Metrics for Service Management: Designing for ITIL (english version)

This title is the sister book to the global best-seller Metrics for Service Management. Taking the basics steps described there, this new title describes the context within the ITIL 2011 Lifecycle approach.
More than that it looks at the overall goal of metrics which is to achieve Value. The overall delivery of Business Value is driven by Corporate Strategy and Governance, from which Requirements are developed and Risks identified. These Requirements drive the design of Services, Processes and Metrics. Metrics are designed and metrics enable design as well as governing the delivery of value through the whole lifecycle.

The book shows the reader how do achieve this Value objective by covering the following:
- Introduction (this chapter), explaining the purpose and structure of this book
- Managing, metrics and perspectives: key principles of metrics
- Governance: the metrics required for effective governance
- Service Strategy: the metrics required for the first phase of the service lifecycle
- Service Design: the metrics required for the second phase of the service lifecycle
- Chapters exploring Service Design-related topics in more detail:
o Classifications of metrics
o Outsourcing and emerging technologies
o Cultural and technical considerations
o Tools and tool selection
- Service Transition: the metrics required for the third phase of the service lifecycle
- Chapter exploring Service Transition-related topic in more detail: Service Transition and management of change
- Service Operation: the metrics required for the fourth phase of the service lifecycle
- Continual Service Improvement: the metrics required for the final on-going phase of the service lifecycle

ENDORSEMENTS
"A useful tool that will help to better understand the metrics related to ITSM processes."
Stéphane Cortina, R&D Engineer, Centre de Recherche Public Henri TUDOR

‘What I especially like about this practical book is the focus on continual improvement - it doesn't try and tell you what the 'perfect' target situation should be, but rather encourages you to measure with the aim of making improvements against the current baseline’
Suzanne Galletly, EXIN

