Itil process-assessment-framework

Table of Contents
This case study paper documents the approach undertaken by the Co-operative Financial Services
(CFS) to develop an „ITIL Process Assessment Framework‟ (IPAF) that provides a simple, low cost
and modular methodology in the delivery of ITIL process assessments.
The need to develop an in-house competency is becoming more important for organisations truly
committed to CSI. ITIL process assessments should be performed and repeated on a periodic basis
and therefore in today‟s economic climate a more cost effective and flexible alternative is required
from the services and offerings that are available in the external marketplace.
This case study paper provides you with a comprehensive guide including tangible „start-up‟ support
on how to successfully establish the IPAF methodology and in how to perform the activities
necessary to deliver a successful ITIL process assessment.
A simple,low costand modularapproach inperformingprocess assessments:-
ITIL Process Assessment Framework
Ian MacDonald FBCS CITP FISM
Senior IT Specialist
The Co-operative FinancialServices
August 2010

2
Table of Contents
Section Page
1. Executive Summary .............................................................................................. 3
2. The Continual Service Improvement Perspective..................................................... 4
3. Creating an ITIL Process Assessment Framework................................................... 5
4 The ITIL Process Assessment Framework – Modular Structure................................ 6
4.1 Process Management........................................................................................ 6
4.2 Process Maturity............................................................................................... 6
4.2.1 Process Maturity Self Assessment Techniques............................................ 7
4.3 ITSMF Self Assessment Tool............................................................................. 8
4.3.1 Guidance on scheduling the Self Assessment using the ITSMF tool ............. 9
4.4 The Service Management Process Maturity Framework..................................... 11
4.4.1 Guidance on scheduling the Self Assessment using the Service Management
process maturity framework...................................................................................... 12
4.5 Customer........................................................................................................ 13
4.6 ITIL (Gap Analysis)......................................................................................... 15
4.7 Current State Assessment (CSA)..................................................................... 20
5 Baselines and Internal Benchmarking................................................................... 21
5.1 Creating the baselines and Internal Benchmarking ............................................ 21
5.1.1 Process Management.............................................................................. 21
5.1.2 Process Maturity..................................................................................... 22
5.1.3 Customer perspective.............................................................................. 25
5.1.4 The ITIL perspective ................................................................................ 26
6 Planning Considerations ...................................................................................... 27
6.1 High Level Aims and Objectives ....................................................................... 27
6.2 Modular Approach........................................................................................... 28
6.3 Outline Planning Approach .............................................................................. 28
6.4 Key Roles....................................................................................................... 28
6.5 Planning Activities........................................................................................... 30
6.5.1 Planning and Preparation......................................................................... 30
6.5.2 Data Gathering........................................................................................ 30
6.5.3 Assessment ........................................................................................... 30
6.5.4 Analysis ................................................................................................. 31
6.5.5 Create Baselines (Inaugural results)......................................................... 31
6.5.6 Internal Benchmarking (Subsequent results)............................................. 31
6.5.7 Current State Assessment....................................................................... 31
6.5.8 Management Reporting ........................................................................... 32
6.6 Planning Estimates......................................................................................... 33
7 Benefits of using the ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF)......................... 35
7.1 IPAF Design principles .................................................................................... 35
7.2 Additional Benefits .......................................................................................... 36
7.3 IPAF – Validation of Stakeholder Value ............................................................ 36
8 Lessons Learned................................................................................................. 38
8.1 Planning......................................................................................................... 38
8.2 Organisational Culture..................................................................................... 38
8.3 The Customer Perspective............................................................................... 39
8.4 The Process Maturity Perspective .................................................................... 39
8.5 The ITIL Perspective........................................................................................ 40
9 Starter Pack toolkit.............................................................................................. 42

3
1. Executive Summary
The ability to perform ITIL process assessments and use these to establish the baseline
measurements and benchmark(s) for future comparison are key tenets of the Continual
Service Improvement (CSI) model.
In the marketplace, there are many service management consultancy groups that provide ITIL
process assessment services and offerings. Many companies perceive these to be their only
viable option. Typically, this belief is based upon a view that they do not have the internal
skills, expertise or tools to execute an assessment for an exercise that is considered overly
complex and resource intensive.
The need to develop an in-house competency is becoming more important for organisations
truly committed to CSI. ITIL process assessments should be performed and repeated on a
periodic basis and therefore in today‟s economic climate a more cost effective and flexible
alternative is required from that available in the external marketplace.
This case study paper documents the approach undertaken by the Co-operative Financial
Services (CFS) to develop an „ITIL Process Assessment Framework‟ (IPAF) that provides a
simple, low cost and modular methodology that delivers comparable results to that provided
by external consultancy groups.
The methodology employed exploits your in-house ITIL skills1 and utilises existing available
industry best practice publications, tools and reference material and adds additional value by
providing a balanced and holistic view of the organisations ITIL process maturity by focusing
on 4 key dimensions:-
 The Process Management perspective
 The Process Maturity perspective
 The Customer perspective
 The ITIL perspective
The IPAF methodology has been used extensively to assess the process maturity of the ITIL
process environments across the CFS and Britannia organisations2.
This case study therefore benefits from the learning gained and provides you with a
comprehensive guide including tangible „start-up‟ support on how to successfully establish the
IPAF methodology to deliver a successful in-house led ITIL process assessment exercise.
The benefits of the IPAF approach have been endorsed by
the CFS and Britannia process owner community who
validated that the core design principles of „simple, low cost
and modular‟ combine to provide a comparable output to
that provided by consultancy groups.
The wider CFS organisational benefits gained by using the IPAF approach include:
 Improved staff satisfaction as the organisation is seen to trust and exploit the skills,
knowledge and expertise of its people.
 Greater acceptance of findings and recommendations as these are based on a thorough
understanding of the internal infrastructure and process environment.
 Greater cross team co-operation in improving the overall ITSM capability.
 Increased ITIL knowledge and understanding for those who have participated.
1 It is recommended that the personnel who lead an IPAF assessment are qualified to the
Management Level (V2 Red Badge) or Expert level (V3).
2 CFS and the Britannia Building Society merged in August 2009 to create the UK‟s 1st „super
mutual‟ financial services business.
67% rated the IPAF reports as
comparable with 33% rating these as
more valuable when compared with a
previous externally led assessment
report.

4
2. The Continual Service Improvement Perspective
Continual Service Improvement (CSI) embraces every aspect of the ITIL service lifecycle and
can be applied to provide a sustained improvement in IT performance.
The most important aspect of understanding how to improve is by knowing what to measure
and understanding how those measures can be assessed, analysed and used as a basis for
delivering improvements. The ability to measure improvements and provide a „before and
after‟ comparison is essential in being able to demonstrate the benefits of CSI and the value
delivered.
ITIL process assessments are the mechanism used to create these measures for your ITIL
process environment. These then help identify the desired CSI improvement activities that
can improve process maturity and the organisations overall IT service management
capability.
 Assessments are the formal mechanisms for comparing the organisations current ITIL
process environment against established industry performance standards and criteria for
the purpose of identifying shortcomings, differences and gaps.
 Comparing the current ITIL process model against external industry references creates
the benchmark against which the organisation can compare its existing maturity with
industry norms. This provides guidance and direction in ensuring resultant CSI activities
reference and leverage acknowledged industry best practice.
 The measures and results from a well structured ITIL process assessment create the
baselines and benchmarks against which the progress of CSI activities instigated as a
result of the assessment can then be demonstrated.
The Continual Service Improvement Model3
How the outputs from an ITIL Process Assessment
Framework (IPAF) align with the CSI Model
 Assessments are an effective method of
answering the question ‘Where are we now?’
 Establishing a benchmark to compare against industry
norms identifies the shortcomings, differences and gaps
within the existing ITIL process environment and defines
the target for ‘Where do we want to be?’
 The findings and recommendations from an
assessment formulate the process improvement
plans to determine ‘How do we get there?’
 The original outputs from the assessment created the
baseline measures and benchmarks against which a
repeat assessment can demonstrate improvement and
answer the question ‘Did we get there’
Figure 2.1:- Continual Service ImprovementModel
3 Continual Service Improvement Model: Section 2.4 – ITIL V3 Core publication Continual Service
Improvement. (ISBN 978 011331049 4)
What is the vision?
Where are we now?
How do we keep the
momentum going?
Where do we want
to be?
How do we get
there?
Did we get there?

5
ITIL Process Assessment Framework
Process
Management
Customer
Current
State
Assessment
Process
ITIL
Maturity
3. Creating an ITIL Process Assessment Framework
The ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF) was developed to enable us to adopt a
modular approach in performing ITIL process assessments. This provided flexibility in the
scheduling and execution of the required activities.
Figure 3.1:- ITIL Process AssessmentFramework
The use of this framework ensured a balanced and holistic view of our ITIL process
environment and provided the recipients of the assessment outputs with a range of CSI
opportunities to further improve their processes. The IPAF achieves this by ensuring the
assessment considers each ITIL process from 4 differing perspectives:-
 The Process Management perspective
This assessment indicates the level to which Process Management has been formally
established for each ITIL process.
 The Process Maturity perspective
This assessment uses Self Assessment techniques. This provides a useful indication
from the view of the IT practitioners on how well the process has been deployed and
executed.
 The Customer perspective
This assessment is based upon direct customer feedback on how well the ITIL process is
focused on meeting customer needs.
 The ITIL perspective
This assessment compares the current in-house ITIL implementation against the OGC
ITIL guidance publications. This highlights the key differences between the in-house
process and ITIL best practice covering areas such as execution, terminology,
organisational construct, measurement and reporting.
The outputs from these 4 areas of assessment are then represented within a structured one
page summary Current State Assessment report for each individual process within the
scope of the ITIL process assessment activity.

