Service Catalog Best Practices - Define, use, and maintain a Service Catalog taxonomy

Service Catalog Best Practices

Chapter 14. Define, use, and maintain a Service Catalog taxonomy

Authored and Published By: The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT), LLC

Executive Summary: Chapter Overview

IF4IT

The Bottom Line

A Service Catalog without a governed taxonomy is a search engine at best — customers can find what they know how to name, but everything else is invisible to them. This chapter establishes the taxonomy as the navigational and organizational skeleton of the catalog: a hierarchical structure that makes services discoverable by browsing, groupable for reporting, and consistently classifiable as the catalog grows.

Core Concepts

ConceptDefinition & Strategic Role
Hierarchical StructureRoot → Domain → Sub-Domain → Service — with the Enterprise Root splitting first into Business Services and IT Services at the top.
Taxonomy OwnershipThe Catalog Manager owns the taxonomy as an artifact — proposing changes goes through governance; changing it unilaterally is not permitted.
Taxonomy EvolutionThe taxonomy is not static — as the enterprise evolves, so should the taxonomy, but through disciplined change management rather than ad hoc reorganization.

Quick Q&A

Question: Why does the top level of the taxonomy split into Business Services and IT Services?

Answer: Because the two audiences and delivery models are different enough that mixing them at the top confuses navigation. Customers looking for Business Services (HR, Legal, Facilities) think differently from customers looking for IT Services, and the taxonomy should reflect that difference at the top rather than mixing service types below a generic root. See the referenced figure for the canonical structure.

Question: How deep should the taxonomy go?

Answer: Deep enough that any leaf-level branch contains a manageable number of services — usually five to fifteen. Deeper than needed produces excessive click-through; shallower than needed produces overwhelming lists at each level. The right depth is discovered by testing with real customers, not derived from theory.

Read More Below

Overview

One of the most common problems for Service Management is the fact that enterprise services are disjoint (i.e., disconnected) across different sites. It is common for organizations to have different sites or intranet sub-sites owned by different departments, each with their own services and very different service experiences. The service management tools and technologies behind the services are often different too, creating inconsistency, confusion, poor user experiences, and frustrated customers.

Best Practice

Design, publish, and maintain a Service Catalog Taxonomy as part of your Enterprise Service Catalog.

Benefit(s)

A Service Catalog taxonomy:

  • Allows the design and coordination of how services are linked together and acts as a sitemap that leads customers to each service area and its underlying services.

  • Improves search experience, allowing for rapid and consistent indexing and searching.

  • Allows for easier automation — a taxonomy can be fed to an API generator that creates all APIs as stubs to be populated with backend automation code.

Service Catalog Taxonomy Example

/enterprise-root

/enterprise-root/business

/enterprise-root/business/other

/enterprise-root/business/human-resources

/enterprise-root/business/human-resources/services

/enterprise-root/business/human-resources/services/employee-onboarding

/enterprise-root/business/human-resources/services/employee-offboarding

/enterprise-root/business/human-resources/services/employee-office-move

/enterprise-root/business/human-resources/services/other

/enterprise-root/business/etc...

/enterprise-root/information-technology

/enterprise-root/information-technology/other

/enterprise-root/information-technology/helpdesk

/enterprise-root/information-technology/helpdesk/services

/enterprise-root/information-technology/helpdesk/services/change-password

/enterprise-root/information-technology/helpdesk/services/other

/enterprise-root/information-technology/etc...

Figure 1: The Service Catalog taxonomy hierarchy — from Enterprise Root through Business and IT domains, sub-domains, services, and catch-all entries at every level.

How to cite this page

When referencing this page in academic work, internal standards, or external publications, include the page title, IF4IT as author and publisher (The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT), LLC), the URL, and your access date.

Example (informal web citation):

The International Foundation for Information Technology (IF4IT), LLC. Define, use, and maintain a Service Catalog taxonomy | Service Catalog Best Practices. https://if4it.org/best-practices/service-catalog/define-use-and-maintain-a-service-catalog-taxonomy/ (accessed 2026-07-28).

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