Strategic Service Management

A Service Establishment and Delivery Process Area at Maturity Level 3

Purpose

The purpose of Strategic Service Management (STSM) is to establish and maintain standard services in concert with strategic needs and plans.

In Other Words

STSM is about portfolio management or deciding what services you should be providing, making them standard, and letting people know about them.

Introductory Notes

The Strategic Service Management process area involves the following activities:

• Analyzing capabilities and needs for services that span multiple customers and agreements

• Establishing and maintaining standard services, service levels, and descriptions that reflect these capabilities and needs

Why Do the Practices in STSM?

Because you have standard services, developing new services is faster and cheaper. You can increase business capture and market share. You and your customers agree about what you have to offer.

These standard services are like templates for services you offer more than once. They may include things such as life-cycle options and suppliers you may use when offering that service. The new SP in PP, Establish the Project Strategy, is a practice that makes the standard service more particular for the agreement you are contemplating. You may tailor the lifecycle, and perhaps you need an additional supplier for this instance of the service.

SP 2.1 in SD, which calls for developing your service delivery approach, is used to make more tactical decisions (how to schedule the additional supplier staff, for example).

Strategic service management processes improve alignment between the set of services offered by a service provider organization and its strategic business objectives. If the organization is small or has a narrow focus, the standard services may consist of a single service or small related group of services. Larger organizations may have a more complex set of standard services.

Active analysis of customer and competitor data, market trends and opportunities, and organizational characteristics such as capabilities and strengths yield information that the organization uses to establish standard services. Standard services are one enabler of consistent service performance across the organization. The objective of this process area is not to manage individual services but to get the information needed to make effective strategic decisions about the set of standard services the organization maintains.

Standard services provide a basis for making the most of the service provider organization’s capabilities to meet its business objectives. Standard services may also improve service quality, business capture, and satisfaction of both customers and end users while reducing costs, errors, and time to develop and deliver services. Standard service levels are a key component of standard services. Service levels make expectations and responsibilities clear, specific, and measurable between the service organization and the customer.

In this process area, when customer needs are mentioned, end-user needs are also implied. The needs of the customer and end user may differ. Both are critical when collecting and analyzing data to develop standard services and understand strategic needs and plans.

Standard services are typically described in a service catalog that is oriented to the information needs of customers. In addition, standard service descriptions oriented to the needs of the service provider organization’s personnel may be maintained.

Attention to satisfaction with and use of current services allows the organization to adjust or correct some services and may contribute to planning for future services. The organization may also identify requirements for new service systems or changes to existing systems. These systems may support single or multiple customers.

The specific practices in this process area complement those in Organizational Process Definition, Organizational Process Focus, and Organizational Process Performance. In OPD, OPF, and OPP, the organization defines, improves, and quantitatively understands its standard processes. In contrast, the broader focus of STSM is on services rather than only on service system components that may be processes.

Standard Processes, Standard Services, and Service Levels

It’s easy to forget that services and processes are distinct things, and when that happens, it becomes easy to lump standard services together with standard processes. They are not equivalent. Remember that a service is a type of product, and it is the result of performing a process. Services are results, and processes are sets of activities. The service of being transported from one city to another at the time you have chosen is not the same as the complicated process required to deliver that service.

This distinction carries over into the terms standard process and standard service. Standard processes describe the common elements of processes used throughout an organization, and they are the central focus of several other process areas in the model (OPF, OPD, and OPP). Standard services are common sets of services that are requested by customers and delivered to end users. Once it has been tailored and implemented, a single standard process might be associated with multiple standard services (e.g., a standard training process that delivers distinct courses of instruction), or it might support a single standard service having one or more service levels.

Distinct service levels represent varying defined degrees of magnitude, degree, or quality for the same overall service, as well as possible additional subservices to be included in the overall service. The gold, silver, and bronze service levels for a typical travel rewards program are a familiar example of this type of distinction. The choice of what service levels to make available and how to define them should be determined by an analysis of the priority needs of major customers or customer groups versus the business needs and strategic direction of the service provider organization.

From another perspective, standard services and service levels may be delivered with or without the existence of standard processes (although the latter approach is likely to be riskier and more difficult). Therefore, no matter how you look at them, standard processes and standard services are truly separable and different. The Strategic Service Management process area focuses on defining your standard services and service levels in ways that make the most business sense.

Related Process Areas

Refer to the Incident Resolution and Prevention process area for more information about monitoring the status of incidents.

Refer to the Service Delivery process area for more information about delivering services.

SSD Add

Refer to the Service System Development process area for more information about developing and analyzing stakeholder requirements.

Refer to the Organizational Process Definition process area for more information about establishing standard processes.

Refer to the Project Monitoring and Control process area for more information about monitoring the project against the plan.

Refer to the Requirements Management process area for more information about developing an understanding with requirements providers on the meaning of the requirements.

