ITECH-7400 Service IT & Management Lecture Summaries

This report provides comprehensive summaries of weekly lectures for the ITECH-7400 Service IT and Management course. Each week's summary covers key concepts and topics discussed, including ITIL and ITSM frameworks, governance and risk management, service strategy and operation, continual service improvement, financial management, capacity and service continuity management, information security and problem management, measurement and metrics, and professionalism in IT. The summaries are detailed and include relevant references, offering a valuable resource for students to review and consolidate their learning. The report also highlights the importance of various IT management practices and their impact on organizational success.

Service IT and Management
ITECH-7400

WEEK 1 – Lecture Summary:
This lecture is based on ITIL and ITSM approaches that are practiced in the IT organizations to meet
the standards of IT market and have a proper management. There has been short discussion on
what is good and bad practice. Overall ITIL framework, models and its core values are explained in
this lecture. Let us summarize the lecture.
There are some important keywords that have been defined like IT, Service, customer and user.
Then ITSM is explained which include complete set of tasks that are necessary to provide services to
the company, which includes various strategies and policies. ITSM has an influence on the industrial
practices that are mandatory for well development of the organization.
(Osgood, 2006)To follow the standards of organization, there are some practices that have to be
followed. They can be good or bad. It is always recommended to follow good practice. Let us have a
look at both. A ‘best practice’ is way that makes the employees abide by those standards which
follow the competence of the company. In other words making the organization full of those
practices that makes the company an example that other companies look upto.
Next we talk about ITIL in detail which is infrastructure library. It is not a technology or a standard; it
is a framework which recommends following good practices in order to run the show smoothly. It
puts a benchmark for the company and sets the limit which has to be met in order to meet the
requirements of the client. It further improves the processes of the organization by steam lining
them.
There is also a small introduction to COBIT which means Control Objectives for Information and
Related Technology. Provides both good-practice and best-practice frameworks for IT management
and IT governance. COBIT has a broad perspective than ITIL when it comes to steam line the
processes. It is not a technology or a standard; it is a framework which recommends following good
practices in order to run the show smoothly. It puts a benchmark for the company and sets the limit
which has to be met in order to meet the requirements of the client. It further improves the
processes of the organization by steam lining them. It showcases the shape and structure of the
organization. To fulfill the requirements, there are certain roles that need to be carried out by
different individuals to sustain the processes. ITIL defines four generic roles: Process owner, process
manager, process practitioner, and service owner.
It is not a technology or a standard; it is a framework which recommends following good practices in
order to run the show smoothly. It puts a benchmark for the company and sets the limit which has

to be met in order to meet the requirements of the client. It further improves the processes of the
organization by steam lining them.
Week 2 – Lecture Summary:
This outlines some important aspects of governance and risk. While delivering the services, there has
to be some strategies, design and transition to make the service work and meet the requirements of
the client. Same has been discussed in this lecture. Governance is of paramount importance and is
the influenced by the proper strategies and management and this is practiced widely all over the IT
industries. It includes the list of good practices, strategies, well defined policies go run the
organization smoothly.
ITIL describes the framework of the governance that should be applied in the organizations. The ITIL
is an outline that forms a major portion and lays the foundations for a perfect IT company.
Governance in any company is influenced by such factors. IT is a way of doing business, and the
adhering to ITIL guidelines contributes in an effective IT governance. With every service delivery,
comes a factor called risk which is known to both the parties. Risk is the event that is possible to
occur which has the potential to cause harm to the organization. An effective governance has a
responsibility of properly managing the risks and tackle the issues so that no harm is caused to the
organization.
There are four Ps that make up the core of service strategy and they are: Strategy as a Perspective: It
defines the perception and vision of the IT manager who foresees the upcoming opportunities and
issues. Strategy as a Position: describes strategy in terms of IT service provider’s general approach to
its service offerings (e.g. high value or low cost, emphasis on utility or warranty); Strategy as a Plan:
describes the sequence of plans that will be executed to complete the project on time; Strategy as a
Pattern: it shows the trend of the decisions that is taken by the manager of the IT company.
Strategies are made according to the type of IT customer. They can be internal service provider:
which are inside the business such as between the stakeholder and the service provider. It can be
external IT customer such as different customers which are in competition with each other.
There is a requirement of keen understanding of requirements in order to develop an effective
strategy. All the new services which are being developed has to get fit in the existing framework in
order to suffice the requirements of the customer.

