ITIL 4 The Service Value Chain Flashcards
What IT Practices does the SVC use combinations of the help create products and services
Incident Management
Change Management
Asset Management
The SVC is an operating model that outlines what?
The SVC is an operating model which outlines the key activites necessary to respond to demand and facilitate value creation.
What entities are outside the remit of the SVC
Demand, Products & Services and Value
What entities are part of the SVC and how should they be used
- P - Plan
- I - Improve
- E - Engage
- D - Design & Transition
- O - Obtain/Build
- D - Deliver & Support
These are not in order, however all 6 should be used in some fashion to create products and services and in turn value
What does the SVC actually aim to do
The SVC transforms inputs into outputs while linking the activities together
What activities of the SVC generally appertain to getting things started.
Elaborate on how these SVC activities can be used to make a start on a new or updated product or service
Plan, Improve and Engage
Much of what starts off new products and services or Updates to products and services is a combination of elements occuring in “Improvement”, “Enagement” with customers and “Planning” to make sure it matches with the business overall vision.
- When looking at the elements of the SVC remember that inputs will produce outputs and the outputs from one activity will form the inputs of another activity
- E.G. The Outputs of customer requirements that come from “Engage” will become an Input for “Design and Transition” and “Obtain/Build”
The Plan activity is a very strategic part of the SVC, the purpose of plan is to ensure a shared understanding of a number of things. Detail these things
- Vision - There may be customer request or Market demand however if this doesn’t match the vision or mission of the organisation then you shouldn’t do it - biting off more than you can chew that in turns distracts and reduces resources ultimately driving sales down
- Current Status - Make sure there is a shared understanding of the current status of plans, i.e. setting stakeholders expectations correctly and ensuring your are managing your resources correctly
- Improvement Direction - Vitally important to ensure we are getting better in the right direction to keep some of our stakeholders satisfiedr engage.
What are the Key Inputs for the Plan activity within the SVC
Key Inputs for Plan
- Policies, requirements and constraints from governing body.
- Knowledge and information about new and changed products
- Improvement status reports from improve
- Consolidated demands from engage
What are the Key Outputs for the Plan activity within the SVC
- Strategic, tactical and operational plans (STO)
- Portfolio decisions for design and transition
- Improvement opportunities for improve
- Contract and agreement requirements for engage.
What is the purpose of the Improve activity within the SVC and try to further elaborate on “improve”
- Improve is embedded in every aspect of the ITIL framework, from the Service Value System to the Service Value Chain (as here) and even practice called continual improvement
- The Purpose of Improve = To ensure continual improvement of products, services and practices across all value chain activities. (This can be done in short bursts or action over a long period of time)
- An organisation will be in a constant state of driving practice, product and service improvement.
What are the Key Inputs for the Improve activity in the SVC
Key Inputs for Improve
- Product and service information from deliver and support
- Stakeholder feedback from engage
- Knowledge and information about new and changed products
- Knowledge and information about third-party service items
What are they Key Outputs for the Improve Activity
Key Outputs for Improve
- Improvement initiatives and plans for all SVC activities.
- Performing information for plan and governing bodies
- Contract agreement requirements for engage
- Service Performance info for design and transition
There are more but you can see inputs and outputs flow to and from everywhere within the SVC when it comes to improve
What is the purpose of the Engage activity in the SVC and at what levels can it occur at
- Purpose of Engage = Provide a good understanding of stakeholder needs, transparency and continual engagement for good relationships with all stakeholders.
- This can happen at:
- Strategic levels of Upper and Senior Management
- Tactical levels of middle management
- Operational Levels with people who design, deliver and support products/services
What are they Key Inputs for the engage activity within the SVC
Key Inputs for Engage
- Detailed requirements for services/products provided by customers
- Requests and feedback form customers
- Marketing Opportunities
- Contract/Agreement requirements from all SVC activities
What are the Key Outputs for the engage activity within the SVC
Key Outputs for Engage
- Consolidated demands and opportunities for plan
- Product and service requirements for design
- Change or project initiation requests for obtain/build
- Contracts and agreements with suppliers for obtain/build
What is the biggest thing to take from the Inputs and Outputs of the Engage activity within the SVC
Biggest thing to take from these inputs and outputs is CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS, this input helps produce product and service requirements for Design, Change or Project initiation requests for Obtain/Build and the underpinning contracts the come from our suppliers
What activities of the SVC generally appertain to Getting Down to Business
Elaborate on how these SVC activities do this.
