IT Management Reference Guide

In the first part of this two-part case study, I discussed the objectives, policies and scope of a law firm's initiative to upgrade its service desk with the intent of making it more ITIL-compliant. I also presented a brief background on ITIL and how IT service management serves as its foundation. In this final segment I show how this client of mine integrated several important ITIL processes into their new version of their service desk. I also discuss the criteria, methods and products they considered when evaluating and selecting a new service desk tool.

Integrating processes into the Service Desk

One of the characteristics that sets the ITIL framework apart from other process improvement frameworks is the emphasis on the integration of the various infrastructure processes. The project sponsors in this case study was very aware of that fact and went to certain lengths to ensure key infrastructure processes would not only be involved with their service desk improvements, but would also be tightly integrated with each other.

The processes this client chose to integrate with its service desk included the following:

• service level management
• incident management
• problem management

Service level management involves developing service level agreements (SLAs) with key customers of IT services. The ITIL version of service level management requires that SLAs include an incident escalation procedure which ties the document directly to the service desk because it uses such procedures to resolve incidents more quickly. ITIL also prescribes that service level management develop a few other documents in support of this process. These include a service catalog that lists all the current IT offerings; operating level agreements (OLAs) with all the various support groups to ensure rapid resolution on incidents; and underpinning contracts with external 3^rd party vendors. The company in this case study complied with all of these ITIL requirements when implementing their service desk.

The company also integrated the processes of incident and problem management into their service desk. For incident management the project team performed extensive due diligence evaluating and selecting an appropriate service desk and incident management tool (covered in the next section). As to problem management, the team developed a number of OLAs between the service desk and the various support groups that would be charged with determining the root cause, workaround procedures and permanent fixes of unresolved incidents.

Evaluating Tools

One of the final steps my client performed in implementing his new and improved service desk was to evaluate and select an appropriate tool. I was pleased to see that the team first spent several months designing and optimizing their infrastructure processes and only then began looking for a tool that would conform to their processes rather than the other way around. Many IT organizations still rush to install the latest and greatest in tools that vendors have to offer. As I have said many times before, those who rush to automate a poorly designed manual process usually end up with a poorly designed automated process. In this case, my client did the reverse by streamlining his processes first.

The service desk project team held a number of sessions to identify requirements and potential vendors for the tool they would use. We eventually settled on ten key requirements. One of the team members, with a bit of a literary background, decided to summarize these prerequisites into what came to be known as the "ilities." Figure 1 lists the ten of these "ilities."

Service Desk Tool Requirements

Tools evaluated (Service Now, Paragrine, Heat, Remedy, Clarity)

All of these requirements were compared against what each of the nine responding vendors initially proposed. The following is a brief description of each of these requirements.

1. Functionality — how well a tool could accommodate all the various data fields and their relationships to each other in an incident record, and thorough the tool could produce management reports.
2. Flexibility — how easily the tool could adapt to various platforms on which it might be hosted.
3. Usability — how easy the tool would be to use in a variety of incident recording scenarios.
4. Affordability — how cost effective the tool would be when considering the total cost of ownership.
5. Knowledgeability — how robust of a knowledge-base could be developed by and used with the tool.
6. Maintainability — how easily fields can be changed or added in support of changing requirements for incident records.
7. Marketability – how easily it will be to sell the use of this tool to users and to management.
8. Trainability — how robust the help features of the tool are to enable new users to self-diagnose questions and problems with it.
9. Supportability — how extensive is the technical support from the vendor, and how frequently are software patches issued and how easily are they issued.
10. Credibility — what is the opinion of other customers of the product about its use and other requirements, and what percent of market share does the vendor enjoy.

The nine original vendors were eventually reduced down to five. The eventual product that the service team selected was Service Now.

Summary of Service Desk Planning Case Study

In this second segment of the two-part case study on implementing a more ITIL-compliant service desk, I discussed how this major law form integrated several important ITIL processes into their new version of their service desk. I also describe the criteria, methods and products the company considered when evaluating and selecting a new service desk tool. In Part One I discussed the objectives, policies and scope of the project along with a brief background on the ITIL framework and its foundation: IT service management.

In the case study just prior to this one in the Management Guide I presented a similar effort by a insurance company client to upgrade his service desk. In that case the focus was on the initial planning where here the emphasis was more on the activities of initiation (objectives, policies, scope), integration (ITIL processes), evaluation (tools) and implementation. The combination of these two case studies should provide helpful information on what actions to plan on when considering a service desk upgrade.