This article highlights the key service management processes currently implemented within University of Chicago's IT Services department.
As the University's central technology provider, IT Services is committed to service delivery and support of the University mission. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is the most widely-adopted approach for IT Service Management (ITSM) world-wide. ITIL advocates that IT services must be aligned to the needs of the business and support their core business processes.
ITSM is a process-based management framework intended to align the delivery of IT services with the needs of our customers. ITIL defines and documents the IT processes and functions while ITSM employs them to meet the technology service requirements and priorities of the University.
Adopting ITSM provides many benefits, including:
ITS has adapted and implemented the ITIL framework for the processes below.
An Incident is an unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service. This process ensures that normal service operation is restored as quickly as possible and the business impact is minimized.
A major incident is any event that represents a severe negative impact or loss to education, research, engagement, safety, reputation, revenue, or business operations.
Problem Management manages the lifecycle of all Problems. The primary objectives of Problem Management are to prevent incidents from happening, and to minimize the impact of incidents that cannot be prevented. Proactive Problem Management analyzes incident records, and uses data collected by other IT Service Management processes to identify trends or significant problems.
This process ensures that changes to the IT environment are carefully considered and reviewed so as to minimize the impact on individuals who use our IT services and to avoid change-related conflicts between our IT services.
Service Catalog Management provides a single source of consistent information on all services and service offerings, and to ensure that it is available to the relevant audience.
This process manages the fulfillment of standardized requests made by customers for an IT service, including requests for information, advice, or changes to an existing service.
Knowledge Management provides efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge. The process manages data and information, ensuring it is available, reliable, re-usable, and secure.
ServiceNow is the cloud-based enterprise application used by IT Services that allows users to submit requests for technical support for hardware, software, applications, and more. The Knowledge Base allows the community to search for answers to common technical questions reported by faculty, staff, and students. ServiceNow offers a robust suite of applications to automate and streamline IT and business unit operations. Each application contributes to IT Services' overall Service Management strategy to improve efficiency and align offerings with business needs.
For more details, IT Services staff should log in to review internal documentation referenced in ITSM at ITS for Fulfillers (KB06001015).