Service Management Best Practices

Overview

Services that are treated as operational obligations rather than managed products tend to stagnate. They are maintained to avoid failure rather than evolved to deliver increasing value. Customer needs change but the service does not. Competing options emerge and the service becomes obsolete. The organization continues investing in a service that is delivering less and less value because no one has adopted the discipline of actively managing its evolution.

Best Practice

Apply product management discipline to every service in the portfolio. Treat each service as a managed product with a defined customer, a value proposition, a roadmap, a backlog of planned improvements, and an owner accountable for its strategic direction. Review each service regularly against its value proposition — is it still delivering the value it was designed to deliver? Is the customer’s need still being met? Is there an opportunity to deliver significantly more value with focused investment?

For a complementary discussion of product-oriented thinking across IT systems, platforms, and services, see Product Thinking in IT: Treating IT Systems, Platforms, and Services Like Products.

Benefit(s)

Treating services as managed products produces a portfolio that continuously evolves toward higher customer value. Services improve because there is an accountable owner actively managing their improvement. Customers benefit from services that anticipate and respond to their evolving needs rather than remaining static. The organization benefits from a service portfolio that delivers increasing value from existing investments rather than accumulating operational overhead from stagnant services.