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Lesson 13 Study Guide ^K&
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Welcome to the thirteenth chapter of your Study Guide. This document is supplementary to the information available to you online, and should be used in conjunction with the videos, quizzes and exercises.
After your subscription to the course has finished online, you will still have the Study Guide to help you prepare for your exam - if youve not taken the exam by the time your subscription expires.
Youll download a Study Guide at the end of most Lessons as you progress through the course.
This Chapter contains the Study Guide information for Lesson 13 Service Operation Functions.
Use this Study Guide in conjunction with your own notes that you make as you progress through the course. You may prefer to print the Study Guides out, or use them on-screen.
After each Lesson, you can consolidate what you have learnt whilst watching the videos and taking the quizzes by reading through the chapter of the Study Guide.
If you progress on to the formal exam, your Study Guide will provide you with vital revision information.
Remember, your Study Guide is yours to keep, even after your subscription to the course has finished.
Service Operation Functions
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Study Guide Icons 3
Lesson Contents 4
The Service Desk 5
Exercise Service Desk Justification 6
Service Desk Structures 7
Technical Management 11
Application Management 12
IT Operations Management 15
Table of Contents
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Watch out for these icons as you use your Study Guide. Each icon highlights an important piece of information.
Tip this will remind you of something you need to take note of, or give you some exam guidance.
Definition key concept or term that you need to understand and remember.
Role a job title or responsibility associated with a process or function.
Exercise Solution suggested solution to one of the exercises you will complete throughout the course.
Goal or Objective for a particular process or core volume.
Study Guide Icons
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This Lesson looked at the four functions described in the Service Operation core volume.
We studied:
The Service Desk Technical Management Application Management IT Operations Management
Text in "italics and quotation marks" is drawn from the ITIL core volumes Quoted ITIL text is from Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement Crown copyright 2011 Reproduced under license from OGC.
Lesson Contents
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The Service Desk is similar to the traditional Help Desk, but offers a more complete range of services. The objective of the Service Desk is to restore normal service to users as quickly as possible.
The Service Desk is a single point of contact or SPOC. If a user wants to contact IT, they should always go via the Service Desk. They should not call or email contacts or colleagues in IT areas such as second line support.
The Service Desk uses the Incident Management and Request Fulfillment processes.
The Service Desk team leader or manager is also normally the incident manager, although it is possible the Incident Management process owner could sit elsewhere within an organization.
The Service Desk meets its goal by using the Incident Management process to restore service as quickly as possible. This could mean fixing a fault using a workaround provided by Problem Management.
The Service Desk provides a single point of contact for users, and keeps ownership of incidents throughout their lifecycle. Service Desks need to provide excellent levels of customer service, and provide levels of first time fix in line with business requirements.
Service Desk Responsibilities
The Service Desk acts as the single point of contact for the end user. Their role includes:
Providing excellent customer service Providing set levels of accessibility Providing quick turnaround of requests and incidents Providing management information and reports
The Service Desk
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Exercise Service Desk Justification
This Lesson included an Exercise to look at justifying the Service Desk. If you didnt have time to complete the exercise during the Lesson, why not attempt it now?
Exercise
Imagine your organization has no Service Desk. If people need IT support, they ring any number they can find. New users often have no idea who to call.
Put together a case to justify introducing a Service Desk.
List at least 8 benefits it would bring to the organization.
Exercise Solution
Here are some ways that a Service Desk can benefit an organization are they similar to the reasons you listed?
Users always know who to call and are not confused Expectations are clearly set so users dont expect everything done
immediately A centralized view of ITs workload can be found easily Statistics can be tracked to show if services are performing poorly User training needs can be identified More expensive, second line support resources dont have to deal with
simple incidents Work doesnt get lost if someone is on holiday Work isnt duplicated if a user rings 2 different people Information can be communicated back out to the business
Remember, if you found this exercise challenging or have any questions, you can email a tutor at [email protected].
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Centralized Service Desk
Centralized Service Desks are very common. They are in a single or a small number of locations, and support the whole organization from there.
This can be very resource efficient and cost-effective, but remember that some form of local presence may still be required for hardware fixes and desk side visits.
Centralized Service Desk staff can develop better skills as they are familiar with frequently occurring incidents for the whole infrastructure.