6
Process Management Assessment
Process Owner assigned
Process Management f ully established
Core Process Documented
End-End Process Documented
Process Measured
Process Optimised
A
A
A
G
A
G
4 The ITIL Process Assessment Framework – Modular Structure
4.1 Process Management
Process Management is a key discipline for any organisation committed to Continual Service
Improvement (CSI). Process Management helps define, visualise, measure, control, report
and improve processes so that they are efficient, effective and consistent.
The roles (Process Owner and Process Manager) define the accountabilities and
responsibilities for performing the planning and control activities for each process.
The IPAF assessment helps to determine the level to which Process Management has been
formally established for each ITIL process. Compliance against defined assessment criteria
for each Process Management category determines the „R, A, G‟ status that is reported4.
Figure 4.1:- Sample Process Management Assessment as
represented within the Current State Assessmentfor a selected ITIL
process.
4.2 Process Maturity
Process Maturity is an indication of how well the process has been developed, deployed and
is capable of continuous improvement. Assessing the maturity of the ITIL process provides
the Process Owner with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their process
and importantly where CSI focus should be applied to further mature the process.
The IPAF assessment makes use of available public domain ITIL Self Assessment
techniques to provide an approach that can easily be adopted by all organisations.
The benefits of ITIL Self Assessment are that they provide a baseline against which future
improvements can be assessed and measured. The Self Assessments are easy to schedule
and can be repeated as and when required.
4
The criteria used for this aspect of the assessment is available within Section 9

7
4.2.1 Process Maturity Self Assessment Techniques
There are two recommended Self Assessment techniques that can be used to provide your
initial process maturity baseline results and create your initial internal benchmark against
which repeat assessments can subsequently be compared. These are:-
4.2.1.1 The ITSMF Self Assessment Tool
This was developed by the ITSMF5 with the endorsement of the Office of Government
Commerce (OGC).
The tool supports individual process assessments of all ten processes within the Service
Delivery and Service Support ITIL publications and additionally includes an assessment for
the Service Desk function.
The Self Assessment is based upon a structured questionnaire specific to each process with
each question requiring a simple YES/NO response with each question weighted based on its
significance. A process management framework is used to provide the nine headings against
which the questions are aligned and subsequently the results reported.
The ITSMF tool provides a flexible approach in the scheduling of your Self Assessments. The
tool is easy to use and is built around Microsoft Excel and therefore can be completed online
allowing results to be easily shared.
On completion of the survey the responses are immediately provided in numeric table and
graphical form and provide a comparison of the completed scores vs. the „good practice‟
target set for each element of the process management framework.
4.2.1.2 The Service Management Process Maturity Framework
An approach to assess process maturity is now documented within the ITIL V3 publications6.
The Service Management Process Maturity Framework uses an approach that has been
widely used in the IT industry for many years based upon Software Engineering Institutes
Capability Maturity Model Integration (SEI CMMI) and has been developed to bring a
common, best practice approach to the review and assessment of Service Management
process maturity.
The framework recognises that process maturity is heavily dependant on the maturity and
capability of the overall IT organisation. This is reflected in the framework by ensuring that
assessments consider the following five areas:-
 Vision and steering
 Process
 People
 Technology
 Culture
The results from the assessment are aligned to one of the five maturity levels defined within
the framework beginning with Level 1 which is described as „ad-hoc‟ or potentially „chaotic‟
through to Level 5 which is described as „institutionalised‟ and its objectives and goals fully
aligned with the strategic business and IT goals.
5 The OGC approved ITIL Self Assessment tool can be obtained from the ITSMF website
(www.itsmf.co.uk/BestPractice/SelfAssessment.aspx) and is also provided in Section 9
6 Appendix H: The Service Management Process Maturity Framework – ITIL V3 Core
publication Service Design. (ISBN 978 011 331047 0)

8
4.3 ITSMF Self Assessment Tool
The ITSMF Self Assessment tool uses a process management framework consisting of nine
process elements against which the questions and subsequent reporting are aligned. The
description of these process elements is as follows:-
 Prerequisites: - Ascertains whether the minimal levels of pre-requisite items are
available to support the process activities
 Management Intent: - Establishes whether there are organisational policy statements,
business objectives (or similar evidence of intent) providing both purpose and guidance to
develop the process.
 Process Capability: - Examines the activities being performed to support the process.
 Internal Integration: - Seeks to
ascertain whether the activities
are integrated sufficiently in
order to fulfil the process intent.
 Products: - Examines the
process outputs to ascertain if
all expected process outputs are
being produced.
 Quality Control: - Is concerned
with the review and verification
of the process output to ensure
that it is in keeping with the
quality intent.
 Management Information: - Is
concerned with the governance
of the process and ensuring that
there is adequate and timely
information produced from the
process in order to support
management decision making.
Figure 4.2:- Illustrative report for a selected process using
the OGC endorsed ITSMF Self Assessment tool
 External Integration: - Examines whether all the external interfaces and relationships
between the discrete process and other processes have been established within the
organisation.
 Customer Interface: - Is primarily concerned with the ongoing external review and
validation of the process to ensure that it remains optimised towards meeting the needs
of the customer
The results from the completed Self Assessment are available in graphical form and provide a
numerical value for each element of the process management framework. Additionally, these
scores are compared against the „target‟ scores set which represent „good practice‟. (See
Figure 4.2)
Process Maturity – ‘Self Assessment’
Customer Interface
External Integration
Management Information
Quality Control
Products
Internal Integration
Process Capability
Management Intent
Pre Requisites
0 20 40 60 80 100
OGC ‘target score’ to achieve ‘capable process’
Self-Assessment scores for process
5 from 9 Indicators exceed OGC maturity targets

9
4.3.1 Guidance on scheduling the Self Assessment using the ITSMF tool
There are two scheduling options that can be considered when planning for the Self
Assessment exercises. These are as follows:-
 Consensus Group
This is based on a facilitated workshop approach where a selected group of process
practitioners for the given process work through each section of the process management
framework and debate each question and the response. The aim is to gain a consensus view
on the response provided for each question.
Pro‟s
 Time efficient in providing a single time boxed event to deliver the Self Assessment
results
 Encourages debate and challenge to ensure the most appropriate responses are
provided
 Anecdotal comments and observations can be captured to provide context and
understanding on how the results have been derived.
Con‟s
 Attendance levels can be impacted by operational events which may dilute the value of
the session and the results obtained if key personnel fail to attend.
 Where consensus is achieved as a compromise, i.e. there is a minority in disagreement,
results may not be truly balanced and have been swayed by those with the loudest voice.
 Generates additional time demands on key personnel who are required to contribute to
multiple processes Self Assessment workshops, creating the danger of „workshop fatigue‟
and risk of non-attendance.
 Distributed
This approach is to identify the individuals who are to participate in the process assessment
and send them their individual copy of the Self Assessment questionnaire that you want them
to complete. A deadline is set for the completion and return of the completed questionnaire.
With this approach it will be necessary to create a spreadsheet to record all individual
responses and their scores. When all surveys have been returned and results recorded, these
are then calculated to provide the average scores for each element of the self assessment
process model.
To provide your final self assessment score for the given process, the easiest approach is to
simply resubmit the average scores obtained into an unused copy of the self assessment
questionnaire. Alternatively you can create your own graphs based on the results compared
with the ITSMF/OGC targets for the given process.
Pro‟s
 Provides the process practitioners with flexibility in completing the Self Assessment at a
time convenient to them within their current workload.
 Completion rates by key personnel will be higher as there is no dependency on set times
for workshop participation and the risk of non attendance due to operational events.
 Responses are more balanced and considered. Process practitioners are not influenced
by the „group debate‟ and have an opportunity to reflect and review their scores before
they are returned for processing.

10
Con‟s
 The likelihood that you will need to „chase‟ individuals to complete the questionnaires
where your deadline has passed and there are a number of „nil returns‟.
 Practitioner questions and/or areas of clarification cannot easily be obtained.
 The Self Assessment co-ordinator receives numerous individually completed
assessments. An additional spreadsheet is required to aggregate all the returned results
to provide the final scores and graphical result.
 The timeframe to deliver the Self Assessment results for each process is longer
compared to the scheduled single workshop approach
Hints and Tips
(1) One area of caution is that the process practitioners view the results as a reflection on
their team or departments capabilities. So sections of the questionnaire that most closely
relate to their team or department have an (unrealistic) positive bias.
 The „Consensus Group‟ approach is an approach that can help mitigate this risk.
(2) A „Self Assessment‟ is exactly that and results will naturally reflect „what you know‟. So
if the prevailing views are that we are „good‟ or that we are „poor‟, then results typically will
reflect this. From experience junior staff are more likely to score positively compared with
more experienced IT practitioners.
 To offset this and provide balance, the approach should be to schedule assessments
with a mix of experienced individuals from different areas blending input from core
process practitioners with colleagues from areas that interact or execute activities within
the process.
 Consider involving Service Managers in all Self Assessments. As a group they
intuitively know „what works well and what doesn‟t‟ particularly from the perspective of
the customer.
(3) Each completed process assessment should be reviewed by the Process Owner to
understand what drives the results for each section within the assessment.
(4) The ITSMF tool does not currently support the new ITIL processes introduced in ITIL V3.
However, given that the ITIL V3 process model is built around the Service Delivery and
Service Support ITIL processes defined in V2, the ITSMF tool can provide value and co-
exist in the V2 and V3 process environments.

