructure with business-enhancing capabilities.
However, this comes about through bringing multiple contributing disciplines out of their silos to push progress together with less redundancy and fewer gaps in process.
Service Transition and Support
The Service Transition and Support process is responsible for planning and coordinating resources to ensure specifications for the service design are realized and, starting with the transition phase, to identify, manage and limit risks that could interrupt the service in operation.
As a direct approach to managing demand and expectations for services, Transition Planning and Support concerns itself with proactively making the significant interrelated factors of value, quality and risk visible across the full lifecycle of a new deployment of a service. Stakeholders are able to assess gains, responsibilities and trade-offs before the deployment is in effect.
Consequently, Transition Planning and Support ensures that the new deployment of services will present lower risk to the infrastructure and business, and will experience more immediate effectiveness of user adoption.
Transition Planning and Support concerns itself with proactively making the significant interrelated factors of value, quality and risk visible across the full lifecycle of a new deployment of a service.
The ultimate goal of Transition Planning and Support track (Figure C) is a full coordination of resources required to newly and successfully deploy a service. The subway map for this journey plots the key stations along the course in this way:
•
Develop Strategy
•
Preparation and Planning
•
Knowledge Transfer
•
Monitoring and Reporting
SECTION 2: OPPORTUNITYTransition Planning and
Support concerns itself
with proactively making
the significant interrelated
factors of value, quality
and risk visible across the
full lifecycle of a new
deployment of a service.
FIGURE C
Develop Strategy
Effectively implementing the management process for Transition Planning and Support is of course a prerequisite to using the process well. For this, the key is to inform identifiable stakeholders of the purpose of the process, emphasizing the objective to co-ordinate, not to replace, their contributions. In addressing a business-orientation, the strategy management practice is the most familiar territory where process owners collaborate on common objectives.
This means visualizing and sharing a framework in which process owners can see themselves collaboratively driving benefits with other contributors under controlled circumstances.
This will generate the business justification and motivation for beginning the new resource coordination. However, to demonstrate sustainability, a project portfolio management approach is frequently the right level of information and description to show how the collaboration will have familiarity and accountability. There, the familiarity can readily be expressed in the following shared terms:
•
High-level requirements
•
Scope
•
Policies
•
Organizational responsibilities
•
Anticipated Resources
•
Individual processes and procedures with touch points or hand-offs
A view of roles, processes and standards will allow stakeholders to anticipate what the approach means to them in terms of responsibilities and costs in their budgets and schedules.
With that prerequisite done, attention can turn strategy from the generic mode of conduct to particular deployments. But first the other steps of the full journey should be described.
DO
CH EC
K
LA P
N A
T C
Develop Strategy
Preparation and Planning
Knowledge Transfer
Monitor and Report
Coordinate Resources
Transition Planning and
Support Transition Planning and
Support
Financial Management Demand
Management
Service Portfolio Management
FIGURE C
The Transition Planning and Support track represents management’s attention to how resources are identified and aligned with the requirements for fostering a rapid adoption of an upcoming new service deployment.
Preparation and Planning
Resource coordination calls for identifying, streamlining, fitting, and tracking across the capacities of people, procedures and tools to provide and consume timely information. The objective at this station is to align resources for generating the targeted outcomes of the deployment. Different stakeholders have different targets, but the big advantage to pursue here is a focus on a standardized model of the service to be delivered. With the common model of the service in hand, all parties understand that they are working on the same thing and can identify what they need to be effective contributors or users.
A Configuration Management System (CMS) is a shared utility that stakeholders can use to reference the model of the service to be deployed. The data in the CMS, which is used to describe and record the model, resides in a configuration management database (CMDB).
Planners are thereby able to consistently refer to the characteristics of the target service that are most pertinent to the particular stakeholders, and relate those back to the relevant supporting resources for developing and deploying the service. Two key items that come from this are service design specifications and formal requests for managed change (RFCs).
Preparation and Planning benefits greatly from the efforts of the Service Asset and Configuration Management process to maintain and validate service specifications with the CMS.
Because deployments are ineffective if they cannot be adopted and absorbed by the target customer, timing is a critical success factor and should be represented in terms of schedules where lead time is provided for accommodating anticipated stakeholder impacts of the deployment as it progresses from design to implementation. Meanwhile, managers of the organization’s Service Desk should be able to provide key information about what kinds of risks are associated with different kinds of services.
