"ITSM has nothing to do with Architecture" .. or does it?

Lee Healey
Feb 15, 2023
2 min read

When thinking of IT Service Management, it is common to immediately think of Service Desk, Incident, Problem, Change, Service Level Management and other common practices from the ITSM stable.

In fact, a few of us may have heard people state that ITSM has nothing to do with Architecture.

Very often, little attention is given to some of the other crucial practices that help CIO’s converge, the traditional, IT Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) aspects of ITSM, with Business Strategy.

Whilst there is no doubt to the criticality of I&O, many CIO’s who have come from an I&O background will chose to double-down on their chosen field(s) of expertise, whilst missing some of the management practices that link directly with Business Strategy and Objectives such as Portfolio, Organisational Change, Supplier, Relationship, Risk and the focus of this blog, Architecture Management.

It could be argued that all the practices within the ITIL4® framework link to Business Strategy, and that is true, especially when viewed through the lens of the ITIL4® Service Value System.

But there are practices, like Architecture Management that provide an almost, direct link to organisational strategy and objectives.

If we look at the ITIL4® key message about Architecture Management we read: “The purpose of the architecture management practice is to explain the different elements that form an organisation. This practice explains how the elements interrelate to enable the organisation to effectively achieve it’s current and future objectives, It provides the principles, standards and tools that enable an organisation to manage complex change in a structured and agile way.”

The ITIL4® guidance goes on to to describe the various layers of Architecture Management:

Business architecture Product and services architecture

Information systems architecture

Technology architecture

Environmental architecture

When CIO’s do focus on Architecture Management, it is common that the attention is set upon the middle layers of product, services, information systems and technology.

The CIO who has scaled the career structures through I&O could have an unintentional bias towards the middle layers, and yet the opportunities for strategic convergence lie within the management of business architecture.

So the question is, who is focused on the outer layers, such as Business Architecture?

Again, if we turn to ITIL4®, we see that Business Architecture is described as a formalised description of how an organisation uses its resources for realising its strategy and objectives.

Given this intent, how many I&O leaders have taken it upon themselves to seek a connection between the management of business architecture and the management of other ITSM practices?

We would wager that the answer is not many. Yet, there is gold to be found within that connection.

If you'd like to discuss this topic further with a member of our experienced team, please contact us at hello@itsmpeople.co.uk

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What is ITSM?

Information Technology Service Management processes include a range of activities designed to deliver and support high-quality IT services for your business. These can include incident management, problem management, change management, and service-level management. Additionally, ITSM involves continuous enhancement processes to improve service delivery, increase efficiency and reduce costs. By adopting strong ITSM practices, your business can improve service quality, customer satisfaction and achieve greater alignment between IT and business objectives. This holistic approach ensures that IT services are effective and integrated with your overall business goals. As ITSM focuses on aligning IT services with your business’s needs, you can ensure that IT processes and services support and enhance business operations. This is achieved through a structured approach to managing IT services, guided by best practices and methodologies such as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). These models provide guidance on best practices for delivering and supporting technology and other enterprise services and can help companies align their capabilities with their business goals and strategic objectives.
What is ITIL and how does it underpin ITSM?

We adhere to the ITIL Framework in delivering our ITSM consultancy services. ITIL is a globally recognised set of best practices for ITSM that helps businesses provide consistent, high-quality IT services. By implementing ITIL processes and principles, we ensure that your IT operations are standardised, efficient and aligned with industry standards. ITIL4 is the latest version of ITIL, designed to help enterprises navigate the new technological era known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This version introduces a more flexible, modern approach to ITSM, emphasising its integration with other areas of business management.
What are the core practices and processes in ITSM?

Effective ITSM revolves around a number of processes. Whilst there are 34 practice areas in ITIL4, there are often a core set of practices that many of our clients are particularly interested in optimising. As understanding and implementing these processes can significantly enhance the performance and quality of IT services within your organisation. Incident Management Restores all service operations back to normal as soon as possible, minimising to lessen the impact on your operations. This process might involve logging, categorising, prioritising, and resolving incidents, ensuring which can help mitigate disruption to users and the business. Configuration Management Keeps an updated record of IT infrastructure - hardware, software, and network components - in a centralised configuration management database (CMDB). This database provides accurate data on configuration items (CIs) and their relationships. Change Management Ensures any changes to your IT services are controlled and coordinated. This process evaluates the impact of changes, approving them through a structured workflow, and ensuring successful implementation with minimal risk. Service level Management Defines, negotiates, and monitors service level agreements (SLAs) between the service provider and the customer. This process ensures that agreed-upon service quality and performance levels are consistently met. Asset Management Tracks and manages your IT assets throughout their lifecycle to ensure efficient use and cost control. You maintain an accurate inventory of hardware, software, and other IT resources through this. Problem Management Identifies, analyses and resolves the root causes of incidents. Proactively addressing underlying issues can prevent recurring incidents. This, in turn, provides improved system stability and reduced downtime. Request Management Handles the lifecycle of user service requests, such as access to applications, software installations or information enquiries. It ensures requests are managed efficiently to provide a streamlined approach that fulfils user needs and enhances satisfaction. Knowledge Management Captures, organises and shares knowledge to improve efficiency and support decision-making. By leveraging a centralised knowledge base, your IT teams can quickly resolve incidents and problems, and end-users can find the right solutions to common issues.
Why is ITSM important to organisations and their IT (and Enterprise) teams?

Implementing the right ITSM strategy and optimising your tooling can provide a range of benefits for your company, including: Improved Efficiency and Cost Savings By streamlining processes and automating routine tasks, ITSM can help your enterprise work more efficiently and reduce the time and resources required to deliver and support IT services. Good ITSM is a silent enabler of success across a range of organisational goals. Improved Compliance and Risk Management ITSM can help you ensure that your IT systems and processes comply with industry regulations and standards. It also ensures that you are effectively managing risks associated with your IT operations. This can help you avoid costly disruptions and legal consequences. Increased Productivity Effective ITSM practices can help your business prevent problems and fix them quickly if they do occur. This can help you lower costs—outages cost money—and increase productivity and employee satisfaction. Better Customer Satisfaction You can improve customer satisfaction and build stronger relationships by delivering high-quality IT services that meet customers' needs. Improved Service Quality ITSM ensures that IT services are delivered consistently and meet agreed-upon service levels, leading to higher customer satisfaction and better overall service quality. Business Continuity ITSM processes like incident and problem management ensure that disruptions are minimised and services are quickly restored to ensure business continuity. Strategic Alignment ITSM aligns IT services with business objectives, ensuring that technology initiatives support and drive business growth. This alignment helps you make informed decisions and prioritise projects that add the most value. Enhanced Collaboration ITSM promotes a collaborative environment where IT teams can work together more effectively, sharing knowledge and best practices to improve your delivery of services. Proactive problem-solving Through problem management and a proactive approach, ITSM helps your IT teams identify and address the root causes of incidents to prevent future issues and reduce downtime. Continuous Improvement ITSM encourages continuous monitoring and improvement of IT processes, allowing your IT teams to refine and enhance their service delivery regularly. Better Resource Management With ITSM, IT teams can manage resources more effectively, ensuring that personnel, technology, and budget are allocated optimally to support business requirements.
Do you provide ITSM tooling support and what tools do you specialise in?

The ITSM People are completely agnostic with ITSM tools and not tied to any vendors. Given the close relationship between ITSM related processes and ITSM tools, we often get involved in tool selection projects, or making recommendations on how to improve tools and get the best value from them. We work with tools such as ServiceNow, BMC, Jira, ManageEngine, Fresh, Halo and Xurrent.