Using ITIL Foundation Principals for Internal Business System Admin Functions
On my current assignment I had the opportunity to work with an internal system admin on some basic ITIL foundational training. Her focus was the support of a SaaS based application, including tasks such as, on and off boarding, system training, and ensuring the successful implementation of system releases. Since we relied on the vendor team to perform many of the five core texts within ITIL, we kept our primary focus on aspects of the lifecycle that were vital to her responsibilities.
In our day 1 training, I highlighted the general concepts, such as the benefits of using ITIL and why it has a high success factor. We continued that day focusing on the key components of a service. These components are (VOCR):
Value
Outcome
Costs
Risks
At this point, we began using our training worksheet to vet out the services we expected the vendor to provide and what services she provided to the other business functions. Once we felt we had a good starting point, our next step was considering what classification each of those services would fit into under ITIL. These classifications are:
Core Services
Enabling Services
Enhancing Services
This closed out the first training session, with the takeaway being further development of the defined services for future discussions.
Our next few sessions focused on developing the values that those services provided. I felt that this was key to the success of the training and wanted to ensure that plenty of time was devoted to it. This is something I’ve always expressed to team members, as a consultant and when I’ve led IT groups; we are by definition a service function within the organization and do not generate revenue. Therefore, the value added from these services is a key justification for our existence.
A bit of a digression, but this is the mindset that needs to go into everything we do, not only for services performed, but also system recommendations; we shouldn’t be doing things just because it’s a shining new technology.
With the goal of keeping these blogs short, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There were a lot more details developed within the training syllabus, including topics focusing on, continual service improvements, creating processes, functions and roles, the development of an ITIL defined RACI, and others.
If you’re interested in more details, let’s connect.