One benefit of a healthy IT Service Management program is that it can help reinforce efforts to keep customers and their experience at the center of what we do.

Presentation

Services have their outward-facing presentation in the service catalog, listing what we provide the Cornell community to help people get their work done and achieve their goals. The services themselves are defined with a focus on "what delivers something of value to the customer." They're based on what customers need from IT, and so are represented or “packaged up” in a way that delivers a complete capability to the customer, from the customer's point of view.

How We Do Work

IT Service Management also guides our approach our work in a customer-focused direction. The time-to-respond and time-to-resolve for incidents are different from those for requests because customer expectations for the two situations are different. People expect faster action when something's broken than when they're asking for something new. The amount of time chosen also reflects real-world expectations. When the time-to-respond is exceeded for an incident, it's not unlikely the customer will wonder if something's gone wrong and either re-contact or give up and try to find a solution someplace else. 

What We Offer

IT Service Management also helps surface services that overlap or are otherwise redundant, are poorly defined or presented, or otherwise make it hard for customers to understand what's available and how to take advantage of it. 

Measuring Effectiveness

Finally, in an IT Service Management program where services are defined accurately, work is classified correctly, and change management practices are in place, reports can be examined for problem areas and aspects that can be improved. The clarity provided by well-defined services and accurate numbers around them reduces decision-making based on anecdotal accounts of problems. It also makes it much easier to understand problems' severity and what priority they deserve.

For more information about the role IT Service Management can play, see:

• Benefits of IT Service Management
• IT Service Management and Metrics
• Proactive vs. Reactive Service Management