Getting Down to Business: Design &Transition, Obtain/Build and Deliver & Support
Design & Transition, Obtain/Build and Deliver & Support are primarily focused on getting value co-created. “Where the Rubber meets the road”
What is the purpose of Design & Transition
Purpose of Design & Transition = To ensure that products and services continually meet stakeholder expectations for quality, costs and time to market.
Actually separate lifecycle changes in ITIL3 but now with rapid development they are happening simultaiously
What are the Key Inputs of the Design & Transition activity within the SVC
Key Inputs for Design & Transition
- Portfolio decisions provided by plan
- Architectures and policies approved by plan
- Improvement initiatives approved by plan and improve
- Product and Service requirements provided by engage
What are the Key Outputs of the Design & Transition activity within the SVC
Key Outputs for Design & Transition
- Requirements and Specifications for obtain/build
- Contract and agreement requirements for engage
- New and changed products for deliver and support
- Performance information for improve
What is the purpose of the Obtain & Build activity within the SVC.
When doing this who might you typically be working with
- Purpose of Obtain/Build = To ensure that service components are available when and where they are needed and meet agreed specifications.
You typically will be working with suppliers or vendors who will be supplying goods/services so you can deliver your goods and services
What are the Key Inputs for the Obtain & Build activity within the SVC
As well as this what activities provide important inputs for this activity
- Architectures and polices provided by plan
- Goods and Services provided by external suppliers through engage
- Change or project initiation request provided by engage
- Change requests provided by deliver and support
Note - Engage and Plan are important for inputs, with Deliver & Support and Design & Transition being key as well
What are the Key Outputs for the Obtain & Build activity within the SVC?
- Service Components for deliver & support/design & transition
- Knowledge and info about new and changed components
- Contract and agreement requirements for engage
- Performance information for improve
What is the purpose of the Deliver & Support activity within the SVC
Purpose of Deliver & Support = To ensure that services are delivered and supported according to agreed specifications and stakeholders expectations.
Within the Deliver and Support Activity of the SVC we need to ensure that products and services get into the hands of customers, there is nothing radical here but what do we need to do and what is the key point on this
We need deliver our products and services + support them when things go wrong
Keyword here is “agreed” ITIL is big on agreement between service provider and consumer. The provider understands what the consumer wants or needs, produces it and supports it based on what both parties agree to.
What are the Key Inputs for the Deliver & Support activity within the SVC
Key Inputs for Deliver & Support
- New and changed products/services from design
- Contracts and agreements with external suppliers from engage
- Service components from obtain/build
- User support tasks from engage
What are the Key Outputs for the Deliver & Support activity within the SVC
Key Outputs for Deliver & Support
- Service delivered to customers and users
- Information on the completion of user tasks for engage
- Product and service performance information for all
- Change requests for obtain/build and design
How many Practices are there within the ITIL SVS
34
How do you know which Practices to use within different parts of the SVC
There is no indication of the practices within the SVC, this is because they can be used in all sorts of combinations to perform the needs of the SVC.
Define and ITIL Management Practice
ITIL Management Practice = A set of organisation resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective.
What categories do the 34 ITIL practices fit into
General Management Practices
Service Management Practices
Technical Management Practices
Give some insight into General Management Practices
General Management Practices - Adapted for Service Management from general business management domains things like “Relationship and Finance Management”.
Give some insight into Service Management Practices
Service Management Practices - Developed in service management (IT Service management industries in particular), things like “Service Desk and Change Control”.
Give some insight into Technical Management Practices
Technical Mangement Practices - Adopted from from technology management domains things like “Deployment and Infrastructure” management
What should you remember about the ways practices can support the SVC
There are many ways practices can be combined to support the SVC and create value in products and services
How many practices are there in total and how do they split out into the relevant categories
34 Total Practices (14 General, 17 Service, 3 Technical)
What do the Practices produce?
