Can ITIL and the HDI Support Center Standard jointly advance you to support centre superiority? AXELOS and HDI recently released a joint white paper which says yes. It also tells you why the two frameworks are better together. To complement our white paper, we presented a webinar with its author, HDI Faculty member Paul Dooley, who presented highlights and key points. Watch the webinar slideshow to learn more about how ITIL and the HDI Support Center Standard can help your support centre rise to meet the challenges of an increasingly global, less platform-centric technology landscape. You can read the full white paper at: www.axelos.com/case-studies-and-white-papers/better-together-itil-and-hdi-support-center

1. Better Together: ITIL and the HDI
Support Center Standard
Presented by
Paul M. Dooley
Optimal Connections, LLC
HDI Faculty Instructor and Auditor
www.optimalconnections.com
June 8, 2016

2. Agenda
• Disruptive Challenges facing service providers
• Implications for customer and end-user support
• The Case for ITIL® and the HDI Support Center Standard
• Complementing ITIL through the life-cycle
• Providing additional support center specific guidance
• Conclusion: “Better Together!”

3. Disruptive challenges before us …
• Globalization and an increasing competition
• Trend to cloud based services
• Shift to mobile platforms from desktop
• From applications to mobile “apps”
• Trend to rapid and continuous
deployment of functional changes
• Increasing emphasis on customer service, and
especially the delivery of service quality to the “users”

4. New Challenges are Upon Us that Require a Higher Level
of Support!
• Quality “first line” support has become increasingly crucial
• Service providers must optimize “first line” support to meet
challenges, and remain competitive
• First step: adopt ITIL as a best-practice
– ITIL is a must, as a “framework” for how to plan, design,
transition, deliver, maintain and improve services.
• Next, ITIL ought to be complemented with a set of well-
adopted, proven guidelines that can provide “support
center specific” guidance.

5. HDI Standard Provides the Needed Support Center
Specific Guidance
• The HDI Support Center Standard fulfills this need to
provide “support center specific” guidance. The HDI
Standard is:
– Fully compatible with ITIL, including many processes
through the life-cycle
– Describes how the ITIL processes can effectively be
carried out in an optimized way by a support center
– Provides additional specific guidance for the service
desk (aka “support center), enabling the transition
to a high performance “support center”

6. ITIL – the ITSM Framework, Needs No Introduction
• ITIL is the most widely adopted framework for realizing
“IT service management”, bar none
• Demonstrated in thousands of
organizations worldwide, ITIL helps…
– Lower costs, maximize service quality, and
– Enables IT service providers to maximize value delivery
to customers and users
• AXELOS provides a wealth of information about the ITIL
framework. For more, visit www.axelos.com.

7. Why HDI? The HDI Support Center Standard – A Quick
Overview
• A global standard for “support centers” since 2000,
adopted world-wide as a best-practices for
help/service desks, and support centers
• Compatible with ITIL and other industry
standards and frameworks
• Eight Categories: Five Enabling, Three
Results Factors
• Seventy-nine Activities, each with four Levels of Maturity

8. The HDI Support Center Standard – A Quick Overview
• Designed to align with internationally recognized
quality models, standards, and frameworks
– Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL®)
– EFQM Model (European Foundation for Quality Management)
– Baldrige Criteria for Performance
Excellence
– Capability Maturity Model Integration
(CMMI®)
– Knowledge Centered Support (KCS®)

9. Why HDI? The HDI Support Center Standard – A Quick
Overview
• Assessment and audit services are available from HDI
• Many companies and organizations have achieved HDI
Support Center Certification. A few examples …
• More information is available at www.thinkhdi.com

10. Three Key Reasons Why ITIL and HDI are Better Together
1. The two sets of guidance are naturally complementary
2. The HDI Support Center Standard also complements
ITIL in processes, adding “support center
specific guidance” in a number of areas
across the life-cycle
3. The HDI Support Center Standard provides
extended guidance for a Support Center
across the five stages of the service life-cycle as
follows…
ThinkHDI.com

11. In Service Strategy
• To support strategy management for IT,
the support center should have an
aligned vision, mission and goals
• Requires the support center to have its own financial
management policy, procedures, and processes
• Recommends that the support center be integrated
into the BRM account management process and regular
“service reviews”

12. In Service Design
• Includes requirements for support services in service
catalog management
• That a SLM process is in place, with
– Service level targets for response and
resolution times
– That the support center be included in “service reviews”
• Requires sufficient availability and capacity be afforded
to the support center, and that “forward looking” plans
are in place for these processes

13. In Service Design
• Requires that a service continuity management plan is
in place for the support center (given that it is a critical
capability for the IT service provider)
• Information security policies, procedures and controls
should be in place to protect support center…
– Facilities
– Information and support systems
(ticketing, monitoring and reporting
systems)

14. In Service Transition
• The support center is included in change management,
with visibility to changes, and rights to veto changes if
adverse impact is anticipated
• SACM should provide support with
access to the CMS to facilitate incident
management, and accuracy of the CMS
• The support center should play an active role in
providing feedback to change evaluation, should that
process have been activated.

