Module 6 Flashcards
*What are the key point of service level management? [6.a.vii]
Establishes shared view of services & target service levels with customers, ensures organisation meets defined service levels through collection, analysis, storage & reporting of relevant metrics for identified services, performs service reviews to ensure current set of services meets needs of organisation & customers & captures & reports on service issues including performance against defined service levels
*What are the key points of continual improvement? [6.a.i]
Encouraging it across the organisation, securing time & budget for it, identifying & logging improvement opportunities, assessing & prioritising improvement opportunities, making business cases for improvement action, planning & implementing improvements, measuring & evaluating improvement results & coordinating improvement activities across the org
*What is SWOT? [6.a.i]
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats > used to apply continual improvement
*What is the continual improvement model? [6.a.i]
Features strategically as tactical SVC activity, used daily or operationally. Applies to org’s SVS & all products, services, components & relationships. Use as high level guide for improvement initiatives. Steps vary in scope/detail by subject & improvement type, must be linear, re-evaluate/return as needed
*What are the 7 steps in the continual improvement model? [6.a.i]
What is the vision?
Where are we now?
Where do we want to be?
How do we get there?
Take action
Did we get there?
Keep momentum going
*Describe “What is the vision?” [6.a.i]
Business vision, mission, goals & objective
Translates org’s vision & objectives for business unit, department, team or individuals so context, objectives & boundaries of improvement initiative understood
Creates high level vision for planned improvement
*Describe “Where are we now?” [6.a.i]
Perform baseline assessments
Current state assessment of users’ perception of value received, people’s competencies & skills, processes & procedures, technical solution capabilities, organisational culture indicating level of organisational change management needed
*Describe “Where do we want to be?” [6.a.i]
Define measurable targets
Includes gap analysis of scope & nature of distance travelled from current to desired future state
Includes setting improvement objectives, along with CSFs & KPIs
*Describe “How do we get there?” [6.a.i]
Define improvement plan
Combine understanding of vision of improvement & current & target states with subject matter expertise to create plan for addressing initiative’s challenges
*Describe “Take Action” [6.a.i]
Execute improvement actions
Plan for improvement action, could involve traditional waterfall-style approach, or agile by experimenting, iterating changing directions & even going back
*Describe “Did we Get There?” [6.a.i]
Evaluate metric & KPI
Check journey’s destination to ensure reached desired point & conduct checks against stated objectives, CSFs & KPIs
*Describe “Keep Momentum Going” [6.a.i]
Market & celebrate successes, reinforce new methods & embed changes in organisation
*What are CSFs? [6.a.i]
Critical Success Factors. Necessary precondition for achievement of intended results
*What are KPIs? [6.a.i]
Key Performance Indicators. Important metric to evaluate success in meeting objective
*How can you track the continual improvement model? [6.a.i]
Use CIR, multiple CIRs can be maintanied at different organisational levels or master CIR used. Ideas also captured during project execution or software development activities
*What is a CIR? [6.a.i]
Database/structured document for tracking continual improvement ideas & projects. Everyone, especially leaders & highest levels responsible for continual improvement
*What must you be careful of in Change Enablement [6.a.ii]
Balance between getting customers & users changes & benefits quickly vs protecting customers & users from adverse effects of changes
*What is the difference between change enablement and change management? [6.a.ii]
Management manages the people aspect of changes whilst enablement focuses on the changes in products or services
*What is the scope of a change? [6.a.ii]
Includes infrastructure, applications, documentation, processes & supplier relationships. Anything directly or indirectly impacting a product or service
*What is a change authority? [6.a.ii]
Person or group who authorises changes
*What are the 3 types of changes? [6.a.ii]
Standard, normal & emergency
*What is a standard change? [6.a.ii]
Low risk, preauthorised changes that are well understood & fully documented, can be implemented without needing extra authorisation
*What is a normal change? [6.a.ii]
Changes that need to be scheduled, assessed & authorised following a process
*What is an emergency change? [6.a.ii]
Changes that must be implemented ASAP e.g. to resolve an incident or implement a security patch
*What is a change schedule for? [6.a.ii]
Help plan changes, assist in communication, avoid conflicts, assign resources & provide information needed for incident & problem management & improvement planning
*How should incident management be conducted? [6.a.iii]
Incidents with low impact should be managed so they don’t consume too many resources. Larger impact will require more resources & more complex management. Usually separate processes for managing major incidents & infoSec incidents
*What are the 3 rules for incident management? [6.a.iii]
Design for different types of incidents (based on impact variation, major incidents & infoSec incidents)
Prioritise incidents (based on agreed classification & resolve higher business impact incidents first)
Use robust tool to log & manage incidents (link to CIs, changes, problems, known errors & knowledge & automate matching incident to related incidents, problems or known errors)
*What are incident management tools for? [6.a.iii]
Should provide information about incidents & incident records, provide links to related CIs, changes, problems & known errors. Modern tools can also provide automated incident matching, intelligent analysis of incident data & generate recommendations to help with future incidents
*How can incident updates be provided? [6.a.iii]
Good collaboration tools may be required to ensure effective collaboration between everyone working on an incident. Including info about symptoms, business impact, CIs affected, actions completed & planned. Each should have a timestamp & information about who is involved
*What are the 6 types of incidents? [6.a.iii]
Tier 01: Extreme cases, where disaster recovery plans may be invoked, described in service continuity management practice
Tier 02: Most complex incidents & all major incident, which often require temporary team to collaborate to identify resolution
Tier 03: Those escalated to suppliers/partners who offer support for their services/products (3rd party products/services used as components of service require support agreements)
