If you think ITSM Governance is scary or is a monster you have to face – you are wrong! ITSM Governance is the capability an organization needs to establish so they can kill and stop feeding many scary monsters they are facing today (i.e. process, technical, people, partner or other challenges).
Governance has moved to the forefront of business and IT organizations over the past decade as it contributes to developing trust between the service organization and its stakeholders, users, and customers.
When establishing and embracing IT Service Management (ITSM) it is imperative to design and implement a comprehensive ITSM Governance framework together with all the processes, tooling and organizational capabilities required.
A definition I have used, as a starting point, to define what ITSM Governance is should always have the focus on being easy to understand, actionable and possible to implement.
Defining ITSM Governance: The organizational structures that need to be put in place, the roles that need to be assigned, definition of responsibilities and accountabilities for each role, the meetings and councils to be established to manage escalations and define thresholds in order to operate and govern IT Processes, Technology Platforms and IT Services within our IT organization.
This definition encompasses six key areas to be addressed:
- Establish organizational structures
- Identify and assign roles
- Make sure responsibilities & accountabilities are clear
- Set up Meetings & Councils to communicate and share information
- Manage escalations and define thresholds
- Define a clear scope (Processes, Technology & Services)
Lack of ITSM Governance is detrimental to an organization and creates different monsters. Often organization is not aware that they are feeding a monster but they sure feel that something is not right. They work hard, put in long hours, create plans, write documents and spend significant time and resources. However, there are still issues, outages, confusion, lack of funding, and no clear decision making or understanding of the direction – the monster is very much present!
To explore this topic further and to learn how to kill one specific monster using Strategic Process Roadmaps you can read a recently published article by Thorsten Manthey or attend his speaking session 804 at the itSMF FUSION17 conference in Orlando this week.
Trick or Treat and make sure you are not feeding your Governance monster!
Summary:
ITSM Governance
Defining ITSM Governance: The organizational structures that need to be put in place, the roles that need to be assigned, definition of responsibilities and accountabilities for each role, the meetings and councils to be established to manage escalations and define thresholds in order to operate and govern IT Processes, Technology Platforms and IT Services within our IT organization. This definition encompasses six key areas to be addressed: 1. Establish organizational structures 2. Identify and assign roles 3. Make sure responsibilities & accountabilities are clear 4. Set up Meetings & Councils to communicate and share information 5. Manage escalations and define thresholds 6 Define a clear scope (Processes, Technology & Services)”