The practices will produce both inputs and outputs in SVC activities
What is the purpose and some of the key aspects of the relationship management practice
Strategic Planning Practices
- To establish and nurture the links between organisation and stakeholders and strategic and tactical levels
- Big Idea - Customers’ priorities for new or changes services need to align with desired business outcomes, they need to be effectively established and articulated
- Heavily involved in ENAGE SVC activity
- This is where you would mediate conflicting stake holder requirements )What they want VS what they need VS what we can supply
What is the purpose and some of the key aspects of the Supplier Management Practice
Strategic Planning Practices
- To ensure the organisations suppliers and their performance are managed appropriately to support the provision of seamless, quality products and services.
- Make sure the vendors are doing what they are supposed to do so WE can do what we are supposed to do
- Simple yet effective
- Big Idea - Maintain a supplier strategy, policy and contract management information as well as Negotiate and agree to contracts and arrangements
What is the purpose and some of the Key aspects of the Availability Management practice
Warranty Practices
- To ensure services deliver agreed level of availability to meet the needs of customers and users
- BIG IDEA - Design infrastructure and apps that can deliver required availability levels, ensuring that services and components are able to collect data required to measure availability.
Define Availability
Availability = Ability of an IT Service or other configuration item to perform it’s agreed function when required, this relies on reliability(MTBSI/MTBF*) and maintainability (MTTRS**)- If a service isn’t needed at 2am, if it is down being fixed it is still considered available
What does MTSBI, MTBF and MTTRS stand for and what is each one a measure of within Availability
MTSBI = Mean time Before Service Interruption (applies to reliability) MTBF = Mean time between failure (applies to reliability) MTTRS = Mean time to restore service (applies to maintainability)
Within the realm of availability give an example to detail reliability and maintainability
A service that goes down once a year could be deemed reliable however if it takes 48hours to bring it back up it is not very maintainable
What is the purpose and some of the Key aspects of Capacity and Performance Management
- Ensure that services achieve agreed and expected performance, satisfying current and future demand and in a cost effective way
- Big Idea - Design Infrastructure and Apps that can deliver required capacity and performance of products and services
What is the purpose and some of the Key aspects of Service Continuity Management
- A continuity event is something that threatens the continuation of the business
- Sudden unplanned event causing damage or serious loss to organisation
- Ensure that the availability and performance of service is maintained at a sufficient level in the event of a disaster
- Big Idea - Provides framework for building organisational resilience with the capability of producing an effective response that safeguards the interests of key stake holders.
What is Service Continuity Management known as in more common terms
Disaster Recovery
What is the purpose and some of the key aspects of Information Security Management
- Protect the information needed by the organisation to conduct it’s business
- Big Idea - Understanding Confidentiality (only people who have access get access), Integrity (prevent data manipulation such as man in the middle attacks) and Availability (protect data from being locked out such as ransomware and DDoS)
- Physical security is still important but much of what we do today is done online in some form or another
- Relies heavily on actions people throughout organisation
- Understanding Authentication (i.e. someone is who they say they are) and non-repudiation (ensuring someone can’t deny they did something
What is an IT Asset
IT Assets = Any valuable component that can contribute to a delivery of an IT Product or Service
What is the purpose and some of the key aspects of IT Asset Management
- Deals with Hardware, Software, Networking, Cloud Service and More (i.e. it underpins everything in the organisation)
- Might Include Non-IT Assets for some companies (data with financial value or the data centers themselves)
- Purpose - To plan and manage the full lifecycle of all IT Assets (Replacing Servers and Hardware, renewing Software licences)
- Asset Management is all about the Acquisition, Operation, Care and Disposal of assets - also including the SAM (Software Asset Management subset)
- Big Idea - Define, populate and maintain the asset register in terms of structure and content and the storage facilities for assets and related media (In other words keep your stuff inventoried and tracked through out the lifecycle) . Control the asset lifecycle in collaboration with other practices
What is the purpose and some of the key aspects of Service Configuration Management
- Ensures that accurate and reliable information about the configuration of services and the CIs that support them, are available when and where it is needed. This includes information on how CIs are configured and the relationships between them
What is a CI
Configuration Item (CI) Any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT Service
What is the Purpose of both the CMS and CMDB.