WEEK 3 – Lecture Summary:
This lecture is mainly about the ITIL operations are that are executed to run the show properly. It is
quite necessary for continuity of quality service which has to be delivered to the client. Service
operation is day-to-day management of IT services and ‘business as usual’ activities.
Service operation is where the value that has been modeled in service strategy and confirmed
through service design and service transition is actually delivered. It has its main purpose to deliver
the product on time and for that all the activities and tasks need to be done in an organized and
sequential way. There are four core points that has to remember to deliver the product smoothly
and without any escalation. Internal IT view versus external business view; Stability versus
responsiveness; Quality of service versus cost of service; Reactive versus proactive.
Conflict arises because constant, agreed levels of service need to be delivered in a continually
evolving technical and organizational environment. Getting the balance wrong can mean services are
too expensive, unable to meet business requirements, or unable to respond in good time. There has
to be some standards set to make the project successful and for this ITIL procedures are laid. These
procedures not only make the project work properly; but also minimizes the chances of conflicts
between the employees of the organization.
To deliver the right product we not only work once, but work continuously to satisfy the customer
and keep up with the reputation of the company. The performance of the IT service provider is
continually measured and improvements are made to processes, IT services and the IT infrastructure
in order to increase efficiency, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Continual service improvement
(CSI) aims to deliver business value by ensuring that the service management implementation
continues to deliver the desired business benefits. There also has to be continuous improvement in
the system and this is widely practiced in all the companies. ITIL advises that there is a CSI register
which logs all the improvements which must be incorporated in the company so as to deliver the
quality services to the customer
. There are so many guidelines to deliver the project on time, and if failed, there is a penalty. this is
done by a doc called SLA. This ITIL process is also responsible for ensuring that all Operational Level
Agreements and Underpinning Contracts are appropriate, and to monitor and report on service
levels. SLM aims to negotiate Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with the customers and to design
services in accordance with the agreed service level targets. (Osgood, 2006)

Week 4: Lecture Summary
This lecture summarises the value of processes in IT that helps to manage the finance and sales of
the company in a better way. No business can survive for long, let alone flourish, if it fails to manage
its money effectively. Most of the people working in IT care about services they provide, Service
Level Agreements (SLAs), vendors, suppliers, technology… but, there are always a lot of questions
concerning financial issues of the IT services. There is an effective system for financial planning and
budgeting; Financial plans and budget allocations are aligned with the service portfolio; All proposed
investments have a business case that meets the standards of the organization; All significant
financial risks are identified and fully managed. The main objective of well defined processes is
proper governance. All financial expenditure is properly accounted for and there is an audit process
to ensure proper stewardship of financial resources. The costs and value of all IT services, processes
and activities are monitored, measured and understood and appropriate actions are taken on the
basis of their financial performance.
Financial management is concerned with business case development, assessment of investment
opportunities, evaluation of different service options, the evaluation of financial risks and the
determination of service value. there has to be proper accounting and auditing of the processes that
are being followed. Following this, there has to be some business cases which should be analyzed for
future improvement. A business case is a decision support and planning tool that projects the likely
consequences of a business action. The core of the business case is usually a financial analysis, but
the justification of investments frequently depends on more than financial considerations. It is
essential that the business case makes it clear how the benefits and costs have been assessed.
Here is an example which properly explains the concept of business case. A local authority wished to
establish a service for quickly identifying whether a child had been previously identified as being at
risk. If a child appeared at the local hospital accident and emergency department, the duty doctor
would be able to check the child’s details against the At Risk Register and notify Social Services if
there was a positive result. This involved a considerable investment in IT systems and support
services but there was no direct financial benefit. Nevertheless, the potential benefits (e.g. in
avoiding the unnecessary death or injury of a child at risk) overrode the financial cost.
Accordingly, demand should also be managed carefully to function in the company properly. This can
be done by Characterizing and codifying business activities into specific and recognizable patterns
that have a common service consumption profile. (Iden, 2014)

