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W H I T E PA P E R

Adapting Best Practicesfor IT Service Management

Table of Contents

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Business Depends on IT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

IT-dependency Creates Business Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

IT Service Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

The Process Imperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Adopting Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Adaptation–Key to Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Remedy’s Unique Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

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Executive SummaryOrganizations are dependent on IT in almost every segment of the economy—for everything from basic communications to enabling competitive differentiation in the market.However, business processes thatdepend on IT are only as reliable and sustainable as the underlying IT infrastructure. In order to betteralign business requirements with IT capabilities and deliver IT capabilities at an appropriate cost, IT leadersare shifting from an IT technology focus to an IT service model approach. To successfully adopt a serviceperspective, IT needs to organize and manage resources as a collection of processes or tasks that providea specified service level to the IT customer. Leveraging best practices is a strategy for quickly and effi-ciently implementing the IT processes that support a service model.However, the key to success isadapting those best practices to unique requirements.Remedy provides the IT Service Managementfamily of applications that deliver out-of-box best practice process and workflow,with the ability toadapt to both unique and changing requirements.

Business Depends on ITThree major factors differentiate an organization: its product or service offerings, its customers, and how it delivers to market.Together, these factors make up the organization’s unique value proposition.Eachorganization’s mission is to create and maintain the systems and processes to support its value proposition.

Business systems and processes operate under a combination of time, cost, and quality requirements thatmake it essential to utilize Information Technology (IT). IT reliability and flexibility are often the critical“make or break” issues behind business initiatives. Companies across a broad spectrum of the economyrely on IT to create competitive advantage and improve productivity,with business initiatives such as sup-plier and supply chain management, business and logistics systems, customer relationship management ande-Commerce. IT supports data-driven decision-making and synchronizes real-time activity between themanagers, operators, and users of the business systems and processes.

Without IT,business systems and processes are largely unable to acquire,move, and leverage sufficientreal-time information required in today’s business environment.

However, both business and technological complexity hamper efforts to broadly leverage IT.Challengesinclude rapid technology changes, disparate collections of IT assets, and a lack of mature integration stan-dards.Business executives and IT managers must manage these complexities in order to cost-effectivelydeploy IT in a way that supports business objectives.

IT-dependency Creates Business RiskBusiness processes that depend on IT are only as reliable and sustainable as the underlying IT infrastructure.Consequently, IT dependency introduces considerable risk as well as strategic advantage.

The risks associated with IT dependence include:■ IT is not aligned with the changing needs of the business.■ The cost of the supporting IT infrastructure exceeds the benefits achieved from the business process

or solution.■ IT failures have an increasingly significant impact on business processes.

Previously, IT managers focused on optimizing performance and minimizing infrastructure failures bymonitoring their underlying IT components to ensure that each performs at its maximum capability.Unfortunately, the focus on technology discounts the business user’s actual requirements.From the businesscustomer’s perspective, insular IT component performance and reliability, although important, is a small partof delivering IT value.The result is that IT managers begin to face the classic problem of not being able tosee the forest for the trees.

IT managers are increasingly faced with the challenge of aligning IT capabilities with business requirements,and delivering these capabilities at an acceptable cost.

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BusinessDepends

On IT

Without IT, businesses are unableto acquire, move, or leveragesufficient real-time information.

The focus on technology infra-structure can lead to the classicproblem of not being able to seethe forest for the trees.

Mis-Aligned IT

Risk

Quality

Cost > Benefit

IT Service ModelTo manage the risk of IT dependence, IT executives and organizations are evaluating all IT activities from a business perspective, and shifting from a reactive IT technology focus to an IT service model.The overallbenefits of this approach include improved customer satisfaction and reduced costs.

In many cases, IT organizations are structured around functional teams, such as a data center, applications,network,or support.These work groups typically perform the same narrowly defined tasks for targeted groupsof users across the organization. Each functional silo often measures performance and benefit from an isolatedcomponent level, and often fails to work effectively with other functional teams as an integrated system.

Two main problems exist with this approach:■ Functional silos tend to sub-optimize performance across the organization, instead of optimizing value as

an integrated system. Network, data center, and applications teams may all measure internally–focused per-formance metrics. However, if an accountant is unable to access the accounting application the last day ofthe quarter, then insular technology-focused metrics are irrelevant.

■ An organization with functional silos focuses on what each group does, rather than what’s needed to sup-port the business. If the focus is on “what IT does” rather than “what IT delivers,” customers are not able to determine the value of IT.The important questions are:Who are the internal business customers of IT?What services do they need? When do they need it? What are they willing to pay for it? What underlyingIT capabilities are required, and what are the associated costs for those capabilities?