Why are these important
A CMS (Configuration Management System) is a collection of CMDBs that allow organisations to know and understand how their configuration items are integrated and configured
It’s vitally important to know how things link together, as if you make a change in one component you can affect many more.
Define Release Management and the Big Idea of it
- Make new and changed services and features available for use
- Think of queuing up the services and features, getting them ready
- Big Idea - A release may comprise of many different infrastructure and application components that work together to deliver new or changed functionality (i.e. the iPad, the App and the documentation would all need to be put together to form a release)
Define Deployment Management
- To move the new or changed hardware, software, documentation, process or any other component to the live environment
- It may also be involved in deploying components to other environments for testing or staging
What are the 4 types of deployment with ITIL
Big Bang
Phased
Continuous
Pull
Define the deployment type Big Bang
New or changed components are deployed to all targets at the same time (used when dependencies prevent simultaneous use of old and new system)
Define the deployment type Phased
Where new or changed components are deployed to just part of environment at a time, repeat until deployment is complete
Define the deployment type Continuous
Tied into DevOps, components are integrated, tested and deployed when they are needed giving lots of opportunity for customer feedback use
Define the deployment type Pull
New or upgraded software is available on a share somewhere and users download to client devices when they choose.
The 6 activities of the SVC (PIEDOD) are all about the big picture, taking inputs and producing outputs in different ways to produce the products and services - doing this successfully provides what?
Doing this successfully provides value to the service consumer
What is the Service Desk
- E.G. - One output of engage is customer requirements, those requirements are results of the relationship management practice (aspects we set up with business liaison and stakeholder development). These requirements go to Design & Transition to create the new services or upgrade the requirements
What are the purposes of the Service Desk?
- Capture demand for incident resolution AND service requests, it’s not only about Incidents or Service Requests, it’s about both.
- To log incidents and track service requests (Typically using some IT Service Management Software, SNoW or Remedy etc)
- To Classify, acknowledge, own and action issues, queries and requests.
- To serve as empathetic and informed link between the service provider and it’s users
- To have excellent customer service, incident analysis and prioritization skills.
What are some of the options to access the service desk?
- Phone calls - one of the biggest channels including special tech (IVR, Conference Call etc)
- Service Portals and Mobile Apps - support by service and request catalogues
- Live Chat - appropriate way to handle inc and service requests
- Chat Bots - good for initial data gathering from users
- Email - Good for logging and updating, confirmation and follow up surveys
- Walk-in Service Desk - Become more prevalent in some industries where physical presence is needed (think Apples Genius Bar)
Why do we think about monitoring and events
Technology and Automation can help activities and work to happen without human intervention, we still need make sure everything is running smoothly and no surprises happen that would decrease the value co-created with the delivery of products and services.
What is an Event
- Any change of state that has significance for the management of a configuration item (CI) or IT Service
What is the purpose of Monitoring and Event Management
- Purpose = To systematically observe services and service components and record and report selected changes of state identified as events.
- We don’t want a surprise when we go to restore a backup in that we find the last 3 backups have failed, we probably should’ve known about those backup failure “events”
What types of events does ITIL recognise
Information Event
Warning Event
Exception Event
Define an Information Event
Information Event - Don’t require action when identified but will be logged (A service starting or backup completing), analysing this data at a later date may provide proactive steps that could be beneficial
Define a Warning Event
Warning Event - These allow action to be taken before any negative impact is experienced by the business (CPU Utilization is approaching threshold set)
Define an Exception Event
Exception Event - This means a breach to an established norm has been identified, typically associated with SLA, these events require action
What types of monitoring does ITIL recognise and define these types
- Active - Tools will poll key CIs looking at their status to generate alerts when an exception occurs
- Passive - When the CI itself generates the operation alerts
What is an incident
An unplanned interruption to a service or reduction in the quality of a service
What is the purpose and big idea of incident management
- Purpose - To minimize the negative impact of incidents by restoring the normal service of operation as quickly as possible.
- Big Idea - Handling incidents requires good documentation, sometimes that’s just simply gathering user data via automatic scripting.
How must low impact incidents be handled
Low impact incidents must be handled efficiently so that they don’t consume resources
What should people working on Incidents do
People working on incidents should provide good quality updates in a timely manner
What teams of people do ALL Major incidents require
All major incidents require a dedicated (perhaps temporary) team with representatives from different stakeholder groups
What is a problem
A cause, or potential cause, of one or more incidents.