11
Problem
Mgmt
Optimised
Managed
Defined
Repeatable
Initial
Level 5
Level 4
Level 3
Level 2
Level 1
4.4 The Service Management Process Maturity Framework
This process maturity framework defines five levels of maturity (based on the Software
Engineering Institutes Capability Maturity Model Integration (SEI CMMI).
The major characteristics of each level are as follows:-
 Initial (Level 1): The process has been recognised but there is little or no process
management activity and it is allocated no importance, resources or focus within the
organisation. This level can also be described as „ad hoc‟ or occasionally even „chaotic‟
 Repeatable (Level 2): The process has been recognised and is allocated little
importance, resource or focus within the operation. Generally activities related to the
process are uncoordinated, irregular, without direction and are directed towards process
effectiveness.
 Defined (Level 3): The process has been recognised and is documented but there is no
formal agreement, acceptance or recognition of its role within the IT Operation as a
whole. However, the process has a process owner, formal objectives and targets with
allocated resources, and is focused on the efficiency as well as the effectiveness of the
process. Reports and results are stored for future reference.
 Managed (Level 4): The
process has now been fully
recognised and accepted
throughout. IT is service
focused and has objectives
and goals. The process is
fully defined, managed and
has become proactive with
documented, established
interfaces and
dependencies with other IT
processes.
 Optimised (Level 5): The
process has now been fully
recognised and has
strategic objectives and
goals aligned with overall
strategic business and IT
goals. These have now become
„institutionalised‟ as part of
everyday activity for everyone
Service Management Process Maturity Framework
Figure 4.3:- Illustrative processmaturityassessment for Problem
Management
involved with the process. A self contained continual process of improvement is
established as part of the process, which is now developing a pre-emptive capability

12
4.4.1 Guidance on scheduling the Self Assessment using the Service Management
process maturity framework
The Service Management process maturity framework enables each ITIL process to be
compared against the criteria established for each level within the model. The result of this
comparison is to assign a process maturity level for each process reviewed.
The assessment of the current process „as is‟ vs. the criteria defined for each maturity level
can be delivered in a number of ways based on organisational preference as follows:-
 Consensus Group
This is based on a workshop approach where a selected group of Senior IT personnel,
typically Process Owners and Process Managers, review appropriate supporting process
documentation as the basis for determining the how well the „as is‟ process compares to the
defined criteria for each process maturity level. An agreement is made on the level of process
maturity to be assigned.
This has similar Pro‟s and Con‟s to that described for the Consensus Group approach in
section 4.3.1.
 Independent assessment
This follows the same principles of the above but the process maturity level assigned for the
process is provided by an independent reviewer. A suggestion would be for Process Owners
to perform this assessment for processes not under their remit. A degree of challenge via an
appropriate Management forum or committee may be healthy to ensure there has been
consistency in approach across the process owner community before the maturity level is
ratified.
Considerations when using the Service Management process management framework
Pro‟s
 Has less reliance on the input of a reasonably sized sample group of process
practitioners to complete the „Self Assessment‟
 The results can be considered more objective as they can be linked directly with the
defined criteria for the process maturity level assigned.
 The results consider a broader Leadership and Management perspective of the process
environment (Vision & Steering, Process, People, Technology and Culture) compared to
the more practitioner focused tool based assessments.
Con‟s
 Because of the broader Leadership and Management perspective the assessment may
miss the input and opinions of the practitioner community. There is the potential for a
mismatch between the Leadership and Management view and that of the „IT coalface‟
 The outputs from the process maturity assessment will only provide high level pointers for
areas of CSI to further improve the process.
 Movement across the model requires „step change‟ improvement. Incremental
improvements delivered may not be recognised in repeat assessments and may de-
motivate the process community.

13
4.5 Customer
ITIL strongly emphasises the importance of each process being optimised towards meeting
the needs of the customer.
ITIL considers the following as key aspects of what customers want and expect7:-
 Specification
 Conformance to specification
 Consistency
 Value for Money
 Communications
The IPAF assessment seeks direct customer input to help understand the effectiveness of
each ITIL Process in delivering against the above and provides a useful insight into where
future process improvements should be focused and prioritised.
The outcomes from this customer engagement also provide a good balance to the results
from other aspects of the assessment, e.g. the „customer‟ element of the ITSMF Self
Assessment is based on the IT organisations view of how well ITIL processes meet customer
needs.
Other results from the assessment, whether good, bad or indifferent should ultimately be
viewed in the context of the prevailing customer perception.
 Approach – Interview or Survey?
It is recommended that a „best of both‟ approach is used to gain this vital perspective of ITIL
process maturity. A selected number of customers should be interviewed individually using a
structured approach to discuss aspects of each ITIL process in terms of how it interacts and
supports the day-to-day business process. The structure of the questioning should aim to
bring out the „key aspects‟ listed above.
A key deliverable from the interview should be a set of scores determined by the customer
based upon their view of each ITIL process that they have been asked to review in the
interview.
7 „What Customers Want‟ is in section 3.4.5 (Getting Started chapter) of the ITIL V2 Service
Support/Service Delivery publications. (ISBN 0 11 330015 8 / ISBN 0 11 330017 4)
Hints and Tips
(1) To help support the assignment of a process maturity level (using the Service
Management process management framework) it is recommended that this aspect of the ITIL
Process Assessment Framework is performed after completion of the other IPAF activities:-
 Process Management
 Customer
 ITIL „Gap Analysis‟
The outputs from the above will help better inform the comparative view of the process „As is‟
with the defined process maturity level criteria and will maximise the value of the complete
ITIL Process Assessment Framework by avoiding rework and/or duplication of effort.
(2) The Service Management process maturity framework is not version dependent so can be
used as an alternative to the ITSMF Self Assessment tool.

14
 Scoring Mechanism
A simple scoring mechanism has been devised to allow „customer perception‟ to be
represented as a score within the IPAF as follows:-
 For each customer interview, devise the level to which you wish to assign scoring of each
ITIL process (See Figure 4.5)
 Each customer interviewed is
requested to provide for each
process discussed a „score‟. This is
based upon 1 – 5. (With 1 being
Poor through to 5 being Excellent) for
the level of the process you wish to
score.
Figure 4.4:- Simple Scoring Model for
determining the Customer Perception score
 On completion of the business customer interview schedule, produce an overall customer
perception rating. The overall rating score is simply an average of all the scores provided.
 Process Level
Each ITIL process should be represented within the IPAF
report with a customer perception score.
This can be illustrated in the following ways:-
 A score is provided at the ITIL process level, e.g. Incident
Management.
 Where the customers will recognise a differential, then
bring this out by looking to provide scores for each aspect
of the process. e.g. the customer recognises and
differentiates Standard Incident Management from Major
Incident Management.
 Where you want to get specific insights to key elements of
each ITIL process, then provide scores against each of the
key elements discussed with the customers e.g. For
Incident Management score against Incident classification,
Incident handling, Incident escalation, Incident
communications.
Figure 4.5.- Illustrative options on reporting the
customer perception of the Incident
Management process
Hints and Tips
(1) To simplify the scheduling of sessions with the business and avoid creating additional
meetings, use the next appropriate monthly service review meeting and extend the agenda to
include the completion of this survey.
(2) The interview approach will result in many anecdotal comments and observations which,
where repeated by multiple customers indicates potential process shortfalls. These comments
should be captured and formally recorded and handed to the appropriate process owners as
an output.
(3) Consider the most appropriate customer groups for each process. Typically business
customers will relate to the Service Desk function and ITIL processes such as Incident,
Problem, Change and Service Level Management. Consider the internal IT departments and
teams as a customer group. They will relate more closely with Availability, Capacity,
Configuration, IT Service Continuity (ITSC) and Release.
1 2 3 4 5
Poor Low OK Good Excellent
Incident Management
Standard
3.2
Major
4
Incident Management
Incident Classification 3
Incident Communications 2.7
Incident Resolution 3.1
Incident Closure 2.8
Incident Management
3.2

15
Hints and Tips
When reviewing the in-house process documentation, record all findings and observations on
your checklists electronically. This provides the audit trail but also allows the results to be
shared and more importantly reviewed by the relevant process areas. Seek agreement to the
findings and observations or respond to any challenges raised before completing the „ITIL Gap
Analysis‟ section of the Current State Assessment (CSA) report.
4.6 ITIL (Gap Analysis)
This assessment provides a „Gap Analysis‟ by comparing the current in-house ITIL
implementation against that documented in the OGC ITIL guidance publications and other
best practice references you wish to include. This provides a useful indication of where gaps
in process capability exist and highlights where there are opportunities to adopt best practice
where this is considered beneficial.
 Gap analysis
This comparison of the ITIL implementation should cover aspects such as the following:-
 Process definitions
 Process policies, objectives, critical success factors
 Process roles and other organisational considerations
 Process interfaces (Inputs and Outputs)
 Process terminology
 Process measurement
 Process KPI targets
 Process reporting
 Approach
To support the „gap analysis‟ it will be necessary to document in advance a „checklist „ against
which the comparison can be performed.
The checklist will consist of a list of statements against which you will subsequently „test‟ your
in-house process(s) against.
The result of each „test‟ will indicate if there is a positive match between the in-house process
with established ITIL best practice, i.e. Where the „test‟ is not successful, then this identifies
an aspect of the process that can be improved by adopting best practice.
These statements are derived from your review of the established best practice publications
where you identify the key features and requirements of the process.
This is an important investment as these checklists will be used in repeat ITIL process
assessments. Over time the number of mismatches should reduce as CSI activities by the
Process Owner community are implemented.
Structure your checklist so that any observations or deviations noted during the gap analysis
can be recorded to help with subsequent reporting within the Gap Analysis section of the
Current State Assessment.

16
 Additional references (External)
In compiling your checklists you may wish to reference additional best practice publications to
further enhance the value from the gap analysis exercise. Some examples of additional
references are as follows:-
 COBIT and the mapping of its control objectives against ITIL. This helps establish the
level of process controls that have been established.
 ISO/IEC 20000 assessment checklists are used as a pre-cursor to an audit for
organisations aiming to achieve this standard. These checklists can be obtained and
used to help formulate your Gap Analysis checklists.
 FSA – Business Continuity Management Practice Guide. This provides useful guidance
on observed best practice for BCM and ITSC in the Financial Services Sector.
 Publication „Metrics for IT Service Management‟. This provides the measures and targets
that you would expect to be established for each ITIL process. This is particularly useful
in allowing you to compare internal process KPI targets with external „best practice‟.
 ITSMF Self Assessment questionnaire. Review the questions within the Self Assessment
questionnaires and include key questions in your checklist.
 Additional references (Internal)
The following are recommended sources of internal documentation that should be used as
input to the review:-
 Structure charts
 Process documentation & work procedures
 Reports produced as an output(s) from the process, e.g. Major Problem Report
 Process KPI‟s and Measures
 Example Statements for your „Checklist‟
To provide a better understanding of how to populate your „checklists‟, here are some
example statements for a selection of the ITIL processes. These provide an indication of the
range of statements that you can build to support your ITIL „Gap Analysis‟:-
Service Desk (SD)
 The SD is the single point of contact for all business colleagues and 3rd party support
organisations with regard to day-to-day contact regarding IT service.
 The SD has a marketing plan to raise the profile of the Desk and to better understand the
user experience of their customers.
 The SD owns the incident control process and monitors progress on all incidents.