15. In Service Transition
• Release and deployment management should include
the support center in release planning and
deployment activities to provide early visibility to first
line support, and to facilitate rollout
• Two activities for effective knowledge management: a
process, and a supporting system (the SKMS)
– These are of vital importance to the support center
– Facilitating continuous knowledge transfer from
technical and application groups to first line support

16. In Service Operation
• Includes activities to optimize Incident Management,
including logging, categorizing, prioritizing, status
reporting, resolving, and proper closure.
• Request Fulfillment should label requests
separately and handle them efficiently
• Problem Management also expected,
with roles defined for support staff.
– Timely access to problem information, including
descriptions, workarounds, and solution information

17. In Service Operation
• An Event Management process should also be in place
for proactive remediation, early detection of incidents
• The role of the support center with IT operations in this
process should be clarified
• The support center should be apprised
of any critical incidents detected so that
users can be properly informed of status.

18. Continual Service Improvement
• The HDI Support Center Standard requires that core
support center processes – Incident Management,
Request Fulfillment, etc., include regular improvement
activities
• A continual improvement process should be
in place for the support center itself
• Requires that a support center have multiple
forms of feedback from stakeholders to assess
satisfaction levels, and identify improvement
opportunities.

19. Continual Service Improvement
• Three forms of regular feedback:
– An on-going event-based survey (users)
– Periodic customer satisfaction survey
– Feedback through other channels (emails, phone, etc.)
• The HDI Support Center Standard Standard also stresses
the importance of a good measurements and reporting
framework.
– A comprehensive set of support center metrics are
recommended, and that each metric include a “SMART”
target, with regular reporting to stakeholders

20. Additional Guidance that Enables a High Performance
Support Center
• The HDI Support Center Standard includes additional
guidance that enables support center high
performance:
– Effective communication to ensure
coordination of multiple support teams
– An effective reporting system to deliver
performance results to stakeholders in
real-time and periodically.
– To clarify roles and responsibilities, quality job
descriptions for support staff positions are expected

21. Additional Guidance that Enables a High Performance
Support Center
– Training plans for effective skills – orientation,
and on-going training plans for positions
– A workforce management system for
optimized staffing and scheduling
– Support staff survey to assure staff are
satisfied and can perform optimally
– A reward and recognition program to acknowledge
contributions of staff and to motivate employees

22. Additional Guidance that Enables a High Performance
Support Center
– Guidance for facilities and ergonomics, for
optimized performance of staff
– Requirements for multi-channel distribution
of contacts, to assure optimized handling
– Adequate investigation and diagnosis tools,
including remote access and control
– A service management system to log and track all
incident and requests to conclusion, as well as integrate
with other support systems and tools

23. Conclusion: ITIL and the HDI Standard – Better
Together!
• Together, ITIL, complemented with the HDI Standard,
can provide a combined set of guidance - equipping an
IT service provider to transform their service desk into a
“high performance support center”
• Enabling the service provider to effectively meet these
disruptive challenges already upon us:
– To effectively support our increasingly mobile workforce
– Provide true multi-channel support, empowering a
community of users

24. Conclusion: ITIL and the HDI Standard – Better
Together!
– More effectively support continuous deployment of
new/changed releases
– The need for strong communication, trouble-shooting
and relationship management skills
– The need to maximize staff, customer and user
satisfaction
• ITIL and the HDI Standard – Better together! Both can
help your organization effectively meet and overcome
the challenges before us!

25. Thank You! And now, for questions?
Paul M. Dooley
HDI Faculty Instructor and Auditor
Certified ITIL Instructor, ITIL Expert
Optimal Connections, LLC
Web: www.optimalconnections.com
Email: pmdooley@optimalconnections.com
Visit me also on LinkedIn

26. How to get the free HDI Support Center Self-Assessment Tool
1. Go to: http://www.thinkhdi.com/services/self-assessment.aspx
2. Click to buy the self-assessment
3. Enter the promo code ITILSCC
4. Your cost will be $0 on checkout