VeriSM™ - A service management approach for the digital age

by International Foundation of Digital Competences

VeriSM is a framework that describes a service management approach from the organizational level, looking at the end to end view rather than focusing on a single department. Based around the VeriSM model, it shows organizations how they can adopt a range of management practices in a flexible way to deliver the right product or service at the right time to their consumers. VeriSM allows for a tailored approach depending upon the type of business you are in, the size of your organization, your business priorities, your organizational culture - and even the nature of the individual project or service you are working on.Rather than focusing on one prescriptive way of working, VeriSM helps organizations to respond to their consumers and deliver value with integrated service management practices.Service management plays a leading role in digital transformation. Digital transformation looks outward; with a hyper-focus on the consumer experience. Service management can help shift the mindset from 'inside-out' to 'outside-in' by developing effective, transparent principles that help deliver services that are valuable to the customer. All organizational capabilities must -How does the organization enable and deliver value?- What are the supply chains within an organization that support value delivery?-How do the individual capabilities contribute to or support these supply chains to deliver value?

Genres: Business

410 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 19, 2017

Reviews

[Dolf van der Haven · Rating 5 out of 5]

After three months of marketing-hype (without any real information) and disinformation (from the hopefuls saying it was going to kill ITIL), the VeriSM book finally got published and arrived in the mail, just before Christmas.

For starters: this is not going to kill or change ITIL (or any other Service Management methodology), nor is that VeriSM's intention. It merely provides a model for organizations wishing to implement true Service Management in this age of digitalization, using modern management practices and current technologies. Where needed, ITIL, ISO/IEC 20000 or other existing Service Management methodologies can just easily plug into the VeriSM model.

The book has three main parts: Services and Service Management; The VeriSM Model; and Management Practices and Emerging Technologies.

Part 1 focuses mostly on what I would call the Attitude of the service provider organization towards their customers and the services they provide. It emphasizes rightly that service provisioning is not the business of just IT or some other isolated group within the organization, but it is the responsibility of the organization as a whole. Furthermore, the importance of an outside-in view of the services is stressed: what do customers expect from the services and from the organization? Part 1 does a good job making Service Management as Integral as possible, by including aspects of organizational structure, culture and governance as well as staff ethics, emotions, behavior (despite getting stuck with the long-deprecated Behaviorism) and roles; and finally communication and Organizational Change Management.

Part 2 describes the actual VeriSM model, which is in fact straightforward. Innovative aspects are the linkage of organizational governance and management through service management principles (e.g. deciding to emphasize rapid delivery vs. strict change management). The core of the model consists of the so-called Management Mesh, which is a four-dimensional approach to doing Service Management, using a) The organization's resources (budget, people, assets, etc.); b) Emerging technologies (Cloud, IoT, etc., but add established technologies to the list as well, as you can provide ground-breaking services without using cutting-edge technological if you wish); c) Environmental factors, such as culture, competition, legislation; and d) Progressive Management Practices (Agile, DevOps, etc., but you can add your own current practices (ITIL!) as well). These four dimensions aren't fixed: they can provide varying combinations based on the needs of the individual service and the customers. The model completes with the usual high-level steps Define, Produce, Provide and Respond to actually plan, design, provision and manage the services, all this in close contact with the customer/consumer for requirements on one side and feedback on the other side.

Part 3 is a long list of Progressive Management Practices and Emerging Technologies to help you choose from what's availabl for your Management Mesh. All good introductions.

The book is pleasantly written and is interspersed with many real-life examples and case studies. At times, it goes into the oddly basic, while also introducing a number of innovative concepts. It feels like this introductory text can be followed with more in-depth studies once people start actually using it. It explicitly has no Process Model, so does not prescribe how to shape your Service Management processes, it just tells you what to take into account when designing them. So, by all means, use your ISO 20000 processes and plug them into VeriSM: the model is open to do so. And use Cloud (or not) to deliver your services, as VeriSM will support this equally to classic on-premise service delivery.

Is VeriSM ground-breaking? It depends on where you stand with your service management today. It at least provides an interesting fresh perspective on today's possibilities and the customers' expectations of service management.

[Denis Vasilev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Набор популярных сейчас практик, применительно к сервис менеджменту. Без особых откровений обошлись

[Damir Prusac · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid collection of different practices