ISO 20000
Why ISO 20000 in the ITSMF Benchmark?
The reason to enclose the ISO 20000 as a part of the benchmark is the importance and the foreseen growth of this new international norm for IT Service Management. The standard provides clear requirements for all IT Service Management processes. It links to other international standards as ISO 9000 and ISO 27001. One of the important aspects of the ISO 20000 norm is that it encompasses an international quality management system and focuses on the continuous improvement cycle.
Assessment or Benchmark?
The worldwide interest in ISO 20000 requires companies to assess themselves against the ISO norm. But not only assessing is interesting. To enable the development of new best practices it is important to understand what parts of the ISO norm are generally easy to meet and what requirements are not well implemented. Together with other ITSMF members, solutions can be found to make it possible to achieve the ISO 20000 level quicker and more efficient. It is therefore that the ITSMF-Benchmark is a very valuable solution that serves the assessment according to ISO 20000. Next to that it makes it possible to identify together with the benchmark partner the right solutions based upon international practices.
What is covered in the Benchmark?
The questions carefully cover all parts of the ISO 20000 standard. So they enclose the management system, planning and implementing service management, the requirements for planning and implementing new or changed services and the requirements for all thirteen processes. The processes include the well know Service management support and delivery processes. But they also include relationship processes like business relationship management and Supplier management.
Providing an unambiguous measurement.
The benchmark questions are set up so that the requirements of ISO 20000-1 are carefully checked. The benchmark also details out these requirements in a few related questions that are based upon ISO 20000-2 and other best practices. The benchmark contains over 600 detailed questions related to both parts of the ISO 20000 standard. This combination provides an unambiguous detailed assessment that in combination with the benchmark partner give a very clear start for ISO 20000 achievement or certification projects.
Leo van Selm
Vaseom B.V.