ITIL v3 Foundation Certification Notes: Service Design [4]

[ITIL® v3 Foundation Notes]  People aspect of the Service Design phase of the ITIL® 4 Foundation Certification exam are covered here, including roles and responsibilities of process owner, process manager, process practitioner and service owner,  the RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) responsibility model and how staff can acquire the skills to work effectively.

Roles and Responsibilities in Service Management

• roles may be combined, shared or spilt according to organization needs but there is only one service owner and one process owner
• role is NOT identical to the title
  • may adopt the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) for describing job titles, roles and responsibilities
• one task may touch several processes, e.g. submit a change request for a capacity issue
• [definition] A role is a set of responsibilities, activities and authorities assigned to a person or team. A role is defined in a process or function.

Service Owner

• each service has a single service owner to accountable for delivering the service across all process areas in an effective and efficient manner
• accountable to customer and IT director / service management director
• Responsibilities:
  • represent the service
  • work with all IT groups and process owners to deliver, support and improve the service to the required standards according to business objectives
  • work with customers to understand the requirements, raise RFC and solve issues
  • monitoring and reporting
  • study impacts on the service by changes in other services / environments
  • maintain the service catalogue entry
  • ensure the process conforms to all policies
  • as a primary stakeholder in all the processes involved with the service

Process Owner

• accountable for a single process (for all affecting services)
• Responsibilities:
  • ensure the process works efficiently and effectively
  • develop the process strategy, policies and standards
  • design the process and improve its design, document the process
  • design the metrics to be collected and monitor for efficiency
  • ensure the availability of resources and capabilities to carry out the process
  • responsible for the consistency of the process application

Process Manager

• responsible for managing the actual implementation of the process
• Responsibilities:
  • liaise with process owner
  • manage staff available and suitability
  • work with other process managers
  • monitor the process metrics to suggest improvement (seek feedback from process practitioners)

Process Practitioner

• responsible for carrying out the process activity (can also be the process manager) under the guidance of the process manager
• Responsibilities:
  • understand and complete the process activities
  • work with process stakeholders to ensure correctness
  • produce records of the process activities
  • identify improvements

The RACI Model

• identify the responsibilities and accountabilities for each process task to avoid confusion
• The RACI model:
  • Responsible – people (at least one) who “get the job done” by actually carrying out the task
  • Accountable – one person (only one) who owns the task and ensures that the quality of the work meeting the requirements
  • Consulted – people (if any) who are consulted for their opinion / expertise over a process activity
  • Informed – people (if any)who are updated for the progress of the activity
• The process owner is accountable for the end-to-end process (including all activities)
• The RACI matrix
  

  	Person A	Person B	Person C	Person D
  Activity 1	AR	C	I	I
  Activity 2	A	R	C	C
  Activity 3	R	A	I
  Activity 4	A	R	C	I

  • Clarifying the level of involvement within the process
  • Helping to understand what should be included in the operation-level agreement
  • Clarifying the workflow and handoff points
• Points to note:
  • Ensuring that the process, roles, responsibilities and documentation are regularly reviewed and audited
  • Interfacing with line management, ensuring that the process receives the necessary staff resources. Line management and process owners have complementary tasks; they need to work together to ensure efficient and effective processes. Often it is the task of line management to ensure the required training of staff.

Competence and Training

• Staff need to understand their role and the importance and the relationship to other processes
• The ITIL® Qualifications scheme provides a roadmap for staff to understand and apply the ITIL® framework
• Education and training develop the capabilities of the people
• Training include:
  • knowledge of the business
  • customer service skills and people skills
  • knowledge for their roles and the organization policies and procedures
  • analytical skills

Conclusion: ITIL® v3 Foundation Service Design

This ITIL® v3 Foundation study note discusses the key roles in IT service management: service owner, process owner, process manager and process practitioner. The RACI matrix is also touched upon in which RACI stands for responsible, accountable, consulted and informed.

This post concludes Service Design in ITIL® that is required for the Foundation Exam. And we are moving on to Service Transition in the next part of this series of study notes.