Utility, Warranty and Utility effect...

Its your birthday party, but your wife has gone out to her mother's place. You want to have some fun. The devil inside you creeps in, and you call that small printed ad "Call Natasha,88176XXXXX, full body massage at your place, satisfaction guaranteed" from the local newspaper. You have called her agent and set the deal for 1 hour at 8 PM.

Now your preconceived notions would be:
1) Natasha should be classy chic with urbane style.
2) She must make you comfortable.
3) She must be dot on time.
4) Haggling for more money is not acceptable.
5) The massage has to be relaxing.
6) the event needs to be totally discreet.

Natasha arrives dot on 7:58 PM. She has hour glass figure with an elegant business attire and high heels. She greets you with a warm smile and a rub on your shoulders. You offer her a drink and she accepts. As per agent, you hand her the envelope upfront and she don't comment about the amount. She graduates from small talk to a relaxing massage. At around 8: 40 PM, she reminds you being a first-time client , you are entitled of a free hand-job.You accept it, and by 8:56 both of you are done. She exits your home at dot 9 PM in her pre-booked cab.


You enjoyed the encounter, you try the same for the next time your wife is out.
The same things happen, though without the hand-job ( now you have to pay another 20% extra,not being first timer).
This time after she leaves, you seem to be self loathing, wasting your hard earned money on a slut and feel bad cheating your wife.


Utility effect:

Utility is "what a service does" and these are preconceived notions of the customer e.g (1) to (6) (kpi or key performance indicators) in the above case-let
Warranty is " how a service is accomplised, no matter what" both first time and second time by Natasha

Here, utility effect dictates that due to repetition, the value percieved by the first encounter has considerably faded in the second encounter as utility is "preconceived notion".

Ways to "fight" utility effect:
The element of positive "surprise" has to be set for a service to maintain its value.
Unless we have CSI, continual service improvement, utility effect causes "diminishing marginal standard" with each repeat service.

ITIL Self Study Regime

For Self Study and Mock Practice, 15 hours is sufficient. 

Spread it over 7 days.Take 40 questions at a time for the practice. On exam day, don't study or practice. Just drink plenty of water and get a deep sleep last night.

To summarize:

Day 0: 4 hours theory.Study 30 mins at a stretch spread all over the day, follow SQ3R technique (Survey, Question,Read/write, Review, Remember) with notes.

Day 1: 0.5 hr pre-exam theory 1 hour practice plus 0.5 hour post-exam analysis
Day 2: 0.5 hr pre-exam theory 1 hour practice plus 0.5 hour post-exam analysis
Day 3: 2 x (1 hour practice plus 0.5 hour post-exam analysis)
Day 4: 2 x (1 hour practice plus 0.5 hour post-exam analysis)
Day 5: 1 hours theory review 15 mins at a stretch spread over all over the day ,
listen music,deep sleep.
Day 6:Drink water, hydrate yourself, take the exam.

Service Level Management

Service Level Management

Goal: To ensure that the levels of IT service delivery are achieved,

both for existing services and new services in accordance with the

agreed targets.

16.1 Basic Concepts:

NOTE -  The SLM is the primary contact for customers.

Service Level Management is concerned with:

o Designing and planning the SLM process and Service Level

Agreement (SLA) Structure.

o Determining the requirements of customers groups to produce

Service Level Requirements (SLRs)

o Negotiating and Agreeing upon the relevant Service Level

targets with customers to produce Service Level Agreements

o Negotiating and Agreeing upon the support elements required

by the internal IT groups to produce Operational Level

Agreements (internal) and with Supplier Mgt for External

Suppliers and Underpinning Contracts (external).

o Guarding Agreements with customer

o Monitoring Service Levels

o Reporting to Customer

NOTE- All reports from all other processes should go to SLM who

will report back to customer

SLA Structures:

o Service Based SLA

o Customer Based SLA

o Multi-level Based SLA

o Corporate level

o Customer level

o Service level

 
 Points to note:
 

o Agreements are INTERNAL

o Contracts are EXTERNAL

o You cannot have a “legal” contract/agreement with an internal

department of you organization

o If they try and mix the terms up (and they will) – use the

INTERNAL/EXTERNAL as key word.

16.2 Key Terms:

SLA: Service Level Agreement

OLA: Operational Level Agreement

UC: Underpinning Contract

SC: Service Catalog

SLR: Service Level Requirements

Service Improvement Plans (SIP): formal plans to implement

improvements to a process or service.

Service Level Management works closely with Service Catalog

Management and Supplier Management

RACI Model

RACI Model

The RACI model helps show how a process actually does work end to

end across several functional groups by defining roles and

responsibilities, as well as organizational structure.

R – Responsibility (actually does the work for that activity but is

responsible to the function or position that has an “A” against it.) eg

Process manager

A – Accountability (is made accountable for ensuring that the action

takes place, even if they might not do it themselves). eg Process

Owner

C – Consult (advice / guidance / information can be gained from this

function or position prior to the action taking place).

I – Inform (the function or position that is told about the event after it

has happened).

General Rules

•Only 1 “A” per Row (ensures accountability, more than one “A” would

confuse this)

•At least 1 “R” per Row (shows that actions are taking place)

 

*picture courtsey catalystoc.com

Process vs Service

Process vs Service

Process: a set of coordinated activities combining and implementing

resources and capabilities in order to produce an outcome and

provide value to customers or stakeholders.

Characteristics of every process include:

•They are measurable,

•They deliver specific results

•They deliver outcomes to customers or stakeholders

•They respond to specific events (triggers)

Service: a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating

outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific

costs or risks.

A process owner is responsible for improvements and ensuring that

the process is fit for the desired purpose. They are accountable for the

outputs of that process.

Example: The owner for the Availability Management Process

A service owner is accountable for the delivery of a specific IT Service

and is responsible for continual improvement and management of

change affecting Services under their care.

Example: The owner of the Payroll Service.

The process owner and service owner are accountable for the

process or service under their care. However they may not be

responsible for performing many of the actual activities required for the

process or service.

A Process Manager is responsible for the operational (daily)

management of a process. There may be several Managers for the one

process.

Information Technology Service Management

ITSM, Information Technology Service Management is the effective and efficient process driven management of quality IT Services. 

The added value to ITSM is that is business aligned and maintains a holistic Service Lifecycle

approach.

Four Perspectives of ITSM (as found in Service Design Phase):

o People

o Partners

o Process

o Products