How do you manage your IT service catalog and portfolio?

1 What is an IT service catalog?

An IT service catalog is a document that describes the IT services that you offer to your customers, both internal and external. It defines the scope, features, benefits, and availability of each service, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the service provider and the service consumer. An IT service catalog can also include information about the service level agreements (SLAs), pricing, and ordering processes for each service.

2 What is an IT service portfolio?

An IT service portfolio is a collection of all the IT services that you manage across their entire lifecycle, from planning to retirement. It includes not only the services that are currently available in the IT service catalog, but also the services that are under development, improvement, or decommissioning. An IT service portfolio helps you manage the strategic value, risk, and performance of your IT services, and align them with the business goals and priorities.

3 Why are they important?

An IT service catalog and portfolio are important for several reasons. First, they help you communicate clearly and consistently with your customers about what they can expect from your IT services, and how they can access and use them. This can increase customer satisfaction, trust, and loyalty, and reduce confusion and complaints. Second, they help you plan and manage your IT resources and costs more efficiently, by identifying the demand, capacity, and utilization of your IT services, and optimizing them according to the business value and customer needs. Third, they help you improve your service quality and performance, by establishing and monitoring the service levels, standards, and metrics for each service, and identifying and resolving any issues or gaps.

4 How to create them?

Creating an IT service catalog and portfolio requires a systematic process that involves several steps. These include defining your service strategy, designing your service offerings, developing your service catalog, and managing your service portfolio. When defining your service strategy, you need to clarify the vision, mission, objectives, and value proposition of your IT services. Designing your service offerings entails specifying the features, benefits, requirements, SLAs, pricing, and ordering processes for each service. Developing your service catalog involves creating a document that presents the information about your services in a consistent format and language. Lastly, managing the service portfolio means maintaining a comprehensive and dynamic view of all services across their lifecycle and regularly reviewing and updating it based on business goals and customer feedback.

5 How to maintain them?

To maintain your IT service catalog and portfolio, it's important to establish and follow certain best practices. Align the catalog and portfolio with the business strategy and customer needs, and make sure they reflect the current and future state of your IT services. Collaborate with customers and stakeholders to obtain their feedback and input, and measure quality and performance against SLAs and metrics. Additionally, review and update your IT service catalog and portfolio regularly to ensure accuracy, completeness, visibility, and accessibility. Finally, implement a change management process to approve, document, communicate, and implement any changes effectively.

6 How to use them?

To use your IT service catalog and portfolio effectively, you should leverage them to educate and inform customers and stakeholders about your offerings, promote and market your value proposition, plan and budget resources, optimize costs, improve and innovate delivery and support, and manage and govern the service lifecycle. All of these efforts will help customers achieve their goals while aligning with the business strategy.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?