Tier 04: More complex incidents, which will usually be escalate to a support team
Tier 05: Those resolved by the service desk (AKA shift left approach)
Tier 06: Those resolved by users themselves, using self-help (tools which should be captured for use in measurement and improvement)
*What are the 3 ways an incident can indicate a problem? [6.a.iv]
Service provider notices something significantly wrong, customer notices & reports it to you or tool can determine this
*How does problem identification work? [6.a.iv]
Identifies & logs problems
Performing trend analysis on incident records, detection of duplicate & recurring issues by users, service desk & technical support staff, during major incident management, identifying the risk that incident could recur, analysing information from partners & suppliers & analysing information from internal software developers, test teams & project teams
*What is problem control? [6.a.iv]
Problem analysis, documenting workloads & known errors
*What is a workaround? [6.a.iv]
A solution that reduces/eliminates the impact of an incident/problem for which full resolution isn’t yet available. Some reduce the likelihood of incidents
*What is error control? [6.a.iv]
Manages known errors, identifies potential permanent solutions, regularly reassess the status of known errors, address impact on customers & identifies availability & cost of permanent resolutions
*What does problem management interface with? [6.a.iv]
Risk management, change enablement, knowledge management & continual improvement
*What are service requests? [6.a.v]
Requests from user/user’s authorised repesentative that initiates a service action which has been agreed as part of normal service delivery e.g. service delivery action (replace toner), request for information (how to map a drive), request for provision of resource (laptop), request for access to resource (shared drive), feedback, complaints & compliments
*What are the steps for request fulfillment? [6.a.v]
Steps should be well-known & proven, agree times for fulfillment & clear status communication. SRs & fulfillment should be standardised & automated to greatest degree possible. Policies should be established regarding what SRs will be fulfilled with limited/no extra approvals so fulfillment can be streamlined. Expectations of users regarding fulfillment times should be clearly set & based on what organisation can realistically deliver. Improvement opportunities should be identified & implemented to produce faster fulfillment times & benefit from automation e.g. client software installation & virtual server provision. Policies & workflows should be included for documenting & redirecting requests submitted as SRs but that should be managed as incidents/changes
*What is a service catalogue? [6.a.vi]
Structured information about all services & service offerings of service provider, relevant for specific target autidence
*What is automation in service desk? [6.a.vi]
Captures & redirects out-of-scope issues, provides 1 stop shop for simple/complex requests & creates good customer experience
*How are service desks important? [6.a.vi]
Major influence on UX & how service provider perceived. Has practical understanding of wider organisation, business processes & users. Adds value by understanding & acting on business actions, should provide empathetic & informed links between service provider & its users. Could be contacted via phone, service portal, app, chat, email, walk-in, text & social media
*What do service desks require? [6.a.vi]
Intelligent telephony systems, incorporating computer-telephony integration, IVR automatic call distribution, workflow systems for routing & escalation, workforce management & resource planning system, knowledge base, call recording & quality control, remote access tools, dashboard & monitoring tools, configuration management systems
*What is a service level? [6.a.vii]
1 or more metrics that define expected/achieved service quality
*What skills do service desks require? [6.a.vi]
Excellent customer service skills, empathy, incident analysis & prioritisation, effective communication & emotional intelligence
*What is service level management used for? [6.a.vii]
Establishes shared view of services & target service levels with customers, ensures organisation meets defined service levels through collection, analysis, storage & reporting of relevant metrics for identified services, performs service reviews to ensure current set of services continues to meet needs of organisation & its customers, captures & reports on service issues including performance against defined service levels
*What are the skills required for service level management? [6.a.vii]
Relationship management, business liaison, business analysis, commercial/supplier management & pragmatic focus
*What are SLAs? [6.a.vii]
Service Level Agreements. Documented agreement between service provider & customer that identifies services required & expected level of service
*What is a watermelon SLA? [6.a.vii]
When you define an SLA without including the customer. You fulfil the SLAs, but customer is always unhappy e.g. acceptable unavailability according to SLA, but occurs when important process in-progress - user satisfaction low
*What are the key requirements for SLA [6.a.vii]
Related to defined service, related to clearly defined service outcomes (not just operational metrics), reflects agreement between service provider & consumer, simply written & easy to understand for all parties
*How can you engage customers in service level management? [6.a.vii]
What does your work involve?
How does technology help you?
What are your key business times, areas, people & activities?
What differentiates a good day from a bad day to you?
Which of these activities is most important to you?
What are your goals, objectives & measurements for this year?
What is the best measure of your success?
On what do you base your opinion & evaluation of service/IT?
How can we help you more?
*How can customer feedback be gathered? [6.a.vii]
From several sources, formal & informal:
Surveys (immediate feedback like follow-ups to incidents or reflective periodic surveys to gauge overall service experience. Event-based)
Key business related-measures (agreed between service provider & customer, based on what customer values as important. Could be bundle of SLA metrics or specific business activity such as sales transaction or project completion
*What are 2 forms of metrics? [6.a.vii]
Operational & business metrics
*What is operational metrics? [6.a.vii]
Low level indicators of various operational activities. May include system availability, incident response & resolution times
*What is business metrics? [6.a.vii]
Any business-related activity deemed useful/valuable by customer & used as means of gauging success of service e.g. ATM availability
