ISO20000 Consulting

The ISO 20000 standard (formerly BS 15000) defines a minimum set of requirements against which an organisation can be assessed for effective IT Service Management processes. It is the world’s first standard specifically aimed at Service Management.

 It is aligned with the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®) best practice process guidelines and provides a level of quality for these processes and activities which can be audited. 

ISO 20000 is not an end in itself, but a means to achieving quality and improved customer service.

To achieve ISO 20000 certification will require management commitment and the availability of the right people on a continuing and consistent basis. Seeing your way through the documentation and the process may be somewhat daunting without external guidance from experienced consultants such as those at e-Quant. 

To enable organisations to achieve and maintain the ISO20000 standard e-Quant has developed a 5 stage Consultancy model:

Stage 1. ISO 20k Awareness and scoping definition. This short stage consists of an senior e-Quant consultant assisting you in defining and documenting the scope of your intended ISO20k certification. If required, at this time there will also be training for your key individuals in the ISO20k standard, and briefing sessions delivered to those who need a broad understanding of certification means and why it is taking place.

Stage 2. ISO20kAlignment assessment. During this stage e-Quant employ their alignment investigation framework to determine the current extent of alignment of your operational processes against the requirements of the ISO20k standard. Essentially this is a detailed ‘gap analysis’. The output of this stage being a ‘road-map’ to ensure alignment of your operational processes with the standard.

Stage 3. Process improvement. Here the e-Quant consultant(s) will guide your staff in the implementation of the required operational process improvements as identified in stage 2 above. It is important that your staff ‘own’ improvements (guided by e-Quant) because it is vital to ensure that the responsibility for process ownership (and on-going maintenance of the processes) stays within your organisation.

Stage 4. RCB and certification audit. This is the stage where you achieve certification. On your behalf, e-Quant will engage with the Registered Certification Body (RCB) and arrange for the certification audit to be completed.

Stage 5. On-going maintenance of certification. If required, e-Quant will undertake regular assessments of your operational processes to ensure continuing alignment against the ISO20K standard. These assessments can be used to ensure that all the criteria for the annual official surveillance audits are being met and that your certification is therefore safeguarded

Defining and implementing effective IT audit, governance and reporting frameworks through COBIT

The IT Governance Institute (ITGI ®) states that IT Governance is an integral part of enterprise and corporate governance. During 2004/2005 an unprecedented level of new compliance regulations came into force globally.

For example, one such piece of legislation is the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act 2002, which was introduced after a series of high profile corporate accounting scandals. This legislation has raised the profile and general awareness of the COBIT® (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology) framework, in particular through its application for identifying IT controls relevant to the section 404 of the Act and other recent legislation. COBIT is gaining in popularity as a worldwide standard for IT control definition, management and measurement. 

But COBIT is not just about legislation, it is a comprehensive model and framework for Managing IT Organisations. COBIT includes a model for assessing the maturity of the management of IT controls allowing organisations to grade themselves from "non-existent" (0) to "optimised" (5). COBIT provides a description of typical, unambiguous, activities and characteristics that would be seen at each level for every control objective.
 
The first step in the process towards making any organisational improvement is to understand the existing level of maturity using the above model. This is often achieved through some sort of an audit or review that can be time consuming and difficult, since it requires understanding what is to be achieved, who should be involved, when it is performed and how often the exercise is to be repeated. Care must be taken in the approach as elements of bias could be introduced with regards to the reasons for the audit and what it is hoped will be achieved from it. Instead, it is important to identify what would be most beneficial to the company from a strategic view.

Solution from e-Quant
Organisations often begin ad-hoc performance assessments and need to call in specialist external resources, to help identify process improvements when it is felt that something is ‘not running as efficiently as it could be’. These assessments often highlight a list of changes that need to be put into place, but obtaining buy-in from other department heads can often be difficult, especially if direct benefit to their departments is not made clear.

e-Quant has developed  a Maturity Assessment model that can be effectively and pragmatically applied across the corporate entity, or within a specific function (e.g. outsourcing) and optionally applied alongside a PRINCE 2 or ITIL® Maturity Assessment.

The e-Quant Maturity Assessment will identify where improvements can most effectively be targeted, and allows sharing of costs and benefits. By combining the assessment with work already planned, the impact on resources is minimised, while the benefits of existing planned work are maximised

ITIL® Maturity Assessments

e-Quant has a long history of working with ITIL®. Indeed e-Quant is widely regarded as one of the true ‘thought leaders’ in the development and use of ITIL® as a tool to drive forward IT Operational improvements.

Through our long experience of working with ITIL® e-Quant fully understand that a key requirements if to mould the framework to the needs of the individual organisation. The critical requirement is to Adopt and Adapt ITIL® to meet your requirements and to tailor the use of ITIL® to meet your needs.

