Towards a taxonomy of process quality characteristics for assessment

Previous assessment of process quality have focused on process capability (i.e. the ability of a process to meet its stated goals). This paper proposes a taxonomy of alternative process quality characteristics based on intrinsic and extrinsic quality attributes. The ultimate goal of this taxonomy is to provide a framework to conduct process assessments using different process quality aspects. Such a framework would considerably broaden process quality perspectives beyond the primary measure of process capability. It would also allow practitioners to identify and evaluate relevant quality characteristics for processes based on specific contexts and implications. For the process assessment model developers, it offers a list of process quality characteristics that could be used to develop relevant process measurement frameworks

Interpretation and reporting of process capability results: focus on improvement

A global financial services company followed a software-mediated process assessment (SMPA) approach based on ISO/IEC 15504, ISO/IEC 20000 and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®). Using an action research approach, the Incident Management, Problem Management, and Change Management processes were assessed at two points in time during an ITSM process improvement project. This paper analyzes the results of the process assessments, highlights issues with the interpretation of the results, and offers an alternative method to report process capability results to motivate process improvement. The study found that by using the proportion of SMPA recommendations as a proxy measure for process improvement, the processes did improve yielding fewer recommendations in cycle 2 when compared to cycle 1 of the action research

Exploring the impact of IT service management process improvement initiatives: a case study approach

IT companies worldwide have started to improve their service management processes based on best practice frameworks, such as IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). However, many of these companies face difficulties in demonstrating the positive outcomes of IT service management (ITSM) process improvement. This has led us to investigate the research problem: What positive impacts have resulted from IT service management process improvement? The main contributions of this paper are 1) to identify the ITSM process improvement outcomes in two IT service provider organizations and 2) provide advice as lessons learnt

Software-mediated process assessment in IT service management

Continual service improvement is a crucial aspect of IT service management as it enables organisations to enhance the relevance and responsiveness of their IT services providing outcomes in productivity and competitiveness. This paper describes a research project that is aimed at developing an international standards-based software-mediated process assessment tool to facilitate continual service improvement in IT service management. The project will also evaluate the effectiveness of the tool by implementing it in two large Australian public sector organisations and validating the results against traditional process assessment methods. The significance of the research is that the tool will enable organisations to selfassess and improve their current IT service processes as well as transitioning international standards to industry

Towards transparent and efficient process assessments for IT service management

IT service organisations recognise the value of conducting regular process assessments for continual service improvement. However lack of transparency and substantial costs deter industry adoption. We propose that the use of the international standard for process assessment ISO/IEC 15504 offers a transparent approach to address this challenge. Moreover, efficiency can be realized by a Decision Support System (DSS) tool to automate data collection and process capability calculations. This paper details a Design Science Research project to develop a software-mediated process assessment (SMPA) approach based on ISO/IEC 15504, ISO/IEC 20000 and the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®). We discuss the architecture of the SMPA approach and the role of ISO/IEC 15504 in the approach. This work contributes to practice as it may help IT managers to self-assess their processes using a standard model. The SMPA approach can also support assessors who perform formal assessments

Managing knowledge and learning for process improvement: a software-mediated process assessment approach for IT service management

As business users increasingly rely upon services from their information technology (IT) service providers, the demand for process improvements in IT services will continue to grow. Although service outcome measures, such as customer satisfaction, may represent the desired end result of IT services, validated assessment of processes provides an important additional element to process improvement efforts, as they may determine actions that could be taken to improve IT services. In the fast-changing and dynamic business environment, IT service organisations must continue to improve their learning processes, create knowledge and implement best practices that allow them to be able to deliver innovative and adaptive value-adding services to their clients. In this chapter, we describe how we applied the software-mediated process assessment (SMPA) approach to assist IT service organisations to conduct process assessments in a transparent and cost-effective manner. In addition, we introduce a knowledge management (KM) process cycle that illustrates how KM and learning processes may be used concurrently to achieve process improvement within the SMPA approach for maximum impact in the IT service management (ITSM) sector. We introduce and discuss three innovative strategies using the SMPA approach to conduct process assessments in the ITSM sector. The practical strategies include (1) adopting the international standards for assessments; (2) facilitating assessments using a decision support system (DSS) tool; and (3) incorporating process assessments for managing knowledge and learning processes. A KM process cycle along with the SMPA approach is introduced. Key value propositions of the SMPA approach are highlighted