IT Management: What ITSM is and the ServiceNow Platform
At a certain point in the development of a company, IT management may encounter a situation where solving incidents takes too much time, users are dissatisfied with the services provided, and the internal organization of work is a complete chaos. One of the solutions to these problems is the introduction of ITSM (Information Technology Service Management). As part of this post, which we decided to open our blog on Habré, we will talk about what ITSM is and consider some of the features of the ServiceNow platform.
Marco Verch / CC / Flickr
ITSM is a service approach to IT management, when the activities of an IT department are viewed as a list of services that it provides to other departments in accordance with the SLA. That is, the task of ITSM is to make the IT department become a full participant in the business and act as a service provider for the company's departments. In this case, it ceases to be an auxiliary element, responsible only for the operation of individual servers, networks and applications.
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A complete transition to a service base will allow IT departments of any company not only to turn from a costly unit into a profit center, but also to offer their IT services outside their own organization.
One of the main components of ITSM is the formalization of the processes of the IT department. For each process, the sequence of work execution, the necessary resources and time, automation and quality control tools are determined. When a process is defined, its performance can be measured, as well as the quality / cost ratio. At the same time, we note that the ITSM approach does not affect the details of technical process management, but is aimed at structuring the internal workings of the IT department.
ITSM implementation also includes the formalization of staff work regulations, the definition of areas of responsibility and authority of staff, performance criteria and the formation of mechanisms to control and monitor the status of processes, which helps to increase information security.
Today, according to a Gartner report, one of the most popular ITSM services on the market is the ServiceNow platform. IT Guild is an official partner of ServiceNow Ltd., the world leader among software service providers for managing support services, has been working with the ServiceNow platform for a long time, providing integration, administration and technical support. Therefore, we have learned from our own experience that ServiceNow is a flexible platform that provides great configuration options for client processes.
In recent years, ServiceNow has slightly changed the vector of development of its product, which now goes beyond IT. The service allows you to manage most business areas. The processes that a business uses for management are very similar to the processes taking place in the IT department. Only tasks change, but the architecture of inter-element relationships and the relationship between the performer and the consumer remain the same. The structure of the ServiceNow solution can be found in this video:
This allows you to apply the ITSM model for financial services, HR, human resources, marketing, as well as using a single platform to manage analytics, development, resources, projects and other business areas. And also for typical ITSM practices, for example, processing user requests. Next, we will look at several solutions that the ServiceNow SaaS platform allows.
GRC (Governance, Risc, Compliance) is a set of processes and products involved in defining and achieving business goals and at the same time reducing risks. GRC in ServiceNow is implemented in three applications that are fully integrated into the main platform.
The first application is called ServiceNow Risk Management and provides a centralized process for identifying, evaluating, responding and continuously monitoring corporate and IT risks that may adversely affect a business. The application has a graphical interface for creating profiles and dependencies for the purpose of comparison and risk modeling.
It also allows grouping risk reports into managed categories and storing all potential risks in a centralized repository, which makes it possible to view summary information and, on its basis, quickly identify problem areas.
The second application is Policy and Compliance Management, and it provides a centralized process for creating and managing policies, standards and internal control procedures. For example, the Compliance module contains overview information about matches, as well as lists of official documents and company links.
Official documents define policies, risks, controls, audits, and other processes. Each document is attached to a specific record, and the corresponding lists in the record contain the individual conditions of this document.
The third application of the GRC complex is Audit Management. It provides an opportunity to schedule audit assignments, monitor implementation and report to responsible persons. Interaction reporting ensures that the organization’s risk management and compliance strategy is effective. The audit process includes the creation, planning, scoping and performance of audit assignments, as well as reporting on results.
In this way. GRC in ServiceNow, as part of a powerful business automation platform, helps to solve a large number of important tasks by integrating with existing processes and using common data with basic management services.
The ServiceNow platform also includes flexible development applications. The ServiceNow Agile Development (SDLC) solution allows you to manage Scrum's agile development methods when working on software and its maintenance throughout the life cycle. Agile Development is a sequential process for a software development environment.
The platform provides an opportunity to hold daily meetings (Daily Scrum) with team members to discuss current projects, planned activities and challenges. There is also an opportunity to back up the product, which is a list of user stories arranged in order of importance. Product Backlog can be regularly reviewed and updated as new requirements appear and priorities are revised.
In addition to the backlog of the product, the solution provides the ability to work with the backlog of releases containing a list of stories that are necessary for the release of the current version of the application being developed. As a rule, the decision-making process is based on the time scale for releases, the degree of importance of the stories in the backlog of the product and their complexity.
IT Operations Management (ITOM) allows you to cope with the task of centralizing management and streamlining the resulting chaos in the IT departments of the company. ITOM focuses on managing the IT infrastructure that forms the basis for service delivery. ITOM software helps to automate processes related to the provision of infrastructure, capacity distribution, performance management and maintenance of all elements of the IT infrastructure.
The main objective of the implementation of ITOM is to achieve visibility and control over the various elements of the company's IT infrastructure with the aim of easy and flexible management. This allows us to provide services according to the SLA, to use the IT infrastructure most efficiently, to respond flexibly to external and internal needs, and to better provide maintenance and support.
ITOM also allows you to collect information from several sources, including all major elements of the IT infrastructure. This data can be analyzed and then provided in the form of reports on IT operations on parameters such as workload, performance, and user actions. This facilitates early detection of problems, their diagnosis and quick elimination.
The use of ITOM makes transparent the use of IT investments, allows to allocate IT resources flexibly, quickly identify and solve problems, and efficiently maintain the infrastructure.
And these are just a few of the features that the ServiceNow platform implements. In the list of services provided, you can find items such as financial management , configuration management , project portfolio management and others. We will tell about them in detail in our subsequent materials.
