The planning and implementation of ITSM differ from digital transformation planning, as they focus more on the transformation of fundamental management elements. Traditional ITSM planning primarily emphasizes process planning. In the past, considering the poor outcomes or failures of ITSM implementations in many enterprises, they often overlooked judgement and planning for organizational culture and management practices. We recommend conducting a thorough judgement of the current state of processes, culture, and management practices during the planning phase and setting reasonable goals and plans accordingly. An effective ITSM platform should be capable of supporting all stages of this lifecycle. An effective ITSM platform should be capable of supporting all stages of this lifecycle.

01 First Stage: Assembling the Planning Team

The planning of IT service management cannot be completed by a single individual, while it requires the participation and collaboration of various stakeholders. The CIO should appoint a suitable person to be responsible for the planning activities. The responsible person should be a senior manager within the IT department with following characteristics: influence within the team, comprehensive understanding of both IT and the organization, strong relationships with other IT senior managers, and the ability to accomplish tasks.

Team members should include managers from the IT domains affected by ITSM planning, such as the service desk manager, application IT O&M manager, infrastructure manager, PMO representatives, and key representatives from business departments.

When forming the IT service management team, it is essential to fully understand and consider the different roles each member will play in the planning and implementation activities, as well as the potential benefits they may gain. These benefits will serve as the foundation for motivating their continued engagement and contribution in subsequent stages.

Examples of Benefits for Different Roles

The person in charge of the planning activity, together with the team members, shall complete the plan for the blueprint planning activity, clarify the purpose, goals, team members, stakeholders, current state, target state, timeline, and key indicators, and regularly report the progress of the plan to relevant parties.

02 Second Stage: Assess the Current State

Utilize maturity assessment tools to clarify the current stage of organization in the service management process.

To develop an IT service management blueprint that aligns with business strategy, it is essential to conduct an effective assessment of the current state, ensuring that the overall plan does not become an empty initiative. By investigating the operations of the IT organization, qualitative and quantitative analysis methods can be employed to comprehensively evaluate the current state of the IT organization. This assessment will serve as the basis for the organization to understand its existing IT state and make future decisions. ITIL service management best practices provide the foundational guidance for this implementation. ITIL service management best practices provide the foundational guidance for this implementation.

When conducting an IT service management assessment, it is necessary to consider multiple aspects of IT operations, including external environment, processes, staffing, technology application, tools, and user experience. Such a holistic evaluation provides critical insights for subsequent optimization and improvement efforts. Based on the findings and recommendations from the IT service assessment, decision-makers can formulate targeted strategies to better meet business needs.

Assess Constraints and Enablers

Constraints and enablers are triggers for behavior, directly influencing the organization's ability and approach to establishing service management. Effective service management methods are not rigid, they must be flexibly adapted and implemented according to the unique characteristics of each organization. At this stage, it is crucial to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the organization's resources, environment, emerging technologies, and management to identify factors that support service management and can drive the continuous advancement of the service management plan.

Definition of Vision, Mission Statement, and Values.

The vision describes the ultimate goal of the service management organization and the ideal state it aspires to achieve. The mission statement explains the reason and purpose of the IT service management organization, answering "why" the organization exists. Values clarify how the IT organization delivers services, representing the principles and code of conduct in their daily work.

Example of Vision, Mission, and Values for an IT Organization

In this case, the vision outlines the company's aspiration to become an industry leader. The mission articulates the core purpose of the company's existence: to provide IT services that support business operations for its clients. The values clarify the behavioral and cultural principles that should be upheld to achieve the vision and mission. By integrating these three elements, the company can clarify its strategic positioning, align employees' mindset, standardize behaviors, and thereby facilitate the smooth implementation of strategic objectives.

Assess Attitudes, Behaviors, and Culture

Attitudes:

From daily team interactions and their responses to change, colleagues, and user feedback, we can gain deep insights into each member's thoughts and feelings. The success of organizational change hinges on positive attitudes, including recognition and commitment. During transformation, it is crucial to identify and appropriately address attitudes that may trigger negative reactions, taking timely corrective measures.

Behaviors:

Member behavior is influenced by attitudes and culture. When implementing change within an IT team, it is necessary to drive behavioral shifts across the entire organization. People often resist change, whether actively or passively, and may oppose it in various ways unless managers can successfully help them understand and believe in the necessity, value, and tangible benefits of the change.

Culture:

Organizational culture refers to the generally accepted and understood ways of working within an organization, as well as the values and standards that are recognized and implicitly passed on to new employees. Culture is an intangible element, yet it exerts significant influence. It must be acknowledged and addressed to successfully drive organizational change.

Example Assessment of Attitudes, Behaviors, and Culture in an IT Organization

Assess Service Governance

Most organizations lack effective governance in service management, which often leads to failures and the loss of value in service management processes and activities. Effective service governance can help organizations achieve the following goals:

• Ensure that service management processes enhance business value.

• Focus on outcomes and impacts rather than merely adhering to procedures.

• Make macro-level judgments on the comprehensive impact of service management to ensure appropriate work prioritization.

• Promote internal focus on customer experience.

• Ensure the achievement of quality goals and address cross-process quality impacts and dependencies.

By establishing comprehensive service management governance, organizations can ensure that service management is effective, delivers expected value, achieves business objectives, enhances customer experience, and maintains service quality while enabling collaboration across different processes. Governance injects vitality into service management and drives continuous improvement.

