| Saturday, 10 January 2009 |
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The Service Portfolio is the tool that is central to the concept of the service lifecycle. The Portfolio contains the following parts:
Pipeline
Service Catalogue
Retired Services
However the Service Portfolio Management process is concerned with the management of the Pipeline. If consists of the following steps:
Define
Analyse
Approve
Charter
The service portfolio is where services begin their lives - in the concept stage. So, bear in mind that: ideas that begin in the pipeline may never come to fruition and the process is continuous. Information in the portfolio is constantly being refreshed and reevaluated, however, let's go through the steps.
It's all very well having an idea for a new service, but is it a good idea? That's what this first step is all about. Ideas for new services are first properly defined; and a formal business case is produced spelling out the justification for progression.
Financial management provides key inputs to this process allowing the proposed new service to be analysed for its value proposition. The proposed service is categorised with reference to the following questions.
Does this proposed new service allow us to:
Run the business
Grow the business
Transform the business
This thorough analysis allows the proposition to be balanced against all other possible investments and properly prioritised.
The formal approval would naturally take place at the relevant change authority as defined by the organisation. But this is the stage where the decision is made to as to whether or not to take the service forward into the design phase of the lifecycle. Services not approved may remain in the portfolio for further evaluation, refactoring etc.
The charter step is the committing of resources to the project and the communication of the decision. Once the new service reaches the chartered state, it enters the service catalogue. Notice that at this stage, the service has not been designed - that has still to happen. But now the proposal is destined to become a service.
You can see that the service portfolio management process is essentially responsible for the management of the service pipeline. The portfolio itself - as well as the service catalogue - comes under formal change control, so progress from pipeline to catalogue follows the normal considerations of the change management process. |
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posted by The White Dove Partnership @
21:57 |
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