One way in which to ensure that ITIL® is working correctly within your organisation, and is delivering the benefits required form it, is to undertake the e-Quant ITIL® maturity assessment. This assessment involves e-Quant, though a series of interviews with key personnel, operational observations, document (and record) reviews, determining the extent of your current alignment to your desired process maturity within the ITIL® framework.

Where the e-Quant assessment differs from those offered by consultancies (who may have less experience or knowledge of ITIL®) is that our assessment is not simply an assessment of your current processes against a generic ITIL® framework. Instead we evaluate against a weighted set of criteria that reflect YOUR desired use of the ITIL® framework. The end result being an assessment that can be used to drive operational benefits specific to your organisation and not just the implementation of generic ITIL® processes.

Developing a Service Catalogue

The development and maintenance of the IT Service Catalogue is one of the major challenges facing IT organisations today. The need for and advantages of the Service Catalogue are now well known and accepted in the majority of IT organisations. However the development and maintenance of the Service Catalogue is often not something that many organisations have the time and/or expertise to undertake.

To assist orgasnisation in the development of a meaningful Service Catalogue within a relatively short timeframe e-Quant has developed the following xx step methodology:

Step 1 – Define the purpose. This step first involves getting a clear agreement as to what the Service Catalogue will be used for in your organisation. This might seem obvious, but our experience has shown that no two organisations will have the same ‘drivers’ and need for a Service Catalogue. As the contents of the Service Catalogue are unique to your organisation so is the purpose and need. Getting this stage right is vital  because the purpose of the Service Catalogue will in fact dictate other features of the Catalogue such as how it is to be presented and also (very importantly) gives a good indication of how the IT Services themselves are identified and defined. This step will also determine whether we are required to develop only a Business Service Catalogue or a Technical Service Catalogue as well.

Step 2 – Identify the ‘variables’. Here we identify the two main variables for inclusion within the Business Service Catalogue – the customers and the IT Services. For the IT Services especially there is likely to be a high degree of iteration and re-definition undertaken as part of defining the IT Services. For the majority of Business Service Catalogue developed by e-Quant to date we have developed a hierarchy of IT Services within the customer orgasnisation.  We have found that by having a hierarchy of IT Services an organisation is more easily able to match the definition of an IT service to the customer perception of an IT Service. At the end of this step an initial Business Service Catalogue exists.

Step 3 – Identify the Service Attributes. This step involves identifying the core information relevant to each IT Service and including that within the Business Service Catalogue.

Step 4 – Develop the Technical Service Catalogue (if required). During this step e-Quant will ‘map’ the underpinning technology onto the IT Services being delivered (as defined in the Business Service Catalogue). The end result will be the production of a Technical Service Catalogue. For many customers this has been developed by e-Quant simply as part of a wider Business Service Catalogue – i.e. the underpinning technology has simply been classed as attributes of the IT Service being provided (the choice of whether to develop separate Technical Service Catalogue is dependent on the needs of your organisation).

Note: It should be noted that there is high degree of cyclical and iterative activity within both the sequence of steps and the steps themselves. 

Undertaking Service Excellence / Improvement initiatives (utilising a wide range of relevant frameworks and standards)

At e-Quant we realise that ITIL® is not an end in itself, but a tool to be used to bring about improvements. Not only this, but ITIL® is only one tool among many that can be used for this purpose. Because of this unlike some other IT Service Management Consultancies we do not ‘sell’ ITIL® as the solution, we simply employ ITIL® as one of the tools we use to deliver a solution. The primary solution being an improvement in IT Operational performance / Service Excellence.

Our first task in such assignments is to understand that improvements you want to achieve. Often you as the customer are able to tell us directly about your strengths, weakness, areas of concern etc. However in some cases we have found it extremely valuable to undertake a Quality of Service assessment. During this assessment e-Quant look to identify the things you do well (as an IT Service Provider) and areas that might require attention. We do so by formal and informal interviews, operational observations etc. During this assessment we talk to you (and your people), your suppliers, your customers, and any other parties that are involved in your service chain.

Once completed this provides you with a completely impartial analysis of what it is you do well (and why you do this well), and areas for concern. It is there areas for concern that become the targets for improvements.

Once we have identified the areas for improvement we set detailed targets performance target that reflect level of improvements required (e.g. reduction in the number of P1 outages from an existing figure of 4 per month to less than 2 every 3 months etc). In order to ensure that true benefits are achieved, experience has shown us that we need to establish where possible a number of ‘tension’ metrics for each improvement required.

When these improvements and their targets have been defined and agreed then e-Quant use the appropriate tools and techniques to bring about the benefits. The tools and techniques used by e-Quant will depend on a number of factors such as the type and nature of improvements required the timeframes, the culture and skills of your organisation etc. Typical tools and techniques used include ITIL®, ISO20000, COBIT, Six Sigma, EFQM, managing organisational change etc.

