The goal of the Service Support Processes is to ensure that the IT services the organization depends on are available to users and that any disruptions to IT Services are minimized. The ability of the organization to restore services quickly, identify failures in the Infrastructure, minimize the impact of changes to devices and successfully implement new software are all fundamental to providing high quality, reliable services. The five process areas and the Service Desk Function are interdependent on one another to ensure end to end service delivery is maintained.

(Service Support Lifecycle example)

Incident Management

The goal of Incident Management is to restore normal service operations as quickly as possible with minimum disruption to the business, thus ensuring the best achievable levels of availability and service are maintained. Incident Management is responsible for outlining the processes for handling reported incidents, prioritizing the work to be performed, streamlining the handoffs between support groups when incidents are escalated and providing effective solutions through a common knowledge base.

Problem Management

The goal of Problem Management is to identify the root cause of outages and removing the hardware or software that is causing the outages. Problem Management works closely with Incident Management by performing the in-depth investigations on outages and providing recommendations on removing the errors in the infrastructure so that incidents won't re-occur.

Change Management

The goal of Change Management is to ensure that the impact of a change made to the hardware or software in the Infrastructure is minimized. Change Management applies a formal process for assessing, implementing and reviewing changes so only necessary modifications are made to hardware and software thereby ensuring the success rate for implementing changes is improved.

Release Management

The goal of Release Management is to successfully introduce authorized software and hardware into production and ensure that all aspects of a release are performed consistently. Release Management performs the actual activities of installing hardware and software, building, designing and configuring software, any product testing required, implementation plans, communications and training for staff and users.

Configuration Management

The goal of Configuration Management is to ensure that there is a logical map of all the components required to deliver an IT service and that the repositories storing the information about hardware and software are accurate and current. Configuration Management is the foundation that supports all other process areas with information and details on resources, software, configurations and hardware.

Service Desk (Function)

The goal of the Service Desk is to provide users with a single point of contact to report incidents and submit requests for service. The Service Desk manages the life cycle of an Incident including prompt communications on the status of Incidents to users, ensuring that services are restored in a timely manner, escalating tickets when agreed service levels are breached and ensuring that the tickets are accurate and complete.