ITIL Service Design

The Service Design stage of the ITIL Service Lifecycle provides guidance for the design and development of services and Service Management processes. It covers design principles and methods for converting strategic objectives into portfolios of services and service assets. The scope of Service Design is not limited to new services. It includes the changes and improvements necessary to increase or maintain value to customers over the lifecycle of services, the continuity of services, achievement of service levels and conformance to standards and regulations. It guides organizations on how to develop design capabilities for Service Management. The Service Design stage of the lifecycle starts with a set of new or changed business requirements and ends with the development of a service solution designed to meet the documented needs of the business.

Principles of ITIL Service Design

The overall approach of ITIL Service Design is to represent the fundamentals of designing services. The five key aspects of Service Design process are as follows –

• Designing Service Solution: At the planning stage, the service team chalks a plan of producing services with balancing cost, deadline, budget and business requirements.
• Designing Management Information Systems and Tools: ITIL service design defines some important Management Information System (MIS), such as service portfolio, configuration management system, capacity management information system and security management information system.
• Designing of Technology and Architecture: Designing technology brings in technological competencies which take care of designs, plan, and processes aligning with IT policies and strategies.
• Designing Processes: The process model is one of the elaborate paradigms in ITIL and it helps in the transition, operation, and improvement of services.
• Designing Measurements and Metrics: Process metrics must be aligned with organizational goals and drilled down to each individual role as in balanced scorecard metrics.

Major Aspects of Service Design

There are five major aspects of service design.

• Service Solutions: These are service solutions, management information systems and tools, technology and management architectures and tools, processes and measurement systems. Service solutions are about including the functional requirements, resources, and capabilities needed in service design. The process must be iterative and incremental to satisfy the customers’ changing requirements.
• Management Information Systems: Management information systems and tools are an essential part of service design. These especially include the service portfolio for the management and control of services throughout their lifecycle. The service portfolio is the most critical management system for supporting all service management processes. It describes service delivery in terms of value for the customer and must include all service information and their status.
• Technology and Management Architectures: Technology and management architectures and tools include the preparation of blueprints for the development and deployment of an IT infrastructure. These also include data, applications, and infrastructure that are used in the service.
• Processes: Processes are required to design, transition, operate and improve services. A process model helps to articulate the distinctive features of a process. By defining the activities, inputs, and outputs in the lifecycle phases, it is possible to work in a customer-oriented way.
• Measurement Systems: These are methods and metrics for the services, as well as their architectures, components, and processes. Measurement systems are required to regularly assess and optimize the service quality delivered to customers.

The key aspect in the design of new or changed services is to meet the changing business needs. Every time a new service solution is created, it needs to be checked against all aspects of existing services to find out if it can be interfaced or integrated with the latter.