Starting the Service Catalog in Catch & Release
In the Visible Ops phase of “Catch & Release” we mentioned that inventorying the data centers, wiring closets and so on can help groups just starting their ITIL journey to begin to create their Service Catalog retroactively. While collecting information about the configuration items (CIs) in production begins the process, it doesn’t stop there.
Essentially, a Service Catalog lists the services that IT provides to the business along with the associate service levels and costs. It is a very important document as it shows management what IT delivers to the business and the volume of activities frequently surprises business management.
One of the hard things for existing IT shops to identify is what all they do. Surprisingly, many IT management groups do not know all of the services that they provide on a daily basis to the business as the service offerings have grown organically. Bob in networking fixed the CFO’s FAX machine five years ago and has helped troubleshoot various FAX machines ever since for example.
When creating a service catalog, the responsible party must find out what is done today and that can be done by looking at incident management and service desk records contained in a configuration management database (CMDB) and/or by talking with people. What you often find is that the CMDB, or even a basic helpdesk system, will contain a subset of the entire list of services provided and that IT personnel must be involved to identify the balance of services.
During the Catch & Release phase, we are finding out what is in production and asking questions about the groups that use it, why, how, when and so on. Armed with that initial information, IT can then flush out the rest of the services and details needed to create their service catalog and then be able to show what they do.