How to define our Services and Service Offerings

[Christine13]

I was reading the document on defining Services and Service Offerings. we are struggling to find some examples of these more built out than in the standard docs and models. The question we cant seem to find an answer for is how far down we define the Service Offerings.

For example, in the Communication and Collaboration area we define:

Service  = “Communication, Collaboration & Analytics”

Service Offerings = “BlueJeans”, “Zoom”, “M365 Office”

But I am thinking that’s too specific and we need to stay up a level and define instead:

Service  = “Communication, Collaboration & Analytics”

Service Offerings = “Communication”, “Collaboration” etc.

Which of these is best practice or recommended?

If the second one is the correct method, how do we go about reporting on incidents related to “BlueJeans” or “Zoom”?  I dont think the "Category" and "Sub Category" should go down to that level either. Do we use tags? Do we have to report metrics somehow pulling in the application service that is impacted ("BlueJeans Prod" for example)?

Thanks

[Brandon Wilson]

Both can be correct. However, if you want to go with the second option, I would define your top level service as “Communication, Collaboration & Analytics” then the a child service for each “Communication”, “Collaboration”, then have your offerings related to each of the child services. I always tend to think that everything rolls up to one service a some point. Honestly, it can be broken down even further. Take for example O365, which has offerings of itself like E1, E2, etc. That would be 3 tiers of services and offerings. Unless, all you are offering is one O365 package. Hope this makes sense, if not, let me know and I can help you understand how I helped organization build their CMDB using CSDM methodology.

[Stig Brandt]

Hi Chrstine

As CSDM is a datamodel, it all comes down to what data to put where, in your example, you could consider, also looking at SPM, as your hierarchy, in the old-day, I used to have this hierarchy as Business Service -> Business Service - Service Offering, of course depending on how many levels.

Your Service Offering, is the record where you have SLA's, Commitments define for your customer/end users, so if you don't have specific SLA - Commitment for ex. Zoom, then just create Zoom, as and Application Service or Application CI.

This example her eis for O365, but you can change the Applications and Services as you need:

[Christine13]

Thank you both for your replies. That has definitely provided me more to think about and options.

I still have the open question around reporting (at the Zoom, BlueJeans, M365 Office level). If I need to report at that level are my options either to take categories down to that level or the service offerings? If I wanted to keep the Service offerings at the higher "Collaboration Offering" level, how else could I report out? Would a user have to select an application service in the CI field (which could be messy trying to train users to look for that)? 

[Evan Miller]

Hi Christine,

This aspect of CSDM is definitely the most confusing when you first come into it. We struggled a lot with defining a model that works for us which is compliant with CSDM. Look at CSDM as more of a compliance framework. As long as you are compliant, then you can use all the latest and greatest things that the platform has to offer.

The reality of your question comes down to organizational change management, which is only covered to a small degree in the CSDM papers. You have to think about how your organization defines what a service is. You can think of a service offering as an instantiation of a service. So in reality, you should ask yourself how your organization defines providing services. It seems like you are where my org is today with a very application centric organization. You are asking about how you can report on applications and not on the services you are providing. On the flip side, if you go with the second option and choose to report on services, but that's not how your organization is setup, then you can only get so far before you run into walls with reporting. 

In addition to the above thoughts, I think you should look at Technology Business Management (TBM) which has industry specific standards for defining services. 

Depending on how your organization is structured, you may want to think about the services that you provide for specific applications and/or services. Do you provide development services for it, operational support, are there tiers of support that you provide, do you have delivery services, etc...