THE FOLLOWING ITIL INTERMEDIATE EXAM OBJECTIVES ARE DISCUSSED IN THIS CHAPTER:
The learning objective for this chapter is to gain an understanding of the challenges, critical success factors, and risks of service operation. Upon completion of the chapter, you should understand the specific issues relevant to service operation.
The following main challenges facing service operation management are expanded upon in this chapter:
The first challenge in service operation is to ensure the correct level of cooperation and engagement between the service operation staff and the development and project teams.
The focus of the development and project teams is very different from that of service operation staff. Staff involved in projects and development will focus on the development of new applications or functionality and delivering it into the operational environment. Their work has a defined end point, which is when the application or functionality is delivered. Staff involved in service operation focus on the long-term operation of what has been delivered.
While project staff consider that the delivery of a service on time and to budget is paramount, operations staff care less about meeting a specific date than they do about how well the service will run and what will be involved in supporting it.
Development and project staff may know very little about service management and regard it as relevant only to operations. The ITIL framework makes it clear that service management processes are involved from the very beginning of a service, as part of service strategy, right through to design and transition. Service operation should be involved throughout the development of a new or changed service to ensure that the deliverable is supportable at the end.
These two areas of IT often work quite separately, and there may even be animosity between them. Development staff may see operations staff as introducing unnecessary delay into their project, while operations staff may feel that projects are “dumped” on them with little appreciation or consideration about how they are to be operated in the live environment.
Ensuring that this division is overcome is challenging, but it will mean that operational aspects are considered early enough in the development activities that they can be incorporated into the design fairly easily. Failure to achieve this would constitute a risk to the successful transition and operation of the new service.
Service operation managers face the challenge of justifying funding for their area. They may meet with resistance to their funding requests because money spent in this sphere is often regarded as infrastructure costs, with no clear benefit arising from the investment.
Service operation managers should be able to show how investment in the operations area can save the organization money as well as improve the quality of the service being delivered. Here are some examples:
The differences between design activities and operational activities will continue to present challenges:
Let us now consider some of the critical success factors for successful service operation:
The final critical success factors that we consider are those surrounding the toolsets used:
In the last section of this chapter, we’ll look at the risks service operation face. These include the absence of the critical success factors—for example, the visible support of management is a CSF, and the absence of that support is a risk.
The ultimate risk is the loss of critical IT services and the resultant damage to the business. In addition to financial loss, there may be extreme cases where the IT services affected are used for critical health or safety purposes when poor service operation poses a health and safety risk.
Other risks are as follows:
In this chapter, we discussed service operation challenges, critical success factors, and risks. You have now completed all the material included in the syllabus for the service operation lifecycle course.
Understand the challenges faced by service operation staff when working with projects. Understand the different drivers and priorities for project management and service operation staff and why they may lead to conflict. Understand why these two groups of staff must work together if both utility and warranty of the new service, and therefore its value, is to be delivered.
Understand the critical success factors that need to be in place if successful service operation is to take place. Understand the importance of visible management support and the role played by other champions of the changes, at whatever level in the organization.
Understand why the involvement of the right people is a critical success factor. Be able to explain the difference between the number of people involved (as a resource) and the skills and motivation of those involved (as a capability). As stated in this chapter, success requires the right number of staff with the right skills and knowledge.
Understand how implementing service operation disciplines successfully can lead to cost savings and ensure a return on investment. Be able to list and describe possible savings, as detailed in this chapter, in the section describing the need to justify funding.
Know the risks encountered in the service operation stage, in particular the danger that the implementation of service management may lose momentum. Understand how these risks might be mitigated.
Understand why there may be resistance to the new methods being adopted as part of the implementation of service management. In particular, understand the possible reasons behind this resistance, the best way to tackle it, and the importance of visible management support in addressing the situation.
You can find the answers to the review questions in the appendix. One of the key challenges of service operation is funding. Which of these statements is/are correct? With which lifecycle stages should service operation engage? Visible support from which of the following is critical for successful service operation? Which of the following factors are critical for staffing and retention and successful service operation? Which of the following is a source of risk for the service desk? Service operation staff need to work with staff from other stages of the lifecycle. Which of the following statements describe why this a challenge? Service operation must show how investment in operations will show a financial return. Which of the following is NOT a financial benefit that would be a result of investment in service operations? Which of the following is NOT a challenge for service operation? Which of the following is NOT a critical success factor for service operation? Which of the following is NOT a risk for service operation?Review Questions