Week 5: Lecture Summary
This lectures takes you through the capacity management and how with the help of proper
management there can be continuity of services. Capacity management is the practice of proper
management of IT resources to suffice the requirements of the company. It should meet the future
demands as well. Capacity management is part of ITIL Service Delivery.
There are various performance indicators that portray the performance of the company. These are
known as KPI or key performance indicators. A KPI is a parameter that helps the management in an
IT service to rate the process planning of the project or other activity. They are the key indicators to
measure the performance of various employees and processes in the organization. Capacity
management is the practice of proper management of IT resources to suffice the requirements of
the company. It should meet the future demands as well. Capacity management is part of ITIL
Service Delivery. The management should be well aware that there are sufficient IT resources to
satisfy the current and future needs of the business. This is analyzed on the basis of two approaches
which are mentioned here. Supply versus demand: Sufficient resources must be available to meet
the business demand and maintain service levels. Costs versus resources: Spend on resources must
be justified by business need and resources must be used efficiently.
There has to be a proper planning to manage the capacity of the resources that the company is left
with. Capacity planning is the process of determining the capacity needed by an organization to
meet changing demands.
There is a strong relation between capacity management and service continuity management. If
there are ample of resources present in the organization currently to suffice the requirements of the
customer and also can sustain the future demands then we can easily manage the service
management by delivering the quality product to the client.
There is an interesting tool to analyze the business and the impacts on it. BIA is the activity
performed by ITSCM that works with the business to understand the impact of degraded services or
losing an IT service or component.
Week 6: Lecture Summary
Any company can do lots of compromises but when it comes to compromise on data or information
security, the answer is a big NO. This lecture summarizes the importance of the security in the
organization and different steps by which we can prevent data security breaches. Information

security (InfoSec) describes activities that relate to the protection of information and information
infrastructure assets against the risks of loss, misuse, disclosure or damage. Information security
management (ISM) describes controls that an organization needs to implement to ensure that it is
sensibly managing these risks. There is a certain standard developed to ensure information security
and that is called as information security policy. It should include separate policies for use and
misuse of assets, access control, password control, email and internet, anti-virus, information
classification, document classification, remote access, supplier access to IT services and information,
and asset disposal. Facility management (FM) is an organizational function which integrates people,
place and process within the built environment with the purpose of improving the productivity of
the core business. Every organization deals with issues and problems and comes up with a solution
due to proper problem management. Problem Management is the process responsible for managing
the lifecycle of all problems that happen or could happen in an IT service.
Problem management provides value to an organization by avoiding, reducing and mitigating the
adverse business impact of problems. Problem management has reactive and proactive aspects.
From a reactive perspective, the purpose of the process is to manage the lifecycle of problems from
identification to elimination by determining the root cause and then applying the necessary
change(s) to prevent recurrence. From a proactive perspective, the purpose of the process is to
prevent future incidents wherever possible or reduce the impact of those incidents that can’t be
prevented.
(Iden, 2014)It is of great significance that which kind of approach you are following. Reactive
problem management responds to incidents and problems that occur. The proactive side of problem
management is concerned with preventing incidents and problems occurring. It is often triggered by
continual service improvement. There are several problem solving techniques such as Pareto
analysis in which the rule states that for many events, roughly 80 per cent of the effects come from
only 20 per cent of the causes.
Week 7: Lecture Summary
This lecture summarizes the concept of measurement analysis and metrics. There are various
performance indicators that portray the performance of the company. These are known as KPI or
key performance indicators. A KPI is a parameter that helps the management in an IT service to rate
the process planning of the project or other activity. They are the key indicators to measure the
performance of various employees and processes in the organization.
If you are eager to up grade your system and want to enhance its functionalities, then you first have

to understand it from the scratch. You have to understand that what needs to be upgraded and
what will be the after effects of the changes introduced in the system. (Iden, 2014)
For example, a company wanting to measure the success of one of its product lines can use the
number of units sold during the first year as a baseline from which to evaluate subsequent sales
growth.
Goals, baseline, KPIs, and CSFs are interrelated in performance management and improvement
framework.
KPIs reference goals rather than just performance.
Baselines tell us where we started from, or where we were the last time we checked.
Goals, CSFs and KPIs tell us where we are going and if we have arrived, or at least if we are still going
in the right direction.
there is a cycle that has been adopted widely in the IT industry. This is called as deming cycle. The
Deming Cycle is a continuous quality improvement model consisting out of a logical sequence of four
repetitive steps for continuous improvement and learning.
There are various performance indicators that portray the performance of the company. These are
known as KPI or key performance indicators. A KPI is a parameter that helps the management in an
IT service to rate the process planning of the project or other activity. They are the key indicators to
measure the performance of various employees and processes in the organization.
There are also certain critical areas that need to be analyzed to be successful in the project. These
are called as critical success factors. CSFs identify areas that are critical to the success of the
enterprise. (Stern, 2006)
Week 9: Lecture Summary
This lecture focuses on the professionalism that is so much required in the IT companies. It is
required at each step and with each person. It discusses about the mannerism, appearance and the
overall personality. There exists no specific statement that defines a profession. There are a very few
professions that have a social impact associated with them and those are mainly medicine, lawyer
and engineer. There are many characteristics of professionalism such as appearance, competence,