Knowledge Transfer
Information that drives production of the service deployment is well accounted for in the first two stations, but equally important is information about the usability, supportability and operational requirements that will be the new (future) state brought about with the deployment.
At the knowledge transfer station, advance notification, progress reports and education
should be coordinated with each other to establish high awareness and higher comfort
with both the upcoming deployment event and aftermath. A combination of scheduled and
on-demand information delivery about the service deployment should be established and
maintained for stakeholders, organized for user-friendliness per the stakeholder’s respective
role. A knowledgebase and a communications campaign are two prominent tools that can
establish resource-efficient maintenance of awareness.
Monitor and Report
The ability to determine the actual impacts of deployment efforts is naturally important in terms of identifying incidents or problems caused by the deployment. However, for the Transition Planning and Support effort, the focus of monitoring and reporting is two-fold:
on the progress of the deployment lifecycle such as timing and testing; and, on establishing relevant criteria for post-deployment validations and risk mitigation. As with much of Transition Planning and Support, the resources for this are probably already active, and the work to be done now is to coordinate them and if necessary to reconcile them so that cause and effect relationships underlying deployment success or service quality are more visible.
ITIL v3 is distinguished by its emphasis on IT’s strategic alignment to business benefit. So, to cut to the chase, how do the above steps combine to raise the value of IT services?
Benefits
IT Services are the building blocks of business processes and business services. A successful delivery of a service will feature the right thing arriving at the right place at the right time for the right reason. The business uses multiple services to support its own performance and growth Executives own the service portfolio, set service goals and control the investment in the service. This executive demand and influence thus should begin the origination of the service as an adopted and implemented success factor for the business.
ITIL v3 refers to the implementation of services as a transition, for a single key reason: the service implementation takes the service user from an older or current state to a different future state of operational options and constraints. This transition may include re-use, augmentation, modification, and replacement of the incumbent operational techniques.
Thus it is appropriate to have the variety of possible impacts visualized and accommodated by time, skills and attention before the deployment occurs.
The executive view of a successful service implementation includes concerns about the control, compatibility and delivery of the service. These three factors translate, respectively, into management of the quality, risk, and value of the provided service, as deliberately generated from end-to-end of the lifecycle of the service.
ITIL v3 describes Service Design, Service Transition (deployment), and Service Operation as three major phases in the service lifecycle. Within Service Transition, the Transition Planning and (Transition) Support effort is a high-level management process that links the appropriate design of the service to the smooth operability of the service.
The goal of Transition Planning and Support is to plan and coordinate resources to ensure specifications for the service design are realized and, starting with the transition phase, to identify, manage and limit risks that could interrupt the service in operation.
SECTION 3: BENEFITS
In effect, Transition Planning and Support provides a sturdy bridge between IT Governance and Business Service Management. The key deliverables of Transition Planning and Support will be
•
A strategy for transition
•
An integrated set of transition plans
•
Training, knowledge transfer, and communications
•
Verification of deployment through monitoring and reporting
COOPERATIVE MANAGEMENT OF DEMAND
Managing business demand for services requires strategically prioritizing the use of resources to generate fulfillment and support. This support of IT Governance includes:
•
Tying the business case for a service to the project management to build a new or improved service. Maintaining this relationship makes it possible to compare the expected ROI with the service design and implementation project. This provides transparency for business users and helps ensure that IT and business goals stay aligned and that the benefits that have been stated in the business case are tracked and realized.
•
Traceability from development through to deployment in the service portfolio. All project and development activity for building or maintaining a service can be related directly to the release published in the service catalog. This linkage provides visibility into in the process and investment in delivering services, including an assessment of risk versus value (target benefit).
Business Service Management is an approach that links IT infrastructure to the business services it supports, and provides comprehensive and integrated management of the entire infrastructure. As part of that infrastructure management, which underpins any service,
FIGURE DSurrounding the business demand for services are multiple perspectives that bring management processes for projects, changes and releases into cooperative responsibilities.
In the big picture of transition, we expect Service Designs and RFCs to drive production of the appropriate implementations for the business. Proper implementations will pass muster for acceptance both in terms of the risks they present and the compliance of the actual deployment to the design.
