Implementation of an SMS Based on ISO/IEC 20000-1
This domain tests whether you can turn a plan into operating practice with evidence. Items often contrast a document with a working process, or ask what an SLA, OLA and underpinning contract each do.
Implementing the operational clauses
- Service portfolio and catalogue: define what is offered, to whom, with what commitments and costs. The catalogue is customer-facing; it is not the same as a list of servers.
- Relationships and agreements: agree SLAs with customers, OLAs between internal groups, and contracts with suppliers. Service level management must review performance against these and act on misses.
- Supply and demand: forecast demand, plan capacity and resources, and manage supplier performance and contracts.
- Design, build and transition: acceptance criteria, change control, release and deployment, knowledge transfer, and confirmation that the service meets requirements before go-live.
- Resolution and fulfilment: incident, service request and problem management, with prioritization rules, escalation paths and root cause analysis for recurring incidents.
- Service assurance: availability, continuity, capacity and information security, each with objectives, plans and testing.
Making it real, not paper
Assign owners and RACI; write process documents only as detailed as the work requires; train and raise awareness (7.2, 7.3); control templates and records; hold regular service reviews; keep registers for incidents, problems, changes, risks and improvements.
Worked example
A team asks whether an internal platform team's written commitment to the service desk counts as an SLA. Reasoning: no. It is an operational level agreement between internal parties; the SLA is between the organization and its customer, and an underpinning contract sits with an external supplier. All three may carry identical targets but they are different instruments with different parties.
Traps
Publishing a service catalogue that lists technology components; SLAs with targets nobody measures; implementing documents rather than behaviours; over-engineered process maps that staff ignore; failing to retain records that prove the process ran.