Service Management System Requirements
This domain tests your command of the clause structure of ISO/IEC 20000-1 and the specific requirements inside each clause. Items often present a plausible practice and ask whether it satisfies a "shall".
Structure of the requirements
Clause 4 Context: external and internal issues, interested parties, scope (4.3) and the SMS itself. Clause 5 Leadership: commitment (5.1), policy (5.2), roles, responsibilities and authorities (5.3). Clause 6 Planning: risks and opportunities (6.1), objectives and plans to achieve them (6.2), the service management plan (6.3). Clause 7 Support: resources, competence, awareness, communication, documented information. Clause 8 Operation: planning and control, service portfolio, service relationships and agreements, supply and demand, design/build/transition, resolution and fulfilment, service assurance. Clause 9 Performance evaluation: monitoring and measurement, internal audit, management review. Clause 10 Improvement: nonconformity and corrective action, continual improvement.
Points that decide answers
- The scope must be documented information, name the services and organizational units, and any requirement not applied must be justified and must not undermine the organization's ability to conform.
- The policy must be appropriate to purpose, provide a framework for objectives, include commitment to satisfying requirements and to continual improvement, be maintained as documented information and be communicated.
- Objectives must be measurable, consistent with the policy, monitored, communicated and updated.
- The service management plan is documented information and covers objectives, requirements, scope, roles, resources, processes, interfaces and dependencies on other parties, and how it is communicated.
Worked example
A policy states: "We will provide excellent IT services to our customers." Reasoning: it is aspirational but does not provide a framework for setting objectives, contains no commitment to satisfying requirements or to continual improvement, and is not shown as communicated or maintained. It fails 5.2 even though it sounds positive.
Traps
Writing a scope in terms of technologies rather than services; objectives with no unit or target; treating the service management plan as a project plan; producing documented information nobody controls or reviews.