What is the difference between Problems and Incidents
Problems and Incidents are not the same thing, if an incident is a fire, the problem is the investigation to see what caused the fire
What is a known error and where will a Known Error be put
- A problem that has been analyzed and has not been resolved.
- Known errors will be put into a known error database or “KEDB” that will also have data of…Workaround
What is a workaround
- A solution that reduces of eliminates the impact of an incident or problem for which a full resolution is not yet available. Some workarounds will reduce the likelihood of incidents.
- Remember Workarounds should be documented in the records at any stage it doesn’t need to wait for analysis to be complete AND every time you use a workaround it should be analysed to ensure it is as efficient as it can be.
What is the purpose of problem management
Purpose - To reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes of incidents and managing workarounds and known errors
What are the three phases of problem management
- Problem Identification - activities to identify and log problems, this can include performing trend analysis of incident records.
- Problem Control - considers all contributory causes, it’s important to analyze problems from all angles of the four dimensions
- Error Control - manages known errors, this includes potential permanent solutions
What are some of the points around problem management
- Problem management relies on the knowledge and experience of staff
- Problem Management needs personnel that understand complex systems and have excellent analytical and creative skills
- Problem Management is closely related to incident management.
- Problem Management works with change enablement, risk management and continual improvement
What is a service request
- A request from a user or user’s authorized representative that initiates a service action that has been agreed as a normal part of service delivery.
What is the purpose of Service Request Management
Purpose - To support the agreed quality of a service by handling all pre-defined, user initiated service requests in an effective and user-friendly manner. N.B. This can also be tied into standard changes
What are some examples of Service Requests
- Replacing a toner
- Request for access to software or a folder
- Request for information
- Feedback, compliments or complaints (these are handled by service request management as defined by relationship management practice)
What are some of the point around Service Request Management
- Authorization and approval policies should be created
- Automate as much as possible
- The users have expectations of fulfillment times so make sure these expectations are clearly set and based on realistic fulfillment by the organisation. (Use clearly stated terms i.e. 3-5 business days not just 3-5 days)
- Correlate with standard changes
- Requests may be redirected to incident management or change enablement
What is a change
The addition, modification or removal of anything that could have a direct or indirect effect on services.
What is the purpose of change enablement
- Purpose - To maximize the number of successful IT changes by ensuring that risks have been properly assessed, authorizing changes to proceed and managing a changes schedule.
What is change enablement all about
- N.B. Change enablement is all about balancing the need to make beneficial changes that add value whilst protecting users from the bad effect a change could have - all change produces risk of some sort
What are the types of change recognised by ITIL
Standard Change
Normal Change
Emergency Change
What should each change type have
Each change type should have appropriate change authorities assigned
Define a standard change
- Standard Change - Low risk, pre authorised changes that are well understood and fully documented. Implemented without the need for further authorization, when the procedure for a standard change is created or modified there should be a full risk assessment and authorization as per any other change however the risk assessment doesn’t need every time the change is implemented
Define a Normal Change
Normal Change - A normal change needs be scheduled, assessed and authorised following a process or model. The change model will be based on the type of change and will determine the roles for assessment and authorization, some normal changes may be lower in risk that others thus the need for different defined models
Define an Emergency Change
Emergency Change - Must be implemented ASAP, not typically included in a change schedule instead the process is expedited because of the urgency of the change. Risk and Impact etc is still assessed but you do not wait for the next CAB instead you activate and emergency CAB meeting
What is the purpose of a change schedule
Change Schedule
- Used to help plan changes (typically normal), assist in communication, avoid conflicts and assign appropriate resources.
What is the purpose of Service Level Management
- Purpose - Set clear business-based targets for service performance, so the deliver of a service can be properly assessed, monitored and managed against these targets
When setting targets for things like Availability, Performance and Incident Response times etc what should targets be?
