SMITS cheat sheet

ITSM is a set of specialized organizational capabilities for enabling value to customers in the form of services; it is not a product or a tool.

A service is a means of enabling value co-creation by facilitating outcomes customers want, without the customer having to own specific costs and risks.

Governance is the system by which an organization is directed and controlled; it evaluates, directs, and monitors (EDM model).

Three governance activities: Evaluate (set direction and policy), Direct (assign plans and roles), Monitor (verify performance and conformance.

The service value chain has six activities: Plan, Improve, Engage, Design and Transition, Obtain/Build, Deliver and Support.

Four dimensions of service management: organizations and people, information and technology, partners and suppliers, value streams and processes.

A value stream is a series of steps an organization undertakes to create and deliver products and services to consumers.

Outputs are tangible or intangible deliverables; outcomes are the result for a stakeholder enabled by one or more outputs.

Utility is the functionality offered by a product or service to meet a particular need (fit for purpose); warranty is assurance of fitness for use.

Value is co-created through an active relationship between provider and consumer; the provider alone does not deliver value.

Utility + warranty = the basis of perceived value; a service lacking either reduces the likelihood of value realization.

Four Ps of strategy: perspective, position, plan, and pattern.

Strategy defines where to compete and how to win; a service strategy specifies which customer segments and outcomes are targeted.

Value streams and processes dimension covers how activities are organized and coordinated to deliver value.

Service relationships involve three stages: service offering, service provisioning, and service consumption.

Consumption includes the consumer's activities of receiving goods, accessing resources, and obtaining deliverables.

Risk in strategy is managed across two axes: the likelihood of events and their impact on objectives.

Demand and capacity must be balanced at the strategy level; over-supply raises cost, under-supply degrades quality.

Service design covers practices, tools, and processes needed to design products and services that meet agreed requirements.

A service level agreement (SLA) is a documented agreement between a provider and a customer identifying required services and expected service levels.

Service level objectives (SLOs) are measurable targets within an SLA; a service level indicator (SLI) is the measured value.

An operational level agreement (OLA) is an internal agreement between teams supporting delivery of an SLA.

An underpinning contract (UC) is an agreement with an external supplier supporting delivery of an SLA.

Availability (%) = (agreed service time – downtime) / agreed service time × 100.

Service design should consider the four dimensions and the customer experience (usability, accessibility, and journey).

A service catalogue distinguishes customer-facing services from supporting technical services.

Design thinking uses empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing to shape services around user needs.

Change enablement maximizes the number of successful service and product changes by ensuring risks are assessed, authorized, and managed.

Three change types: standard (pre-authorized, low risk), normal (requires assessment and authorization), emergency (expedited authorization).

A change authority is the person or group that authorizes a change; it can be delegated by risk level.

A change schedule shows planned changes and helps avoid conflicts and collisions.

Release management makes new and changed services available for use; deployment moves components into the live environment.

A release can be phased, continuous delivery, or big-bang; deployment approaches include phased, continuous, and big-bang.

A configuration item (CI) is any component that needs to be managed to deliver a service; the CMDB stores CI records and relationships.

Service validation and testing confirms that a release meets defined requirements before it enters production.

Knowledge management maintains and improves the effective use of information and knowledge across the service lifecycle.

Incident management restores normal service operation as quickly as possible while minimizing impact on business operations.

Incident priority is derived from impact and urgency: priority = f(impact, urgency).

A major incident is a high-impact incident requiring a coordinated response and dedicated communication.

A workaround is a temporary solution that reduces or eliminates the impact of an incident before a permanent fix.

Problem management reduces the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying actual and potential causes.

Three problem phases: problem identification, problem control (analysis and workaround), and error control (known errors and fixes).

A known error is a problem that has been analyzed but not yet resolved, with a documented root cause and workaround.

The service desk is the single point of contact between the service provider and users for incidents and requests.

A service request is a user-initiated request for something predefined, such as information, access, or a standard change.

Continual improvement aligns services with changing business needs by identifying and implementing improvements.

The improvement register records improvement opportunities, their status, and ownership.

The continual improvement model has seven steps: vision, current state, target state, plan, act, assess, and sustain.

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measure critical to achieving a defined objective.

A critical success factor (CSF) is a necessary condition for achieving an objective; KPIs measure progress toward CSFs.

Metrics should be actionable, relevant, and tied to outcomes; vanity metrics do not drive decisions.

The Deming cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is a structured approach to iterative improvement.

Service review and value stream mapping identify waste and bottlenecks in the flow of work.

Baselines establish current performance so improvements can be measured objectively against it.

The OSI model has seven layers: physical, data link, network, transport, session, presentation, and application.

TCP is connection-oriented and reliable; UDP is connectionless and does not guarantee delivery.

IPv4 addresses are 32 bits; IPv6 addresses are 128 bits.

DNS resolves hostnames to IP addresses; DHCP assigns IP addresses automatically.

Subnetting divides a network into smaller logical segments; CIDR notation expresses prefix length (e.g., /24).

RAID 1 mirrors data for redundancy; RAID 5 uses parity with single-disk fault tolerance; RAID 6 tolerates two disk failures.

Virtualization abstracts compute resources; containers share the host OS kernel and are lighter than virtual machines.

Load balancers distribute traffic across servers to improve availability and scalability.

Backup strategies include full, incremental, and differential; recovery point objective (RPO) defines tolerable data loss, recovery time objective (RTO) defines tolerable downtime.

The CIA triad: confidentiality, integrity, and availability are the core goals of information security.

Risk = likelihood × impact; risk treatment options are avoid, mitigate, transfer, and accept.

The principle of least privilege grants users only the access required for their role.

Identity and access management (IAM) covers authentication (who you are) and authorization (what you may do).

Multi-factor authentication combines at least two factors: something you know, have, or are.

Compliance requirements may come from laws, regulations, contracts, and internal policies; noncompliance carries legal and reputational risk.

Incident response phases: preparation, detection and analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, and lessons learned.

Data classification (e.g., public, internal, confidential, restricted) determines handling and protection requirements.

Security controls are preventive, detective, or corrective; defense in depth layers multiple controls.

A configuration management database (CMDB) stores CI records and relationships to support impact analysis.

A configuration management system (CMS) is a set of tools and data that includes the CMDB and other data sources.

Discovery tools automatically populate the CMDB by scanning the environment for assets and relationships.

Workflow automation reduces manual effort and improves consistency for repeatable tasks such as provisioning and approvals.

Automation should be applied where tasks are repetitive, rule-based, and high-volume; complex judgment tasks remain human.

Data quality dimensions include accuracy, completeness, timeliness, and consistency.

Dashboards and reporting should be role-specific; executives need outcome metrics, operations need real-time operational metrics.

Integration between ITSM tools and monitoring tools enables automatic incident creation from alerts.

Access controls and audit logs on service management tools protect sensitive incident and change data.