‘This publication provides a good, wholistic view of the metrics that are useful in a Service Management implementation. It goes beyond the standard operational metrics to provide a more robust approach and introduces some good process measurement to be used in CSI efforts.’
Phyllis Drucker, Independent Consultant and ex CEO itSMF USA Book Review by Susan Schellhase Despite implementation of seemingly efficient and effective processes or services, an organization can experience negative unexpected or unintended consequences due to poorly designed metrics. This book provides not only an introduction to the basics of metrics design but also an thorough list of metrics attributes as well as a template and metrics examples for each phase in the ITIL lifecycle. Two tips I found interesting and helpful relate to Context and the importance of the ITIL phases. • Metrics require perspective to be meaningful and minimize misinterpretation. For this reason, one key field in the template and examples is Context, to provide a way to document that perspective at the time the metric is designed. • Most organizations tend to focus on Operational metrics. However, the book stresses the importance of implementing well-designed service metrics early in the lifecycle, in the Service Strategy or Design processes. Doing so will allow an organization to assess whether a service is properly aligned with the business, well designed and effectively transitioned. Waiting until the Service Operation phase to measure can result in sub-optimal services and more limited opportunities for improvement. Book Review by Susan Schellhase Included are examples of Headline metrics, which can illustrate trends, and Component metrics, which contain the details needed to develop specific action plans for improvement. I was also happy to see reference to metrics in emerging technologies and trends, such as Outsourcing, Cloud computing, SOA and even green computing. The Outsourcing case study was especially interesting. It shows the power that metrics have in driving behavior, sometimes in the wrong direction. This book is intended for those with some familiarity with Service Management, ITIL and/or ISO/IEC 20000. The basics of metrics are well covered, so even those with limited experience in that area will benefit. Focus on metrics in other, complementary frameworks such as CoBiT, Six Sigma and CMMI, are briefly discussed as well. I read the electronic copy of this book for the purposes of this review. As a reference book, however, I would prefer a hard copy, as I tend to dog-ear, highlight and scribble in my professional reference books. I found the material in this book to be extremely helpful, practical and complete, and intend to apply it to the process metrics my company is now implementing. Review by Alexander Kist, May 2012 The very nature of Best Practice guidance is that people like Peter Brooks publish materials such as the book discussed here, into the Body of Knowledge. Allegedly by command of her (British) Majesty’s Government, through its agency OGC, the “registered trademark”-symbol (®) appears after the acronym “ITIL” everywhere. An editor or publisher may have even introduced it in this article. Regardless of what Her Majesty’s loyal servants may believe, ITIL as a Body of Knowledge is, by its nature, in the public domain. As Peter strongly recommends about his own book, one should use what is applicable, adapt what needs to be adapted and disregard what does not apply to the situation at hand. In this truly global market place of Open Source and Public Domain it is ridiculous to try and regulate the use of the acronym that identifies a Body of Knowledge. The quality of the materials that become part of the Body of Knowledge is properly safeguarded by the community. Knowledgeable professionals are perfectly capable to determine (and tell each other) what is good and what is not. On top of that, organizations like the itSMF for years have been endorsing publications abut ITSM that meet certain standards and have refused to do so with materials that don’t . Publishers like VHP and TSO have a reputation to protect and will not publish materials that do not meet their high standards. And then there are book reviews..... A long overdue complete (and up to date) Reference Guide on Metrics in ITSM. My first thought when I received my copy of Metrics for Service Management: Designing for ITIL was “I wish I’d had this earlier”. I could have saved so much time designing metrics and reporting if I’d had this book. As I am sure all ITSM consultants do, with each project that I have been involved in, I have expanded my “bag of tricks” with the better ideas and materials developed in the project. Thus, I have collected a lot of material over the years that is similar to what is in this book. But these things never get structured and indexed properly. And by the nature of collecting over time, it is loosely based on all subsequent versions of all the standards, frameworks, methods etc. With this book Peter has successfully made my entire section “Measurements and Metrics” redundant, along with most of “Reporting” and chunks of various other stuff! One should study this book, not read it cover-to-cover. More than anything else, it is a Reference Guide. It is sectioned “the ITILv3 way” in lifecycle phases and with that, it seems most useful in ITIL-based organizations. The text relies heavily on the readers’ understanding of the concepts “Goals”, “Critical Success Factors (CSFs)” and “Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)” and the relationships between them. It is advisable to carefully read pages 1 -10 (chapters 1 and 2) and take note of the TOC and the appendices. If you are designing Metrics from scratch, start off with the Service Design section and pay specific attention to chapter 6. The author recommends, for proper background, to read all the books in the bibliography. As that list contains (apart from his own earlier book on Metrics), most of ITILv3 2011, Cobit 5, MSP, MoR, BABOK, and more, I actually do not recommend that. I would say that you need to be a fairly seasoned ITSM professional, already possessing most of the knowledge contained in the bibliography, before you even attempt to introduce Metrics in an organization. Conclusion At the implicit request of the author, I have tried to find errors, omissions, faults. I didn’t. I did find several examples of things I would do differently and some that I would enjoy having a strong discussion about. Which makes it fit for purpose and an excellent tool to use in the (re)design phase of a Service Management System . If I have any criticism, it would be the order and relative importance of the sections. Rather than slavishly following ITIL in that respect, especially in a book that has “Designing for ITIL” as its subtitle, it would have been more logical to put more emphasis on “Service Design”. If you are an experienced consultant, manager or other professional in the IT Service Management realm, you are going to be exposed to (re)designing and/or evaluating Metrics. When that happens, get this book! "A useful tool that will help to better understand the metrics related to ITSM processes." Stéphane Cortina, R&D Engineer, Centre de Recherche Public Henri TUDOR ‘What I especially like about this practical book is the focus on continual improvement - it doesn't try and tell you what the 'perfect' target situation should be, but rather encourages you to measure with the aim of making improvements against the current baseline’ Suzanne Galletly, EXIN ‘This publication provides a good, holistic view of the metrics that are useful in a Service Management implementation. It goes beyond the standard operational metrics to provide a more robust approach and introduces some good process measurement to be used in CSI efforts.’ Phyllis Drucker, Independent Consultant and ex Operations Director itSMF USA ‘This book provides a comprehensive approach to answering the question of 'What Managers should measure' by identifying generic metrics for each stage of the Service Lifecycle. It will help organisations assure that Service Management processes are aligned to organisational goals’ David Hinley, Independent Consultant If you are an experienced consultant, manager or other professional in the IT Service Management realm, you are going to be exposed to (re)designing and/or evaluating Metrics. When that happens, get this book! Alexander Kist

Digital
Format	hardcopy
Language
Book Language	english
Publish_Year
Publish Year	2012

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