PS Materials on a topic from the IT Guild blog:
Marco Verch / CC / FlickrWhat is ITSM?
ITSM is a service approach to IT management, when the activities of an IT department are viewed as a list of services that it provides to other departments in accordance with the SLA. That is, the task of ITSM is to make the IT department become a full participant in the business and act as a service provider for the company's departments. In this case, it ceases to be an auxiliary element, responsible only for the operation of individual servers, networks and applications.
')
A complete transition to a service base will allow IT departments of any company not only to turn from a costly unit into a profit center, but also to offer their IT services outside their own organization.
One of the main components of ITSM is the formalization of the processes of the IT department. For each process, the sequence of work execution, the necessary resources and time, automation and quality control tools are determined. When a process is defined, its performance can be measured, as well as the quality / cost ratio. At the same time, we note that the ITSM approach does not affect the details of technical process management, but is aimed at structuring the internal workings of the IT department.
ITSM implementation also includes the formalization of staff work regulations, the definition of areas of responsibility and authority of staff, performance criteria and the formation of mechanisms to control and monitor the status of processes, which helps to increase information security.
Implementing ITSM - ServiceNow
Today, according to a Gartner report, one of the most popular ITSM services on the market is the ServiceNow platform. IT Guild is an official partner of ServiceNow Ltd., the world leader among software service providers for managing support services, has been working with the ServiceNow platform for a long time, providing integration, administration and technical support. Therefore, we have learned from our own experience that ServiceNow is a flexible platform that provides great configuration options for client processes.
In recent years, ServiceNow has slightly changed the vector of development of its product, which now goes beyond IT. The service allows you to manage most business areas. The processes that a business uses for management are very similar to the processes taking place in the IT department. Only tasks change, but the architecture of inter-element relationships and the relationship between the performer and the consumer remain the same. The structure of the ServiceNow solution can be found in this video:
This allows you to apply the ITSM model for financial services, HR, human resources, marketing, as well as using a single platform to manage analytics, development, resources, projects and other business areas. And also for typical ITSM practices, for example, processing user requests. Next, we will look at several solutions that the ServiceNow SaaS platform allows.
IT and risk management (GRC)
GRC (Governance, Risc, Compliance) is a set of processes and products involved in defining and achieving business goals and at the same time reducing risks. GRC in ServiceNow is implemented in three applications that are fully integrated into the main platform.
The first application is called ServiceNow Risk Management and provides a centralized process for identifying, evaluating, responding and continuously monitoring corporate and IT risks that may adversely affect a business. The application has a graphical interface for creating profiles and dependencies for the purpose of comparison and risk modeling.
It also allows grouping risk reports into managed categories and storing all potential risks in a centralized repository, which makes it possible to view summary information and, on its basis, quickly identify problem areas.
The second application is Policy and Compliance Management, and it provides a centralized process for creating and managing policies, standards and internal control procedures. For example, the Compliance module contains overview information about matches, as well as lists of official documents and company links.
Official documents define policies, risks, controls, audits, and other processes. Each document is attached to a specific record, and the corresponding lists in the record contain the individual conditions of this document.
The third application of the GRC complex is Audit Management. It provides an opportunity to schedule audit assignments, monitor implementation and report to responsible persons. Interaction reporting ensures that the organization’s risk management and compliance strategy is effective. The audit process includes the creation, planning, scoping and performance of audit assignments, as well as reporting on results.
In this way. GRC in ServiceNow, as part of a powerful business automation platform, helps to solve a large number of important tasks by integrating with existing processes and using common data with basic management services.
Software Development Management (Agile Development)
The ServiceNow platform also includes flexible development applications. The ServiceNow Agile Development (SDLC) solution allows you to manage Scrum's agile development methods when working on software and its maintenance throughout the life cycle. Agile Development is a sequential process for a software development environment.
The platform provides an opportunity to hold daily meetings (Daily Scrum) with team members to discuss current projects, planned activities and challenges. There is also an opportunity to back up the product, which is a list of user stories arranged in order of importance. Product Backlog can be regularly reviewed and updated as new requirements appear and priorities are revised.
In addition to the backlog of the product, the solution provides the ability to work with the backlog of releases containing a list of stories that are necessary for the release of the current version of the application being developed. As a rule, the decision-making process is based on the time scale for releases, the degree of importance of the stories in the backlog of the product and their complexity.
IT infrastructure management (IT Operations Management)
IT Operations Management (ITOM) allows you to cope with the task of centralizing management and streamlining the resulting chaos in the IT departments of the company. ITOM focuses on managing the IT infrastructure that forms the basis for service delivery. ITOM software helps to automate processes related to the provision of infrastructure, capacity distribution, performance management and maintenance of all elements of the IT infrastructure.
The main objective of the implementation of ITOM is to achieve visibility and control over the various elements of the company's IT infrastructure with the aim of easy and flexible management. This allows us to provide services according to the SLA, to use the IT infrastructure most efficiently, to respond flexibly to external and internal needs, and to better provide maintenance and support.
ITOM also allows you to collect information from several sources, including all major elements of the IT infrastructure. This data can be analyzed and then provided in the form of reports on IT operations on parameters such as workload, performance, and user actions. This facilitates early detection of problems, their diagnosis and quick elimination.
The use of ITOM makes transparent the use of IT investments, allows to allocate IT resources flexibly, quickly identify and solve problems, and efficiently maintain the infrastructure.
And these are just a few of the features that the ServiceNow platform implements. In the list of services provided, you can find items such as financial management , configuration management , project portfolio management and others. We will tell about them in detail in our subsequent materials.
PS Materials on a topic from the IT Guild blog:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/330928/
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