Service Management Process Ownership

Process ownership plays a critical role in defining how a process should be implemented, maintained, and improved. It significantly influences the integration capabilities of service organizations and the extent of participation from other teams. Four common models exist, each suited to different organization structures.

The following is a brief introduction to several commonly used assessment approaches.

Decentralized Model

This model is particularly evident when an organization initially establishes service management practices. Different processes or practices are assigned to various groups, with each group responsible for the effectiveness of its assigned practice. While suitable for initial implementation, this model may struggle to break free from organization silos or cultural barriers, potentially leading to inefficiencies in cross-departmental collaboration.

Independent Model

In this model, a separate Service Management Office (SMO) is established. It is typically found in highly mature organizations and suits those organizations with well-defined IT and strategies. The SMO also supports integration with other enterprise practices, such as enterprise architecture management and PMO. In this case, service management accountability is embedded as part of enterprise responsibilities.

It is important to note that no single model is inherently superior to another. The choice should be based on the organization’s actual structure and the model that best aligns with its needs.

Assessing Process Maturity

Evaluate the maturity of processes and set the desired level required to meet business needs.

Assessment Tools

Currently, various assessment tools are available, which can be primarily categorized into three types based on management frameworks and practices:

• International Standards

Primarily based on management norms and standards developed by organizations such as ISO and related industry associations. Examples include ISO/IEC 20000, 38500, 27001, etc. These frameworks provide specific implementation criteria and evaluation rules, making it easier to produce standardized assessment results.

•  Industry Regulations and Compliance Standards

These mainly consist of regulatory requirements that have been issued and implemented across various industries, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).

• Methodology-based Approaches

These involve macro-level strategic analysis and evaluation based on management theories, such as ITIL and COBIT. Leveraging years of IT O&M experience, CanWay has also developed a unique service management process assessment tool to help organizations understand their current status.

ITIL 4 Assessment Model

The latest ITIL 4 maturity assessment model does not evaluate an organization’s implementation of ITIL practices. Regardless of whether an organization follows ITSM guidelines or any other methodology, the purpose of the ITIL 4 maturity assessment is to evaluate the overall service capability of the organization. As a collection of best practices, the ITIL 4 framework does not provide a SOP, or other rigid standards. Instead, it offers a method for managers to gain a macro-level understanding of the organization’s overall service management capabilities. Another key aspect of using the ITIL maturity model is to enhance the service team's continuous improvement efforts by identifying weak areas in service management and prioritizing improvement initiatives that can deliver the greatest benefits.

As one of the first Chinese organizations to cooperate with Axelos, CanWay provides ITIL 4 assessments for leading IT organizations.

SVS maturity levels in the ITIL 4 Maturity Model guide

Relevant Case

During a consulting engagement for an IT service organization, consultants assessed multiple ITIL practices and related processes, including how the team handled incidents, requests, and changes. The assessment revealed that these processes operated well, with extensive records and professional personnel. The organization also had a robust governance model and regularly optimized its services and products. However, the organization still struggled to attract new customers.

Further analysis found that the IT organization lacked guiding principles. Although employees at all levels across departments believed they understood the organization’s values and direction, these values often conflicted. The most prominent weakness of the organization was the lack of effective value streams, especially for onboarding new customers and managing the process from requirement collection to product development. Despite individual processes being sound, connectivity between processes was poor, and there was significant blame-shifting among teams. Therefore, understanding the root problems in service management requires more than just examining processes.

ISO 20000 Assessment Model

This is the first international standard for service management, released by the ISO in December 2005. The standard helps identify and manage key areas of IT services to ensure effective IT service management that meets customer and business needs. ISO 20000 includes five major process groups, that are Service Delivery Processes, Service Release Processes, Resolution Processes, Relationship Processes, and Control Processes. They encompass 13 service management processes, together with management responsibilities, documentation requirements, competency, awareness, and training, serve as reference standards for system certification.

Unlike ITIL assessment and planning, ISO 20000 assessment and planning have a clear purpose: once an IT service management organization's service level meets the requirements of the standard, it can obtain ISO 20000 certification and receive the system certification certificate. The following are the core process groups of ISO 20000:

During the implementation of ISO 20000 assessment, it is important to combine it with ITIL assessment methods. ITIL assessment focuses on improving practical performance, while ISO 20000 assessment emphasizes ensuring that the organization's IT service management level meets the requirements of the ISO standard.

Organizational Change Capability Assessment

Change capability assessment is a systematic process that helps organizations deeply understand the challenges and potential opportunities they may encounter during the implementation of IT service management (ITSM) changes. This process covers multiple dimensions, including service culture transformation, leadership support, internal organizational support, change skill management, change impact analysis, process documentation improvement, and key performance indicator (KPI) setting. Through a comprehensive assessment, organizations can develop a macro-level understanding of the factors related to the entire change process. Based on the results, they can formulate targeted solutions for challenges and strategies to seize opportunities.

03 Third Stage: Design the ITSM Implementation Roadmap

After conducting an in-depth assessment of the current state, the organization can begin designing its IT service management (ITSM) plan. This plan will be presented through a detailed roadmap, clearly outlining specific goals, implementation activities, responsible personnel, and key timelines. The following recommendations from CanWay provide guidance for this phase of activities, though enterprises can also adjust them based on their own goals and preferences.

The above analysis outlines the author's perspectives on ITSM implementation planning. We welcome further discussions with CanWay at any time.