As a result of these problems, IT organizations are shifting from a technology perspective to a businessperspective, and focusing the delivery and support of IT services on the most valued requirements oftheir customers.This focus means that there are no more technology projects, only business initiatives.

Many IT organizations are learning from external serviceproviders and adopting new service-centric organizationalmodels.A critical piece of the strategy is focusing on serv-ices delivered to customers, from the customer’s point ofview. A common way to manage customer-focused servicesis by using Service Level Agreements (see Sidebar).

A service model approach also helps standardize and simplifythe complexity of the IT organization,making IT a morelikely partner in business strategy. Customers will have ahigher level of confidence in the IT organization, leading toan increased willingness to rely on the IT organization toachieve business goals.Ultimately, the customers’ loyalty tothe IT organization is strengthened.This loyalty is especiallyvaluable if the IT organization is competing against externalservice providers.

Key Benefits of an IT Service Model:■ Better alignment of IT capabilities with business needs ■ Improved demand management by focusing on

service delivery ■ Enhanced IT planning by basing commitments

on user-agreements■ Improved customer satisfaction■ Better utilization of scarce resources

An IT service model is the mosteffective way to align IT with business requirements.

There are no more technology projects; only business initiatives.

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*Central Computer and Telecommunica-tions Agency. Best Practice for ServiceDelivery. Norwich. 2000.

Service Level Agreements Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are performancecontracts established between the IT organiza-tion and the business customer.

In ITIL terminology, a ‘Service Level Agreement’may be defined as:“A written agreement with a Customer(s) that documents agreed service levels delivered.”

The primary goal of the ITIL Service LevelManagement process is to ensure that servicelevel agreements are met and that any adverseimpact on service quality is kept to a minimum.

Systematically managing service levels includes:defining the service,negotiating appropriateservice levels with the customer,correlating theSLA to the underlying technical infrastructure,and monitoring real-time compliance for allservice delivery and service support processes.

The SLA becomes the foundation for managingIT resources and meeting customer require-ments. SLAs also provide a common languagefor Business and IT stakeholders,which is abreakthrough in managing value.

IT Service

The Process ImperativeOffering standard services and agreeing on service levels are proven ways to align IT with business, andfocus on customer value.However,delivering on promised service levels is the real challenge.

In order to successfully adopt a service perspective and meet the service levels specified in an SLA, IT needsto organize and manage resources as a collection of processes or tasks aimed at supporting the customer. Inother words, a process includes the steps taken to deliver a service.

If the goal is to consistently meet service levels, then the solution is to have well-defined and repeatable service delivery and service support processes.The primary vehicle for fulfilling service offerings is inte-grated process management.

To support services delivered, IT organizations can integrate repeatable processes within and between func-tional groups by organizing around these services.Resources are often organized by function. Integratedand automated processes can structure these resources to work together and focus on customer-orientedservices.Moreover,well-defined and managed IT processes become especially important when managingwork within and between functional teams and external service providers.

Adopting Best Practices Leveraging best practices is a strategy for quickly and efficiently implementing the IT processes that sup-port a service model.Although the tendency for smart enthusiastic IT professionals is to develop a uniquesolution for every problem,why re-invent the wheel? It is likely that someone has already come up withan efficient and cost-effective solution.

IT organizations are simultaneously being asked to improve IT services and reduce IT budgets.As a result,many have turned to refinements and efficiency improvements through benchmarking,best practices, andstandards analysis. In many cases, it’s faster and more cost effective to leverage a proven solution than todevelop one from scratch.

In a service and process-oriented IT environment, thismeans looking for demonstrated and proven IT service catalogs and supporting processes and workflows to adopt.By adopting a proven best practice, an IT organization canquickly achieve an expected level of competency, service,and process performance, cost-effectively and efficiently.

The IT Infrastructure Library, commonly referred to asITIL, is a great resource for IT professionals (see sidebar“ITIL and operations framework). It provides a frameworkof ten common Service Delivery and Service Supportprocesses recommended by a group of in-the-trenches IT professionals.

Although ITIL provides a common terminology and setof best-practice processes, these should be considered astarting point–not an end goal. ITIL, like all best practices,should be adopted and then adapted to unique or chang-ing requirements of the organization (see “Best practice asstarting point”).

If the customer only needs a standard service and service level,directly leveraging a best practice is the most effective way todeliver.However,if there are unique operational circumstancesor service delivery areas that require unique capabilities,thenadapting a best practice is the most effective approach.

It’s All About the ProcessView IT as series of interconnectedservice delivery and support process.

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IT Service

IT Process

Best-practice is a startingpoint–not an end goal.

