Scoping for SCSM - ITIL

Before i go into ITIL portion of scoping for SCSM I would like to explain a little about why i have been off my board for a while.

I definitely mentioned before now how important it is to proper understand what the client wants (Project Scope) and what the product can offer, well i fell victim to this, i got myself into a little fix, I had started a project hoping (thinking) I had given the client all the necessary information needed to move to the next phase of the project, all the information was agreed to, before commencement but something was not properly highlighted and I only got to recognize this i did my homework but…

In my case the Clients Project Initiator was changed and i was stuck not with a hanging project, but a new personal might seem like bad news but wait till i get the part where i had to retell the Product scope to the client who decided that the company was not getting enough from the solution even after explaining we had all previously agreed to the scope of the project, well in the past couple of days i was trying to get that sorted and since the client is almost always right (though i disagree with that because most of them need to be guided in the right direction) i had to accommodate them with help from Travis Wright and Paresh Gupta they have been very helpful.

Scoping-ITIL
ITIL stands for 'Information Technology Infrastructure Library. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of concepts and practices for Information Technology Services Management (ITSM), Information Technology (IT) development and IT operations. ITIL is essentially a set of standards, or good practices, for IT service management.

The adoption of ITIL provides the opportunity for an organization to become more cost efficient and effective through the improvement of existing and the introduction of new process and disciplines. Most organizations are probably undertaking elements of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), but more often than not in isolation from other disciplines and often not across the whole of the IS or IT department.
Every Organization has to define the various processes that would work best for them ITIL and MOF provides generic defined steps which can be adopted and modified to suit any organization needs.
ITIL provides processes which have been approved as standard for any organization these standards can be used to optimize the organizations mode of work, ITIL comprises of a few processes and these are listed below:

• Configuration Management
• Service Desk Management
• Incident Management
• Problem Management.
• Change Management
• Release Management
• Service Level Management
• Availability Management
• Capacity Management
• Continuity Management
• Financial Management

For More information on these processes check out the link below

http://www.itilfoundations.com/processes/

But for SCSM we are going to be dealing with Just 3 basic processes, these processes are by default the processes considered out of the box even though we have Asset management add-in provided by Provance a company that has done a good work building an IT asset Lifescycle management solution for SCSM

Incident management:
An 'Incident' is any event which is not part of the standard operation of the service and which causes, or may cause, an interruption or a reduction of the quality of the service.
The objective of Incident Management is to restore normal operations as quickly as possible with the least possible impact on either the business or the user, at a cost-effective price.
This is what SCSM tries to achieve by making it easy for users to get the best and effective response from IT.

Problem management:
Problem Management aims to resolve the root causes of incidents and thus to minimize the adverse impact of incidents and problems on business that are caused by errors within the IT infrastructure, and to prevent recurrence of incidents related to these errors. A `problem' is an unknown underlying cause of one or more incidents, and a `known error' is a problem that is successfully diagnosed and for which either a work-around or a permanent resolution has been identified.

Change management:
Change Management aims to ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient handling of all changes,
A change is "an event that results in a new status of one or more configuration items (CIs) approved by management, cost effective, enhances business process changes (fixes) - with a minimum risk to IT infrastructure.
The main aims of Change Management include:

• Minimal disruption of services
• Reduction in back-out activities
• Economic utilization of resources involved in the change

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Infrastructure_Library
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/solutionaccelerators/dd320379.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb821261.aspx

Scoping for SCSM - MOF

Scoping as i said before is very important in any project not just in SCSM; every project starts with defining a scope.

This entails properly defining what the client wants (project Scope) and what the solution can do (Product Scope) and merging these two to meet the business needs of any organization, most times clients wants the solution to solve all their technology problems and all they can imagine, this is where consultant have the expertise to channel the client focus to the specific problems that such a solution can fix.
Now for SCSM i said that we need a good understanding of business processes that we would want automated or put in place within the organization, now for any ITSM system there are a few industry standards that are used here we would be considering just two of there
• ITIL
• MOF


MOF:
The IT Service Lifecycle
The IT service lifecycle describes the life of an IT service, from planning and optimizing the IT service to align with the business strategy, through the design and delivery of the IT service, to its ongoing operation and support. Underlying all of this is a foundation of IT governance, risk management, compliance, team organization, and change management.
The Lifecycle Phases
The IT service lifecycle is composed of three ongoing phases and one foundational layer that operates throughout all of the other phases. They are:
• The Plan Phase.
• The Deliver Phase.
• The Operate Phase.
• The Manage Layer.





MOF offers clear paths from framework-level best practices to the sort of detailed procedures required to implement or improve service delivery processes. While no framework offers a seamless, click-through approach, MOF offers succinct, question-based guidance that can improve your services, their fit with your business, and how you get work done. You can start from the bottom (or front line) of your organization and work up—small changes that create momentum—or from the top down, or from the middle out.



Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) 4.0, displaying service management functions (SMFs) and management reviews around the service management lifecycle.
 


More details on MOF can be found at

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc506049.aspx


Cheers

Scoping for SCSM

I had the privileged of drawing up the scope for client who wanted an IT service manager solution and decide to go the way of SCSM thanks to good product marketing.

The major issue you get to find when scoping for any project is that most client don't totally know what they want, yes i said it most client sincerely don't have a clue they are told that a solution can do A and the ask you if it can do B or why does it do A, for example i was with a client the other day who funny enough asked that i come explain why his company should adopt Virtualization while explaining how Virtualization works and the benefits of virtualizing and he is asking me how the Virtual machines would be accessed if they were in another machine and since nobody can physically locate them (the VMs) wont they fail an Audit and questions like that, well he took a lot of convincing, this is one of so many examples.

Back to scoping the major advantage any one who would want to scope for a SCSM would be to understand properly the IT service management processes adopting either the Microsoft operations Frame work or ITIL processes, understanding these would go a long way to help develop a scope, in the next blog we would be discussing the MOF and the ITIL processes that can be adopted and used in SCSM


you can also find details of ITIL and MOF here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ff776316.aspx

SCSM Overview

My name is Chibundu Kingsley and this is my Systems center Service manager (SCSM) blog in the days ahead i would be experimenting on SCSM and would be keeping every one of you posted on every single step i take but first a little introduction into SCSM

SCSM

Service Manager can help organizations to increase productivity, reduce costs, improve resolution times, and meet compliance standards. Its built-in processes are based on industry best practices such as those found in Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).

Included in Service Manager are the core process management packs for incident and problem resolution, change control, and configuration and knowledge management. In addition, Microsoft partner Provance will deliver a process management pack for IT asset management.

Through its configuration management database (CMDB) and process integration, Service Manager automatically connects knowledge and information from System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Manager, and Active Directory Domain Services.

Service Manager delivers multiple benefits in the following key areas:

· User-centric support it can improve user productivity and satisfaction while reducing support costs with its Self-Service Portal.

· Datacenter management efficiency. With its CMDB and management packs, it helps reduce downtime and improve the reliability of IT services running within your datacenter.

· Business alignment. It helps the organization align to business goals and adapt to new requirements through asset management, compliance and risk management, and automated reporting and analysis.

Service Manager provides built-in processes based on industry best practices for incident and problem resolution, change control, and asset lifecycle management. Through its configuration management database (CMDB) and process integration, Service Manager automatically connects knowledge and information from System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Manager, and Active Directory Domain Services.