Service Operation fig. 6.3 Centralized Service Desk Crown copyright 2011. Reproduced under license from OGC
Service Desk Structures
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Local Service Desk
Local Service Desks are located near the users they serve. For example - if an organization has three offices, there could be a service desk in each office.
Local Service Desks help to build good relationships with the business. They can, however, be less cost efficient than a centralized desk. There is also a risk that individual local working practices can develop - leading to a loss of consistency.
A local Service Desk may be justified for a number of reasons. These could include different languages or cultures and time zones. If there are specialized services or users, they may need a local desk to contact, or VIP users may need a local desk.
Service Operation fig. 6.2 Local Service Desk Crown copyright 2011. Reproduced under license from OGC
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Virtual Service Desk
Virtual Service Desks use technology and tools to give the impression of a single Service Desk while using resources located anywhere. For example, all of the Service Desk staff could work from home, but from the user perspective they still call a single phone number and receive a consistent level of service.
For larger organizations, virtual Service Desks can transform into follow the sun Service Desks. This means that the user will still call a single number but the organization is able to take advantage of geographical and global locations to create a follow the sun service.
Changing time zones are used to provide twenty four hour coverage more cheaply, as people work their shift within their own normal business hours.
Follow the sun Service Desks are often used by large software houses. For a follow the sun desk to work well, the Service Desk analysts all need to have access to the same tool. They also need to adhere to the same processes to work efficiently and provide a consistent service.
Service Operation fig. 6.4 Virtual Service Desk Crown copyright 2011. Reproduced under license from OGC
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Specialized Service Desk Groups
Some organizations prefer to create specialized Service Desk groups. Within the Service Desk whether central, local, virtual or follow the sun, groups can be created containing staff with specialized skills.
Calls can be routed to different staff allowing incidents to be resolved faster. For example, a routing system might ask callers to press 1 for a hardware issue, and 2 for a software issue.
Be careful not to make this too complicated though, or it might cause confusion for end users.
Staffing Considerations
The Service Desk is the single point of contact for end users getting in touch with the IT service provider.
A good Service Desk can reflect well on the whole department, and a bad service desk can cause real problems for the relationship between IT and its customers.
Service Desks need good staff. The Service Desk manager needs to be a good team leader and motivator who can remain calm under pressure.
Service Desk Analysts need to have skills to allow them to manage and resolve incidents in line with business requirements. They will require good customer service skills, business and industry awareness, as well as some technical knowledge.
Service Desks generally have a high turnover of staff due to the pressure of the job.
The loss of key team members can have a minimal impact on the team if the necessary processes and procedures are well documented to allow new staff to be trained quickly.
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Technical Management includes the groups, departments and teams that provide technical expertise and manage the IT infrastructure.
The role of Technical Management breaks down into 2 areas:
They are the custodian of technical knowledge for managing infrastructure including design, test, management and improvement
They provide the resources to support the service lifecycle making sure that resources are trained and deployed to the right areas
Technical Management will cover infrastructure teams across the organization. Although they sit within Service Operation, they will have a role to play throughout the lifecycle, particularly providing input into the design and build of infrastructure.
Skills, Usage and Cost
Technical Management needs to balance the skill level, usage and cost of resources. Specialized resources are expensive, so their time needs to be used productively.
Some larger organizations develop pools of specialized resources that can be deployed to programs and projects as required.
Technical Management plays an important role by guiding IT operations. IT operations carry out much of the day-to-day work on the infrastructure including tasks like backup and restore of data. The relationship between IT operations and Technical Management needs to be good to allow knowledge to be transferred.
Function Objectives
Technical Management has a number of objectives.
They will plan, implement and maintain a stable infrastructure to support the business. To do this, they need to create a well designed, resilient and cost effective environment.
They will use technical skills to maintain the infrastructure, and resolve any incidents or failures that occur.
Technical Management
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Application Management supports the organization by helping to design, deploy, manage and support applications.
The role of Application Management covers all applications, whether developed in house or procured from an external supplier. They also manage knowledge and provide resources for support.
Application Management performs a very similar function to technical management, but for applications. It has a link back to Service Design to ensure new applications are fit for purpose and fit for use.
Application Management is the custodian of technical knowledge related to applications, and provides resources through the service lifecycle. One of the important decisions it supports is whether to buy applications or design them in-house.
