Chapter 2 - The Service Lifecycle

Question 1

What is Service Strategy?

Answer 1

You decide which services to provide and what resources are needed by those services. You record how those services meet the business requirements, and you seek to maintain the closest possible relationship with your business customers.

You seek answers of fundamental questions. Understanding what the business you’re working for is about.
What the aims are for the business, who are the customers for the business, where is the business in the future?
You must get a clear understanding of what its strategy is.

Question 2

What is Service Design?

Answer 2

You take from Service Strategy the agreed-on service specifications and produce the detailed PLANS for each service. It shows how the new service is to be rolled out, and operated in the live environment.

You carry out the detailed planning. At the end of this stage you should have produced a detailed blueprint of exactly what will be the components of your new service, how it’s going to be tested and supported, and how it’s going to develop in the future.

Question 3

What is Service Transition?

Answer 3

It handles the physical creation and implementation of services.

This is the stage where you actually build things. You acquire all hardware and software. Put it all together and see if it works as it’s supposed to You also bring all the elements necessary to make sure it works in the real world

Question 4

What is service operation?

Answer 4

Here you provide your users and customers with the services that have been agreed on with them - the services that will “facilitating their outcomes” Ensure only authorized people use those services and to fix anything that needs to be fixed, and capture valuable evidence for improvement programs

Here is where you should be showing that you are truly “facilitating the outcomes your customers want to achieve”.
Urgent operational difficulties should be fixed whenever possible, and any inherited shortcomings identified at this stage should be referred back to any of the other 3 lifecycle before.

Question 5

What is Continual Service Improvement?

Answer 5

CSI underpins everything you do. It makes sure that the aim of providing agreed-on services to your customers is never forgotten. And that every other lifecycle stage works as it should.

It is relevant to all stages of the service lifecycle. Here is where the customer and the service provider are likely to be feeling the greatest pain. Here is where you have the opportunity to capture evidence to support your improvement initiatives. (Document everything! So that if anything goes wrong, it’ll help you analyze everything!)

Question 6

Titanic & Lifecycle stages

Answer 6

Strategy:
The costs assessed, the outline of the size and features agreed on, an expected return investment calculated, and a specification given to shipbuilders

Design: detailed design of the ship made. Type and size of engines, number and size of cabins, crew accommodations, and number & capacity of lifeboats. Blueprints made.

Transition: structure of the ship built, engines ordered and installed, and details were documented of what was being created. It was tested.

Operation: there was one or two “wrinkles” in the test but most went well until the titanic bumped into an iceberg and sank

Continual service implementation: there were some things that were ignored. Insufficient lifeboats

Question 7

Processes & Functions in Service Strategy

Answer 7

Strategy Management 
Service Portfolio Management 
Business Relationship Management 
Financial Management 
Demand Management

Question 8

Processes & Functions in Service design

Answer 8

Design Coordination 
Service Catalog Management 
Service level management 
Availability management 
Capacity management 
IT Service Continuity Management
Information Security Management
Supplier management

Question 9

Processes & Functions in Service Transition

Answer 9

Transition Planning and Support 
Knowledge management 
Service asset and configuration management 
Change management 
Release & deployment management 
Service validation & testing
Change evaluation

Question 10

Processes & Functions in Service Operation

Answer 10

Event Management 
Incident management 
Problem management 
Request fulfillment 
Access management 
Service desk
Technical management 
Application management
IT operations management

Question 11

Processes & Functions in Continual Service Improvement

Answer 11

Seven-step Improvement process