By John Noctor, Associate and Lead Auditor Service Desk Institute
At the SDI we have just released a brand new 1-day workshop “Working with ITIL4 and SDI’s Service Desk Certification” So what’s this all about and how can it benefit me? -I hear you say! Well read on…..
With the release of ITIL 4 we have seen a renewed focus on delivering value to customers and understanding how the ITSM organisation can work together as a coherent, effective and efficient system to help realise this value. SDI’s Service Desk Certification (SDC) programme has always had this focus and now more than ever before, dovetails perfectly with the ideals and concepts put forward within the ITIL® framework.
Who’s it for?
This new workshop is designed for those organisations who are already on their ITIL journeys and are looking to understand how SDC will integrate, benefit and compliment this. Equally, it is designed for those organisations who are undertaking or have been through the SDC programme previously, and want to leverage it in line within a complimentary best practice framework.
It’s also fair to say that the workshop would be ideal for organisations just starting down a path of service improvement who want to understand how adopting ITIL guidance alongside SDC, will enable them to enhance their service provision and the experience they deliver to their customers.
What will I gain from the workshop?
As a taster, let’s briefly look at what the workshop will convey (without going into too much breadth of detail -it’s a blog after all); the alignment between SDC and ITIL 4. There is of course no one-to-one direct mapping of ITIL 4 to SDC, however they are clear enablers for each other and can be approached in unison for mutual benefit.
ITIL 4 has introduced the concepts in the following major areas:
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The Service Value System
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The Service Value Chain
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Service Value Streams
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The 4 Dimensions of Service Management
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Practices
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The 7 Guiding Principles
The SDC Programme assesses and audits you against 9 key areas:
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Leadership
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Policy and Strategy
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People Management
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Resources
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Process and Procedures
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Managing Employee Satisfaction
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Managing the Customer Experience
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Management Information and Performance Results
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Corporate and Social Responsibility
The purpose of the service value system is “to ensure that the organization continually co-creates value with all stakeholders through the use and management of products and services”. This is the key driver SDC auditors want you to be able to demonstrate, that the service desk and wider IT organization works as a coherent, collaborative unit primarily focused on the achievement of strategic objectives and the co-creation of value.
The service value chain is a “set of interconnected activities that an organization performs in order to deliver a valuable product or service to its consumers and to facilitate value realization”. All the SDC concept areas are interrelated and look to ensure your service desk and other resolver and customer facing teams do not work in isolation. We want you to show maturity as well as capability in how you take customer demand and (through a value focused chain) deliver value.
Linked to the Service Value Chain are Value Streams, these are a series of steps an organisation undertakes to create and deliver products and services to customers. SDC looks most closely at this within the Managing the Customer Experience and Processes and Procedures concept areas. We effectively align them to customer journeys as part of a formal customer experience program.
The 4 Dimensions of Service Management cover organisations and people, information and technology, partners and suppliers and value streams and processes. The SDC has a natural alignment to these 4 dimensions as SDC has a specific focus on leadership, culture, staff skills and satisfaction as well as the resources needed to deliver IT support. It looks at how partners are involved in service delivery and improvement and of course the maturity of processes (are they documented, owned, version controlled, communicated, followed and measured).
Practices are “sets of organizational resources designed for performing work or accomplishing an objective”, during SDC auditors focus heavily on your service desk and the policies and procedures it has for engagement with key stakeholders. It also seeks to understand how you are structured and whether your value chain can be enabled through effective and efficient working practices and teams.
The guiding principles are in some way the most powerful part of ITIL 4 as they form a set of recommendations that a support organisation can follow no matter what type they are, what level of maturity they are at or where a service is in its life-cycle. Every concept area of SDC has always tried to ascertain your ethos and culture for service management. The guiding principles will help to formalize your approach and make it easier to articulate how you ensure you are moving forward in the right direction.
In conclusion
Of course, prevalent throughout ITIL 4 is a commitment to continual improvement be it as part of the Service Value System, Service Value Chain or a Practice. SDC at it’s core is a continual improvement programme and that is why they complement each other so well.
The workshop will of course go into more detail on the above, but I hope this gives you a flavour of what it’s all about and why you will benefit from attending, no matter your current service maturity or stage of your development journey. As with all our workshops, it will be a fun and interactive day filled with practical advice and tips you can take away and apply to your own ITSM operation.
Come to the next ITIL 4 and SDC Workshop!
17th January, Bonhill House, London.
See Course info
Or contact us to find out about having the workshop delivered in-house at your premises on a date that suits your team:
In-house Training Enquiry
