Service Request Vs Change

I have faced a question from many people - Are all service requests a change? People believe that it is so as they do not understand the fundamental difference between the two. They feel that every service request involves a change in the state of live IT infrastructure.

To answer this question, I would first prefer to explain the two individually:

Service Request:

Service request is the request from the user for any information, documention, advice or access.

Example: user manuals, password reset, etc.

Change

Change is defined as an addition, modification or removal of an approved, supported or basedlined CI.

Example: Upgrade of a server, modification of a documentation, addition of a new service.

 

Now going back to our question, I would like to make a statement - 'Service request is not a change'. It does happen that a number of low impact changes, which are known to cause no negative impact to the IT environment are pre-approved for implementation. These changes are referred to as standard changes. These pre-approved changes are also treated as a Service Request and the request is fulfilled by Request Fulfillment team.

ITIL V2 & V3: My Views

OGC rolled out new version of ITIL, ITIL V3, in June 2007. I would prefer to term this as an excellent initiative. With ITIL V3 OGC has encapsulated every function and process area of an IT organization. 

In ITIL V2, the focus was on 'aligning IT with business'. Today, IT is at core for success of any business. Thus, it can be said that IT is integral to business. This has resulted in the shift of focus in ITIL V3 to 'integrating IT with business'.

Although the initiative is excellent, motive and objective is great, but way the things have come out is far from any thing that can be termed as good. I feel that as far as publication of core volumes of ITIL V3 is concerned, it definitely lacks the 'depth' when compared to ITIL V2. Besides it has ambiguities at couple of places. For example in change management in one of the process flows, an activity box 'update plan' is mentioned. No where in the book its description has been given. Reader are left to make a guess based on ones experience.

I have observed that a person certified at ITIL V3 Foundation level lacks ITIL knowledge when compared to the person with ITIL V2 Foundation certification. An ITIL V2 certified person had a significant understanding of the processes whereas ITIL V3 foundation certified individual lacks that. He just has an overview or basic understanding of the ITIL V3 processes.

Referring to the certification scheme, ITIL V2 was designed to test both the practical as well as theoritical knowledge of the individual. ITIL V2 Manager certified individual had an indepth understanding of the processes and its practical application. The certification scheme was so designed that based on a persons capability, one can directly appear for Manager certification after clearing the Foundation. This was the route that I had taken. It was a very cost effective option.

On the other hand, ITIL V3 certification scheme looks to be more 'business' oriented. You need to accumulate required credits to reach the next level by clearing multiple exams. I would like to mention that to take each of these exams, with foundation being an exception, attending training from an Accredited Training Provider is mandatory. Thus, clearing each of these trainings/certification is pretty expensive.

While ITIL V2 certification scheme (to Manager level) tests your knowledge of ITIL at the first place, I feel that ITIL V3 certification scheme (to Master level) tests your financial capability at the first place. Testing ones knowledge becomes secondary as you need to arrange for the finances needed to clear a number of trainings and certification exams.

As far as overall knowledge is concerned, I feel it would be the same at ITIL V3 Expert level for both the set of individuals who have taken the ITIL V2 Managers route or the ITIL V3 route to ITIL V3 Expert certification. But definitely the people who are V2 Managers certified will be better placed for ITIL V3 Master certification, when the same is rolled out as it will be testing the practical knowledge and experience towards ITIL implementation.

Gap Analysis

Gap Analysis is the analysis of the difference between two states. It is used to identify the gaps or potential improvement opportunities. For financial or sales domain, it is the analysis of actual or current financial/sales performance with that of the projected financial/sales performance.

In the same way, in process consulting, gap analysis is the tool used to identify gaps in the current process ('As-Is' process). Gaps are identified using either an industry accepted process framework, like ITIL, or an ideal scenerio as a reference. All of these identified gaps maps to potential improvement opportunities.  These are then used to define the new process ('To-Be' process).

Baseline:

Baseline is the current state or the 'As-Is' state used as a reference point or benchmark - for our consideration it is the 'As-Is' state of the process.

Gap Analysis & Continuous Improvement

New process is defined or existing process is improved (referred to as 'To-Be' process) using the existing process as a reference or baseline. For continuous improvement, newly defined 'To-Be' process becomes the 'As-Is' process or the new baseline.

So everytime gap analysis is performed in order to identify further improvement opportunities. These identified gaps are then improved upon in the new 'To-Be' process. This eventually becomes a continuous improvement cycle.