CMDB SUPPORT OF DEPLOYMENTS
Service Transition (deployment) is supported by the configuration management database (CMDB). The CMDB’s data provide the context to understand the impact of a change before it is made, and it provides a basis for validating the actual state of deployed services against the intended state.
The design of a service represents a balanced business view of IT in a consistent model to assure that business and technology are integrated. It goes beyond the usual CMDB focus on configuration management to encompass stakeholders, design, metrics, service level agreements, controls, security and service lifecycles. A service’s defined configuration is maintained within the CA CMDB. This configuration is shared by all participating applications.
The service design will link end users, the service and IT components.
FIGURE E
Service definitions live in the configuration management database (CMDB). Existing services and dependencies are “stakeholders”
in transitions, and they may also be models for proposed new services.
Change management is a primary consumer of the service information found in the CMDB, using it as a basis for determining if a proposed service design is new or enhanced, and if the design’s likely impact if instantiated carries any particular risks to existing infrastructure, relationships and services.
• STRATEGY.
Transition Planning and Support must acquire information about the identified requirements of resources ranging from the current IT environment, business timeframes, budgets and people. This information, in a gap analysis, must lead to an understanding of the feasibility and viability of the proposed service transition, expressed as a manageable production effort.
• PREPARATION AND PLANNING.
By associating the change activity with a specific plan for a Release, and leveraging project portfolio management to coordinate the resources for the change activity, Transition Planning and Support will prepare and manage the building (or procurement), testing and actual deployment of the proposed service.
• KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER.
Communicating the transition plan is critical to assuring that stakeholders in the transition are able to respond appropriately at the points where the deployment reaches their roles. This requires transforming data (in specifications and plans) into useful role-oriented information. Since this communication will more likely be a process or campaign than an event, the ongoing and on-demand availability of the information is a prime concern both in managing the transition and in understanding, after the fact, what has actually been deployed. Thus, conversion of the information to knowledge documents, and follow-on management of that knowledge, is an important key to the successful transfer of the knowledge amongst stakeholders. That in turn facilitates the hand-off of support responsibility to operations and the more immediate adoption of the service by its consumers.
• MONITOR AND REPORT.
Validation of the transition success requires that the effects of actual utilization will be tracked and measured in a timely manner, to confirm that the expected outcomes of the deployment are being met.
An overview of concerns addressed by Transition Planning and Support is shown in the table below.
PLANNER CONSUMER OPERATIONS
Design Specifications Justification and ROI Validation criteria
Build or Procure Projects Schedules Policies and Procedures
Train and Inform Communications Knowledge Metrics and Requirements
Verify Delivery Completeness Compliance Supportability
A Key to Achieving IT Service Excellence
Automating ITSM through technology can help your organization reduce the amount of resources required to achieve ITIL v3 best practices. This assists your IT department in improving the quality of its services while embarking upon a continuous IT service excellence program focused on fostering business growth.
As you reach the end point of the Planning and Support journey outlined in the CA Service Transition process map, your organization should have a better handle on the steps needed to promote successful service deployments. Specifically, bringing deployment efforts in line with ITIL best practices can help you:
•
Improve business process capabilities
•
Effectively upgrade the IT infrastructure in timely alignment with business needs
•
Foster the efficient delivery of multiple IT services
•
Improve the quality of technical support
Conclusions
Transition Planning and Support Management facilitates ITSM by managing the deployment of services needed by the business. However, doing so requires rigorous processes, appropriate communication plans and support commitments — as well as an outline detailing where to start and how to proceed through the journey.
Following the steps outlined in the CA Service Transition process map gives organizations a clear view of how their Transition Planning and Support journey will take shape and illustrates the key stops en route to achieving effective resource coordination. This journey results in:
•
Consolidated deployment process
•
Better planning and resource allocation
•
Improved risk management
•
Stronger integration with other ITSM and ITIL best practices
About the Author
Malcolm Ryder has over 25 years experience in the IT industry, with expertise in the areas of service delivery and support and IT strategy. For the last 15 years, Malcolm has worked in consulting and solution strategy roles with a heavy emphasis on service management systems, with vendors, service providers and end-user customers. Malcolm has been a co-developer of multiple market-leading commercial ITSM solutions since the mid ’80s.
To learn more about the CA ITIL solutions, visit ca.com/itil.
SECTION 4: CONCLUSIONS
SECTION 5: ABOUT THE AUTHOR