My previous paper at The BCS, Chartered Institute for IT, Higher Education Qualifications was on : Computer Services Management module. The required topics to study included:

The Service Concept

Definition of Service

A service is a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes customers want to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks.

eg of customer outcome facilitated by IT Service:

‘Sales people spending more time interacting with customers’ facilitated by ‘a remote access service that enables reliable access to corporate sales system from sales people’s laptops.

Service Desk

Service desks provide a single point of contact for users enabling organisations to deliver high quality support critical for achieving business goals.

The Service Desk will:

Represent “IT” to the customer and the user
Offer the ultimate in customer satisfaction
Prioritize highest perception of quality to its customers
Co-ordinate people, processes and technology to deliver business services

The structure of the IT Services Department

Computer Services Manager
Technical Support Manager
Network Engineer
Help Desk Assistant

Adoption of Frameworks to ensure High Quality IT Service being delivered like:

CMMi
ITIL

The Service Lifecycle

Service strategy
Service design
Service transition
Service operation
Continual service operation

Service Level Agreement

An SLA is a contract between the customer and the service provider which defines the term of service. It includes the following parts:

1. Identification of parties

2. consideration – short description of SLA

3. Terms

Start & End date

Payment terms

Penalties

Service availability (in terms of time)

Time to attend to the computer problem (for eg. technician be onsite within 2 hours)

Escalation procedure

Agreed Exit Strategy

Certain Corporate implementations:

To conclude, to pass the CSM paper at this level, only textbook reading is not sufficient. I got the advise from another bcs member on network.bcs.org:

every IT skill/experience comes into play n is relevant for dat module. textbks/notes alone not enough. stay open-minded n alert!

That was a very precious tip as the paper gives you scenarios and tells you to act accordingly with your knowledge of Computer services managment like: writing an email to staff, discussing SLA, write in memo format to announce decisions to relocate computer facilities to another building, to advise the IT director etc. There is also the management part which should be paid attention to. Reading from the previous BCS modules like Professional Issues in Information Systems is helpful.

That’s it, time to revise for Tuesday’s 3 May’s session on Web Engineering!