17
Request Fulfilment
 Where the Service Desk is the central point for the processing of service requests, these
are recorded and managed as a separate record type, i.e. not recorded as an incident
record.
 Users are provided with self service „menu „type selection options so that they can select
and input details of service requests from a pre-defined list‟s.
 When a service request has been fulfilled it is referred back to the Service Desk for
closure. The closure process should ensure the user is satisfied with the outcome.
Event Management
 All key configuration items are actively monitored to determine their status and
availability. All exceptions generate an alert.
 Events are categorised to denote their significance. Event categories are Informational,
Warning or Exception.
 An incident record is automatically opened immediately an exception is detected.
Incident Management
 Incident Classification is supported by a priority coding systems to assign Incident Priority
based on an assessment of Urgency and Impact.
 A Major Incident Handling procedure is documented.
 The Target value for the Percentage of incidents resolved within target time by priority‟ is
set at 95%. 8
Problem Management
 Problem Classification is supported by a priority coding systems to assign each problem a
priority based on an assessment of Urgency and Impact.
 Major Problem Reviews are undertaken and documented upon the resolution of every
major problem.
 Staff are trained in the use of methods and techniques that help with problem
investigation and diagnosis, i.e. Kepner-Tregoe, Brainstorming, ISHIKAWA diagrams,
Pareto Analysis.
Change Management
 Every Request For Change (RFC) is allocated a priority that is based on the impact of the
Problem and the urgency of the remedy.
 Each RFC is categorised using ITIL prescribed change categories (Major, Significant, and
Minor).
 There is a documented policy that defines how the delegation of change authorisation in
„out of hours‟ emergency situations is performed with the criteria and supporting
procedures required to mobilise an emergency CAB (CAB/EC)
8 This statement was obtained from the publication ‘Metrics for IT Service Management’ ISBN 978 90
77212 69 1 to provide guidance on target setting for this incident management metric.

18
Release Management
 There is a documented Release Management policy to state the numbering, frequency
and scope of which aspects of the IT infrastructure will be controlled by definable
releases.
 Releases are categorised in line with ITIL guidance as major releases, minor Releases
and emergency releases.
 A responsibility matrix (or similar) is defined to denote the release responsibilities of all
teams and roles that execute within the Release Management process.
Configuration Management
 There are documented policies that define the objectives, scope, principles and Critical
Success Factors for Configuration Management.
 The roles and responsibilities for the Configuration Manager, Asset Manager
Configuration Analyst and Configuration Administrator are documented and assigned.
 Configuration verification and audit is periodically performed to verify the physical
existence of CI‟s with the information recorded in the CMDB.
Service Level Management
 Service Level Agreements (SLA) have been negotiated and agreed with all business
areas for the IT services provided.
 Service review meetings are scheduled on a monthly basis with representatives of each
business area to review service achievement and discuss key issues.
 SLA documents are reviewed at least annually with representatives from each business
area to ensure the services covered and targets are still relevant.
Availability Management
 The cost of an outage (financial) is known for each critical service to help understand
business impact and help prioritise service improvements.
 ITIL methods and approaches to help determine and drive availability improvements are
documented and embedded, i.e. The Expanded Incident Lifecycle, Service Failure
Analysis (SFA), Component Failure Impact analysis (CFIA), Technical Observation posts
(TOP).
 There is a test schedule for the regular planned invocation of resilience and fail over
components to provide assurance on their readiness to „work in anger‟ when required.
Capacity Management
 A Capacity Plan is produced and updated on a periodic basis (at least every 6 months)
 The capacity management process has the key capacity sub processes defined and
executed (Resource Capacity Management, Business Capacity Management, Service
capacity Management).
 End-to-End response times are measured and included in SLA reporting

19
IT Service Continuity
 Proactive Risk Analysis and Management exercises are performed for critical End-End
services and key components. These are performed at least annually or after a change in
normal operations 9
 All IT services are aligned to an ITSCM recovery option (do nothing, gradual,
intermediate, fast, hot standby).
 An overview of the organisations approach to Business Continuity Management and the
IT Service Continuity strategy is included in the staff induction process.
IT Financial Management
 Budgets are monitored and there are regular reports produced to compare expenditure
against the budget.
 Invoices are produced for the customer groups which are simple, accurate and issued on
time.
 The customer groups are periodically surveyed to ensure the activities performed by
financial management adequately support their business needs.
9 This statement was obtained from the FSA Business Continuity Management Practice Guide to
provide additional guidance on the frequency of proactive risk management and analysis exercises
( www.fsa.gov.uk/pubs/other/bcm_guide.pdf )

20
Customer Perspectiv e
Major
4
Standard
3.2
Standard
3.2
Major
3.5
ITIL Process: Incident Management
Process Goal:- “To restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimise the adverse impact on business operations, thus ensuring
that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained”
4.7 Current State Assessment (CSA)
This is the main output document bringing together all the results from each element of the
ITIL Process Assessment Framework. A Current State Assessment (CSA) document is
produced for each individual process. The report is produced on a single page and provides a
powerful visual view of the results for each process.
This assessment indicates the level to
which Process Management has been
formally established for each ITIL
process.
Compliance againstdefined assessment
criteria for each Process Management
category determines the „R, A, G‟ status.
ITIL Process: Incident Management
Process Goal:- “To restore normal service operation as quickly as possible and minimise the adverse impact on business operations, thus ensuring
that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained”
Customer Perspectiv e
This assessment is based upon direct
customer feedback on how well the ITIL
process is focused on meeting customer
needs. This is an interview based approach
with selected business representatives.
Each process is „scored‟ using a 1 (poor) thru
5 (Excellent) rating. Whilst subjective, it
provides an important customer perspective
of ITIL process maturity.
Proc es s Owner as s igned
Proc es s M anagem e
nt ful
ly e
s tab
lish
e
d
Core Proc es s Doc um ented
End-End Proc es s Doc um e
n
te
d
Proc es s M eas ured
Proc es s Optim is ed
Cus tom er Interface
Ex ternal Integration
M anagem ent Inform a
ti
on
Quality Contro
l
Produc ts
Internal Integ
rati
o
n
Proc es s Capability
M anagem entInten
t
Pre Requis ites
0 20 40 60 80 100
OGC ‘target score’ to achieve ‘capable process’
Customer Perspective
ITIL Gap Analysis
1. The Inc ident M ana
gem en
t proces s is not d
oc u
m ente
d.
2. The ITIL approac h to i
nc i
dent class if
ic a
tion i
s no
t ful
ly a
ppli
ed. ITI
L dete
rm ine
s
Inc ident Priority from a com bi
natio
n of Urgen
c y and Impact. With
in Brita
nn
iath
e ma
in
driv er is im pac t.Urgenc y (business criticali
ty ) is notex pl
ic i
tly c apt
ured with
in th
e
m odel. (The SD will howev er com p
ens a
te for t
his by rei
terati
ng th
e urgen
c y to the
rec eiv ing 2nd
line te
am ).
3. There are 5 Inc ident Pri
ority Lev e
ls b
ut the
s e a
re notdefin
ed with
in a sing
le In
c id
e
n
t
Priority m odel. Eac h Se
rv ice Catego
ry (Prem i
um , Enh
anced & Stan
dard) ha
s a
s eparate Priority c od
ing modelwith d
ifferin
g in
c ide
nt resolut
ion ta
rgets. (3 Serv i
c e
Categories x 5 priority le
v els = 15inciden
t res o
lutio
n ta
rgets).
4. 3r d
party Serv ic e Prov i
ders work to di
fferen
t IncidentRes ol
utiontarget
s c o
mp
a
re
d to
the internal 2nd
Line Sup
port tea
m s .
5. There is no Inc ide
nt Controlac t
iv i
ty p
erform e
d.
6. There is no Inc ide
nt M a
nager ro
le(s )prov i
ded fo
r routi
ne in
c id
enthandl
ing.
7. The ac tiv ity andproc e
dures for Major In
c id
ent Hand
lings ho
uld b
e den
oted wit
h
in t
h
e
Inc ident M anagement p
roc ess . Th
es eare c u
rrently ownedand re
ferenced withi
n
Problem M anagem ent
.
8. Inc ide
nt clos ur
e is not per
form edby t
he Servic e De
s k forthe majorit
y of incident
s . 2
nd
line supportperform incident r
es ol
utio
n andc lo
s ure an
d m an
age a
ll cus to
m er c o
ntact
(NB There is a plan to add
res s this on aphased b
as is in 201
0).
9. The herita
ge Brita
nnia KPI tar
get for i
nc i
dent re
s olut
ion i
s s e
t at 90%
. This is l
owe
r
lower than the ITIL uppertarget whi
c h i
s 9
5%.
Process Maturity – Self Assessment
This assessment uses either the ITSMF V2 ITIL Self
Assessment results (as shown) or the results from the ITIL
V3 Self Assessment using the ITIL Process Management
Framework (PMF).
This section provides a useful indication of where gaps in
process capability exist and an overall view of ITIL
conformance.
ITIL Key Differences
This assessment compares the current in-
house ITIL implementation against the OGC
ITIL guidance publications.
This highlights significant areas of difference
with ITIL covering areas of execution,
terminology, organisational construct,
measurement and reporting.
Figure 4.6:- Current State Assessment report format
Figure: - 4.7:- Illustrative Current State Assessment report for Incident Management
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
ITIL Gap Analysis
Incident classification does not result in an incident priority being assigned. The
use and intermix of severity and impact has different interpretations across the
organisation and can result in confusion. This also applies with the intermix
being used in MI and KPI reporting.
Incident Control (monitoring, tracking and escalation) is handled differently. For
Sev 1+2 incidents this is peformed by the MIM team real-time. For Sev 3+4 this
is a Service Desk management reporting process performed daily. Incident
ownership issues are not managed by the SD but escalated to the MIM team.
The Service Desk and MIM teams are functionally split. ITIL guidance is to place
all Incident Management roles within the SD. See Service Desk
The CFS KPI target for incident resolution is set at 99%. This is significantly
higher than the ITIL upper target which is 95%. Attaining this target may have
negative consequences with regard to resolver group behaviours and be a factor
in the current poor quality of closed incident records.
3rd party suppliers work to a lower Incident resolution target compared to the
internal resolver groups, e.g. SCC target = 95%. The „stop the clock‟ regime is
also applied inconsistently between internal groups and 3rd parties
The lack of a defined Event Management process,policies and appropriate
technologies result in additional overhead for the Service Desk. This is contrary
to ITIL guidance which recommends the use of auto-alerting to lessen the
demand on the SD and to improve the efficiency of the process.
ITIL best practice places the onus on providing immediate post incident
communications as a structured output from the MIM incident handling
procedure. The RCA should evolve into the Major Live Problem Report (MLPR) -
See Problem Management
Customer Interface
External Integration
Management Information
Quality Control
Products
Interna l Inte gratio n
Process Capab ili ty
Management Intent
Pre Requisites
0 20 40 60 80 100
OGC ‘target score’ to achiev e ‘capable process’
Process Owner assigned
Process Management fully established
Core Process Documented
End-End Process Documented
Process Measured
Process Optimised
A
A
A
G
A
G
A
A
R
R
A
G
A ‘Current State Assessment’ (CSA) is provided for each core ITIL
process. The CSA provides a balanced view of process
maturity viewed from 4 distinct perspectives.