Specific Goal and Practice Summary

SG 1 Establish Strategic Needs and Plans for Standard Services

SP 1.1 Gather and Analyze Relevant Data

SP 1.2 Establish Plans for Standard Services

SG 2 Establish Standard Services

SP 2.1 Establish Properties of Standard Services and Service Levels

SP 2.2 Establish Descriptions of Standard Services

Specific Practices by Goal

SG 1 Establish Strategic Needs and Plans for Standard Services

Strategic needs and plans for standard services are established and maintained.

“Strategic needs” are conditions or objectives in the organization, often driven by factors in the environment. An organization may need to increase revenue, profitability, or market share. Customers may need a different or new set of services or expect a change in an organization’s service offerings based on what competitors are providing or based on shifts in their own objectives. The organization considers the range of needs in light of its capabilities, makes decisions about which objectives to pursue, and reflects these needs and objectives in plans for standard services.

In many organizations, strategic planning information can be proprietary, sensitive, and subject to nondisclosure requirements or other controls. Anyone participating in developing plans for standard services should exercise care in complying with controls to protect sensitive strategic information.

SP 1.1 Gather and Analyze Relevant Data

Gather and analyze data about the strategic needs and capabilities of the organization.

The organization gathers and analyzes data that can help with planning the standard services that the organization will establish and maintain. The appropriate data may vary for different services, market segments, and organizational characteristics, such as size. The data will offer insights into both the organization’s capabilities and the needs of its market, including customers and end users.

Examples of sources and techniques for gathering and analyzing relevant data include the following:

• Business plans

• Market research

• Surveys

• Business intelligence

• Data from service reviews and account management

• Service use trends and patterns

• Customer complaints and compliments

• Service incident and request patterns

• Breaches of service levels

• Competitor data

• Trade studies

• Plans

• Strategic planning techniques, such as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT)

• Core competence analysis

• Scenario planning

Typical Work Products

1. Analyzed data on the organization’s capabilities

2. Analyzed data on strategic needs

3. Descriptions of the organization’s capabilities

4. Descriptions of strategic needs

Subpractices

1. Gather and analyze data on the organization’s capabilities.

2. Gather and analyze data on the organization’s strategic needs.

3. Describe the organization’s capabilities and strategic needs.

4. Communicate the descriptions to relevant stakeholders.

SP 1.2 Establish Plans for Standard Services

Establish and maintain plans for standard services.

Standard service planning translates information about the organization’s capabilities and strategic needs into decisions about standard services. Plans for standard services reflect actions needed to balance capabilities of the organization; strategic needs, including the needs of customers and end users; and the conditions of the competitive market.

Typical Work Products

1. Descriptions of strategic business objectives

2. Prospective service descriptions

3. Analysis of service system needs

4. Decision or approval packages for selected services

5. Plans for standard services

Subpractices

1. Confirm strategic business objectives.

Strategic business objectives for a service organization may be explicit and available. If they are not, the planners executing this activity document their understanding of the implicit goals as part of their planning. This understanding should be reviewed and approved by senior management.

2. Recommend requirements for standard services based on strategic business objectives, the organization’s capabilities, and strategic needs.

3. Identify needed actions on standard services.

Needed actions may include development of new standard services, revision or improvement of current standard services, or retirement of standard services. A known failure mode in managing services is inattention to managing the obsolescence of services. Standard services that no longer fit the needs of the organization’s customer or the current capabilities of the organization should be retired or altered so that they do fit. The organization should set priorities and decide on the phasing of actions as appropriate.

Refer to the Organizational Innovation and Deployment process area for more information about selecting improvements.

Refer to the Project Monitoring and Control process area for more information about managing corrective action to closure.

New or changed standard services may require new or changed service systems. These service systems may support single or multiple customers and single or multiple standard services.

4. Review and get agreement from relevant stakeholders on the standard services to be established and maintained.

Standard Service Plans, Project Strategies, and Service Delivery Approaches

In the Project Planning process area, the model states that a project strategy “provides the business framework for planning and managing the project.” What does this mean, and how does it differ from a service delivery approach (outlined in the Service Delivery process area) and a plan for standard services (outlined here in Strategic Service Management)? Isn’t there a lot of overlap?

The terminology can be confusing, but it is possible to sort out the differences. One way to understand these differences is to work from the top down. A plan for standard services spans the business needs of the entire organization and the full range of its current or desired future customers. It is organizationally strategic, with a long-term perspective that goes beyond any one project. The plan at this level outlines what new standard services or changes to existing standard services are needed over time (including retirement), how they should be prioritized, and what fundamental business objectives they should satisfy.

At the project level, the practice of establishing a project strategy tailors a standard service (if available) or outlines a service (if no appropriate standard one is available) to meet the needs of one or more anticipated service agreements. (Remember that a single project can encompass multiple service agreements with different customers.) The project strategy lays out overall constraints, service types, types of delivery approaches, types of resources, and types of risks to be handled by that project alone.

Before the project can actually be planned (which will then allow it to have specific resources allocated for service delivery processes at certain times), additional details must be developed, but these depend on the existence of actual service agreements. Once a service agreement has been established and service requirements are determined, an operational service delivery approach can be fleshed out in detail from the project strategy. This approach can vary significantly for different service agreements or may be consistent (with tailorable variations) for standard services. In either case, the service delivery approach provides enough additional operational detail to allow subsequent service project planning to be meaningful.