reliability, organizational skills, and accountability, phone and e-mail etiquettes. A profession is
typically organized into one or more professional bodies.
A professional body usually starts by a group of people coming together because of a shared interest
in a particular type of activity.
A professional body may also be started by people engaged in the same type of activity, who want to
protect their business against others who may be trying to enter it without having the proper
knowledge or who may be practicing it dishonestly.
The Australian Computer Society (ACS) is an association for information and communications
technology professionals with over 26,000 members Australia-wide.
It is required at each step and with each person. It discusses about the mannerism, appearance and
the overall personality. There exists no specific statement that defines a profession. There are a very
few professions that have a social impact associated with them and those are mainly medicine,
lawyer and engineer. There are many characteristics of professionalism such as appearance,
competence, reliability, organizational skills, and accountability, phone and e-mail etiquettes. A
profession is typically organized into one or more professional bodies.
IAS is a premier association focused on the architecture profession through the advancement of best
practices and education while delivering programs and services to IT architects of all levels around
the world. IASA has created the world’s first and only IT Architecture Body of Knowledge (ITABoK)
that contains 250 skill sets that are critical for every business and IT professional to possess in order
to deliver strategic values of technology for the business. It is required at each step and with each
person. It discusses about the mannerism, appearance and the overall personality. . It is required at
each step and with each person. It discusses about the mannerism, appearance and the overall
personality. There exists no specific statement that defines a profession. There are a very few
professions that have a social impact associated with them and those are mainly medicine, lawyer
and engineer. There are many characteristics of professionalism such as appearance, competence,
reliability, organizational skills, and accountability, phone and e-mail etiquettes. A profession is
typically organized into one or more professional bodies.
There are certain drawbacks of being a professional body. Most professional organizations require
the payment of annual fees which might be expensive. In addition to the application and
membership fees, you will also be spending money on association breakfasts, lunches and dinners as
well as transportation costs or gas expenses.
(Stern, 2006)Profession includes people with a wide variety of political alignments, religious beliefs
and personal values. This may create stressful situations. Continuing Professional Development
(CPD) is defined as the systematic maintenance and improvement of professional knowledge and

skills throughout an individual’s professional working life.
It is required at each step and with each person. It discusses about the mannerism, appearance and
the overall personality. There exists no specific statement that defines a profession. There are a very
few professions that have a social impact associated with them and those are mainly medicine,
lawyer and engineer. There are many characteristics of professionalism such as appearance,
competence, reliability, organizational skills, and accountability, phone and e-mail etiquettes. A
profession is typically organized into one or more professional bodies.
References:
Iden, J., & Eikebrokk, T. R. (2014). Using the ITIL process reference model for realizing IT governance: An empirical
investigation. Information Systems Management, 31(1), 37-58.
Spremic, M., Zmirak, Z., & Kraljevic, K. (2008, June). IT and business process performance management: Case study
of ITIL implementation in finance service industry. In ITI 2008-30th International Conference on Information Technology
Interfaces (pp. 243-250). IEEE.
Barafort, B., Betry, V., Cortina, S., Picard, M., Renault, A., St-Jean, M., & Valdés, O. (2009). ITSM Process Assessment
Supporting ITIL (TIPA). Van Haren.
Brenner, M. (2006, April). Classifying ITIL processes; a taxonomy under tool support aspects. In 2006 IEEE/IFIP
Business Driven IT Management (pp. 19-28). IEEE.
Osgood, J. (2006). Deconstructing professionalism in early childhood education: Resisting the regulatory
gaze. Contemporary issues in early childhood, 7(1), 5-14.
Armstrong, M. B. (1993). Ethics and professionalism in accounting education: A sample course. Journal of accounting
education, 11(1), 77-92.
Stern, D. T. (2006). Measuring medical professionalism. Oxford University Press.
Working Party of the Royal College of Physicians. (2005). Doctors in society. Medical professionalism in a changing
world. Clinical medicine (London, England), 5(6 Suppl 1), S5.