21
Change Management
Assessment
1
Assessment
2
Process Owner assigned G G
Process Management fully established A A
Core Process Documented A G
End-End Process Documented A A
Process Measured A A
Process Optimised A A
5 Baselines and Internal Benchmarking
The ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF) has been developed to provide the
mechanisms for comparing the organisations current ITIL process environment against
established industry performance standards and criteria for the purposes of identifying
shortcomings, differences and gaps.
The IPAF will establish the baseline measurements and benchmarks which will help you
identify improvement opportunities and help verify the progress of resultant CSI initiatives.
 Baselines
The results obtained from applying the ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF) are
documented in the Current State Assessment and provide the initial baseline measurements
that establish the starting points or markers for later comparison.
 Internal Benchmarking
An internal benchmark is where an organisation sets its baseline measure(s) at a specific
point in time and then assesses how they are performing over time by comparing results
against the baselines originally set. By repeating ITIL process assessments on a periodic
basis this allows you to compare progress made against the baseline measures initially
obtained for each individual ITIL process.
5.1 Creating the baselines and Internal Benchmarking
The Current State Assessment (CSA) is the primary output from the ITIL Process
Assessment Framework (IPAF).
The CSA provides the initial baseline measures against which future benchmarking can be
performed and reported.
5.1.1 Process Management
The result from this assessment indicates the level to which Process Management has been
formally established for each ITIL process. Compliance against defined assessment criteria
for each Process Management category determines a „R, A, G‟ status.
Process Management improvements can be evidenced by comparing the results from repeat
ITIL Process Assessments. Improvement will be denoted by a positive status change in the
„R, A, G‟ status reported against each category.
 Sample Reporting
Figure 5.1:- Illustrative example ofreporting the comparative Change
ManagementProcess Managementstatus

22
5.1.2 Process Maturity
The results from this assessment are based on the outputs from the Self Assessment
exercises performed. These provide a useful indication of the strengths and weaknesses of
each ITIL process from the ITIL practitioner‟s perspective.
Process Maturity improvements can be evidenced by comparing the results from repeat ITIL
Process Assessments.
Improvements will be denoted by a positive increase in the Self Assessment ITIL Maturity
scores (ITSMF Self Assessment tool) or by a positive change in the Process Maturity Level
assigned (Service Management Process Maturity Framework).
 ITSMF Self Assessment tool – Sample Reporting
The Self Assessment is structured against 9 process management elements and results from
the Self Assessments are mapped against these in both graphical and numeric formats.
The numeric values reported in the Self Assessment results can be used to provide the initial
baseline scores at a high and detailed level for each process and subsequent results from
repeat assessments can then be used to denote progress in improving process maturity.
Detailed ITIL Process Maturity Reporting
The example below shows how the detailed results from the ITSMF Self Assessment tool can
be used to demonstrate areas of improvement for each ITIL process. In this example we use
the results for the SLM process based on the results from two assessments.
Process Element
OGC
Target
Assessment
1
Assessment
2
Increase
(Points)
Increase
(%)
Trend
Pre-Requisites 75 81 94 13 14% ▲
Management Intent 75 47 84 37 44% ▲
Process Capability 82 40 81 41 51% ▲
Internal Integration 75 34 69 35 51% ▲
Products 80 50 68 18 26% ▲
Quality Control 83 25 69 44 64% ▲
Management Information 75 55 86 31 36% ▲
External Integration 85 30 62 32 52% ▲
Customer Interface 100 45 83 38 46% ▲
Figure 5.2:- Table illustrating ITIL SelfAssessmenttool scores for the Service Level Managementprocess.

23
ITIL Maturity(%) - Self Assessments
Serv iceDesk 78
Serv ice Lev elManagement 77
Change Management 67
Incident Management 65
Problem Management 63
Release Management 57
ConfigurationManagement 49
ITServiceContinuity 32
Capacity Management 29
Av ailability Management 24
0 20 40 60 80 100
ITIL Maturity (%) - Self Assesments
Assessm ent 2
Assessm ent 1
0 20 40 60 80 100
45
77
Creating an ITIL Maturity Score (%) for each ITIL process
The results from the ITSMF Self Assessment can also be used to create a high level
„Maturity‟ score for each ITIL process.
This approach allows you to report the relative Maturity of all processes within the
complete ITIL process environment to provide a holistic view of ITIL process maturity.
Additionally, the scores can be used to report improvements in process maturity at the
individual ITIL process level.
The following steps outline how to create your Maturity scores.
 Using the results from the previous table you will need to total up the points achieved
from the Self Assessment(s).
 These are contained in the columns headed „Assessment 1‟ and „Assessment 2‟
Process Element
OGC
Target
Assessment 1 Assessment 2
Pre-Requisites 75 81 94
Management Intent 75 47 84
Process Capability 82 40 81
Internal Integration 75 34 69
Products 80 50 68
Quality Control 83 25 69
Management Information 75 55 86
External Integration 85 30 62
Customer Interface 100 45 83
Totals 407 695
 Each element within the Self Assessment has a maximum points score of 100 therefore
the maximum number of points that can be scored = 900 (100 per element x 9 elements)
 To create an overall Maturity score calculate your assessment scores as a percentage of
the total points available (900).
 Using the above table, Assessment 1 = 45% Maturity and Assessment 2 = 77% Maturity.
The following illustrative graphs show how these Maturity scores derived from the Self
Assessment results can be reported
Figure 5.3:- Maturity „league table‟ Figure 5.4:- Maturity trend for SLM

24
Optimised
Managed
Defined
Repeatable
Initial
Level 5
Level 4
Level 3
Level 2
Level 1
 Service Management Process Management Framework (PMF) - Sample Reporting
The following tables are examples of how the results from this process maturity framework
can be reported.
Process Maturity Framework – Problem Management
Figure 5.5:- Table based on Service ManagementPMF illustrating
process Maturity improvementfor the Problem Managementprocess.
Process Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5
Service Desk x
Request Fulfilment x
Event x
Incident x
Problem x
Change x
Configuration x
Release x
Availability x
Capacity x
ITSC x
SLM x
Financial x
Initial Repeatable Defined Managed Optimised
Figure 5.6:- Illustration oftable based approach to reportcurrent ITIL process
maturity based on the Service ManagementProcess Maturity Framework .
Assessment
2
Assessment
1
Problem
Mgmt
Problem
Mgmt

25
Hints and Tips
(1) The use of customer based input to „score‟ how well the ITIL process(s) meet
customer needs will inevitably be influenced by recent events. A „bad experience‟ prior to
the survey may result in a negative score compared with the previous assessment rating.
(2) Take the view that this is an opportunity to identify further improvements. Process
capabilities during prolonged periods of stability do not stress the process and its
execution. During a period of instability, any shortfalls recognised by the customer help in
the longer term to identify the process improvements that ultimately make a tangible and
recognised difference to the customer.
(3) If these scores are reported in the organisations management reporting it is important
this context of the Customer perspective of the ITIL Process Assessment Framework is
understood by Senior Management.
(4) The results from the ITSMF Self Assessment for the „Customer‟ element are a source
for additional comparison. Process improvements aimed at customer outcomes should
see improvements in both IPAF customer based measures. Where these appear out of
balance this may indicate a differing perception on the value provided from recent
improvements.
5.1.3 Customer perspective
This assessment is based upon direct customer feedback on how well the ITIL process is
focused on meeting customer needs.
Each process is scored by the customer
groups using a 1 (poor) through 5
(Excellent) rating. This is reported in the
CSA as an average score per process.
Improvements recognised by the Customer can be evidenced by comparing the results from
repeat ITIL Process Assessments. Improvements will be denoted by a positive increase in the
Customer perception scores.
The table below provides the status for each process within the ITIL process environment.
The „R, A, G‟ status is determined from the average scores achieved using the above scoring
model. Optionally the actual scores can be denoted.
Process Assessment
1
Assessment
2
Trend
Service Desk ▲
Request Fulfilment ▲
Event ▲
Incident ▲
Problem ▬
Change ▬
Configuration ▬
Release ▲
Availability ▲
Capacity ▼
ITSC ▲
SLM ▲
Financial ▬
Figure 5.7:- Illustrative customer rating trend for the complete ITIL process model.
1 2 3 4 5
Poor Low OK Good Excellent

26
In the previous section when describing the Customer section of the ITIL Process
Assessment Framework and how the results would be obtained, an option outlined was to
seek customer scores for different elements of an ITIL process.
The example below illustrates how this would be reported to denote improvements to
individual elements of the Incident Management process.
INCIDENT MANAGENT Assessment 1 Assessment 2 Trend
Incident Classification 3 3 ▬
Incident Communications 2.7 4 ▲
Incident Resolution 3.1 3.4 ▲
Incident Closure 2.8 3.1 ▲
Figure 5.8:- Illustrative customer perception scores as a trend for the key elements of
the IncidentManagementprocess.
5.1.4 The ITIL perspective
This assessment compares the current in-house ITIL implementation against the OGC ITIL
guidance publications. This highlights aspects of the process that are not aligned with ITIL
best practice guidance. Alignment to ITIL best practice can be evidenced by simply providing
a total number of key differences identified.
The key differences identified in comparison with ITIL best practice guidance is based upon
the number of „tests‟ failed during the in-house process review using the predefined
„checklists‟.
Closer alignment to ITIL can be evidenced by comparing the number of key differences
reported from repeat ITIL Process Assessments.
Improvements will be denoted by a positive decrease in the number of key differences
identified.
ITIL Key Differences Q3 2009 Q2 2010
Service Desk 7 5
Request Fulfilment 3 3
Event 5 4
Incident 8 7
Problem 7 5
Change 6 6
Configuration 9 9
Release 6 6
Availability 10 9
Capacity 10 9
ITSC 7 7
SLM 5 4
Financial 8 7
Figure 5.9:- Illustrative ITIL key difference scores as a trend for
the ITIL process environment.

