• set up your project
• performed discovery & due diligence
• designed the Service Management strategy and construct
• worked through the financials
• agreed on the partner model
• created your customer facing collateral
• worked out the people resourcing requirments

INSIGHT 1

At a minimum, for process design, the high level service model is agreed, the partner model is in place, and the technical design scoped, before processes can be mapped in detail.

Typically, I start with the customer perspective. From "how will the end user or customer get help", then move on to what happens after hours, then what happens if there is an escalation.

The chain of my thoughts when going into process design looks like this:

• starting at Service Desk
• then moving on to Incident Management, Major Incident Process, After Hours Support, Problem Management
• through to the process for moves, adds, changes & deletes
• what consitutes a work request, standard work request, non-standard work request and full blown projects and so the process to request and handle these
• through to change & release management
• and finally I put a focus on alerts and alarms; who is monitoring system performance, who is alerted in case of an outage or other issue and what happens when they are alerted? - this is related to tools, availability and capacity management

Security related incident management process is often neglected, and so also the internal charging and external customer billing process. Including both these in the processes you build is critical.

Remember billing needs to cover not just incidences, but also moves, adds, changes and deletes, and also the rate card for professional services.

Finally, reporting and continual service improvement - remember to ask who is going to put the report together, who is going to front up, who is going to walk a customer through the issues, what is the root cause, how are improvements suggested and made and what are the capacity reports and plans, availability reports and successful and unsuccessful changes?

INSIGHT 2

Use the diagram above as a prompt to construct a matrix.

List the processes, and for each process:

• the role, internal or external team responsible - so you have at least the start of a RACI which feeds into the business case and costing model
• the tool required to deliver each process
• an indication if the process is in place (or not) and an indication of level of maturity - so you have a maturity level assessment 

Please be in touch if you would like to have an example of this construct for your own use - FREE and OBLIGATION FREE !

And with this, you are ready to go into process design workshops, design process flows. You will have gone in with a draft table of contents for your procedures manual, and you will come out with at least a process flow for each process in each chapter.

You will know what you know, and you will also know what you don't know.

Done properly, all teams will know the process, will have contributed and bought into them, and the interlocks and hand-offs will be clearly defined.

A documented procedures manual sets you up for gaining customer confidence, for audit, for certification, and for establishing rock solid foundations to deliver top class service to your customers.

If you have been following this series of blog posts, the logical sequence I am following is:

1. 12 Point Service Management Checklist
2. Setting yourself up, discovery & due diligence
3. Service Design & Strategy
4. Financials, commercials and the business case
5. Partners, Suppliers & Vendors
6. Customer Collateral
7. People Considerations

This post to do with Processes; coming up next: Tools

There are more than a few nuances as organisations undertake the journey to transformation, digital or otherwise. Service Management is a key component to success.

Sunit Prakash has had many successes in organisational transformation on a global and local scale.

More importantly he bears the battle scars from the many lessons learnt. Don’t be one of the walking wounded - or worse. Call him and head off some of the challenges before you even get to the pass.

Note: similar version published by IT Professionals NZ in their IITP Techblog 19th September 2016

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