Welcome and Introductions

General introductions and logistical items.

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The elements of a service management system

A service management system has numerous components many of which are missing from common frameworks.  In this lesson a comprehensive overview is provided for the key elements based upon the Universal Service Management Body of Knowledge (USMBOK)

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The knowledge domains within a service organization

A 'knowledge domain' is the equivalent of a role or responsibility within a service organization.  The domains within a service organization span the customer facing and infrastructure management roles.  This lesson discusses the seven most common roles required by a service organization.

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The Knowledge Areas within Knowledge Domains

Knowledge Areas represent important skills and abilities required to perform a specific role (knowledge domain).  This lesson provides a brief overview of the forty or so knowledge areas for the roles described within the USMBOK.

Day One

There are five major workshops on this day, each averaging approximately 60-90 minutes, and based upon a common case study and role-play characters.  A set of proven templates is supplied to help complete each workshop.

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How to develop a business case for service management

One of the most significant challenges of any service management initiative is its justification.  Unless carefully specified and managed, a service management initiative can easily suffer from scope creep and deliverable starvation.  This lesson explains how to build a basic business case suitable for submission for financial and senior management review. 

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How to define a problem, its impact and relate it to organizational objectives

Benefits arise from addressing problems, with known impact to the service provider organization or customer communities.  Problem management is one of the least well understood disciplines, yet probably the most important to get right. This lesson explains how to state a problem, both in a real and hypothetical manner, and how to include impact statements that gain stakeholder attention and commitment.

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How to organize a Lean Thinking service management team

Lean Thinking is a way of approaching problems, operations in general, and the management of customer value and satisfaction.  Lean is a proven method of finding and eliminating waste in all service organization activities.  Lean Thinking is the basis for an ongoing, efficient and worthwhile continuous improvement program, the type of which should be at the core of every service management initiative.  This lesson explains the key principles of Lean Thinking and how to incorporate them into a service management team.

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How to capture and define customer needs as service requirements

Sooner or later the needs, wants and aspirations of the customers must be captured and documented to avoid a costly and risk-laden 'field of dreams' service management strategy ("build it and they will come").  This lesson explains the basic methods, including interview structure, required to capture and document the voice of the customer as service requirements, ready as input into a service level negotiation process.

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How to define an actionable service catalog (catalog, portal, request management)

The service catalog is the primary marketing tool of a service organization.  It describes in customer terms the services available, and even future service plans.  An 'actionable' catalog is one that has an integrated service portal, request procedure, and a fulfillment process based around shopping cart technologies and workflow.  This lesson explains how to build a service catalog that is both representative of the customer and actionable.

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Day Two

Similar to day one, day two consists of a series of workshops, each 60-90 minutes that explain how to design, develop and deploy a concept as an actual artifact.

How to conduct a business impact analysis (BIA)

A 'business impact analysis (BIA)' is a method used by business continuity managers to understand and define the vital mission activities of customer communities.  The information gathered is mission-critical to a service management initiative.  It cannot succeed without this information.  This lesson explains how to perform a BIA on behalf of the service management team.  The method is extremely useful in the development of service plans and service catalogs.

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How to define a service contract (service level agreement - SLA)

Also termed a service level agreement (SLA), a service contract is a legal contract with the buyer of a service.  It should specific exactly what the customer requested, and what all parties agreed to in the form of service (level) guarantees, especially as they relate to performance, availability, cost, support, and security (as a minimum).  The basic format and best practice techniques of building a service contract are demonstrated in this lesson, including its linkages to the service catalog, dictionary of terms, master legal language, and related internal and third-party contracts.

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How to define a service support system (service request and incident management)

This lesson explains the major activities of a service support system and its core process, the different type of service requests (including service incidents), and best practices for managing them as they relate to customer activities and service guarantees.

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How to define a service revision system (change management)

Services are subject to change.  There are four types of change, termed 'maintenance'.  All maintenance is subject to review and approval by the service owner and documented as part of the ongoing service plan as 'service revisions'.  This lesson discusses the service revision process as a whole and the four types of maintenance (changes).  It also discussses the best practices involved in the design of an effective change management process.

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How to define a configuration management data base (CMDB)

Many service management initiatives start with the ambitious goal of developing and deploying a configuration management data base (CMDB) to help improve their management and support of the service infrastructure.  These efforts are prone to risk, failure and great expense.  This lesson explains the fundamental strategies and best practices involved in the development of a CMDB and includes both a singular and federated approach, a taxonomy of relationship terms, and the major activities of a configuration management system spanning discovery, reconciliation, to retirement.

Justification

All education offered by Service Management 101 is guaranteed to provide a tangible return on the investment and the following information is provided to help you cost justify attendance using the "Justifying Attendance of Education Template".

Hours Saved by Reduced Effort or Rework of Project Activities

There are few proven templates for many of the artifacts critical to the success of a service initiative.  The GSM program is specifically designed to lessen the effort, risk, and delay involved in developing these artifacts.  The proven methods also avoid much of the effort associated with 'trial and error' styled attempts to build, deploy and then correct artifacts.  

This class is estimated to save 240 hours related to reduced effort and 60 hours due to rework, totaling 300 hours.

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Consulting Hours Avoided

The likelihood of commissioning consultative advice differs from one organization to another, so the following is an estimate of what this class should save in consulting hour, but may be subject to adjustment to better suit local circumstances.  This primary purpose of the GSM program is self-sufficiency and enablement, and a significant reduction in the for consulting services related to the artifacts discussed.

This class is estimated to save at least 80 hours of consulting time.

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Training Hours Avoided

Generally, the artifacts and methods addressed by a GSM class are 'how to' or 'practitioner' based.  If available, these type of classes tend to span 3-5 days and cost in the range of $2,000 to $5,000 USD.    To complete the comparison, it is important to check whether an available class actually provides a working template and method for the development of an artifact key to the successful operation of a practice area or role. It is also important to proportion the amount of time spent on that artifact from the total class time.

The GSM program provides accelerated assistance.  This class is estimated to avoid at least 75 hours of training time.

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Project Hours Avoided

The intricate relationship between artifacts means it is common for service management projects to commit resources to the development of artifacts that have no immediate, beneficial effect on the service operations.  Sometimes, that effort has to be reworked to allow integration of subsequent items, or is abandoned.  This is a significant saving offered by the GSM program.  In every case, the relationship between an artifact or item, and the elements of a successful service management framework are known, and codified in the Universal Service Management Body of Knowledge (USMBOK).

This class is estimated to save at least 200 hours of project hours avoided. 

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Other Benefit

Please feel free to use the Service Management 101 Support Service to discuss in specific detail how the education event can help you, or your organization, realize tangible benefit from applying the knowledge and methods gained, for an initial performance improvement.