27
Hints & Tips
It is recommended that the initial assessment scope should be performed against all
processes within the ITIL process model. This will provide a comprehensive benchmark
and set of baseline measures for the complete ITIL process environment.
Resultant CSI activities are likely to progress at differing rates of pace based on the range,
size and complexity of the process improvements identified. It is recommended that
periodic process assessments are then performed at an appropriate time for each
process.
6 Planning Considerations
6.1 High Level Aims and Objectives
A well planned and structured ITIL process assessment exercise should have the following
clearly defined aims, objectives and scope:-
 Aims
ITIL process assessments provide the basis for determining areas for further CSI related
process improvement with the aims of:-
 Delivering business value (recognised by the business) through the implementation of
process and capability improvements.
 Enhancing the overall IT Service Management capability of the IT service provider.
 Increasing the levels of integration across the complete ITIL process model.
 Establishing the baseline measures and benchmarks against which future improvements
can be demonstrated.
 Objectives
 To assess the level of effective process management performed against each selected
ITIL process.
 To review the level of alignment with ITIL defined best practice for each selected ITIL
process.
 To review current process measurements and associated targets for each selected ITIL
process and identify gaps and differences in the metrics produced compared to ITIL
defined best practice.
 To understand from the customer perspective how well each selected ITIL process meets
the needs of the business.
 To perform a „Self Assessment‟ for each selected ITIL process to create a baseline
measure against which future process improvements can be measured.
 To document a one page assessment summary (Current State Assessment) report for
each selected ITIL process.
 Scope
The ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF) documented within this case study can be
applied to one or multiple processes.
The number of ITIL processes to be included in the ITIL process assessment exercise should
be documented as the agreed scope.
The IPAF can be applied to ITIL V2 or ITIL V3 processes.

28
Process
Assessment
activities
ITIL Process Assessment s
Outline Planning Approach
Planning &
Preparation
Data
Gathering
Assessment
Analysis
Create
Baselines
Management
Reporting
Internal
Benchmarking
ITIL
(Gap Analysis)
Current State
Assessment
Customer
Process
Maturity
Process
Management
6.2 Modular Approach
A benefit of using the ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF) is the modular structure.
From a planning perspective this provides an option to breakdown the overall ITIL process
assessment exercise into more manageable chunks by creating individual „module‟ plans.
This allows you to consider for each module the most effective way of scheduling and co-
ordinating the required activities.
This approach from experience is recommended where the scope of the ITIL process
assessment exercise covers multiple ITIL processes.
6.3 Outline Planning Approach
The model below illustrates an outline planning approach to your ITIL process assessment
exercise. As mentioned above, if the exercise is looking to perform assessments for multiple
processes or the full ITIL process environment this can be applied to each module within the
ITIL Process Assessment Framework.
IPAF Framework
Figure 6.1:- Outline Planning approach recommended for ITIL Process Assessments using the IPAF
framework
6.4 Key Roles
A key benefit of the ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF) is to exploit the modular
approach to make the most effective use of available resources and allow multiple
„assessment‟ activities to run in parallel.
This helps to spread the workload across a wider number of resources to limit the time
demand for those „doing the day job‟ and to reduce the overall elapse time to complete the
ITIL process assessment exercise. The IPAF removes the need for the creation of a
dedicated team to perform the ITIL process assessment exercise10.
10
Each organisation can of course consider an approach that best works for them. The IPAF
is supportive of any organisational approach.

29
ITIL Process:
Process Goal:-
 Lead Assessor
This role is responsible for the overall planning and co-ordination of the ITIL process
assessment exercise and the delivery of the final management reports.
It is recommended that the Lead Assessor role has the practical experience and good
understanding of the ITIL process model. Typically this level of ITIL knowledge would be
demonstrated by personnel who have attained the Management Level qualifications (V2) or
ITIL Expert Level (V3).
Each organisation will determine from where this role should be assigned, for example:-
 IT Manager
 Continual Service Improvement Manager
 IT Quality Manager / IT Audit Manager
 An independent Process Owner, i.e. who has no process(s) within scope of the
assessment.
 ITIL experienced Project Manager
The skills and experience of individuals from the above provide a good match for those
required to plan, schedule and co-ordinate the process assessment exercise and have the
authority and experience to challenge where necessary.
 Supportive roles
The model below denotes how key roles across the IT organisation can support and share the
workload associated with an ITIL process assessment exercise. Again this emphasises how
by using the IPAF approach you can limit the time demand on busy individuals and reduce
the overall elapse time by scheduling parallel activities across the IPAF framework.
Figure 6.2:- Illustrative use of CSA template to denote options and roles that can be used to support your ITIL process
assessment
Options and roles to perf orm these assessments include:-
 Prov ide Serv ice Managers with structured questionnaire and
scoring mechanism and engage Customer representatives as part
of existing serv ice rev iew schedule.
 Lead Assessor schedules and perf orms Customer interviews.
 Lead Assessor perf orms an independent rev iew.
 Lead Process Owner perf orms an independent rev iew of all
processes (not under their control.)
 Process Owners are assigned a process each (not under their
control) to rev iew.
 Process Managers are assigned a process each (not under their
Electronic Self Assessment Tool
Lead Assessor co-ordinates the completion of electronic Self Assessments
by the appropriate Process and IT practitioners (Distributed approach).
Each Process Owner co-ordinates the completion of electronic Self
Assessments for their process by the appropriate Process and IT
practitioners. (Distributed approach).
Lead Assessor and/or Process Owners schedule and facilitate the
completion of a self Assessment as a group session (Consensus
approach)
Process Maturity Framework (PMF)
Lead Assessor and/or Process Owner performs an independent review of
all processes not under their control. (Independent Assessment approach)
Process Owners assess their own process with a level of post assessment
challenge provided. (Process Owner Assessment approach)
Lead Assessor and/or Process Owners facilitate a workshop of senior IT
leaders/practitioners to determine a maturity rating. (Consensus group
approach)
ITIL Gap Analysis
 Lead Assessor and/or Process Owners compile checklists in adv ance.
(Process Owners should not create „Checklists‟ for their processes to
ensure impartiality ).
 Lead Assessor perf orms Gap Analy sis using predefined „Checklists‟.
 Lead Process Owner perf orms an independent rev iew of all processes
(not under their control.)
 Process Owners are assigned a process each (not under their control)
to rev iew.
 Process Managers are assigned a process each (not under their

30
6.5 Planning Activities
The following provide some high level guidelines on the planning activities required to deliver
a successful ITIL process assessment.
6.5.1 Planning and Preparation
 Confirm Sponsorship for the ITIL process assessment exercise.
 Agree the scope of ITIL processes to be included in the assessment.
 Identify the key stakeholders, practitioners and customer representatives.
 Document, agree and circulate to all stakeholders a „Terms of Reference‟.
 Determine the approach you wish to adopt for the Process Management module.
 Determine the approach you wish to adopt for the Process Maturity module.
 Determine the approach you wish to adopt for the Customer modules.
 Determine the approach you wish to adopt for the ITIL (Gap analysis) module.
 Create a schedule for the required kick off session, 1:1 meetings and workshops.
 Document and agree the „R, A, G‟ criteria to be used to assess Process Management.
 Create the structured interview/questionnaires per process for the Customer meetings
 Create the individual ITIL process „checklists‟ for the ITIL gap analysis.
 Create the „Current State Assessment‟ (CSA) template
 Prepare the Self Assessment guides and results spreadsheets.
6.5.2 Data Gathering
 Obtain all required best practice publications to support the overall process assessment.
 Identify the location and access to all internal process documentation sources to support
the overall process assessment.
 Obtain a copy of locally and centrally produced Process MI, scorecards etc.
 Obtain copies of sample Service Level Agreement documents
 Obtain current service attainment reporting.
 Obtain copies of IT structure charts
 Optionally, consider gaining access to Job Descriptions to validate that appropriate roles
and responsibilities are defined for key roles.
6.5.3 Assessment
 Perform assessment of Process Management capability per process using the predefined
criteria and assign the appropriate „R, A, G‟ status.
 Conduct interviews with Customer representatives and ensure anecdotal comments are
recorded and process ratings provided as deliverables from the meetings.
 Perform ITIL Self Assessments using either the ITSMF Self Assessment tool or Service
Management process management framework and record all responses.
 Compare current in-house ITIL processes with the predefined ITIL best practice
„checklists‟. Denote all observations where there is a key difference.
 Review all current ITIL process measures and targets and compare with ITIL best
practice.

31
6.5.4 Analysis
 Review results („R, A, G‟ status) from the Process Management assessment and validate
with appropriate Process Owners.
 Review anecdotal comments from customer interviews. Identify and highlight any
common themes. Summarise all comments per process and share with appropriate
Process Owners.
 Review process ratings provided by customer representatives. If there are significant
variations across the customer groups consider if these have been influenced (+/-) by
recent events. (you may need to context and balance if later questioned by your
stakeholders in the management reporting).
 Record all individually completed ITSMF Self Assessment results per process to create
an aggregate score using the Self Assessment provided framework and reporting
structure. Share these in advance with the Process Owner community.
 If using the Service Management process maturity framework then review the Self
Assessment results and record results.
 Review all observed ITIL key differences from the ITIL gap analysis and convert into a list
of non alignment statements. Validate these with the appropriate Process Owners.
 Review all observed differences in ITIL process measures and targets and add to the list
of non alignment statements. Validate these with the appropriate Process Owners.
6.5.5 Create Baselines (Inaugural results)
 Capture results from the inaugural ITIL process assessment exercise to provide the basis
for future comparison on improvements made.
 Section 5 provides comprehensive guidance on how to determine the most appropriate
baseline measures and suggested methods of reporting.
6.5.6 Internal Benchmarking (Subsequent results)
 To be able to demonstrate and evidence the results from CSI activities instigated as a
result of your ITIL process assessments you will need to compare results obtained from
subsequent process assessment exercises with the initial baseline measures that were
created from the inaugural exercise.
 Section 5 provides comprehensive guidance on how to develop the measures and
reporting of your internal benchmarking of the ITIL process environment.
6.5.7 Current State Assessment
 The CSA provides the Process Owner and key stakeholders with a structured one page
summary.
 Take the results from the Process Management assessment and complete the section
within the CSA template and repeat for each process.
 Take the rating from the structured interviews with Customer representatives and
complete the section within the CSA template and repeat for each process.
 Take the aggregate results from the ITIL Self Assessments and complete the section
within the CSA template and repeat for each process.
 Insert the ITIL non alignment statements derived from the gap analysis exercise within
the CSA template and repeat for each process.
 See Figure 4.6 for the structure and composition of the CSA.