ITIL – A best-practice frameworkIn order to help companies manage the growingdependence on IT,a framework called the ITInfrastructure Library (ITIL) was developed in theUK in the late 1980s.Since that time,ITIL hasbecome the de facto standard framework for ITService Management best practices.ITIL is exten-sively referenced and publicly available throughhundreds of websites and advisory organizationsin Europe and North America.

ITIL defines overall IT Service Management as ten“core”processes that separate into two majorfunctional groups – one for IT Service Delivery,andone for IT Service Support.

Companies worldwide are turning to ITIL for best-practice recommendations with commondefinitions and terminology.

IT Service Delivery- Capacity Management- Financial Management- Availability Management- Service Level Management- Continuity Management

IT Service Support- Service Desk- Incident Management- Problem Management- Change Management- Configuration Management- Release Management

Best Practice as Starting PointWhat do Tiger Wood’s swing and ITIL have in common? The question is no joke! Both Tiger Wood’s swing and ITILare best practices.Here’s the analogy.

When a beginner golfer picks up the clubs for the first time,does the instructor say “keep hitting the ball till you fig-ure out your swing?”No.They start with one of two common grips,basic stance,and straight left arm.All are bestpractices.In other words,they provide a way to do something based on what is commonly viewed as the best wayto do it.A best practice is simply a way of doing something,based on how others have successfully done it before,that helps you quickly achieve a level of competence.

Is the best practice the end goal? No.Best practice provides a baseline,a starting point,a way to quickly achieve results,that you can then build on and adapt to your unique needs.In golf,many players copy Tiger Wood’s swing to improvetheir game.But there is only one Tiger Woods! If you are shorter,less flexible,weaker,or less practiced than Tiger (asmost of us are),then you need to adaptTiger’s swing to your unique requirements.

The same goes with ITIL. ITIL is a set of best-practice guidelines that are based on how others have successfullymanaged IT and that help you quickly achieve an expected level of performance.Is ITIL the end goal? No.Based onyour unique and changing requirements,you should identify key areas of exceptional performance,and adapt ITILto meet your needs.

Not a beginner golfer you say? Already have IT service and support process in place? Best practices can still help.Usebest practices to go back and improve areas that work,but still need to be better.Look at how others have done it,and modify as needed to help achieve your goals given your unique circumstance.

Take away – Adapt ITIL best practices to improve IT service efficiency.Look for solutions that implement ITIL out-of-boxbut are easily adapted to your unique requirements.Leverage from the best,but don’t get stuck with a golf swing oran IT process that doesn’t quite fit your needs!

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DriverLong iron

Medium iron

Chip

Chip

Medium iron

Long iron

DriverInterlocking grip Overlapping grip Baseball grip

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Adaptation–Key to SuccessThe key to successfully leveraging best practices is adapting them to address both unique and changingrequirements within your environment.Adapting a best practice means taking what works and making it better.While best practices help achieve a base level of performance, adaptation of best practices enablesachievement of exceptional levels of performance. In an environment where IT services are deliveredthrough integrated and repeatable IT processes, adaptation provides the path to improved service levels.

Logically, best practices may seem inflexible. If you are leveraging how others have done something,then doing it exactly their way may seem critical to mirroring their success.However, every situation isdifferent. In fact, ITIL has become popular because it is not a rigid standard, but rather a flexible frame-work.As a result each implementation of ITIL is different!

The need for adaptability of best practices is driven by at least two types of requirements: Unique require-ments: Unique requirements that drive adaptation include industry regulations,desired strategic advantage,or the result of specific service levels requested by a customer.Unique requirements may also be drivenby organization structure. For example, a best practice for a regional company may not be effective for aglobal enterprise.

Changing requirements: Changing requirements that drive adaptation include a changing business environ-ment,a changing organization,or changing technology.A changing business environment often requires newIT capabilities and new IT service level agreements, which may impact existing best practices. Ongoingorganizational changes often result in IT departing from best practices, due to compromise or negotiationbetween different groups.Finally, changing technology drives incremental improvement to capabilities thatnecessitate new or modified best practices on an ongoing basis.

In an environment where IT services levels are met by integrating and automating IT processes withinand between functional teams, effective adaptation of best practices is enabled by process improvement.ITIL, along with other best-practice guidance, typically indicates a process or order of events that definespecified inputs and outputs at each process step.Applying process improvement methodologies can be usedto adapt best practices to unique and changing requirements.

One way to address changing requirements is to implement Continuous Process Improvement (CPI).CPI isa never-ending effort to discover and eliminate the main causes of problems through a series of small-stepsimprovements, rather than through the implementation of one huge improvement.

