Sharon Taylor - Service Intelligence: Improving Your Bottom Line With the Power of It Service Management

Sharon Taylor has earned the respect of the service management industry for her willingness to stretch the boundaries of conventional wisdom, for example, by extending the principles of service management through to the full service lifecycle.

Ian Head, Research Director, Service Management and Process Improvement, Gartner Inc.

This book is a really practical, broad-based, and friendly explanation of why service management is so important for delivering better service faster and at lower cost. It is written by an expert with international status, who has personally shaped the way the service management industry operates.

Jenny Dugmore, Director of Service Matters and Chair of the ISO/IEC 20000 Series Committee

Customers, vendors and practitioners can all learn from the experience of Sharon Taylor when it comes to implementing IT Service Management concepts.

Markos Symeonides, Executive Vice President, Axios Systems

Best practices in the field of IT Service Management today have matured as a result of Sharon Taylors commitment to and leadership in the industry. Her contributions while Chairman of itSMF International and work in authoring numerous ITSM books have helped to spread the adoption of IT best practice across the globe. Taylor is one of the most well-respected thought leaders in our industry. It is, therefore, no surprise that she was awarded the ITSM Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

Emily Sturm, Marketing Manager, Axios Systems

Service Intelligence is excellent because it is easy to read, easy to follow, and easy to understand, which for me, are the basic tenets upon which the best business and technical books are built. Full of examples and supporting graphics, the journey through the book progresses without confusion or the need to constantly refer back to earlier chapters. The lessons contained in the book will be invaluable to all organizations, both large and small.

Malcolm Fry

Sharon Taylor breaks the eye. She takes familiar context and provides fresh, evaluated views of IT service management at its leading edges. Its a work sure to find its way into practitioners back pockets.

Michael Nieves

Sharon Taylor has succeeded in bringing together all the necessary pieces to teach business leaders how to negotiate, foster, control, and nurture a healthy relationship with their IT service provider. This is a must read for anyone seeking successful ITSM partnerships.

Pauline Angelico, Managing Director Plus Green IT, MD Itilics, CEO Marval Asia Pacific

Sharon Taylors leadership continues to drive adoption and maturity in the service management profession and the abilities of those who practice it.

Dennis G. Ravenelle, Network Integration Project Manager, Harvard University Information Technology

Improving Your Bottom Line
with the Power of IT Service
Management

Sharon Taylor

Upper Saddle River, NJ Boston Indianapolis San Francisco
New York Toronto Montreal London Munich Paris Madrid
Cape Town Sydney Tokyo Singapore Mexico City

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Copyright 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding permissions, write to:

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ISBN-13: 978-0-13-269207-6
ISBN-10: 0-13-269207-4
Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at R.R.
Donnelley in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
First printing August 2011

For all who journey through the challenges of giving,
receiving, and recognizing quality service management.
For those who provide it through leading by example
and energizing their organizations to never settle
for less than their best practices.

This book is a compilation of the basics of IT Service Management drawn from the leading best practices in the industry. It is presented from a business point of view and is intended to inform, educate, and provoke a new level of thinking by business leaders about the importance and relevance of IT Service Management to their companies.

As with all best practices, time turns them into common practices, and the next innovation in thought leadership will create new best practices. The topics included in this book are intended to stand the test of time and form the basis for strong service partnerships, which will make service excellence commonplace in companies and become the benchmark for others to innovate from.

The IT Service Management industry offers a wealth of information and platforms for the exchange of ideas. Until this book, most of this was written for the ITSM industry and its providers. Now, in these pages, business finds a home within ITSM, and by offering ITSM a place at the corporate table, can reap the benefits of decades of practice by other high-performing businesses.

I would like to acknowledge the following individuals, without whom this book could not have achieved its best.

Katherine Bull, Pearson, who believed in the idea of a book about ITSM that would help business achieve more.

Ivor Macfarlane, IBM, a service management pioneer and my mentor from the early days of ITSM and still today for his thorough and thought-provoking technical review.