Know where you stand: How to implement ITSM,
Part 5

You have already mastered four important steps on the way to your successful service management project: you have communicated the urgency of the project, built a strong management team with common goals, developed a suitable vision for your project and involved your employees. Now it's time for the fifth step: Assessments. Because only when you know where you stand can you determine what your path to the goal looks like.

Time for an inventory 

Before getting down to business, it is advisable to get a complete picture of your organization's current capabilities. For this purpose, it is necessary to subject all relevant areas to an assessment. This will provide you with detailed information that will be useful for your further planning and implementation. Ideally, the assessment should cover four areas:

• Process maturity: Does a process exist, is it repeatable, defined, actively controlled, self-optimizing?
• Process-supporting tools: What tools are there? Do they support the processes? What additions and adjustments are necessary?
• Employee knowledge and general organizational culture: What level of training do your employees have? What is the prevailing culture in your company?
• Management: What management culture (goals, control, commitment, clarity) is practiced?

Important: Such an assessment is not a one-time process. Rather, it is a constantly recurring process that helps you obtain a clear picture of the changes in the course of the project. This is why the very first assessment requires particularly careful preparation. After all, if you make significant changes to the method over time, the results will no longer be comparable.

A well-designed maturity assessment framework evaluates all of the above, as well as other factors that impact overall process effectiveness. These include culture of acceptance, process strategy and vision, process organization, process governance, business/IT alignment, process reporting/measurements, and decision making.

Get an external, objective partner at your side!

SERVIEW has proven methodologies in all areas of assessment and the necessary experience in execution. An internal self-assessment is all too often a victim of political objectives and places extremely high demands on the maturity level and culture of the organization. In contrast, an assessment that you conduct with us as your partner leaves little room for discussion because it is objective and neutral. In addition, the result provides an excellent basis for progress monitoring because our assessment is based on a proven framework.

Our approach:

1. We determine a detailed picture of the initial situation. This enables sound detailed planning for your further service management project.
2. We plan and conduct the following assessments: 
   • Service management tool assessment including the most important quality seals
   • Process Maturity Assessment based on the SERVIEW Process Maturity Framework and ISO/IEC 20000 including culture and management assessment
   • Assessment of the service management skills of your employees
3. We prepare assessment reports as well as an overall report, present and explain the results and derive recommendations for further planning.

Request a non-binding consultation appointment

The next step focuses on the specific planning and design of the project phases. To be continued ...

Would you like to find out more about implementing service management? Then read the other parts of our series!

Empowerment as a game changer: How to implement ITSM, part 4

The vision as a guiding star: How to Implement Service Management, Part 3

The Leading Coalition: How to Implement Service Management, Part 2

Persuasion is everything: How to implement Service Management, Part 1