Service Catalog - The tip of the iceberg
Some years back, when I was just getting introduced to ITIL (in its version 2 then), I read about the Service Catalog in the Chapter Service Level Management Process. The concept intrigued me - that just as any organization offering products would publish a catalog of its products, IT organizations should publish their catalog of their services to business.
In the last few years, I have come across Service Catalogs that were very well structured and meaningful to the organizations offering the services. I have myself assisted and guided IT organizations implement Service Catalogs. During the course of which I have discovered that Service Catalogs are like icebergs – only the catalog is the cynosure, while a whole gamut of questions lie (unanswered, many times) underneath:
Who are our customers?
Why do we need to publish our services?
What do we publish in our service catalogue?
Who should publish the catalog?
Who will read this catalogue?
….and many more
In my blog, I am going to share my views on all these questions and I invite readers to share their views as well.
What are our services?
Who are our customers?
Why do we need to publish our services?
What do we publish in our service catalogue?
Who should publish the catalog?
Who will read this catalogue?
….and many more
While these seem simple enough, one would be surprised at the variety of answers that a single IT organization can come up with, which often mirrors the complexities and confusion prevailing in IT services.
In my blog, I am going to share my views on all these questions and I invite readers to share their views as well.
Comments
The title of this blog is very apt. The Service Catalog is that element of Service Management environment which potrays a picture of the goal and purpose of existence of the IT set up. There have been huge variety in the type, category and depth of Service Catalogs used by different organizations.
I think Service Catalog is one of the most critical component which serves in connecting IT to its business. This connection has now been tried to make more stronger in ITIL v3 by introducing the concept of a Service Portfolio comprising of the Service Catalog and Service Pipeline. "Patterns of Business Activity" and Services Mapping to Business Outcomes are going to be extremely useful in helping IT understand business more clearly.
A well integrated Service Catalog with other components as Service Portfolio and Patterns of Business Activities are positive steps towards facilitating IT staff to speak the business language more fluently.
Posted by: Gautam Nadkarni | September 28, 2007 04:41 AM
A word/PDF service catalogue document seems insuffitient in actually serving the purpose.
How do we make a service catalogue really actionable and dyanamic?
Posted by: Roopa Nataraj | October 25, 2007 03:24 PM