It is this use of ITIL® (and the other techniques) as a tool to achieve an end (not an end in itself) which marks e-Quant out as unique among IT Service Management Consultancies – we are interested in achieving IT Operational improvement not in simply implementing ITIL®

Designing, developing, implementing and improving ITIL® Process models

At e-Quant we have considerable experience and expertise in the design, development, implementation and on-going refinement (improvement) of IT Service Management (ITSM) processes for customers organisations.

This is achieved by closely working in close collaboration with your People, your Products (existing tools), you existing Processes and where relevant your Partners (or suppliers). Only by taking into account all of these facets are we able to ensure that the designed processes are fit for purpose that their adoption will be successful and the intended operational benefits are realised.

e-Quant utilises the ITIL® framework as part of its process delivery method and has found that when this is coupled with its experienced Service Management  professionals, results are very quickly realised.

This work can be done either as part of a formal service improvement project that delivers multiple process work-streams or individual process improvement initiatives.

Furthermore, from experience of working with multiple organisations to achieve this e-Quant recognises how important it is that your own staff are involved in these new processes and are able to customise ITIL® on an ongoing basis to fit their needs. Only by having your people involved are the processes likely to become effectively embedded within your organisation.

Service Quality Assessment for major UK based Insurance organisation

The customer was experiencing considerable service related problems in the provision of their in-house IT Operations. They wished to undertake a full investigation of the situation, and explore potential improvements.

The first stage was to undertake a complete Quality of Service operational audit to determine the true extent, nature and scale of the operational issues. This identified that the key areas for service improvement lay in the areas of Change (and Release Management).

A complete and integrated ITIL® Change and Release Management processes were then defined, agreed and implemented. This was accompanied by the implementation of an on-going quality assurance function, by developing and implementing roles and responsibilities of relevant process owners for Change & Release Management.

The end result of these activities was to reduce the number of Change related incidents impacting service by 85% within 3 months of the implementation.

ISO20000 Implementation for large UK Financial Institution

Having invested significant time and energy implementing an ITIL® based Service Management Model, this organisation wished to move forward and gain formal ISO20000 accreditation. This was an ‘end to end’ assignment for e-Quant, which involved:

Key Responsibilities & Deliverables for e-Quant included:

• Defining scope of ISO Certification
• Undertaking a complete ISO20000 ‘gap analysis’ to determine effort required to gain ISO20000 accreditation.
• Developing a detailed ‘road map’ for ISO20000 accreditation, which detailed the process developments required and the timescales for completion.
• Undertook management of implementation of process developments (with associated documentation) to enable ISO20000
• Undertaking subsequent maturity assessments to check progress
• Engaging RCB for formal certification audit
  
• Ensuring certification was achieved

Service Level Agreement Implementation for major Belgian based European Government agency

The customer wished to develop fully comprehensive and business focussed Service Level Agreements so that it could ensure that the quality, quantity and scope of services being provided was that truly required by the business.

To achieve this e-Quant undertook:

• The development on an ITIL® conformant Service Catalogue, detailing both the customers of the services, and the actual services themselves.
• Determining and documenting the service needs of the various internal customers within organisation, and ‘matching these to the capabilities of the IT Division to deliver service.
• Ensuring that IT was capable of measuring and delivering the required quality, quantity an scope of Services.
• Negotiating and developing the Service Level Agreements.
• Negotiating and developing the Operational Level Agreements and Contracts that underpinned the SLAs.
• Putting in place mechanisms to ensure the on-going review of the SLAs, OLAS and Contracts.

Development of ITIL® conformant Operational model in response to formal tender for global IT Service provider

The customer was responding to a major tender for the provision of outsourced IT Services, and a key requirement was to ensure that the Operational model proposed conformed to the ITIL® principles. They did not have internal resources available with the required in-depth knowledge of ITIL® to Develop and document the operational model, so e-Quant were engaged to deliver this key component of the tender response:

Key Responsibilities & Deliverables for e-Quant included:

• Co-ordinated development of complete service operational model to accompany proposal, which included ensuring that all ‘downstream’ suppliers were adhering to the same ‘end to end’ model.
• The operational model included detailed process and procedure documentation for all major service management processes (e.g. Incident, Problem, Change, Availability, Capacity etc).
• Ensured that proposed operational model clearly adhered to customer tender requirements and conformed to ITIL® principles.
• Provided detailed documentation on proposed operational processes.
• Delivered multiple presentations as part of tender evaluation process, and attended clarification workshops with customer as lead solution designer for customer.

ITIL® process maturity Assessment for UK Airport

e-Quant were engaged to undertake  a complete process maturity assessment in order to compare the maturity of the current operational processes with the ITIL® (v3) framework.

This was undertaken by a combination of formal audits, individual and group interviews and observations.

The result was an assessment showing the extent of current process alignment (using a CMMi maturity scale), and a detailed roadmap for increased alignment over a defined period of time.