SG 2 Establish Standard Services

A set of standard services is established and maintained.

SP 2.1 Establish Properties of Standard Services and Service Levels

Establish and maintain properties of the organization’s set of standard services and service levels.

Multiple standard services and service levels may be required to address the needs of different customers, units of the organization, markets, or application domains. In addition to establishing standard services, services may be grouped into service lines when the size and complexity of the set of services warrant further organization. The organization develops standard processes to deliver standard services.

Refer to the Organizational Process Definition process area for more information about establishing standard processes.

Typical Work Products

1. Critical attributes of standard services

2. Organization’s set of standard service levels

3. Templates for service level agreements (SLAs)

4. Tailoring criteria

5. Common and variable parts of standard services

6. Grouping of services into service lines

Subpractices

1. Select standard services.

The selected standard services must adhere to organizational policies, standards, and models.

2. Specify the critical attributes of each service.

Examples of critical attributes include the following:

• Features and benefits

• Available service levels and categories

• Costs

• Current users

• Intended users

• Service components

• Service delivery system

• Related services

3. Determine common and variable parts of standard services.

Variable parts of a standard service may be assigned categories and parameters. Standard service levels may represent some of the degrees of variability in standard services.

Examples of allowable variations include the following:

• Pricing

• Subservice providers

• Criteria for using customer components

4. Organize services into service lines as needed.

This organization of services into service lines may include ensuring an appropriate integration among services.

5. Define service levels.

Defined service levels make the levels of service that are offered specific and measurable. Service levels may help to balance cost and demand for services and make roles and responsibilities between the service provider and user clear.

Determining service levels includes the following service requirements:

• The maximum acceptable continuous period of lost service

• The maximum acceptable period of degraded service

• Acceptable degraded service levels during the period of service recovery

• Redundancy requirements

Standard service levels may be reflected in standard SLAs or templates for SLAs.

Service level information includes the following:

• Provider and user responsibilities

• Availability of the service

• Agreed service hours and exceptions

• Anticipated service volume

• Response times for service incidents and requests

• Performance or quality targets

• Key measures to monitor

• Reporting and escalation procedures

• Consequences of failure to achieve a service level

• Variations available (e.g., “gold” service)

6. Establish tailoring criteria as appropriate.

The organization uses knowledge of variability in customer needs to develop tailoring options that limit risk and improve customer satisfaction and time to market while maintaining consistency across the organization.

The tailoring criteria and guidelines describe the following:

• How the organization’s set of standard services are used to guide the development of individual services

• Mandatory requirements that must be satisfied by the defined services

• Options that can be exercised and criteria for selecting among the options

• Procedures that must be followed in performing and documenting tailoring

Examples of tailoring criteria and procedures include the following:

• Criteria for selecting standard services from those approved by the organization

• Criteria for selecting service components from the organization’s set of standard services

• Procedures for tailoring the selected services and service components to accommodate specific needs

Examples of tailoring actions include the following:

• Modifying a service level

• Combining components of different services

• Modifying service components

• Replacing service components

• Reordering service components

Examples of reasons for tailoring include the following:

• Adapting the service for a new customer need or work environment

• Customizing the service for a specific use or class of similar uses

SP 2.2 Establish Descriptions of Standard Services

Establish and maintain descriptions of the organization’s defined standard services.

Establishing the properties of standard services is not sufficient. These properties must also be packaged into specific descriptions. In addition to a set of descriptions used by the service provider, a separate version is typically needed for customer use. A common failure mode with the use of standard services is that they are defined and described to meet the needs of some personnel in the service-provider organization but not described in a manner that is effective and appropriate for all intended users of standard services. For successful use, standard services must be appropriately described for the full range of intended users of the descriptions.

Typical Work Products

1. Descriptions of services

2. Service catalog or menu

3. Adjunct materials, such as instructions for delivery staff, sales force instructions, proposal and pricing information, and contracting information

Subpractices

1. Develop the descriptions of standard services for all relevant users.

Additional materials related to the standard services may also be developed if they do not already exist. These materials can include information for those developing specific services, service-delivery staff, or sales and other business staff.

2. Conduct peer reviews on the descriptions with relevant stakeholders.

Customer and end-user representatives may be included in these peer reviews to ensure that the descriptions meet their information needs

3. Revise the descriptions as necessary.

4. Store the descriptions in a location and medium where all intended users have access.

To be effective, standard service descriptions must be available and accessible in a consistent location that encourages use by the full range of intended users. The location may be a large, complex online site or a single sheet of paper, depending on the characteristics of the services and organization.

While the catalog or menu of services is often in an electronic format, many organizations also produce a paper version. Adjunct materials may be stored along with the descriptions, such as the tailoring guidelines or instructions for the delivery staff, sales force, proposal authors, and contract specialists. Variants of the service catalog or menu may be required for customers and staff of the service provider organization.

Examples of locations for a standard service repository include the following:

• Configuration management database

• Web pages

• Document portfolio or library

• Process asset library

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