What’s new with ISO/IEC 20000
Is there anything more exasperating than dealing with a service organization that has failed to implement even the most basic process and quality control tools? Not in my book. Those pesky critters who ate my broccoli and Brussels sprouts this summer are a distant second to IT service providers that fail to deliver uniformly high-quality services for a reasonable price.
The 1980s-style MIS (management information systems) is still with us, and no makeover will make it more attractive. What can you do?
Reengineer and reinvent, of course. But you don’t need to do it all by yourself. One of the simplest ways to reinvent your IT service organization is to use ISO 20000 as a foundation.
What is ISO?
Until recently, I used to think of ISO (International Organization for Standardization) as a producer of standards for large, multinational corporations, but I now see it in a different light. ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011, Information Technology – Service Management – Part 1: Service management system requirements is the international standard for IT service management, and it scales well even in the smallest organizations. At 26 pages, Part 1 is straightforward and manageable. If you work in a small organization with a limited budget, adoption of service management standards makes even more sense because it enables your organization to provide proven, cost-effective services in the context of your unique business model.
I recently spoke with Dr. Suzanne Van Hove, WG2 Convenor, Maintenance and Development of ISO/IEC 20000 – Information Technology – Service Management, within SC 40 (IT Service Management and IT Governance) under Joint Task Committee 1 (JTC1) and Chair of GIT1 (Governance of IT), the U.S. mirror group for SC 40. Suzanne took the role of WG2 Convenor at the beginning of June 2017, and as chair of GIT1, one of her responsibilities is to ensure that the United States participates across all four ISO workgroups. SC 40 currently has seven standards under revision or development across all four WGs.
Standards groups typically meet face to face twice a year to work on the standards with their global colleagues. The next meeting for SC40 is in November of 2017 and for WG2, four standards are currently under revision: Part 1 (Requirements); Part 2 (Guidance); Part 3 (Scoping); and Part 10 (Concepts and Terminology). These meetings are critical, as global consensus is the goal for all standards.
Suzanne received the itSMF USA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013 and she is also co-author of Pragmatic Application of Service Management with Mark Thomas. Suzanne and Mark both have excellent courses available on Lynda.com.
About ISO standards in general
According to Suzanne, standards are generally written and revised on a five-year cycle, and ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 is slightly overdue but is currently under revision and moving forward to a status of DIS (Draft International Standard). It will be reviewed at the next plenary meeting in 2018 and the forthcoming version will conform to Annex SL, “to provide a universal high-level structure, identical core text, and common terms and definitions for all management system standards (MSS),” so the new document will appear to be a radical change from the current version. Now, all MSS, which includes ISO/IEC 20000 (i.e., ISO 9001 Quality Management, ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management, ISO 14001 Environmental Management, ISO 50001 Energy Management, among others), have the same structure making it easier for organizations to comply with multiple MSSs if their business model demands it.
Mapping to other frameworks
ISO/IEC 20000 first appeared in 2005 and the current version was published in 2011. It presently contains 12 parts and additional parts are under development. 20000-1 is the standard itself, while 20000-2 provides practical guidance on application. One exciting component under development is 20000-13, which will contain guidance on the relationship between the standard and COBIT5®, and is anticipated to be published late in 2019. Part 11 maps the standard to ITIL® and Part 12 maps the standard to CMMI-SVC®.
Applicable to organizations of all sizes
Suzanne is also a member of JCT1 SC 7 WG 24, which looks at providing standards for the VSE (very small enterprise) and there are case studies of successful implementation in such organizations.
Suzanne and I didn’t confine our chat solely to the ISO, and we had the opportunity to talk about a few general industry challenges, as well.
The commoditization of IT
“Once IT becomes a commodity, we lose the idea of a service . . . If IT goes down that commodity route we’ve really lost the capability to exploit technology for the benefit of business achievements. Technology is the differentiator. If leadership doesn’t recognize it and let go of the traditional view of IT, they find their organizations not staying at the top of the food chain and losing ground.”
In this area, I think Suzanne is more optimistic than I about the future, because I believe we are already far down the road to commoditization. While I run across many amazing, high-quality service providers, the market for cheap, low-quality work seems to be pervasive.
Service management
“I have taught hundreds of foundation classes in my career, and I can count on two hands the number of people who came from the business side rather than IT. The service management principle doesn’t just rest in IT. It has to be pervasive across the organization.”
Silos and frameworks
Suzanne cleverly refers to organizational silos as cylinders of vertical excellence. Another related topic is the dependence on only one methodology or framework. “I think service management is slowly coming around to the understanding that the best use of these of any of these bodies of knowledge is to know more than one and be able to combine them.”
I hope to talk to Suzanne again in the future, as she is a fountain of wisdom about all things IT service management and I learned a great deal in a short time. One completely new framework I learned about was from the SFIA Foundation, but we’ll save that for another day.
© Copyright Jeffrey Morgan, 2017
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