Can a Service Owner be outside IT

[Salim Guerid]

Hello,

On my way to implement the CSDM, I am very tempted to follow the below principles :

• Technical Service: Service Owner (accountable) and service manager (responsible) within IT
• Business Service: Service Owner (accountable) within the business and service manager (responsible) within IT

The principles are :

• Develop the engagement of the business towards their digital services
• Design a more accurate reflect of the nature of the relation. For business service (e.g. HR platform), IT does not own the service but manage the technical components. Accountability and decision making power are with the business.

I am aware of the "Business Owner" role which was introduced but I am not 100% comfortable with the notion. I am under the impression that if we define a 3 roles (Business Owner, Service Owner, Service Manager) for business services, we should have a similar role for technical service.

Any advice/feedback will be highly appreciated. 

[Uncle Rob]

I haven't messed around with CSDM much, but the idea that all technical and business services are within IT is laughable.  Don't need to look too deep in every industry to see whole swaths of tech that are managed outside IT because IT simply isn't tooled for them.

Look at validated systems in the pharmaceutical industry.

Look at the trading platforms for major hedge funds.

Look at ALL the basic services a building provides:  light, environmental control, security

Look at any industry that has their own home-grown CORNERSTONE operational apps.  I worked in hospitality, and you can bet IT wasn't let within 100 feet of systems dedicated to marketing R&D, or reservations.

As new hyper specific apps emerge in hr and marketing, you can bet those won't be managed by IT either.

[Mark Bodman]

I would check with the ITSM team on the Service Portfolio product or Service Builder feature which sets the ownership for services when they are created.  In my own use, it seems that as long as they are a user in ServiceNow, they can be an owner and access the our platform to manage the service.

Also, I believe that Service Owners would want to use Digital Portfolio Management (DPM) to monitor all actives related to their Service.  I would explore how the Service Owner role interacts with DPM as this would be their new home now that Service Owner Workspace has been replaced by DPM.