“Service” is in the Eye of the Beholder
Thursday, December 13th, 2007One of the most commonly sought concepts in IT service management over the past decade has been service level management (SLM). Prior to widespread adoption of ITIL, SLM was most commonly associated with performance metrics for infrastructure elements (e.g., network devices, servers). Unfortunately, this perspective of SLM is wrong … well, it’s usually wrong.
What was (and often still is) wrong with this interpretation of SLM is that the ‘S’ was not defined according to the general interests of the service’s consumer. In fact, the service was usually arbitrary and related to infrastructure, not the consumer’s true desired service. This is akin to trying to measure the “nuts and bolts” of the service, not the service itself. Such an ill conceived perspective is wrought with all sorts of problems. As providers of the service, we must define the service according to what the consumer needs.