Professional services are also part of the catalogue
The Service Catalogue must also include all services that we provide to the users from the IT department, and this includes not only the “traditional” services supported in the technology, but also other “professional services” provided mainly by individuals (and their brain power).
Email, connectivity and networks, Internet, printing system, stationary and mobile telephones,...serve as perfect examples of the services included in the catalogue that we provide to the organization from the IT department.
In addition to those mentioned above, however (which could number in the hundreds), there are also other services that we could call “professional” service, that are scarcely supported in any technological components at all, but rather that are provided directly by the IT staff. These services, which require more brain power than technology, become fundamental in the end for the proper performance and development of our business.
But what do mean by these professional services? I am referring, for example, to:
Advising the rest of business units on selecting and/or improving technological solutions that help them meet their needs.
Auditing services to detect opportunities for improvement in non-IT processes supported in technological solutions (and the famous integration!!)
Qualification services (training) to improve the users’ performance, thus increasing their productivity and the value generated for the business.
There are people who regard all of the foregoing as part of the processes rather than a service per se, or consider that these are tasks to be performed by the functions defined in the IT department. Sea como sea, Be that as it may, the important thing is that these services-tasks-processes are perfectly identified, and that we make them available to the rest of the organization so that they are able to make most of them, thus maximizing the value generated for the business. And given that the real world is not an ITIL exam, and we have a wonderful showcase, namely the IT Service Catalogue, why don’t we publish them here, without obsessing so much about what it says in the books?
Jandro Castro
