An Overview of ITIL Service Design and Design Co-ordination

Services must be designed with the business objective in mind for them to be able to provide true value to the business. Service design is the stage in the lifecycle which converts a service strategy into a plan to deliver the objectives of the business.

ITIL Service Design provides guidance to design and develop the services and service management practices. It also provides design principles and methods to convert strategic objectives into portfolios of services and service assets.

Purpose of ITIL Service Design

The purposes of service design in ITIL are to do the following:

• Design IT services, governing IT practices, processes, and policies.

• Realize the strategy of the service provider.

• Expedite the introduction of services

• Make sure that service delivery is of high quality, the customers are satisfied, and the service provisions are cost effective.

Objectives of ITIL Service Design

The objectives of ITIL service design are:

• To design IT services which are so effective that only minimum improvement will be needed during their entire lifecycle.

• To embed CSI in all the activities of service design to make sure that the solutions become more effective over time.

• To keep a look out for investment opportunities by identifying changing trends.

Scope of ITIL Service Design

Service design starts with a set of business requirements which are new or changed and it ends with the development of a service solution to meet those requirements.

There are five aspects of service design which cover the design of:

• Service solutions for new or changed services

• Systems and tools for management information

• Technology and management architectures

• The required processes

• Methods and metrics for measurement

Value of ITIL Service Design

If service design is good, it is possible to deliver services which are of high quality and very cost-effective. It is also possible to ensure that the business requirements are being met.

The following benefits are provided by a design approach which is standard and consistent:

• It reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO)

• It significantly improves the quality, reliability, and performance of service.

• It makes the implementation of new services or changing of existing services easy.

• It helps to improve the IT governance

• It increases the effectiveness of service management and IT processes.

• It improves decision-making capabilities.

Principles of ITIL Service Design

The four Ps which are critical for successful service provision are:

• People

• Processes

• Products (services, technology, and tools)

• Partners (supplier, manufacturers, and vendors).

The implementation of ITSM in a practical case is about the preparation and planning the efficient usage of people, processes, products, and partners.

Design Coordination in ITIL

The final process in the ITIL service design stage of ITIL Lifecycle for services is the design coordination process. It is a useful part of service design which has been newly added in the revised ITIL V3 edition.

The main purpose of design coordination is to make sure that the objectives of the design stage are fulfilled as per the requirement. It aims to coordinate all the service design activities, processes, and resources.

Objectives of Design Coordination in ITIL

The objectives of the design coordination process are:

• To make plans and organize all the design activities

• To produce Service Design Packages based on change requests and service charters.

• To make sure that only the appropriate service designs are produced and transferred to service transition as previously agreed upon.

• To validate the uniformity in the establishment of IT services, service management information systems, processes architectures, metrics, and technology.

• To manage the interfaces with service strategy and service transition

• To increase the efficiency and efficacy of the activities and processes of service design.

• To effectively manage all the design activities across various projects, changes, support teams and suppliers in addition to supervising resources and schedules.

• To ensure consistency in the design of the following in order to meet the present and future needs and requirements of businesses which are always evolving:

• Appropriate services

• Service management information systems

• Architectures

• Technology

• Processes

• Information

• Metrics

Scope of Design Coordination in ITIL

All design activity comes under the scope of design coordination. The scope of the design coordination varies from one organization to another as each company will have different objectives, vision, and strategy.

• Certain design efforts will be a part of a project and others will be managed solely via the change process, without a formally defined project.

• Design coordination needs to pay maximum attention to major changes.

• Every organization needs to properly define the level of attention which needs to be applied to each design in design coordination.

• The interaction between the design and processes, review, measurement and improvement of service design also come under the scope of design coordination process.

Value of Design Coordination in ITIL

The design coordination process makes sure that the desired business outcomes are provided by the consistent quality solution designs and service design protocols.

Process Activities of Design Coordination in ITIL

The process activities under design coordination come under two categories:

1. Activities which are related to the overall service design lifecycle stage

2. Activities related to each individual design

The stages of the process activities are as shown in the flowchart below.

Sub-Processes of the Design Coordination Process

1. Design Coordination Support

   The aim of this process is to manage and develop service design resources and competencies in order to make sure that a reliable and steady approach is implemented across all the service transition projects.

2. Service Design Planning

   The aim of this process is to make detailed plans of all design activities to ensure that all relevant topics are taken into account during service design.

3. Service Design Coordination and Monitoring

   The aim of this process is to coordinate the design activities which are performed by multiple service design processes and to find out if the services which are newly implemented or changed can be provided economically.

4. Technical and Organizational Service Design

   The aim of this process is to find out the way in which a new service will be provided from an IT perspective, by specifying the technical infrastructure which needs to be created along with the organizational changes which are required.

5. Service Design Review and Request for Change Submission

   The aim of this process is to provide the service design package for a final review and start the implementation of the service by submitting a formal RFC (Request for Change).

Challenges of Design Coordination in ITIL

The challenges involved in design coordination process are:

• Maintaining high-quality Service Design Packages throughout the complicated landscape consisting of different businesses, services, and infrastructure.

• To ensure that adequate resources are allocated to design coordination activities.

• To develop common practices which produce the high-quality designs which are needed, without bringing in unwanted bureaucracy.

Risks of Design Coordination in ITIL

The following risks are encountered while implementing design coordination:

• A lack of available skill and knowledge

• An absence of involvement from the business in question

• Business priorities and requirements which are poorly defined or not clearly mentioned.

Design Coordination in ITIL thus helps to make plans, organize all the design activities and manage the interfaces with service strategy and service transition. It makes sure that only the appropriate service designs are produced and transferred to service transition while increasing the efficiency of the activities and processes of service design.