CPI is not fighting fires. It is simply a way of looking at how to do things better.With a continuous processimprovement approach, the goal is to learn what causes things to happen, and then use this knowledge toreduce variation, remove activities that have no value to the organization, and improve customer satisfaction.

Remedy’s Unique SolutionRemedy IT Service Management applications were the first ever certified as ITIL-compatible by Pink Elephant, the industry’s recognized leader for assessing ITILcompatibility.Certification means that Remedy IT Service Management includesITIL best practice workflows and enables ITIL definitions out-of-the-box.Remedydelivers built-in best-practice processes and workflow that can easily adapt to bothunique and changing requirements.By adapting to your way of doing business,Remedy applications protect your investment in the proven business processes youhave refined over the years.

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Adapt best practices to improve performance as needed for both unique andchanging requirements

Continuing to embrace ITIL as a way to help our customers implement best practices in ServiceManagement,Remedy’s ITSM suite has now achieved ITIL Service Support Enhanced PinkVerify™ Statusin all of the following processes:■ Incident Management■ Problem Management■ Configuration Management■ Change Management■ Service Level Management■ Availability Management

Achieving Enhanced PinkVerify Status signifies that Remedy’s ITSM suite exceeds ITIL compatibility in critical areas, enabling our customers to further benefit from the ITIL framework.This achievementfurther supports Remedy’s commitment to promote industry best practices that assist in aligning IT andbusiness strategies.

PinkVerify accreditation is an important guideline for customers who realize the significance in aligning ITwith business objectives.By adopting and implementing ITIL best practices, companies are better able todeliver optimal,value-based IT Service Management solutions.

Remedy IT Service ManagementRemedy IT Service Management is an integrated set of Web-enabled software applications that allowsyou to monitor and manage the IT processes and workflows that enable the IT service model. Thepackaged applications include:■ Remedy Help Desk ■ Remedy Service Level Agreements ■ Remedy Asset Management■ Remedy Change Management

Because the applications are highly modular, you can implement them either as an integrated suite orone at a time as your needs evolve and your budget allows. Each application can collect data for otherapplications—even before the other applications are installed.As you add applications, each one imme-diately takes advantage of the data you’ve already accumulated, ensuring that no valuable information islost and that you fully leverage your investment.

Remedy IT Service Management applications present key metrics graphically,dynamically, and in real timewith easy-to-read, color-coded graphs, charts, and meters.You can click on a problem area and drill downto any level of detail to investigate the factors that have contributed to current conditions.Your managersand support personnel can identify issues at a glance for faster resolution of incidents, proactive handlingof potential problems, and in-depth understanding of operations trends.

Remedy Help DeskDelivering an effective and efficient help desk can be challenging, especially in light of today’s highlycomplex and continually changing IT infrastructures.With Remedy Help Desk, you’ll have the foun-dation for an integrated, end-to-end approach to IT Service Management to meet this challenge. Basedon best practice methodologies, Remedy Help Desk automates support processes including the abilityto submit, monitor, and manage help desk cases, change requests, and asset inventory records and thentrack them through to final resolution.Throughout the process, Remedy Help Desk not only continu-ally updates the database to reflect up-to-the-minute status, it also indicates which business services areimpacted by a given incident or problem, letting you determine priorities intelligently, based on thebusiness importance of the issues.

Remedy Help Desk integrates with the leading network and systems management solutions, includingPATROL® by BMC Software, to bridge the gap between the business and technical management of networked IT systems and their components. In addition,Remedy Help Desk enables you to deliver

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end-to-end support services that span organizational boundaries yet are managed from a single point ofcontrol.With this end-to-end monitoring and high level of automation, geographically distributed helpdesks—even those in different companies—can be consolidated for maximum effectiveness and efficiency.

With Remedy Help Desk,you can improve the level and quality of support you deliver across the organiza-tion,and you can lower support costs at the same time.

Remedy Service Level AgreementsBecause your company’s success is integrally linked to the IT services you provide, any disruptions ordegradations in service can cause serious, even catastrophic,damage to the business.With Remedy ServiceLevel Agreements, you can avoid these service problems by establishing service standards and commitmentsin the form of service level agreements (SLAs).Using Remedy Service Level Agreements, you can handlethe entire range of SLA management processes, from defining SLAs and monitoring compliance to col-lecting and analyzing performance data, addressing problem areas, and continually refining the servicesoffered.Automatic milestones and alerts notify the appropriate people when service standards and commit-ments are at risk, escalating problems when necessary, to ensure that expectations are met or exceeded.

With Remedy Service Level Agreements, you can intelligently set and manage priorities to support yourorganization’s underlying business processes.As a result, you can keep IT service delivery closely alignedwith business requirements and proactively manage service delivery to continually improve service quality.

