Service Management Assessment

"The goal of process improvement is not to implement a framework (such as ITIL®, CMMI or ISO 177999), nor is it to improve a process in itself. The goal - and, therefore, the meaning of "successful" - is to tangibly increase the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the services being delivered or to otherwise drive business performance improvement. The process improvements are simply means to an end - a series of milestones along the way." - Gartner, January 2006.

Assessments that result in a laundry list of findings and recommendations without even so much as a nod to business value are all too common in the service management industry. While such assessments provide a wealth of data, too often the result is a mountain of data without an answer to fundamental question, "So what? I now understand the situation and your recommendations - what is the business value of moving on what you recommend versus all the other initiatives I might put in play?" What's needed is an assessment that takes on the business value question directly. Pultorak & Associates' service management assessment is designed to do just that.

The fact that Pultorak & Associates' service management assessment addresses the business value question makes it unique in the industry. It was developed based on research and field testing designed to address the #1 issue cited by Pultorak & Associates' clients and echoed by surveys of the IT service management community: the need to better quantify and communicate the business value of IT service improvement initiatives.

Pultorak & Associate's service management assessment is unique in the industry in another key way: it addresses the assessment of services, not just processes. The odd thing about most service management assessments is that they focus on service management processes (incident, problem, change management and the like) and never actually assess the health of services. While service support and delivery processes are key enablers of service quality, they are just one part of the equation. Since service management is about making the quality of service as percieved by the customer the #1 driving and aligning force in the organization, it seems odd that the vast majority of assessment instruments do not address the service question directly. Pultorak & Associates' service management assessment does. As with the business value question, extensive research and field testing was done to ensure that the instrument successfully addresses the assessment of service quality.

Before investing in a service management assessment, as yourself the following questions:

• Does the assessment I'm about to select address service quality directly?
• Is it designed to locate, quantify, and communicate a set of improvement initiatives of business value to implement?
• Will the results be a roadmap of improvements in a manner that enables me to answer the, 'so what?' question directly?

Is the assessment instrument based on recent research and field testing designed to address the assessment of services, not just processes, as well as the business value question?

If you are considering an assessment that comes up short when these questions are asked, contact Pultorak & Associates to learn more about our business value-centered service management assessment.

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For more information, including pricing, availability, and customized solutions for your organization, contact us at (206) 729-1107 or info@pultorak.com.