The ITIL Service Lifecycle divides the ITIL service management framework into five distinct stages that supports an organization in determining the most ideal approach to designing, delivering, managing, and improving how their IT services are used. The ITIL Service Design stage is the second stage in the ITIL Service Lifecycle, and focuses on meeting customer needs by turning the organization’s Service Strategy into an executable plan for delivering business objectives.
The ITIL Service Design Stage
The ITIL Service Design stage concentrates on transforming the Service Strategy into a tangible plan for delivering business goals and meeting client needs. In the ITIL Service Design stage, all elements relevant to the delivery of technology services are considered, such as: how a planned service solution interacts with the larger business and technical environments, and what supporting systems, technology architectures, and supply chain is required in supporting the planned service.
Through the execution of essential processes the ITIL Service Design stage provides the organization with sound guidance for designing IT services resulting in the Service Design Package:
- Design Standard Services
- Service Catalogue Management
- Service Level Management
- Availability Management
- Capacity Management
- IT Service Continuity Management
- Information Security Management
- Supplier Management
Design Standard Services
The purpose of the Design Standard Services process within the ITIL Service Design stage is to establish the organization’s service design activities, processes, and resources. This process enables the consistent and effective design of new or changed IT services, service management information systems, processes, or metrics.
Service Catalogue Management
The purpose of the Service Catalogue Management process within the ITIL Service Design stage is to ensure an organization’s Service Catalogue is created, developed, and maintained. The Service Catalogue contains the most up-to-date and accurate information on all current operational services, and pipeline (upcoming) operational services. This process provides vital information for all other Service Management processes, such as: service details, current service status, and services’ interdependencies.
Service Level Management
The purpose of the Service Level Management process within the ITIL Service Design stage is to negotiate Service Level Agreements with the customers, allowing an organization to design services in accordance with those agreed upon Service Level targets. This process is responsible for ensuring that all Operational Level Agreements and underpinning contracts are appropriate, and to also ensure that mechanisms to monitor and report on Service Levels are in place.
Availability Management
The purpose of the Availability Management process within the ITIL Service Design stage is to ensure that an organization’s IT services are accessible at all times. This process plans, defines, measures, and improves all aspects of the availability of IT services. The Availability Management process involves monitoring and analyzing service components, analyzing past failures, and planning ahead to avoid future ones.
Capacity Management
The purpose of the Capacity Management process within the ITIL Service Design stage is to ensure that the organization’s capacity of IT services and the IT infrastructure is able to deliver the agreed upon Service Level targets in a cost effective and timely manner. This process considers all resources required for delivering the IT service, and plans for short, medium and long-term business requirements.
IT Service Continuity Management
The purpose of the IT Service Continuity Management process within the ITIL Service Design stage is to manage risks that could seriously impact an organization’s services. This process ensures that the IT service provider can always provide minimum agreed upon Service Levels, by reducing the risk from disaster events to an acceptable level and planning for the recovery of IT services. IT Service Continuity Management is designed to support Business Continuity Management.
Information Security Management
The purpose of the Information Security Management process within the ITIL Service Design stage is to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of an organization’s information, data, and IT services. This process often forms part of an organization’s overall approach to security management.
Supplier Management
The purpose of the Supplier Management process within the ITIL Service Design stage is to ensure that all contracts with suppliers support the needs of the organization, and that all suppliers meet their contractual commitments. This process involves negotiating contracts with external suppliers, and regularly reviewing these contracts to ensure that they are being met.
In summary, the ITIL Service Design stage is about enabling the business in not only meeting customer needs but also creating an exceptional client experience through the design of the organization’s services.
Learn more about the other stages in the ITIL Service Lifecycle and how this framework supports business transformation:
- The ITIL Service Strategy stage is the first stage in the ITIL Service Lifecycle and guides the development of IT service management by understanding the organization’s objectives and customer needs.
- The ITIL Service Transition stage is the third stage in the ITIL Service Lifecycle, and focuses on building and deploying IT systems by improving the organization’s capabilities for introducing new services into supported environments.
- The ITIL Service Operation is the fourth stage in the ITIL Service Lifecycle, and focuses on ensuring IT systems run efficiently by effectively managing the organization’s services in the supported environments.
- The ITIL Continual Service Improvement stage is the fifth and final stage in the ITIL Service Lifecycle, and focuses on re-aligning IT services to changing business needs by identifying and implementing incremental service improvements for the organization.
Thought Rock offers online ITIL exam and ITIL Foundation certified training including comprehensive coverage of the ITIL Service Lifecycle framework. To inquire about Thought Rock’s ITIL certification and course bundle, we invite you to send us an email today at [email protected].