Remedy Asset ManagementTo successfully meet agreed-upon service levels,quickly adapt to business changes, and cost-effectively utilize your IT assets, you need comprehensive information about what assets you have,where they arelocated,how well they are working,how much they cost, and how reliably they are supporting your busi-ness. Remedy Asset Management achieves these goals by providing out-of-the-box functionality that helpsyou track and manage assets and their changing configurations and relationships at every stage of the lifecy-cle—from purchase request, to receiving dock, to installation and maintenance, to equipment retirement.Remedy Asset Management also helps you monitor and manage contracts and license compliance so youcan meet user needs without over-buying.By consolidating all asset-related cost information into a single,integrated view of your distributed computing environment,you’ll have a current and accurate picture ofyour costs to better align deployed assets with enterprise and business requirements.

Remedy Asset Management also provides one of the key components in performing ITIL-based config-uration management—the Configuration Management Database.This database gathers and maintainsinformation on Configuration Items and the relationships between them, including software, hardware,documentation, and processes.As such, you’ll have comprehensive and current data that provides clearvisibility into the infrastructure you’re supporting, resulting in increased organizational productivity,reduced costs, and higher return on asset investment.

Remedy Change ManagementIn addition to supporting your existing infrastructure and delivering the highest possible level of service,youmust also implement new technologies and upgrade existing systems to meet the continually changing needsof your business.Remedy Change Management enables you to assess the impact, risk, and resource require-ments associated with changes, and then use your assessment to create plans and automate approval functionsto implement those changes effectively and efficiently.The application includes sophisticated tools thatfacilitate scheduling and task assignment as well as performance review and change process improvement.Remedy Change Management eliminates unnecessary costs by synchronizing and automating change-relat-ed activities across the organization—increasing efficiency and eliminating wasted steps.Because businessmanagers can participate directly in the change process and prioritize changes based on business impact,they can ensure that the process remains closely aligned with business objectives.

With Remedy Change Management, you can meet your organization’s changing business needs whiledramatically reducing the risks and disruptions associated with IT changes.

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Powerful Integration The IT Service Management applications gather and share valuable information regarding the delivery of ITservices across the enterprise, including customer information, cost information,problem information, assetdata, service level data, and collective knowledge,which is all integrated through a single data repository—inITIL terms, the Configuration Management Database.The Configuration Management Database containsup-to-date information on all configuration items—software,hardware, documentation, and processes—andthe relationships between them. In addition, the database indicates which business services are impacted by agiven incident or problem.Tight integration maximizes the effectiveness of the applications and increases theopportunities for automation.Here are just a few examples:■ Remedy Help Desk technicians can access the information maintained by Remedy Asset Management

to facilitate incident handling and problem resolution.■ Remedy Change Management can utilize the configuration information provided by Remedy Asset

Management to help manage change more effectively and efficiently.■ Remedy Asset Management can automatically initiate installation requests in Remedy Change

Management when newly purchased equipment is received.■ Remedy Service Level Agreements can utilize the downtime information provided by Remedy Asset

Management and the service response time information gathered by Remedy Help Desk to compareactual performance to service level commitments.

In addition, Remedy also delivers critical integration functionality with strategic business systems, includingenterprise resource planning (ERP), network and systems management solutions, such as PATROL byBMC Software, and automated discovery tools.

Conclusion In order to better align IT capabilities with business requirements, and deliver IT capabilities at an appropriatecost, IT leaders are shifting from an IT technology focus to an IT service model approach. In order to suc-cessfully adopt this service perspective, IT needs to organize and manage resources as a collection of processesor tasks that provide a specified service level to the IT customer. Leveraging best practices is a strategy forquickly and efficiently implementing the IT processes that support a service model.However, adapting bestpractices is the key to successfully addressing both unique and changing requirements of the organization.Remedy delivers the IT Service Management family of applications that deliver out-of-box best practiceprocess and workflow, and that can easily be adapted to deliver maximum value to the business.

About RemedyRemedy delivers Service Management software solutions that enable organizations to automate and manageinternal and external service and support processes.With more than 7,000 customers worldwide and over 10 years of product development and investment,Remedy, a BMC Software company,delivers out-of-the-box, best-practice applications that help our customers align service and support with business objectives,improve service levels,manage assets, and lower costs.All Remedy applications, including Help Desk,AssetManagement,Change Management, Service Level Agreements, and Customer Support, are built on thehighly flexible Action Request System®, empowering customers to easily adapt their Service Managementsolution to unique and changing requirements.Remedy.Your Business,Your Way.™

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