At ICS, we have been developing a whole range of expertise in information technology for years. We were thus the primary component in building a quality IT background (not only) at MUNI. Today, there is an increasingly significant change in the university's and our users' expectations, who often do not know how to formulate their IT demands. However, it is clear from this change that the technologies themselves are complicated for users - "customers" - to apply to their daily lives. They need to do their job and solve real-world problems, while ICT usually describes technical parameters such as network connection, server requirements, or backup options on different storage types. The "ordinary mortal" does not understand this, which creates many misunderstandings and frustrations on both sides.
The solution is to stop describing and offering technologies to the user and create and offer easily presentable and user-friendly services. Although technology undoubtedly serves as the basis for end services that bring added value to users. But it's not just ICT that creates an outstanding service - much more needs to be done.
"We solve real-world problems."
What is a service, and how is it operated?
"A service is a means of delivering value to the customer through the outputs that the customer wants to achieve without owning specific costs and risks." * Therefore, the service is the result of a package that includes not only applications and technologies but also processes, methods of communication and marketing, design techniques, quality management tools, and much more.The user not only perceives raw technical components but works with a finished product - a service.
An example is "e-mail", whose "functionality" from an IT point of view consists of physical or virtual servers, a mail server, a stable network, ports, firewalls, routers, a mail client, and many other IT components. However, e-mail is primarily a way of communication for users, which allows them to perform their work more efficiently. Naturally, its technical insight often ends at the level of a mail client or web interface. He has a positive experience if he can work with it efficiently and intuitively and when it meets his needs (which he may not even know about). If there appear any obstacles while using his mail, he expects help from "his IT" - the support he can turn to in case of a problem. He doesn't have to look for anything complicated to solve his problem, regardless of its origin.
A quality IT department thus meets the user's needs and builds his positive experience. If the user gets lost, the response and communication are smooth and prompt. In the case of a technical outage, this outage is detected before the user notices it, and the service is quickly put back into operation again. The IT organization then sets and measures various indicators to maintain quality, which it continuously evaluates. These include, for example, availability, number, and duration of outages or number of requests, but also usability, user-friendliness, and more. This is naturally related to proper management and planning of change and development. In addition to technologies, processes, and metrics, support functions and roles, such as the IT Service Desk, technical support, or the service owner himself, are required for quality and efficient service operation.
The package of technologies (servers, SW,…), processes (incident management, request management), metrics (number and duration of outages,…), functions, and roles (IT Service Desk, service owner) can be understood as elements forming a service. This package, and not just the technology itself, determines the quality of service and experience as perceived by the user.
"We build services from user needs, not IT."
The key to the service is its owner. He is responsible not only for the quality of the service as such but also for its UX (user experience, i.e., how the user perceives it), for the direction of its development, for its presentation, distribution, development, and effective management in general. He is aware of how the service works and who and how participates in it. He actively communicates with the necessary departments (marketing, Service Desk, management,…) and is involved in solving all problems and requirements (incident management, request management). The service owner does not focus his view only on its technical provision but also ensures both the service's quality and efficiency. Fundamental indicators, as well as specific indicators (KPI), which he defines concerning the specifics of the service, help him to evaluate and manage the development of the service."We build services from user needs, not IT."
"We know what we do, why, and for whom."
ICS, MUNI, and Services
We currently register over 200 IT services at MUNI. ICS is the operator of approximately 80 of them. In this case, it is almost exclusively global services that are offered to the entire university. The remaining services are either faculty-modified global services or local services - provided to local IT users of their faculty or another business center.
We defined the first services as the basis for a service-oriented organization in 2016 when a database of user services and their attributes (owner, date of revisions, information about IT support, etc.) was created together with it.muni.cz website. This database represents (not just the presentation on the web) the catalog of IT services at MUNI. And this database is the cornerstone for their effective administration and management.
Another related tool is the CMDB (Configuration Management Database), which we are building in a series of ongoing projects. This database captures the links between the so-called configuration items (HW, SW, services,…). By linking the dependencies between the various IT components, the database allows us to respond quickly to outages, prevent them, and plan changes.
The whole transformation is also supported by the creation of the position of IT Service Manager, which is currently held by Pavlína Špringerová. Its scope of work is the overall supervision of the services provided and the active cooperation of the service owners so that the services are of high quality, efficient and attractive to users. Therefore, in the near future, she will be often meeting the owners to discuss what their services are and how to work with them.
* ITIL - Glossary and Abbreviations in Czech, 2012. p. 66.
