At IT Services we aim to follow industry best practice and have aligned our internal processes to a framework called Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ITIL is a public framework that describes Best Practice in IT Service Management. It provides a framework for the governance of IT, the "service wrap", and focuses on the continual measurement and improvement of the quality of IT service delivered, from both a business and a customer perspective.
The framework consists of a set of processes of which we have incorporated the following:
An incident is an unplanned interruption to an IT service, or a reduction in the quality of an IT service. The purpose of Incident Management is to restore normal service as quickly as possible, and to minimise the adverse impact on business operations. Incidents are categorized to identify who should work on them and for trend analysis, and they are prioritised according to urgency and business impact.
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Further Information - ITS Wiki
A major incident is a type of incident. Though small in number they represent a significant challenge to IT Services, and require effectively “special definition and handling.”
Once the Service Desk have been called by a user (so ITS are aware that a major incident exists), a major incident board will be convened to manage the incident. They will commence a process that provides an elevated level of visibility and communications and leads on the resolution of the problem, all with the goal of minimising impact on the university.
The major incident board is comprised of a MI Coordination Manager, MI Technical Manager, MI Communication Manager - The IT Leadership team and deputies they specify are candidates for this board.
The term ‘Service Request’ is used as a generic description for many varying types of demands that are placed upon the IT Department by the users.Non Standard Request (NSR) forms are used to make requests that are not in the service catalogue and may be considered a project.
A problem is “the unknown cause of an incident or several incidents”. It is possible that we may discover a problem that is never reported by a user (by event monitoring for example.) Once the problem has been diagnosed and the root cause is understood, we can call it a known problem. The decision can then be taken to fix it by changing the impacted service in some way, to work around it or to live with the problem..
The objective of the Problem Management process is to minimise the adverse impact of incidents and problems on the business that are caused by errors within the Services provided by IT, and to prevent recurrence of incidents related to these errors.
Changes can be defined in many ways; within IT Services, a definition of a change is 'the addition, modification or removal of anything that could have an effect on IT services’. The purpose of the Change Management process is to control the lifecycle of all changes to be made with minimum disruption to IT services.
Supporting Documentation
Release and Deployment Management aims to plan, schedule and control the placing of a change into the live or production environment. Closely allied to the change process, it considers the implications of actually putting a change into use. The primary goal of Release Management and Deployment Management is to ensure that the integrity of the live environment is protected and that the correct components are released.
Service Level Management aims to negotiate Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with the customers and to design services in accordance with the agreed service level targets. Service Level Management is also responsible for ensuring that all Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) and Underpinning Contracts are appropriate, and to monitor and report on service levels.
The objective of Service Transition is to build and deploy IT services and to make sure that changes to services and processes are carried out in a coordinated way.
Service Transition includes not only Service Design (Determination of Service Level Requests), but also the production of service agreements, delivery of a new or changed service, planning, validation, testing and the early life support of the service.
Service Catalogue Management aims to ensure that a Service Catalogue is produced and maintained, containing accurate information on all operational services. At IT Services we have a Service Catalogue Officer who is responsible for ensuring that Service Catalogue changes are carried out, and quality checking the Service Catalogue entries to make sure they are accurate and up to date.
Check the ITS Service Catalogue.
Service Asset and Configuration Management aims to identify, control, record, report, audit and verify services and other configuration items (CIs). Ensuring the integrity of CIs by working with Change Management to ensure that only authorised components are used and only authorised changes are made and maintaining an accurate and complete Configuration Management System (CMS).
The purpose of the continual improvement is to align QMUL’s practices and services with changing business needs through the ongoing improvement of products, services, and practices, or any element involved in the management of products and services.
Shift left is about shortening the delivery lifecycle of IT Support Services. The primary objective of shift left is to bring IT services closer to users via lower touch & lower cost delivery channels.
The escalation process increases both user satisfaction and efficiency in resolving IT issues. With clearly defined escalation paths and streamlined communication channels, ITS can quickly identify and address issues, spot and monitor trends, and provide long-term improvements in IT performance - enhancing the user experience for all of our colleagues.
Further information: https://www.its.qmul.ac.uk/support/helpdesk/escalation/
Supplier management is the process of assessing supplier performance, defining and setting expectations for quality and delivery, and maintaining relationships. The goal is to ensure that suppliers meet or exceed expectations in terms of quality, delivery, and cost.