1. The Power of the Core Service Catalog Michele Morrison and Brian Hosier EDUCAUSE – Wednesday, October 19, 2005 Copyright Michele Morrison 2005. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non- commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

2. Agenda Definitions How it all started Our support environment Getting up to speed and process to date What’s next? Keeping it current Lessons learned So what is the power of the Core Services Catalog?

3. Acronyms ITIL – IT Infrastructure Library SLM – Service Level Management SLT – Service Level Targets SLA – Service Level Agreement OLA – Operational Level Agreement UC – Underpinning contract

4. Definition Core Services Catalog Default SLA for an organization Defines base level services for all clients In most organizations it should cover 80% of your clients support requirements Part of an overall SLM strategy Starting point to define specific SLAs for clients with differing support requirements

5. Service Level Management Service Desk / Service catalog SL A StaffFacultyStudentsTenants PC NET LA B APP Clients IT Services OLA – Operational Level Agreement UC – Underpinning Contracts Vendors

6. How it all started A need for improved customer service by managing client expectations No clear definition of what we supported Client complaints about inconsistent service Some SLAs were being developed for departments with special needs SLAs needed for the rest of the Institute

7. BCIT’s IT support environment We support: –Students –Faculty –Admin staff –Tenants –BCIT community groups (e.g. Student Association, Unions, etc.) 2,000 employees 16,000 full-time and 32,000 part- time student registrations 5 major campuses 12 – 15 satellite campuses 80+ IT staff at two locations

8. BCIT’s IT support environment (cont.) 100 Servers (Novell, Windows, AIX, Linux, Solaris) 2,000 Staff PCs 300 Software Apps 2,400 Lab PCs 165 Computer Labs Increasing demand for 7 x 24 Support

9. Getting up to speed Help Desk Institute (HDI) training on Service Level Agreements (2002) ITIL Fundamentals (2002) and Practitioner training– Service Management (2004) PINK Conferences (Toronto 2002, Orlando 2003 and Vancouver 2005) – attended sessions on Service Catalogs (e.g. Justice Cluster of Ontario, ABN Amro Bank, etc.) HDI Conference (Vancouver 2003) We learned about industry best practices before we started – Don’t start cold!

10. What to include in in the Core Services Catalog Service name and description Service availability Identification of the clients/customers Metrics Business process supported by the service Customer role How to access the service Version numbers and creation/revision dates

11. Process to date Defined our services Divided the project into two phases Marketed the need for a core service catalog internally Involved team leaders to help define and write content Reviewed UCs Established a review cycle and editing process

12. Process to date (cont.) Developed an OLA for IT staff Conducted focus groups and updated content based on feedback Integrated service level targets into our Help Desk tool Published Phase I on the web and in hardcopy format Started work on Phase II

13. How we defined our services Phase I: Help Desk Network Infrastructure & Printing Enterprise Server & Centralized Data Storage Lab Desktop Appendices: –List of Supported Products –Current Computer Specifications –Service Request Estimates

14. How we defined our services (cont.) Phase II Messaging & Collaboration Application Hosting Web & Portal E-Learning Professional

15. What’s next Complete Phase II and publish (both web version and inserts for hardcopy binders) Establish role for Service Level Manager Identify groups with unique SLA requirements (based on business requirements) Define, negotiate, sign-off and publish SLAs Annual review and updates of Service Catalog and SLAs

16. Keeping it current Need to ensure that ongoing resources exist to keep the catalog and SLAs up to date Client community needs to have input into the catalog during updates Update schedule: –Core Service Catalog – annually –Appendices – quarterly –SLAs - annually

17. Revision Process Process for both annual and quarterly updates Updates go through change management process Updates are communicated to the Institute

18. Lessons learned It is all about building relationships You need to educate your contributors Writing is quick, getting everyone to agree on what was written can take weeks or months Get commitment and support from all IT managers Create IT department buy-in early

19. Lessons learned (cont.) Involve your clients and/or customers Services need to be measurable Include an index Communicate what you learned about what the IT department does within the department This is not an “off-the-side-of-the-desk” project Need the ability to translate technical jargon to client-friendly language

20. So what is the power of the Core Services Catalog? It becomes the starting point for an ongoing dialogue between the IT department and its clients It is a set of common language/definitions for the clients and within the IT department It clarifies what is supported and sets expectations for how the service will be delivered It becomes the starting point in the process to create SLAs

21. Resources BCIT- www.bcit.ca/cr/services/www.bcit.ca/cr/services/ HDI- www.thinkhdi.com/www.thinkhdi.com/ itSMF- www.itsmf.comwww.itsmf.com OGC (ITIL)- www.ogc.gov.ukwww.ogc.gov.uk PINK- www.pinkelephant.com/www.pinkelephant.com/ Examinations- www.exin-exams.com/www.exin-exams.com/

22. Questions? Feel free to look at our Core Services Catalog on our website: www.bcit.ca/cr/services/ Thank you! michele_morrison@bcit.ca brian_hosier@bcit.ca