Service Ingredients
Every service has a basic list of ingredients, as follows:
- PurposeβWhat it exists for and the business processes it enables. This will be driven by the outcome statements you've created, which state what you need a service to do for you.
- FunctionalityβThe things the service does for you that achieve its purpose. This is the service utility or what we refer to as fit for purpose.
- PerformanceβHow well the service functions work to meet the purpose. This is the service warranty. This is measured in a variety of ways, which include availability, capacity, responsiveness, reliability, and so on.
- QualityβThe overall perception of how valuable a service is to its users.
Our sense of how well a service is designed and operating for our needs stems from how it is managed. This, of course, is an integral part of service management. Failure to properly manage a service will impact one or all of these ingredients. So, to complete the picture, we have to add the service management ingredients that ensure service is designed and managed to suit our needs. These are factors that affect overall business operation and ultimately the bottom line, so understanding the basics of service management can maximize how well this is accomplished.