32
6.5.8 Management Reporting
Consider the reporting requirements from the perspective of the Sponsor and the key
stakeholders.
 The sponsor is interested in the overall maturity of the ITIL process environment and the
strategic issues highlighted.
 The IT directorate are more interested in gaining a holistic view of the maturity of the ITIL
process environment.
 Process Owners are interested in the detail documented in the CSA relevant to their
process.
To avoid creating multiple reports, the following report structure is suggested to meet the
different requirements of your key stakeholders:-
 Participation and references
 Introduction and background
 The ITIL Process Assessment Methodology (based upon the IPAF)
 Management Summary (based on the common themes and observations across all the
individual process assessments)
 Process Management
 Process Maturity (based on Self Assessment results)
 Customer Perspective
 Significant key differences with ITIL best practice guidance
 Current State Assessments
 One page CSA per process
 Strategic Opportunities
 Consider using this report to convey the strategic issues and opportunities that require
organisational commitment and funding to deliver, i.e. things which are outside the
influence of the individual Process Owners.
 Appendices
 The criteria used to assign „R, A, G‟ status for the Process Management assessment
within the CSA.
 The scoring model to explain how the customer rating scores determine the „R, A, G‟
status reported in the CSA.

33
Hints & Tips
This investment in time is to establish the basic templates and supporting documents to
support ongoing process assessments.
To help reduce this effort a basic starter pack is provided in Section 9.
These provide the basic document set upon which you can customise and enhance as
appropriate.
6.6 Planning Estimates
The following estimations are provided as a guideline to assist with planning an ITIL process
assessment using the IPAF approach.
 Start-up activities
Before you can commence your ITIL process assessment exercise there will be a need to
create the supporting templates and checklists.
Using the IPAF framework, the following estimation guidelines are based on experience:-
Process Management
 Research Process Management best practice and develop the Process management
structure and the supporting criteria against which your „R, A‟ G‟ status is determined.
Approx 1 man day
Process maturity – Self Assessment
 (V2 tool ) Create a spreadsheet per process to capture individual scores and create
aggregate results matched against the OGC process scores. Use this spreadsheet to
create your graphical results and an overall ITIL Maturity score (%).
Approx 1.5 man days to cover creation of spreadsheet and then customisation for each ITIL
process.
 V3 (PMF) Research PMF framework and create results template.
Approx 1 Man day
 Create structured interview approach for each process. Include the scoring mechanism
and process level structure for reporting purposes.
Approx 1.5 – 2 man days for the complete ITIL process environment
ITIL (Gap Analysis)
 Create „Checklist‟ to include non alignment statements and metrics comparison.
Approx 0.5 man days per process

34
 Process Assessment Exercise
The following are estimation guidelines for the execution aspects of the IPAF framework:-
Process Management
 Review process documentation and assess against the structure and assessment criteria
you created to provide a series of „R, A, G‟ status indicators.
Approx 0.25 man days per process
Process Maturity – Self Assessment
 This will depend on the approach taken and the Self Assessment method employed.
 The distributed method will require results to be collated and your spreadsheets updated
to produce your overall scores.
Approx 1 man day for the ITIL process model.
 The consensus approach will require workshop sessions to be organised/facilitated.
Allocate 1 hr per process.
 Conduct meeting with each customer representative to discuss their experiences of
process interfaces, outputs and consequences and create process scores.
 A minimum of 4 separate Customer representatives is recommended for interview.
Approx 1 – 1.5 hrs per customer
ITIL (Gap Analysis)
 Review in-house documentation and measures against your ITIL „Checklists‟.
 Optionally consider observing activities/areas, e.g. attend a scheduled CAB.
Approx 0.5 - 1 man day per process.
Creating your Current State Assessment (CSA)
 Ideally you should capture and finalise your results from the above activities to update on
an ongoing basis the CSA for each process.
Approx 1 hr per CSA for quality control
 Elapse Time
 The number of processes within the scope of your ITIL process assessment and how you
wish to discharge the activities across the IPAF framework will influence how long the
process assessment exercise should take.
From our experience, a rule of thumb would be:-
5 x processes = approx 4 weeks
10 x processes = approx 6 weeks
The above timelines builds in the need for flexibility in scheduling workshops, interviews and
access to process owners to validate initial findings, quality checks. From experience this
compares with timelines provided by external consultancy organisations.

35
7 Benefits of using the ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF)
The IPAF provides a simple, low cost and modular approach in performing ITIL process
assessments.
7.1 IPAF Design principles
The benefits of the IPAF approach based upon the above design principles are as follows:-
 Simple
 The IPAF framework provides an easy to understand implementation approach to
performing ITIL Process Assessments.
 The IPAF utilises existing public domain reference materials and tools to support
assessment activities and uses standard desktop office products for the creation and
production of baseline and internal benchmarking measurement and reporting.
 The Current State Assessment (CSA) provides the recipient Process Owner community
with an easily understood but comprehensive assessment of each ITIL process „on a
single page‟.
 Low Cost
 The IPAF enables process assessments to be delivered in-house without the need for
expensive consultants. The aim of the IPAF is to deliver a comparable standard of
content and value when compared with the external market.
 The IPAF approach leverages existing in-house (ITIL practitioner and project
management) skills and expertise. No additional skills need to be developed or
contracted in.
 The IPAF framework can be used to perform ITIL process assessments against specific
processes or the full ITIL process environment.
 The investment in time and effort in establishing the IPAF is protected. The IPAF supports
and encourages periodic assessments utilising previously delivered supporting materials
and reporting frameworks.
 The IPAF utilises existing public domain reference materials and tools. The only
additional expense would be for any additional reference publications not currently
available in-house.
 Modular Approach
 The modular design provides flexibility in the scheduling, co-ordinating and execution of
the required assessment activities.
 The IPAF is not resource intensive. The modular approach has been designed so that the
workload for assessment activities can be spread and shared across a number of roles
within the IT service management function.
 The IPAF modular approach to ITIL process assessments provides an holistic and
balanced view of overall process maturity by gaining input from ITIL practitioners,
Customers and the use of existing best practice as reference points.

36
 The CSA provides the stimulus for both tactical and strategic CSI initiatives. At the
process level it can highlight quick win opportunities. The CSA‟s when viewed in
aggregate can highlight significant gaps in the organisation overall IT Service
Management capability that require „step change‟ improvements to be driven through.
7.2 Additional Benefits
Some additional benefits that can be gained from adopting the IPAF approach:-
 The IPAF approach encourages Process Owner and Process Manager participation
across the wider ITIL process environment. ITIL knowledge and understanding within
these key roles will increase.
 The IPAF approach encourages greater internal co-operation, participation and
communication across the IT organisation. This increases the acceptance of findings and
creates a more joined up and shared approach in taking forward resultant CSI activities.
 The IPAF approach is to leverage existing skills and importantly knowledge of the internal
environment. This is an important advantage over the use of external consultants.
 Increased staff satisfaction as management are seen to trust and exploit the skills,
knowledge and expertise of their people rather than bring in expensive consultants.
7.3 IPAF – Validation of Stakeholder Value
To validate that the benefits expected from the use of the IPAF approach are being realised, a
post assessment survey should be issued to gain the views of the participating Process
Owners (PO), Process Managers and IT directorate.
The aim of the survey should be to assess:-
 How well the IPAF approach made the best use of time for the participating PO‟s
 The extent to which PO‟s felt engaged in the IPAF based assessments
 The value to the PO‟s in the final report to provide a balanced view of process
maturity and the identification of future process improvements.
 Optionally, to provide a view on how comparable the internally led IPAF approach
compares with any recent externally led process assessment exercises and reporting.
Following the completion of the ITIL process assessment exercises performed across the
CFS and Britannia organisations (using the IPAF approach), the survey results obtained were
as follows:-
Q: - “How well did the planning and preparation for this assignment make best use of your
time and that of your people who were required to provide input and critique?”
 83% responded Good or Excellent. 17% responded as Satisfactory
Q: - “To what extent do you feel you were sufficiently engaged to provide input and to review
and critique the results for your process(s)?”
 67% rated their engagement as Excellent with 25% rating this as Good.

