ENABLING BUSINESS VALUE THROUGH EFFECTIVE SERVICE TRANSITION

Every day I see my support colleagues walk down into office with a worried and tainted smile. Ah I understand there is a P1 maybe 1 and then 2 and then 3 and couple of minutes later triggered another one, and there is no end to these P1.

Multiple applications in support and many P1’s limited bandwidths and support, business is contractually obliged to the customer, suppliers are obliged to business, and the chain reaction follows.

The Service is in the fire. The Service Delivery Managers are in fire fighting mode to restore operations as soon as possible.

All over and then now its the time for Root Cause. But there is no end to P1’s. It is expected that there will be disruption in any service but not quite often. Its the Reliability and Performance of the Service which matters.

To achieve objectives of business value through system stability and to improve customer experience, there should be an effective Service Transition supported by senior management. Service Transition should be free from bias and politically driven motivations.

Service Transition plays a vital role in the Business and helps the then to achieve their business goals.

Some of the Business Goals are:

• Service Stability
• Performance
• Reliability
• Value to Business by reducing the overall cost of ownership in the long run
• Align and adapt Business Objectives to IT

In some organisations, Service Transition is misinterpreted and does the necessary checks instead of focussing on the transition itself to operations. It leads to service instability and business dissatisfaction.

Service Transition has five major processes as per ITIL best practices standards. They are

• Transition Planning and Support
• Change Management
• Service Asset & Configuration Management
• Release & Deployment Management
• Service Validation & Testing

Each process is important in its way and its the responsibility of the process owners to ensure that it’s managed effectively.

All we need to know every process is working independently but dependent on each other for an effective transition.

For a New/Changed Service, a Service Transition Manager Plays an critical role to ensure that business gets value from effective transition.