Service Catalog

What is a "Service Catalog" ? A "Service Catalog" is (ITIL Service Design) a database or structured document with information about all Live IT Services, including those available for Deployment. The Service Catalog is the only part of the ITIL Service Portfolio published to Customers, and is used to support the sale and delivery of IT Services. The Service Catalog includes information about deliverables, prices, contact points, ordering and request processes.

 
Implementing a Service Catalog to some organizations can be a difficult task, and many organizations struggle with the implementation of a Service Catalog. Many struggle because they are taking their IT and Business organization back to basics, and defining what it is that they deliver, and how it is that they deliver it. Starting at the beginning can make this an effort and process that is daunting and overwhelming to some. 

A quote from Todd Morris of the City of London was "The service catalog project was vital to our customers and our division.  It helped by formally listing our services, but more importantly, drive how we measure and improve the services we offer."

Some feedback from the City regarding their experiences are the following:

1. Engage an expert - We had a qualified consultant that had a large amount of experience with service catalog's and ITIL.  You may think you know what the steps are going to entail when building a service catalog, but unless you've gone through the experience you will fall into many of the possible pitfalls that await the inexperienced.

• Drilling endlessly into CI's.                                
• Business vs. Technical - Unless you are experienced, you and your staff will constantly be slamming doors on avenues of interest between the two.  We found living in the grey between the two allowed us to slowly build out our Technical service catalogue, while beginning on the foundations of the Business service catalog.
• Long drawn out projects - We decided on short 2 month projects that allowed us to engage staff, gather information, document it and discuss what we did well and tactics on how to improve in future phases.

2. Engage, document and approve cycle - Staff need to be engaged early on, to acclimatize themselves to the goals of the project.  Once everyone is on the same page, you can begin the work of gathering the data, documenting it and ensuring their managers approve of what's being captured.

3. Communication - Early on a communication strategy was put together, to ensure everyone, from our staff, to our managers and finally our CTO, were informed as to our progress and what was next and in turn required from all stakeholders moving forward.

Brian McNamee ITIL Consultant says the "top mistakes or misunderstandings of a Service Catalog are"...

4.    Assume your customer understands what you are talking about  - A common mistake with many Service Catalog initiatives is defining services in technology terms, with service levels based on the metrics that are easiest for IT to track. While IT tends to be organized around technical, skill-based or asset-based silos, business users think in business outcomes. So while IT's customers may be thinking about on-boarding new employees, IT is talking about their change management process.

5.    Build it and they will come - Most calatog projects stop when the document is published or posted to the corporate intranet. The document quickly becomes stale and non-relevant to your business users. 

6.    GoYour Own Way - Another pitfall why Service Catalogs are difficult to create is that, like other corporate service areas we are highly skilled people...in our discipline. Leveraging our internal relationships (e.g. Sales or Marketing) to help create a catalog, not only will save you time, it helps build stronger relationships with your customers.   

In closing, as always, there are many tools, technologies and people available to assist you in this endeavour. Please join us for an informative webinar on implementing a Service Catalog, during this webinar you will be highlighted on the following:

• Brian McNamee (Kifinti ITIL process expert) and FrontRange, talk about the benefits of a ServiceCatalog.
• The do's and don'ts for embarking on a Service Catalog initiative.
• How technologies like FrontRange's Service Catalog can help you implement a Service Catalog within your organization.

To register for the webinar click  HERE and to see an overview of the FrontRange Service Catalog Solution visit.

 http://www.kifinti.com/products/frs-service-catalog