Service management takes shape

This morning we had a University Collaboration Improvement Board meeting where I outlined to them the new structures we're putting in place as part of our service management strategy.

We've had a first go at defining our service areas, and these are currently being defined in our Service Catalogue, We've appointed service managers for each area who will be responsible for the delivery and development of the seven service portfolios. One of the important things we want to do here is bring together new projects, and business as usual. Too often they are seperate and the service as a whole is not looked at by the same group of people. This should also enable us to more clearly define the resource split between innovation and new things, and keeping existing services running.

Each area will also have a Service Advisory Group made up of key customers, users and stakeholders. These groups will be strategic and hopefully will not get bogged down in detail,and should help form the direction of each service area by identifying key services, agreeing service levels and performance indicators, identifying areas for improvement and ensuring that benefits are realised.

These will report to a Service Strategy Board made up mainly of the CiCS Programme Board and the service managers, although we're still looking at the exact membership. The purpose of this board will be to improve planning and decision making by having a single place to look at all aspects of all services.

That's the plan - lots of details still to be worked out, including how existing groups fit into the structure or whether they will continue to exist. We've still to complete the service catalogue and work out whether we have the service areas right, but things are definitely moving in the right direction.

This afternoon I was interviewed as part of a JISC project on developing a toolkit to help CIOs and other senior managers to assess how mature their organisation is in terms of ICT strategy. Interesting set of questions about how we define our strategy, how it aligns with the objectives of the organisation, and more importanlty, how is ICT represented at the University Executive level. I look forward to seeing the results!