The aim of the thesis was to develop and improve the IT service management function by adding a systematic approach to ITSM, identifying and documenting processes and discovering the problems in the daily operations. Many best practice frameworks and guidelines, such as ITIL, COBIT, IT Standard for Business and JHS were reviewed for information on how to develop the organization's ITSM function.
Background
The author works in the case organization as a specialist responsible for all sector-independent ICT services and their business operations. Most government employees who worked with sector-independent ICT services were transferred to Valtori, including 5 employees of the business organization.
Objectives and research questions
The purpose of the transition period was to replace the current ICT services, some commissioned others external, with new services produced by Valtori. During the transition period, there was no service management framework or processes implemented and ways of working became highly personalized.
Scope
To streamline the transition process following the merger, the IT Standard for Business framework is the primary theoretical source used in this thesis. The IT Standard for Business and JHS recommendations form the theoretical basis of the thesis.
IT Standard for Business – a Model for Business driven IT Management
- Service Portfolio Management
- Ecosystem Management
- Government sector ecosystems
- Sourcing and Supplier Management
- Self Service and Automation
The frame contains an illustration called the "grid" of all the different elements and subjects and their relationship to each other. The Service Portfolio Steering Group can be organized in many ways depending on the size and structure of the organization, but it should always have strong business representation. In the IT standard for Business Sourcing and Supplier Management, management ensures that the company has services that support the company's needs.
JHS 152 Process modeling
The function and scope of the process is then defined and the basic information of the process is recorded in the basic information form (appendix 1). If the process crosses organizational boundaries, owners must be assigned or identified at each stage of the process. Defining boundaries ensures that the beginning and end of the process are usefully defined.
The rationale and use of the process model must be defined as it determines the level of modeling detail. The roles and responsibilities of the participant involved in the process should be clarified before modeling. The basic information form (annex 2) is filled out by the process holder, who is responsible for maintaining and updating the process documentation.
The basic information form helps to determine the start and end of the process, and the function form supports the creation of the graphical model. The process owner must ensure that there are no arbitrary process descriptions, but that the process is always part of the overall architecture of the organization.
JHS 179 Designing and developing enterprise architecture
Business architecture
It describes the functional structures of the organization, which are stakeholders, services, products, processes, strategy and vision. The purpose of business architecture is to guide the design and development of the organization's core processes and supporting support functions so that they support strategy. The conceptual level of business architecture describes what is done in an organization or in a developed subfield and which actors and services are involved.
The logical level is a more accurate description of the operations and the processes related to the operation and how the data exchanged are related to each other. Operators can be divided into external and internal, and are sometimes referred to as stakeholders. The process map depicts an overview of processes related to the production or procurement of services.
COBIT
Governance ensures that stakeholder needs, conditions and opportunities are evaluated to determine balanced, agreed upon corporate goals to be achieved; set direction through prioritization and decision-making; and monitoring performance and compliance against agreed directions and goals. Management plans, builds, operates and monitors activities in accordance with the direction set by the governing body to achieve the company's goals. The COBIT framework was reviewed, but it was decided that the issues are more related to management than governance, so ITIL was chosen instead.
Combining COBIT controls and processes with ITIL can offer significant synergy and help organizations focus on areas where services need to be better managed and managed (The Stationery Office.. 4, 9.), so it is recommended that you revisit COBIT at a later date .
ITIL
Service Design
Service catalog management is one of the most valuable elements of service delivery and should be given high priority. Service catalog management is a process that. provides resources to manage the service catalog at a sufficient level. Ensure that the service catalog supports the evolving needs of all other service management processes for service catalog information, including all interface and dependency information.
The scope of service catalog management is to provide and maintain accurate information about all services that are or have been transferred to a live environment. Managing the information in the service catalog to ensure that it is current, complete and relevant. Service catalog management provides value to the organization by providing a clearer understanding of the services available and how customer-facing services connect to supporting services.
The service catalog is a list of services that contains accurate information about all operational services and those that are preparing to be run operationally. Major challenges and risks in creating a service catalog include the validity and integrity of the data.
Data collection methods
Action research methodology was used to create the process and service management framework development plan. It is an approach that emphasizes active participation in change situations while simultaneously conducting research. The reason for using action research was that all the people involved in this research work with and use the services and processes that fall within the scope of this thesis.
The author is the manager of industry-independent ICT services, so it was not feasible to conduct a rigorous theoretical research. A written survey was also sent by e-mail to the staff of the IT department asking all participants to identify five major problems with the day-to-day operation of the (industry-independent) ICT services. A workshop was organized on 18 May 2017 to discuss the problems with the transfer of tacit knowledge, which was one of the major issues identified within the IT department.
The workshop was part of courses for the Life-Based Service Design course at the University of Jyväskylä and was organized by Auli Aalto. Aalto is employed in the case organization's IT department and a student at the University of Jyväskylä's Faculty of Information Technology.
Data analysis
Result validation
The starting point was that a need to develop service management practices in case of organization was recognized, but there was uncertainty about what was really wrong, what to improve, how and why.
Process identification and modeling
The aim of this thesis was to answer those questions, identify the problematic services and processes and create a development plan to address the management issues that will be implemented later. Many of the processes were so similar that a generic process model is used to describe them. All device orders (laptops, smartphones, accessories), access management and change requests follow the same process.
The following process models are used to describe the support processes (appendix 4): new employee, service request, change request, device order, other orders and access management. MiM and problem management processes were so closely related to the management of business organizations' major enterprise information systems that they were excluded from the scope of this project. During the process modeling it was discovered that much of the documentation was insufficient and that some services were only partially deployed.
Automation and self-service capabilities were not utilized and manual labor was still required in many phases. Some of the old services were still used because they were not properly retired and closed.
Discovering the problems in service management
There is no standard operating model for the lifecycle management or deployment of IT services. It was identified that the problems discovered during the interviews were mainly caused by staff changes and the knowledge gap that resulted from their departure. The former employees who were responsible for the deployment or implementation and operation of new services and processes knew how to guide, help and instruct users in their use.
Because there was no operational model implemented for portfolio or catalog management, the quality of documentation, if it could be found, varied greatly.
Selecting the management framework
Validating results and the development plan
The service portfolio management will address the issues with service life cycle management, alignment with business needs and IT strategy. As mentioned before, there is an ecosystem of ICT services and providers created by Valtori and the Ministry of Finance (KaPA, Suomi.fi, Valtori's services). The procurement and supplier management responsibilities are shared by the IT department and the general administrative department which provides legal support.
Initially, the goal of this development project was to make a development plan to improve service management in the case organization. A development plan was prepared using industry standard best practices and approved by management (RQ3 & RQ4). This information made it possible to accurately identify the issues related to service management and day-to-day operations and create a targeted development plan to resolve them.
The development plan has been approved by management and the implementation of service management improvements is scheduled to begin in February 2018. The issues with partially deployed services have been fixed and the creation of automated processes and self-service features that will replace old manual processes have been developed and implemented in collaboration with a service provider.
JHS 152 notation
JHS 152 basic information form
JHS 152 function form
Process models
Development plan (confidential)
