• Align IT services with the changing business needs by identifying and implementing improvements to IT services that support business processes:
• Support the entire service lifecycle
• Improve services and processes
• Improve cost-effectiveness
• Critically important to understand:
• What to measure
• Why it is being measured
• What the successful outcome should be

• CSI manager role is accountable and responsible for CSI organization:
• Ensures the best practices are adopted and sustained throughout the organization
• Ensures there are adequate resources to support CSI
• Establishes the CSI framework within the organization

CSI register should be created to record all improvement opportunities:

• Provides structure and visibility for potential improvements
• Identifies the potential benefits
• Support prioritization and categorization
• Is part of the SKMS

Activity Tasks

1. Define processing data requirements
2. Define frequency of processing data
3. Determine format and tool requirements
4. Develop processing data procedures
5. Develop and communicate processing data plan
6. Update availability and capacity management plans
7. Begin processing data
8. Process into logical groupings
9. Evaluate for accuracy

CSI Methods and Techniques: Assessements

• Initial step is to chose or define the maturity model and the attributes measured at each level

Different Levels of Measurement and Reporting

(Know the difference between a service scorecard and a service dashboard)

• The following should be understood before reports are designed:
• The target audience for the report
• What the report will be used for
• Who is responsible for creating the report
• How will the report be created
• How frequently will the report be created
• What information will be produced
• The audience's preference for the format of the report should be considered
• The reporting tools chosen should support the flexibility required
• Reporting is a means, not an end in itself

NOTE:  Reports generate an expectation of meeting to discuss the report

• Balance is achieved by goal setting and management across four perspectives:
• Customer
• Financial
• Internal
• Learning and growth

Performing SWOT Analysis

(Might be asked to do a SWOT analysis on the Exam

1st - Define and agree upon nthe desired end-state or objectives

• Identify and list all SWOT related to the achievment
• Generate strategies for achievement of the objective:
• How can strengths be developed and capitalized?
• How can weaknesses be reduced or minimized?
• How can opportunities be exploited to maximum advantage?
• How can threats be managed, mitigated, or eliminated?
• SWOT can be performe at multiple orginzational levels
• SWOt can be done for services and procesess

• A business case articulates the reason for the improvement:
• Value should include ROI and VOI
• Improvements hould be based ona  baseline of current performance
• Business value measures should be indentified with links to IT contributions
• Examples of business value:
• Time to market
• Customer retention
• Market share
• Regulatory compliance
• Examples of IT contributions:
• Gaining agility
• Enhancing knowledge
• Reducing costs
• Reducing risks

Some organizations may lack the data required to quanitfy expected benefits

• Difficult tod etermine the apropraite level of investment

(May need to justify|Know Business Case for exam)

An actionable approach to reporting includes:

• This is what happened
• This is what we did
• This how we will ensure it does not happen again
• This is how we are working to improve generally

There are a number of availability mgmt techniques that can be used to improve the availability of services:

1. Component failure impact analysis
2. Fault tree analysis
3. Service failure analysis
4. Technical observation
5. Expanded incident lifecycle

Key responsibilities:

• Participates in CSI and SLM meetings
• Consolidates data from mulitple sources and produces reportson performance and trends
• Provides analytical feedback on meaning behind the trends

Key skills and competencies:

• Statistical and analytical skills
• Strong understanding of reporting tools and technologies
• Good communication skills
• Ability to translate technical specifications into easily understood reporting requirements

Configuration Management System (CMS)

NOTE:   Only 1 CMS in an ORG; May have 1 or more CMDB's in a CMS

• Specific to the systems and network platforms they support
• Provide support and data for service management activities:
• Generate error messages and event correlation supporting event management
• Provide utilization and true availability information for capacity and availability management
• Integration with CMS to provide enhanced visibility into the provisions of services
• SUpport the ongoing management and maintenance activities for their respective technology platforms

NOTE:  Highlighted portion - be aware of for exam

• Support for mulitple event types:
• Informational
• Warnings
• Exceptions
• Support for event correlation and detection of false positives:
• Rules-based
• Model-based
• Policy-based
• Support CIS by communicating the true impact to availability and performance

Note:  Highlighted portion - Know for the exam

• Collect and aggregate availability, capacity, and performance data
• Provide historical, currect, and future views of performance
• Capabilities include:
• Analysis of service performance
• Workload analysis and trending of future growth
• Comparision of planned and actual utilizations
• Predictive modeling to evaluate improvements and alternatives
• Production of data required for SLA reporting

NOTE:  Highlighted sections - Be familiar with for exam

NOTE:  Highlight portino will more than likely impact a question on the test.

Two perspectives on CSI Implementation:

• Implementing CSI activites around services
• Implementing CSI activities around processes

Without mature processes, it is difficult to implement seven-step improvement process:

• Poor data quality
• Mulitple competing processes and tools
• Monitoring at technology and application levels
• Segmented data and reporting

Prior to implementing CSI:

• Identify and fill key supporting roles
• Ensure monitoring on technolyg, process, and service metrics (service mgr, brm, slm, CSI mgr) is in place
• Schedule internal service review meetings

1. Create a sense of urgency
2. Form a guiding coalition
3. Create a vision
4. Communicate the vision
5. Empower others to act on the vision
6. Plan for and create quick wins
7. Consolidate improvements and produce more change
8. Instituionalize the change

Creating a formal communicaton plan to support CSI activities is cruical to:

• Keep stakeholders informed of changes and progress
• Build and maintain awareness and support

Communication must incorporate capturing and dealing with feedback

Consider the way communcation works currently

Culture may be a factor influencing who can communicate what type of information

• Appointing a CSI manager
• Adopting CSI within the organization
• Gaining the commitment of management
• Defining clear criteria for prioritizing improvement projects
• Adopting the service lifecycle approach
• Having sufficient and ongoing funding for CSI activities
• Allocating dedicated resoures to the improvement effort
• Acquiring technology to support the CSI activities
• Adopting service management processes

• Being overambitious
• Not involving the business in CSI
• Not focusing on both service and process improvements
• Not prioritizing CSI initiatives
• Implementing CSI without supporting resources and technologies
• Implenting CSI without knowledge transfer and training
• Skipping steps in the seven-stepimprovement process
• Lack of management action and decision making on CSI opportunities
• Lack of effective communication and awareness campaigns supporting CSI
• Not involving the right people at all levels
• Not testing improvement before implementation