ITIL - Version 2: Providing High Quality Services to Users

INTRODUCTION TO ITIL

• Its origins, players and philosophy. A focus on the client users
• The ITIL approach is based on best practices and the concept of service
• The contribution of ITIL to the performance of information systems
• Panoramic view of the ITIL documentation
• ITIL and quality. Positioning with respect to ISO 20000 and the IT repositories.

THE ITIL REPOSITORY

• Modules for software deployment and upgrade: analyzing the impact of information technologies on the enterprise; managing data and telecommunications technology infrastructure, applications, software and security
• Modules for service support management and service delivery
• Providing services to users via the service desk
• The structure and implementation of service level management

STRATEGIC AND ORGANIZATIONAL PREREQUISITES

• Analyzing the impact of technologies on the enterprise (The Business Perspective).  How to coordinate the services provided by information systems with the strategy of the enterprise?
• ICT infrastructure management, Schema Director, planning, etc.
• Application management and software asset management, procedures for installing application releases
• Security management and recovery procedures

SERVICE SUPPORT

• Incident management: definition, processing, escalation and resolution
• Problem management: identification and generalization
• Change management: procedures, tests and controls
• Release management: the industrialization of software and deployment
• Configuration management: Configuration Management Databases (CMDB)

SERVICE DELIVERY

• Service level management: definition and implementation of agreements specifying levels of service (service level agreements, SLA)
• Availability management: analyzing incidents and reducing their impact
• Capacity management: load management and planning
• Service continuity management: analysis of risks and vulnerabilities
• Financial management: budgets, cost management and accounting

THE SERVICE DESK

• The notion of a single point of contact, and the catalog of services
• ITIL-conformant implementations. The knowledge of infrastructure and users that is required
• Putting procedures into place. The interaction with service support. Service provision.
• The concept of escalation levels. What monitoring tools should be used? How should they be organized?

IMPLEMENTING ITIL

• How to identify areas which need improvement, and new services that should be provided to users. Correlation with maturity models (Gartner Group, CMMI, Six-Sigma, etc.).
• Examining the various procedures and interactions between the service support and service delivery processes.
• Identifying the steps that will lead to a successful implementation of a service desk
• Proposed methodologies: "Objectives-questions-indicators", CSIP (continuous service improvement program), commitment matrices and CSS (customer satisfaction surveys).

THE STARTING POINT: IDENTIFYING INSTALLED SYSTEMS, THE ORGANIZATION, THE USERS AND THEIR NEEDS, AND THE COSTS

• The inventory: the point of departure for all management. How should the configuration management database (CMDB) be created?
• Analyzing costs. Is it necessary to put numbers to the total cost of ownership (TCO)?
• Analysis of the current situation, and the definition of the current needs of individuals and groups. Surveying users. How can we define a catalog of needs by function, by business area, and by service?
• How can the efficiency of an organization already in place be judged?

DEFINING THE OFFER OF SERVICES

• What is the offer of services? What should the catalog specify?  Services by application, by unit of work, by software tool?  How should workstations and centralized systems be handled?  What responsibilities to users should be acknowledged?
• How should the offer of services be formulated? Breakdown into tasks. Availability, performance, operating modes, key performance indicators (KPIs), incident management, responsibilities, limitations.  The need for agreement among all parties.

DEFINING SLAS, OLAS AND ASSOCIATED PROCESSES

• Formalizing service level agreements (SLAs) and operational level agreements (OLAs).  Establishing procedures and service contracts.  The structure, content, negotiation and  revision of service agreements.
• Definition of the incident management and problem management processes.  Coordination with other business processes (change management, configuration management, upgrades).  Taking requests into account
• Definition of indicators for quality of service, productivity and service breakdowns. Migrate from critical success factors (CSF) to key performance indicators (KPI)

IMPLEMENTATION, TOOLS AND ORGANIZATION

• What type of organization will be best suited to the size of the installed base, the objectives, the catalog and the ITIL strategy of the enterprise?
• Calculating the size of the problem and the resources needed. Team profiles. Recruitment, training and motivation
• Implementing a software tool for managing resources: a permanent inventory, service desk support tools, request tracking, etc. Telephony tools (computer-telephony integration and ACD), software, and the impact of new technologies (KM and workflow).  The panorama of ITIL-compatible software suites on the market
• How to track quality indicators? How can client satisfaction be assessed?
• Organizing an efficient service desk, even with reduced staff
• To what degree should subcontractors be used? Is partial or total outsourcing a viable alternative? What are the business opportunities, and what would the costs be?

CASE STUDIES

• Case studies: implementing a service center, deploying and tracking the evolution of and the maintenance activities for enterprise applications, managing the administration and the operation of information systems