Get Those Rules and Requirements, Part 2

The elicitation, documentation, verification and validation of business requirements is a set of processes that links the IT Service Management Lifecycle (ITSM) with other lifecycle approaches to such as Project Management (PMBOK), Business Analysis (BABOK), and System Development Lifecycle (SDLC). Each of these approaches seeks to identify and understand the business’s vital business functions, internal and external drivers and critical success factors with the goal of matching projects, products and services to defined business objectives.

An IT Service provider may well choose to begin an ITSM implementation with a business analysis to create a baseline “picture” of the business rules and requirements. This point in time understanding can help the IT Service provider to focus Continual Service Improvement (CSI) processes and activities on areas that support vital business functions. Completing a business, or enterprise, analysis also gives the IT Service provider a means of assessing their IT Service Management maturity. Self assessment begins with a good, hard look at where the IT Service provider is right now in terms of providing service value in the areas most important to the customer. A thorough assessment of strengths and weaknesses in the current service model will help the organization identify pain points and plan to address them first. This baseline is the “as is” portion of a common gap analysis.

Simply put, gap analysis consists of four parts: documenting the current state, describing the desired state, measuring the difference (gap), and coming up with a plan to close the gap. Gap analysis is a tool that can be used repeatedly to refine our understanding of a business challenge and clarify our response to each challenge. It is likely that an IT service provider will complete many gap analyses in the course of aligning IT services with changing business needs.

Requirements again take the spotlight when the Service Level Manager works with business customers to negotiate Service Level Agreements. Desired state is the “to be” portion of gap analysis. In this process, business rules are deconstructed into business requirements which are refined into functional and non-functional requirements. Functional and non-functional business requirements are expressed by the customer as service level requirements (SLR). Service Level Targets (SLT), supplied by the IT service organization, defines the current capabilities of the IT infrastructure. The Service Level Management process compares the requirements to the targets and negotiates the differences to create the several types of Service Level Agreements.

The Service Level Manager develops and maintains a relationship with business process owners that keeps the IT Service provider informed about changes to business requirements. Strong analysis and communication skills remain important when developing the service offering and establishing measures of success.

To summarize, Service Design and Continual Service Improvement come together to identify and understand the business requirements that IT Services strive to support. Clear, accurate, validated requirements can save time and money in the design of IT Services. The alignment of business and IT Service visions is both the goal and a key benefit of IT Service Management.

Rhane Thomas