e-skills procom consultation
Service Management and Delivery
Sub-disciplines - 1 to 10
7.1 IT Service Strategy and Management
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to design, plan and manage the effective provision of end to end IT services, systems and assets supporting an organisation. This requires an understanding of individual components and capabilities involved in the provision of IT service, allied to an appreciation of how they need to work together and the associated environmental requirements of these components.
It also is about the competencies that are required to develop integrated, end-to-end, IT service delivery and management strategy and policies.
7.2 IT Service Desk/Help Desk
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to manage the range of services offered by an IT service desk/help desk as ‘a single point of contact’ for IT services, systems and assets supporting an organisation.
7.3 IT Incident Management
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to ensure incidents relating to the operational performance of IT services, systems and assets within an organisation can be prioritised, actioned, resolved and closed in a way that ensures the minimum disruption to operational service levels and user satisfaction levels within an organisation.
7.4 IT Problem Management
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to resolve the root cause of recurring IT incidents, defined as IT problems and to minimise the adverse long term impact of these IT problems on an organisation, It is also about preventing the recurrence of IT incidents and IT problems through the use of trend analysis, root cause analysis and prioritised resolution activity.
7.5 IT Change and Release Management
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to ensure that changes required to the operational IT configuration and environment in which it operates within an organisation are assessed, planned and managed effectively through implementation and into normal operations in a way that minimises the potential for risk and disruption to IT service levels.
These changes may be implemented individually or bundled into releases. As such, this sub-discipline covers also the competencies required to manage all aspects of releases.
This sub-discipline covers competencies within the IT function relating to IT change and does not relate to those competencies required to bring about the effective introduction and management of wide scale change across a wide range of functions processes, structures and activities within an organisation, which is commonly referred to as business change management.
7.6 IT SLA Management
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to develop, negotiate and implement service level agreements for IT services, systems and assets that support the ongoing needs of an organisation. It also involves the competencies required to ensure that IT service levels are monitored and maintained and action taken to mitigate against the impact of them failing.
7.7 IT Configuration Management
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to maintain the integrity of the IT configuration supporting an organisation. It can be defined as a set of processes that provide control of the totality of the IT services, systems and assets supporting an organisation and the inter-relationships between them.
IT configuration management can be defined as a set of processes that provide oversight and control of information and records of changes associated with the design of IT services, systems and assets supporting an organisation. Configuration management aims to mitigate the ability of any such changes to impact on the ability of these services, systems and assets to perform their functions as expected.
7.8 IT Availability Management
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required to manage the availability of inter-operating IT services, systems and assets supporting an organisation, balancing service levels with sustainable costs levels and meeting the needs of business users.
Availability management is concerned with ensuring that the reliability, maintainability, serviceability, resilience and security of individual IT services, systems and assets and the effectiveness of their combined operation delivers service to business users that is fit for purpose as it is delivered.
Proactive management of the availability of IT services, systems and assets ensures that service level requirements can be met continuously and potential issues dealt with before they interrupt availability. This is distinctly different from the definition of service level agreements, which sets the standards to be achieved and the retrospective review of IT performance against these standards.
7.9 IT Capacity Management
This sub-discipline is about the competencies required for capacity management for IT services, systems and assets supporting an organisation.
Capacity management covers a range of activities that ensure that current and future business needs are met by IT resources in the most effective manner; that current performance of the IT systems and services and assets are optimised and that changes to IT capacity can be made in advance of the expected changes to business need.
Typical capacity management activities may include:
- Monitoring of throughput and performance
- Analysing measurement data and information
- Assessing the impact of new services on existing capacity
- Tuning the performance of existing capacity
- Future IT workload planning
- Assessment of influences on the demand for resources
- Planning the optimum time to introduce new capacity
Capacity management activities take place as part of the day-to-day management of IT services, systems and assets. They are also required during the development lifecycle of new and/or enhanced IT systems, services and assets.
7.10 Resource and Supplier Management
This sub-discipline is concerned with the competencies required to manage the supply and procurement of third party IT resources required to enable the efficient and effective provision of IT services, systems and assets supporting an organisation, in the right quantity, at the right time and at the right price. These goods and services include:
- Software systems, services, licences and assets
- Hardware systems, services licences and assets
- Networking systems, services licences and assets
- Consultancy services and external expertise
- Consumables required by IT systems, services and assets or the users of them
This sub-discipline is also concerned with the effective development and management of both relationships with suppliers and partners and associated contractual and service arrangements.
Last modified: 17 Mar 2009