You should use SMART targets - this means targets that are “Specific”, “Measurable”, “Attainable”, “Relevant” and “Time Bounded”
A lot of services are bundled, what does this mean for targets
- Since many services are bundled, these targets might need to be combined and aggregated together to reflect a more realistic view (i.e. just because a website is up 99% of the time it doesn’t mean the service itself is up 99% of the time)
Service Level Management provides the end to end visibility of the organisations services, what does this mean
- Capturing and reporting on service issues including performance against the SLAs
- Performing Service reviews to make sure the current set of services continues to meet the needs of the organisation and customers.
- Establishing a shared view of the services and target service levels with customers
What are some of the Key Items to consider about successful SLAs
- They must be related to a defined service in the service catalogue
- Other wise they are simply individual metrics without a purpose (irrelevant), that do not provide adequate visibility or reflect the service perspective
- They should relate to defined outcomes and not simply operational metrics (think bundled metrics tied to defined outcomes)
- This can be achieved with balance bundles of metrics, such as (customer satisfaction and key business outcomes) or (Availability levels and continuity levels)
What are the key points around building a better SLA
-
Building a better SLA
- Customer Enagement
- Initial listening, discovery and information capture with customers on which to base the metrics and measurements (talk with customers and ask a lot of open ended questions such as What does your work involve, How does technology help you, What are your key business times?)
- Customer Feedback - Once SLAs are in place
- Surveys (event based, in response to an incident or target breach and Scheduled)
- Key Business related measures
- Operational Metrics - low level indicators of operational activity things such as System Availability and Incident Response time
- Business Metrics - any business activity deemed useful/valuable by the customer and used to gauge the success of the service, things such as the times something is available or the number of locations served.
- Customer Enagement
N.B. - It takes a lot of collating and analysis of information from the business and customers to make service level management successful.
What part of the Service Value System is concerned with Improvement
The Continual Improvement Model
How many steps are there within the Continual Improvement Model?
7 Steps
What are the 7 steps of the Continual Improvement Model
-
What is the vision?
- The vision of the improvement plan should also align with the Business vision, mission, goals and objectives
- Where are we now?
- What is your current state, typically baselines will already be in place or may need reassessment Perform baseline assessments
- Where do we want to be?
- Use SMART targets to define where we want to be once the improvement initiative is complete Define measurable targets
- How do we get there?
- Use 7 step improvement process to Define an improvement plan
- Take action
- Execute improvement actions
- Did we get there
- Evaluate metrics and KPIs
- How do we keep momentum going (i.e. rinse and repeat) - One of the biggest issues faced is trying to improve and failing resulting in us sticking to the status quo, or getting a few win and then thinking that it’s good enough… continual improvement is the name of the game
- Evaluate metrics and KPIs
What is the continual improvement model part of?
- The continual improvement model is part of the SVS (Continual Improvement)
What type of improvement can use the continual improvement model?
The continual improvement model can be applied to any type of improvement from Services to practices
Using the continual improvement model increases the likelihood of what?
Using the continual improvement model increases the likelihood that initiatives will be successful.
Which approach does the continual improvement model support (Agile or Waterfall)
- The continual improvement model supports an iterative (agile) approach to improvement as well as the old waterfall approach
Just like the continual improvement of the SVS overall and there is a key activity in the SVC called improve, there is also a practice called continual improve, what is the purpose of the Improve practice
Just like the continual improvement of the SVS overall and there is a key activity in the SVC called improve, there is also a practice called continual improve
Where should continual improvement be controlled from and where should it be encorage
Encouraging continual improvement across the organisation N.B. When it comes to continual improvement registers (CIRs) you should ensure that senior management control and maintains it, with a small team dedicated to leading the continual improvement
True or False, you should secure time and budget for continual improvement?
True:
Securing time and budget for continual improvement (like anything you get your best if you invest).
Who should identify improvement opportunities and where should they be logged
- We need to ensure everyone identifies improvement opportunities and they are logged into that CIR (Continual Improvement Register)
Operationally what are some of the key activities of the improvement practice
- Assessing and prioritizing improvement opportunities.
- Making business cases for improvement action
- Planning and implementing improvements
- Measure and evaluate improvement results
- Coordinating improvement activities across the organisation (e.g. if you are planning a change enablement process improvement you should make sure it’s enabled in all areas of your organisation - all regions of the global environment. If it’s not coordinated you will step on each others toes or repeat work.)
