Overview of ISO 20000: 2005 IT Service Management System

Today’s organizations are becoming increasingly dependent upon their IT infrastructure and the information that this provides and supplies. These organizations continue to require increasingly advanced facilities that meet the needs of the business. The ever more competitive and cost-focused nature of today’s business environment means that the quality and cost effectiveness of IT services (and their management) is recognized as fundamental to an organization’s success.

IT Service providers can struggle to maintain high levels of service to their customers, particularly with the increasing diversity of technologies available.

ISO 20000:2005 is an efficient framework to identify and manage the key processes involved in delivering effective IT services which meet the needs of the business and the customer. The standard is based on the best practice foundation of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). ISO 20000:2005 introduces a service culture and provides the methodologies to deliver services that meet defined business requirements and priorities in a manageable way. It also (i) Specifies a number of closely related service management processes (ii) Identifies that relationships exist between these processes, and these relationships will be dependent on their application within an organization (iii) Provides guideline objectives and controls to enable an organization to deliver managed services.

ISO 20000 provides the IT organization with a set of coherent service management processes and a quality management system to manage the full service life cycle of an IT service from the end-users perspective. This standard is now being adopted internationally and provides an assessment framework and specification for the adoption of an integrated approach to effectively deliver managed IT services to meet the business and customer requirements.

An integrated framework for delivering and managing IT services to the customer can provide control, greater effectiveness and opportunities for improvement within the organization. The ISO 20000:2005 standard covers different domains such as Service Delivery Processes and Control processes which include Release, Resolution, and Relationship Management. It also specifies distinct management requirements and the maintenance of Service Management Policies and Plans, Service Level Agreements, and relevant records.

ISO 20000:2005 represents such a framework:
• Scope of IT Service and Goal Setting – This phase finalizes the objectives of the IT department in line with the business objectives and client requirements.
• Data Acquisition and Assessment – In this phase all the information pertaining to the existing policies, procedures, and processes is gathered. It also includes reviewing all the collated information and identifying the gaps between the requirements and current scenario. All the processes, procedures and practices are assessed against ISO 20000 as per the scope of implementation.
• Plan and Process Design – In this phase, all the gaps found in the assessment phase are prioritized. In addition, the service management plan is developed in alignment with the business objectives and the gaps identified in the assessment phase. All the processes, procedures, and policies are articulated and measurement metrics are finalized
• Implementation : Service provision and management – The implementation plan is drawn for the client such that a prioritized set of activities and tasks are enumerated to ensure all the devised plans and processes function effectively as per the requirements of the standard/framework with minimal disruption to current IT related activities.
• Internal Audit – A check of the implementation is carried out to ensure the smooth functioning and incorporation of policies, plans and processes.

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