{"id":6548,"date":"2016-07-12T20:51:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T20:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multiacademstg.wpengine.com\/20000academy\/?p=6548"},"modified":"2025-04-04T09:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T09:19:07","slug":"does-iso-20000-guarantee-excellence-in-it-service-delivery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2016\/07\/12\/does-iso-20000-guarantee-excellence-in-it-service-delivery\/","title":{"rendered":"Does ISO 20000 guarantee excellence in IT service delivery?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s easy to talk to the people who are familiar with ISO standards, i.e., their purpose and pros &amp; cons of the implementation. But, let\u2019s be honest \u2013 such people are the minority. There are many more who know a bit about the standards and have their own opinions about them. I have seen realistic expectations (from implemented ISO standards), but I have seen many more unrealistic ones.<\/p>\n<p>The same goes for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-iso-20000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ISO 20000<\/a>\u00a0implementation. As a standard, it defines the Service Management System (SMS) end encompasses the whole lifecycle of a service. It sounds promising, but does that mean that, by implementing ISO 20000, an organization will excel in service delivery? Let\u2019s see.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Expecting the best<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>If you would have to answer the question set above, firstly \u2013 you will need to understand who the major stakeholders of your services are and what their expectations are. So, your major stakeholders are your customers and your management. There are two of them and they are cross-connected. Your management wants your customer to be satisfied with IT service delivery, and your customer will complain at your management if they are not satisfied.<br \/>\n<div id=\"middle-banner\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><script>loadMiddleBanner();<\/script><br \/>\n<div id=\"side-banner-trigger\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><br \/>\nIf you have ISO 20000 in place, it\u2019s logical that your customer and your management have some expectations from you. Let\u2019s see some examples of their perception of your SMS:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Incident resolution in \u201cno time\u201d with 100% success<\/strong> \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=resolution-and-fulfillment-processes&amp;doc=incident-record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Incidents<\/a>\u00a0are highly visible in your customers\u2019 eyes. According to the incident resolution efficiency, they will judge the efficiency of the SMS. Having \u201call those documents and processes in place\u201d must ensure that the SMS significantly contributes to the incident resolution efficiency.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Change without failure<\/strong> \u2013 Changes are one of the biggest sources of incidents. So, it\u2019s important to have them under control. Having an SMS in place guarantee change implementation without flaws, doesn\u2019t it?<\/li>\n<li><strong>No error in asset management<\/strong> \u2013 Many processes (and their efficiency) depend on information from your\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/documentation\/service-asset-and-configuration-management-sacm-process\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">asset management<\/a>, so it\u2019s logical that it must be state of the art. Since ISO 20000 requires Configuration Management process implementation, one would expect that issue to be \u2013 resolved.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cost efficiency<\/strong> \u2013 Don\u2019t forget costs. If you do, your management won\u2019t. But, luckily, ISO 20000 requires implementation of budgeting and accounting for services. That includes budgeting (planning of your costs), control and monitoring of spending, cost allocation, and relation to other processes like Configuration or Change Management (from a financial point of view). Sounds quite promising, doesn\u2019t it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What does it reality look like?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>So, these were the expectations. But, what does it look like in real life? Does an ISO 20000-based SMS guarantee that your team achieved a high level of efficiency, your costs are under control and funds are optimally used, and your customers are satisfied? Well, the reality looks different.<\/p>\n<p>What you will find in real life is the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are no situations where incidents are resolved immediately and without a single complaint on the resolution. And that\u2019s normal. You have limited resources and knowledge. There will always be issues you face for the first time.<\/li>\n<li>Changes without failure are just a nice wish. What happen is that, once you start implementation, there are always surprises. Sometimes you will react perfectly, but sometimes not.<\/li>\n<li>If you expect that your <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=service-portfolio-processes&amp;doc=configuration-management-database\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Configuration Management Database (CMDB)<\/a> will be always up to date \u2013 most probably, you haven\u2019t worked with a CMDB so far. Particular smaller changes are implemented in a rush, new ones are waiting in the queue, and it\u2019s easy to forget to document some changes on the assets.<\/li>\n<li>Cost control is easier said then done. That\u2019s a daily job, and you can\u2019t foresee all costs that will arise in the next year or two: changes will cost more than expected, user number will increase, etc. These factors have a high influence on the cost of IT services and the supporting team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What\u2019s the point, then?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Back to the question from the introduction. It may sound confusing, but it does pay to have an SMS in place. Namely, by implementing an SMS you give yourself the opportunity to be efficient and have your organization and processes managed. Sure, there is no guarantee that your SMS is perfect once you implement ISO 20000, but controlling the risks of having ad-hoc processes and a self-organized IT Service support team is worth the effort.<\/p>\n<p>Like in life, it\u2019s the same in IT Service Management \u2013 there is no magic wand that will make your work a fairytale. But that shouldn\u2019t bother you. ISO 20000 gives you an excellent foundation to excel in service delivery and make your customers and your management smile. And it\u2019s up to you what you make out of it \u2013 a success story, or\u2026<\/p>\n<p><em>To implement ISO 20000 easily and efficiently, use our<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ISO 20000 Documentation Toolkit<\/a> <em>that provides step-by-step guidance for full ISO 20000 compliance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s easy to talk to the people who are familiar with ISO standards, i.e., their purpose and pros &amp; cons of the implementation. But, let\u2019s be honest \u2013 such people are the minority. There are many more who know a bit about the standards and have their own opinions about them. I have seen realistic &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":17395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[351,533,357,366,212,369],"class_list":["post-6548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-change-management","tag-customers","tag-incident-management","tag-iso-20000","tag-management","tag-sms"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18226,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6548\/revisions\/18226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}