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The Guide to USMBOK organizes, distills and provides ready access to a core body of knowledge for service management that can be universally applied within service provider organizations. The guide provides a singular, coherent and consistent approach to the development of a service management system.

The guide codifies and connects the numerous elements of a service management system, service organization and operational elements. It enables the leveraging and exploitation of many disparate information sources, standards, and industry frameworks.

The author, Ian Clayton, has collected the experiences of organizations, service managers, and service professionals into one document, USMBOK Guide. Ian integrates these experiences with his own hard-won experiences and know-how, to present a common lexicon of generally accepted definitions, concepts, methods and best practices that span the customer-infrastructure continuum – USMBOK Guide

The topics discussed within this guide include: The fundamental concepts, theories and mechanics of services, service management systems, service provider organizations, and their product management relationship and heritage; The concept of Holistic Service Management and the key elements of a service management system; The fifteen stages of the service lifecycle, critical artifacts, key inputs and outputs, major activities performed in each stage; The nine enabling and supporting lifecycles (Requirement, Request, Asset, Quality, Revision, Change, Release, Support and Event); Seven knowledge domains representing key roles that span the customer-infrastructure management continuum; 40 knowledge areas, each representing key skills, abilities and practice-based competencies required; Over 650 best practice statements representing common sense do’s and don’ts.

This guide is ideal for students, practitioners, managers, instructors and those seeking professional qualifications. Whether establishing a service management system for the first time, or revisiting, enhancing or upgrading an existing strategy, this is the guide you need!

Key Features and Benefits:

• Provides a comprehensive ‘rosetta stone’ and body of knowledge for a service management system and associated service organization. This enables improved deciphering and leveraging many disparate information sources, standards, and industry frameworks, including the IT Infrastructure Library®, COBIT, and the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), for the benefit of your organization;
• Unifies the information technology and enterprise views of service management under one common reference. It relates key principles to their pre-existing counterparts found in product management, IT service management, and product marketing. Significantly reducing the risk and effort associated with traditional service management initiatives;
• Offers a consistent and detailed codification of the elements of a successful service management system, and the roles and key skills required within a service provider organization. Enabling better alignment of service provider and customer corporate goals, higher quality operations, and improved efficiency.

Peer Reviews:

“The USMBOK is an amazing achievement. Codifying what is in your head may sound like a good idea but try doing it, the size of the challenge for service management is immense. For Ian to have been able to take the time to do this is one achievement, but to make it coherent is another entirely! Ian has codified and documented a coherent body of knowledge for service management that is practical, clear, and that provides a genuine ‘how to’ starting point for the general, and IT service management professional. If I had a hat, I would take it off to him.”

Brian Johnson, Vice President, CA Inc and ITIL® Author & Pioneer

“… this is the definitive text on the elements of a service management system written in plain English. It is a must for anyone in the service management profession looking for a singular guide to help them and their service organization gain added value and enhanced organizational performance.”

Kenneth Gonzalez, Product Team Lead, Data Center Transformation Symantec Corporation.

Order your copy of USMBOK Guide today!

Tags: Body of Knowledge, ITIL, ITILv3, ITSM

This entry was posted on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 10:50 am and is filed under ITIL & ITSM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.