Document the IT Service Catalog

Because the service catalog won’t just write itself… Info-Tech’s Survey on IT service management found that 70% of organizations are in the process of developing a service catalog, already have one, or will be developing a service catalog this year. Get to service catalog objectives faster and with less pain by selecting appropriate elements to incorporate into your service catalog project Info-Tech will help you: Comprehend service catalog projects in different scenarios Get a clear understanding of how your service catalog project will look Start developing your service catalogs with tips designed to improve any service catalog project

Executive Summary To be effective, service catalogs must address a specific objective and audience; determining and committing to these objectives is key to the success of the service catalog project. Do not attempt to make the service catalog everything to everyone; limit efforts by addressing specific objectives in the service catalog Service catalog projects can be big and ugly and are supported by relatively expensive software for service – an ad hoc approach is not an option.

Understand Service Catalog Options Next Section in Brief Understand Service Catalog Options 1 Service catalog process vs. documentation Service catalog efforts The service catalog lifecycle Case studies Determine Your Scenario Document the Service Catalog Publish the Service Catalog

Service catalog is integral to the documentation of various key IT governance processes Distinguish between the process of determining, planning & strategizing service, and documenting the net result of those processes. Service Definitions Service Catalog ITSM process Determine your IT Service Strategy Service Name & Description Develop Service Level Agreements With the Business Service Level Standardize Service & Equipment Service Requisition Process Determine Workflows for IT Requisition Approval Workflows Determine IT Chargeback Service Cost

Examples of Service Catalog Efforts Don’t underestimate efforts - service catalog projects represent a significant time & cost investment A college with 17 IT staff spent one week on a simple service catalog. A law firm with 110 IT staff spent two months on a service catalog project. A municipal government with 300 IT people spent over seven months and has yet to complete their project. A financial organization with 2,000 IT people has spent seven months on service catalog automation alone! The whole project has taken multiple years. Examples of Service Catalog Efforts Service catalog building requires input from VIPs. It’s not just the architects and wordsmiths that spend effort on service catalog – input is required from everyone in IT leadership as well as leadership outside of IT. Service catalogs require maintenance. It’s not a one time investment – service catalogs must be kept up-to-date to be useful. Automation software is highly customized. Deployment of service catalog automation software is highly customized. Licensing fees barely touch the surface – large organizations can spend close to a year in implementation time. “ I would say the client with 2,000 users with an IT Department with a couple of hundred, then you're looking at six months before you have the catalog there. Service Catalog Implementation Specialist, Health Services ” Info-Tech Research Group

Reduce effort by limiting service catalog activities to those that align with service catalog project objectives No two service catalogs will look alike because of the diversity of utility that can be achieved through documentation of services. But leaders often get sidelined trying to achieve best practices that may not be appropriate for their objectives. A comprehensive service catalog requires a high degree of effort – organizations must limit effort to those activities that match the service catalog objective. “Short listing services” is the only item listed that is core to every service catalog “In hindsight, we spent a lot of time trying to think out, put it in words that non-IT people would understand; I think that was mostly a waste of time.” VP IT - Transportation N=34

The service catalog’s role changes depending on where it is used in the service management life-cycle Document which services should be offered. Use of a service catalog to document what IT does, and align it with what the business needs. 1 Service Strategy Service Design Service Delivery Service Improve-ment Document how the business services will be designed/sourced. Use of a service catalog to trace IT assets and service dependencies to business services. Document how service can be improved. The service catalog can be a repository for SLAs and the publication of service targets. IT Service Lifecycle 4 2 Document how service will be delivered to the business. Use of a service catalog as an interface for end users to access IT services. 3

ABC Transport’s Service Catalog was a strategic exercise in defining & costing IT services Service Design ABC Transport Inc. Drivers: In their own words Objective: Reassess the IT services to validate the existing chargeback model. Profile: A transportation industry IT organization supporting 1400 with 80 people in IT offering IT services to several corporate subsidiaries with a true chargeback model. What they did: Service catalog was designed to validate chargebacks, but was also used to document standards. Effort: Service Desk manager, and a BA worked with input from other process owners over the course of nine months on a part-time basis. “Really, it was driven more from charge back need. We had all these bizarre charge back systems in place, and it wasn’t really attached to a service. I realized I needed to go back and provide better definition on what the services were so then we could attach charge backs to a particular service.” Results: In their own words edited “I think the exercise was more important than the end result. It did provide a lot of clarifying discussions and understanding of what do we provide and who is the owner of that service, and how should it be charged back for us such that it’s done in a productive way.”

A glimpse at ABC Transport’s service catalog Service Design ABC Transport Inc. Although the service catalog itself was not as valuable as the process – its presentation is appropriate for a non-technical audience. Clicking on the hyperlinks presented to business users provides greater details. When collapsed, the services are presented in a very simple manner with minimum clutter. edited

ABC Transport’s Report Card Service Design What they did right Room for improvement ABC Transport spent significant effort building a user-facing service catalog. This was not part of the original scope. As the service catalog was never really intended for an end-user audience, the writing and publication were largely a wasted effort. ABC achieved their main objective – to justify their chargeback pricing. ABC also found that they were able to use this as an opportunity to standardize on equipment. edited Info-Tech Report Card B In the VP’s estimation, the service catalog is not at all used by end users. This would be considered a failure if it wasn’t for the fact that that was never the intended objective. As a whole, ABC achieved their goal, but lost points on execution.

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