37
“Th e a sse ssmen t h a s h e lp ed me
u n d e rsta n d h o w imp o rta n t it is
th a t I sta rt to imp ro ve b u sin e ss
a w a re ne ss o f the Ma jo r In cid e n t
a n d p ro b le m Ma n a g e me n t
p ro ce sse s”
“I fe lt e n g a g e d th ro u g h o u t th e
p ro ce ss a n d w as a lw ays g iven the
o p p o rtu n ity to re vie w a n d
co mme n t”
“I th o u g ht the fina l repo rt w as easy to
u n d e rsta n d a n d a g o o d visu a l
re p re se ntation o f th e re su lts. I like d
th e o n e p ag e su mmary p e r p ro ce ss
w h ich re p resen te d a ll the results in a
cle a r ma n n e r”
“As Pro ce ss O w ner the repo rt
p re tty mu ch h it the spo t”
“I d o n ‟t b e lie ve th e re is a n y
ta n g ib le b e n e fit in e n g a g in g
e xte rn al co nsulta ncy when the
e xp e rtise a lre a d y e xists in -
h o u se . Pro vid in g in -h o u se is
imp a rtia l (w h ich it w a s) th e
re su lts sta n d va lid a tio n ”
“I th o u g ht the a ssessment used
a n u mb e r o f d iffe re n t
te ch n iq u e s to h e lp a sse ss
p ro ce ss ma turity, the se re su lts
w e re th e n translated in to a final
re p o rt to g ive me a g o o d
b a la n ce d vie w ”
“Yo u r a vailab ility in b eing able to
sh a re a pp roa ch , p rovide u s w ith
u p d a te s a n d th e q u ick
time sca le s/tu rn a ro u n d fro m
in itia l e n g a g e me n t to re p o rt
g e n e ra tio n w a s ve ry
imp re ssive .”
“Th is w a s a g o od u se o f my
time a s it h e lp e d to focus the
min d o n th e g ap s th at a re
ta ke n fo r g ranted o r h a d n ot
b e e n p reviously id e ntifie d”
Q: - “As a Process Owner how would you rate the value of the final report in providing you
with a balanced view of process maturity and in the identification of process improvement
opportunities?”
 83% rated the value to them as Excellent or Good. 17% rated this as Satisfactory.
A key aim of the IPAF approach was to provide a low cost, high value internally led approach
to ITIL process assessments which would be comparable to externally provided process
assessment services.
This aspect of the IPAF was tested within the survey by providing the participants with copies
of previous externally led ITIL process assessment reports to compare alongside the outputs
from the IPAF.
The results from the Process Owners surveyed are as follows:-
Q: - How would you compare the value to you of the IPAF assignment and reports compared
with those provided in recent years by external consultancy groups?
 67% validated that this key design principle had been met (Comparable deliverable)
with 33% rating the IPAF deliverable as more valuable.
 Anecdotal Comments
The following is a sample of the anecdotal comments received from the survey to further
endorse the IPAF approach:-

38
8 Lessons Learned
The following are the „Lessons Learned‟ based on our experience of developing the IPAF
framework and using it successfully to review the full ITIL process environments across the
CFS and Britannia organisations.
8.1 Planning
 We encountered an interesting paradox. The time required completing a process
assessment of a less mature or undefined process took much longer than that of a
mature and well defined process. The learning here was:-
 The less mature/undefined processes typically have no clear ownership so therefore no
single and informed point of contact to provide input to and review outputs from the
process assessment.
 Whilst the process may not „exist‟, in reality a range of activities are likely to be performed
across the IT teams which need to be identified and reviewed.
 More people are needed to engage in supporting the process assessment.
 A greater degree of exploratory work is required to prepare for the process assessment
where formal process management disciplines have not been implemented.
An example of this was Capacity Management. This process was not defined and had no
obvious functional owner, supporting documentation, measures etc. However, core
activities related to Capacity Management were being performed across the disparate
technology teams which needed to be assessed and included in the overall process
assessment for Capacity Management.
8.2 Organisational Culture
 When performing any form of assessment or audit, typically there is a degree of
nervousness within the IT community who are being assessed. To offset this and ensure
we had the full support and co-operation of the process community we:-
 Actively included all the Process Owner and Manager community in the pre planning,
engagement and output reviews.
 We continually emphasised to Senior Management and the process community that the
process assessments were not about identifying „who was good‟ and „who was bad‟ but
about identifying where and how as an organisation we needed to improve the maturity of
the full ITIL process environment.
 Ensured that all outputs contained in the CSA were „fact based‟. Nothing was
documented that could be interpreted as a judgement, opinion or hard critique.
 The criteria used for the „R, A, G‟ assessments in the Process Management section of the
IPAF and the „checklists‟ used in assessing ITIL alignment are good examples of how to
ensure results have a fact based reference point.
This aspect of how well the cultural aspects of the process assessment exercises were
met is covered by the results of the post assessment surveys instigated with the Process
Management community. (See section 7.3)

39
8.3 The Customer Perspective
 Arguably the most important section of the ITIL Process Assessment Framework (IPAF)
is the „Customer Section‟. During the process assessment exercises we continually
developed the approach to ensure we maximised the value gained from the customer
insight into our processes. Key learning points were:-
 Don‟t assume the customer representatives are ITIL literate. In some of the early
customer reviews there was clearly confusion and misunderstandings on the differences
between Incident, Major Incident and Problem Management.
 We learned to structure the review sessions less on ITIL terminology and process to that
more related to business understanding of what they should expect, the formal and
informal interfaces and contact points used, communications and reporting.
 Whilst the key output from the customer sessions are to agree a rating for each process,
the real value comes from the anecdotal comments relating to their experiences. These
were captured, summarised and then given back to the process owners. Where there
were „repeat‟ experiences conveyed by different customer representatives these clearly
highlighted a process improvement opportunity.
 When the customer provides a rating for the specific process, e.g. Incident Management
= 3, we always followed this with „what would we need to do to score 4‟. This provides a
good insight to the improvements the customers would most instantly recognise. Again
excellent feedback to the Process Owners.
8.4 The Process Maturity Perspective
 The use of Self Assessment techniques can misrepresent the true state of the process(s)
being assessed by the participating practitioners. Our learning in summary from this
aspect of the IPAF implementation was:-
 We encountered some examples of where individuals or teams felt the results from the
assessment would be a reflection on their team or departmental capabilities and as a
consequence scored „generously‟ in sections of the Self Assessment.
 Work with the Process Owner to take a view on whether any „dubious‟ results should
stand, be rejected and/or the Self Assessment rerun. In the above situations we reran the
Self Assessment as a „Consensus Group‟ to facilitate the journey through the
questionnaire which produced a more balanced set of results.
 There may be a tendency to schedule Self Assessments from a functional perspective
rather than an End-End perspective, e.g. The Problem Management team only complete
the Self Assessments for „Problem Management‟. We consciously ensured that we got
participation in the Self Assessments from a range of roles that execute across the
Process.
 We found that our Service Managers in particular were a good group to enlist across
most Self Assessments given their organisational knowledge and outward customer
perspective on process outcomes. Typically this group will intuitively know „What works
well and what doesn‟t‟ from the ITIL process perspective.
We cover the area of ITIL Self Assessment in more detail within Section 4. and provide
guidance to ensure a realistic set of results are produced.

40
 The results from the ITSMF Self Assessment tool provide each Process Owner with
results that they can individually review to help formulate an appropriate Process
Improvement Plan. We found that it was also useful to take an aggregate view of the
results to help identify a broader organisational perspective. Our learning from this
approach was:-
 All processes (even if not formally defined) typically scored high in the Prerequisites
section of the Self Assessment.
 The Processes that had strong ownership (Service Desk, Incident, Problem, Change, and
SLM) also scored high in the Management Intent section of the Self Assessment.
 Conversely, the Processes that had no obvious ownership (Availability, Capacity, ITSC,
Configuration, Release) scored very low in this section of the Self Assessment.
 All processes scored low in the External Integration section of the Self Assessment, thus
indicating the lack of a well established integrated toolset and developed process
interfaces across the complete ITIL process environment.
 All processes scored low on the Customer Interface section of the Self Assessment, thus
indicating that ITIL process development in the main was IT centric rather than being
developed from the desired outcomes of the Customer.
This aggregate view of the ITIL Self Assessment results provided a powerful insight into
how over time organisational focus and investment (or lack of) has resulted in an
inconsistent ITIL process environment.
8.5 The ITIL Perspective
 In compiling the ITIL „Checklists‟ that are used to support the ITIL gap analysis we found
the structure and content of the ITIL V3 publications an easier source of input compared
to the ITIL V2 publications. The learning here was:-
 We found it was easier to pick out the key tenets of each process to include as
statements in the checklists using the V3 material.
 The V3 publications and process content have a consistent structure and format. This
helped more easily identify the statements that related to organisational roles and
structural considerations. By contrast, the V2 publications have a much looser structure
and can be harder to follow by non practitioners.
 There were some initial „concerns‟ on inter mixing V2 and V3 given the view that all
processes within the organisations were based on V2. There are only minor differences
between the V2 Service Delivery and Service Support processes and their equivalents
documented in the V3 publications. We do not feel this is an issue.
 The use of V3 material better supports the desire to align more closely with ITIL „best
practice‟. We pushed this angle with Senior Management and the Process Owner
community as a positive.

41
 One of the objectives of the Process Assessment exercise was to review the current
process measurements and associated targets and identify the gaps and differences in
the metrics produced compared to ITIL best practice. We used the publication „Metrics for
IT Service Management‟ to support this aspect of the assessment exercise. This provided
a comprehensive view of the range of ITIL measurements that should be implemented
with recommended „industry‟ targets. The learning we gained from using this publication
was:-
 The majority of the ITIL processes reviewed had significant gaps in the range of
measures currently produced.
 That in some cases we identified that „we were measuring the right things but reporting
them the wrong way‟. This was particular evident in the Service Desk arena.
 Where we had targets set, in most cases these were below the recommended targets set.
Our processes were therefore not being set stretch targets to drive process efficiency
 Conversely we identified a key incident management target set at 99% compared to the
recommended target of 95%. The initial view was this was „good‟ as we were driving
above ITIL recommended values. This was until we provided examples of the negative
behaviours being displayed by teams attempting to achieve an unrealistic target and how
this was impacting other aspects of Incident and Problem Management performance.

42
Hints &
Tips
It is
recommend
ed that the
initial
9 Starter Pack toolkit
To help with the initial planning and preparation of your ITIL process assessments, the
following templates are provided. These can/should be customised to meet your particular
organisational requirements
Reference Material Supporting Template
Process Management Assessment Criteria
Process Management
-assessment criteria.
Customer Perception scoring mechanism
Customer - scoring
mechanism.ppt
ITSMF Self Assessment Questionnaires
Self Assessment Self Assessment
(Service Delivery) (Service Support)
ITSMF Self Assessment reporting spreadsheet
Self Assessment -
Spreadsheet
ITIL Metrics Checker
ITIL Metrics Checker
Sample ITIL Gap Analysis templates
ITIL Gap Analysis -
Sample Checklists
Current State Assessment (CSA) template
Current State
Assessment template

Itil process-assessment-framework

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Itil process-assessment-framework (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Itil process-assessment-framework