As with Technical Management, Application Management needs to balance the cost of resources with their skill level and utilization. It will provide guidance to IT operations about how to manage applications on a day-to-day basis.
Its important to ensure that application management is integrated into the full service lifecycle, from strategy and design through to improvement and retirement.
Function Objectives
Application Management makes sure that applications can support business objectives. They will make sure applications are well designed, resilient and cost effective, with the functionality that the business needs.
They will use their skills to maintain applications and resolve any failures that occur.
Application Management
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Application Development and Application Support
In many organizations, there is an application development team and an application support team. Recent trends in IT have brought these teams closer together, making developers responsible for support and getting support teams involved in development.
This can provide a more responsive service for the business.
For application management and development to combine successfully, there needs to be a single point of communication for the business. Staff need to have targets set to reflect both development and operations, and a single change management process needs to span both groups.
The table below provides further information about application development and management.
Application development Application management Nature of activities
One-time set of activities to design and construct application solutions
Ongoing set of activities to oversee and manage applications throughout their entire lifecycle
Scope of activities
Performed mostly for applications developed in house
Performed for all applications, whether purchased from third parties or developed in house
Primary focus Utility focus
Building functionality for their customer
What the application does is more important than how it is operated
Both utility and warranty focus
What the functionality is as well as how to deliver it
Manageability aspects of the application, i.e. how to ensure stability and performance of the application
Management mode
Most development work is done in projects where the focus is on delivering specific units of work to specification, on time and within budget
This means that it is often difficult for developers to understand and build for ongoing operations, especially because they are not available for support of the
Most work is done as part of repeatable, ongoing processes. A relatively small number of people work in projects
This means that it is very difficult for operational staff to get involved in development projects, as that takes them away from their
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application once they have moved on to the next project
ongoing operational responsibilities
Measurement Staff are typically rewarded for creativity and for completing one project so that they can move on to the next project
Staff are typically rewarded for consistency and for preventing unexpected events and unauthorized functionality (e.g. bells and whistles added by developers)
Cost Development projects are relatively easy to quantify because the resources are known and it is easy to link their expenses to a specific application or IT service
Ongoing management costs are often mixed in with the costs of other IT services because resources are often shared across multiple IT services and applications
Lifecycles Development staff focus on software development lifecycles, which highlight the dependencies for successful operation, but do not assign accountability for these
Staff involved in ongoing management typically only control one or two stages of these lifecycles operation and improvement
Service Operation table 6.2 Application development vs. application management Crown copyright 2011. Reproduced under license from OGC
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IT Operations Management works to maintain the status quo of the infrastructure by using day-to-day processes and activities, whilst identifying improvements and resolving faults.
It splits into two main areas:
IT Operations Control Facilities Management
IT Operations Control
IT Operations Control is responsible for operational activities and monitoring. They will execute routine tasks for example jobs set up by Technical and Application Management.
Their role also includes:
Console management or management of the operations bridge Job scheduling and management Backup and restore Print management for large print jobs Maintenance activities
Facilities Management
Facilities Management looks after the physical environments that make up our IT estate. If these environments are managed by non-technical facilities teams, problems can arise due to lack of understanding. Facilities Management will also be involved in any large scale projects like data centre moves or server consolidation.
IT Operations Management
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IT Operations Management Value
IT Operations Management adds value in 2 ways. Firstly, they carry out the day-to-day tasks defined in Service Design and handed over in Service Transition.
Secondly, they will add value by providing an adaptive service to the business and identifying opportunities for improvement.
To carry out their role effectively, IT operations need to understand a number of different areas, including:
How technology links to services, and how important services are Procedures and manuals for technology management What metrics and targets have been achieved How technology performance can affect services How cost can be optimized or reduced, and how value is more important than cost
IT Operations need to manage technology, but they also need to understand the services that technology underpins.
IT Operations Management Objectives
The objectives of IT Operations Management are to:
Maintain the status quo through day-to-day processes and activities Improve service and reduce costs, without affecting service stability Use their skills to respond to any IT operations failures
Application Management, Technical Management and IT Operations Management often overlap in their activities, and they may collaborate together as part of the operational and support processes.
In order for these functions to work effectively, roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined.
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