Service Transition Lifecycle
Purpose
- Ensure that new, modified or retired services meet the expectations of the business
Objective
- Plan and Manage changes efficiently and effectively
- Manage risk related to new, changed or retired services (There is always risk)
- Set performance expectations
- Ensure changes create their intended value
- Ensure knowledge transfer
Scope
- Managing the complexity of change
- Allowing for innovation while minimizing risk
- Introducing new services
- Providing a means to change existing services
- Retiring undeeded services
- Transferring Services to and from external service providers
Value
- Enables estimation of cost, timing, resource, requirements and risk
- Results in higher volumes of successful change
- Enables sharing of transition assets and encourages reuse
- Reduces delays from unexpected interactions
- Reduces effort spent on managing test and pilot environments
- Improves service expectations for all stakeholders
Processes
Service Transition processes covered by the ITIL Foundation
- Transition planning and support
- Service asset and configuration management
- Change Management
- Release and Deployment Management
- Knowledge Management
Processes not covered by ITIL Foundation
- Service validation and testing
- Change evaluation
Service Transition Processes
Service Transition Process 1: Transition Planning and Support
Purpose
- Provide overall planning for service transitions
- Coordinate the resources that service transitions require
Objectives
- Plan and coordinate transition resources
- Establish new or changed services into supported environments
- Establish new tools and technology
- Ensure adoption of reusable processes
- Provide clear and comprehensive plans
- Identify, manage, and control risk
- Monitor and improve the performance of service transition practices
Scope
- Maintain policies and standards for service transition
- Guide each major change through service transition processes
- Coordinate multiple transitions
- Prioritize conflicting requirements
- Ensure service transition is coordinated with program and project management
Service Transition Process 2: Service Asset and configuration management
Purpose
- Ensure assets required to deliver services are properly controlled
- Ensure accurate and reliable information about service assts exists and is available when and where it is needed
- Understand the relationship between service assts
Objectives
- Ensure that assets are identified, controlled and managed
- Identify, control, record, report and audit configuration items
- Account for and protect the integrity of configuration items
- Ensure the integrity of configurations required to control services
- Maintain accurate configuration information
- Support other service management processes
Scope
- Manages the complete lifecycle of configuration items
- Identifies, baselines, and maintains all configuration items
- Interfaces with other service management processes
- Interfaces with external service providers.
Basic Concepts
- Configuration Items (Cis)
- Any service asset or component that needs to be managed in order to deliver a service
- Under the control of change management
- Examples
- Service lifecycle CI’s
- Service Cis
- Organization Cis
- Intern/External/Interface Cis
- Benefits of grouping items into a single CI must outweigh the effort to maintain it. Example: Desktop that includes laptop, monitor, keyboard etc.
- Configuration Management System
- The CMS is part of the SKMS
- Configuration records are stored in CMDBs in the CMS
- Some Cis (SLAs and Release Plans) are stored in the SKMIS
- Other Cis (users and servers) are usually outside of the SKMIS
- Definitive Media Library
- Secure storage space for all media configuration items
- Copies of perchased software, copies or software that was developed onsite
- License information
- Master copies of controlled documentation
- Is part of the SKMIS
Service Transition Process 4: Change Management
Purpose
- Control the lifecycle of all change
- Enable beneficial changes
- Minimize the discruption associated with changes
Objectives
- Respond to changing business requirements
- Maximize value while reducing disruption
- Respond to business and IT requests for change
- Ensure that changes are recorded and evaluated
- Ensure that authorized changes are prioritized, planned, tested, implemented, documented, and reviewed in a controlled manner
- Ensure that all changes are recorded in the CMS
- Optimize overall business risk
Scope
- Service solutions for new or changed services
- Management information systems and tools
- The service portfolio
- Technology and management architectures
- Service management processes
- Measurement systems, methods and metrics
- Out of Scope
- Organizationally defined
- Changes to business operations and policies
- Some operational level changes
Basic Concepts
- Change Proposal
- Change
- Types of Change
- Standard: pre-authorized accepted procedure that are low risk and relatively common)
- Normal: Non-emergency and not standard)
- Emergency: Must be implemented in response to a disruption in service or a potential disruption to services.
- CAB: Change Advisory Board – A group of people that advises the change manager in the assessment, prioritization, and scheduling of changes.
- ECAB: Emergency Change Advisory Board – A subset of the change advisory board who make decisions about high-impact emergency changes.
- Remediation Planning: Actions taken to recover after a failed change or release
Activities
- Create and Record Request for Change
- Review RFC
- Assess and Evaluate the Change
- Authorize Change Build and Test
- Coordinate Change Build and Test
- Authorize Change Deployment
- Coordinate Change Deployment
- Review and Close Change Record
Interfaces
- Service Strategy
- Service Portfolio Management
- Service Design
- IT Service Continuity Management
- Capacity and demand management
- Information security management
- Service Transition
- Service and configuration management
- Service Operation
- Problem Management
- Continual Service Improvement
Service Transition Process 5: Release and Deployment Management
Purpose
- Plan, Schedule, and control the build, test and deployment of releases
- Deliver new functionality required by the business
- Protect the integrity of existing services
Objectives
- Define and agree release and deployment plans with customers
- Create and test release packages
- Ensure the integrity of release packages
- Deploy release packages to the live environment
- Ensure that all release packages can be tracked through their lifecycle
- Ensure organization and stakeholder change are managed during deployment
- Ensure required knowledge and skills are transferred to users, customers, and operation functions
Scope
- All processes, systems and functions to package, build, test and deploy a release into live use as specified in the SDP
- All configuration items required to implement a release
- Physical assets
- Virtual assets
- Applications and software
- User and staff training
- Services, including contracts and agreements
- Out of Scope
- Authorization of changes
Basic Concepts
- Release Policy
- Unique identification of releases
- Roles and responsibilities at each stage of the release
- Requirement to use software assets from the DML
- Expected frequency for each type of release
- Approach for accepting and grouping changes into releases
- How the configuration baseline is captured
- Exit and entry criteria
- Criteria to exit early life support
Activities
- Authorize release plan
- Authorize build and test
- Authorize check-in to DML (Definitive Media Library)
- Authorize deployment/transfer/retirement
- Post implementation review
Service Transition Process 5: Knowledge Management
Purpose
- Share perspectives, ideas, experience and information
- Ensure information assets are available in the right place at the right time
- Enable informed decision making
- Reduce the need to rediscover knowledge
Objectives
- Improve the quality of management decision making
- Ensure reliable and secure knowledge is available throughout the lifecycle
- Maintain an SKMIS (Service Knowledge Management System)
- Gather, analyze, store and maintain knowledge.
Scope:
The entire SKMIS
Basic Concepts