Strategic Service Management (STSM) (CMMI-SVC)

The Strategic Service Management process area involves the following activities:

• Analyzing capabilities and needs for services that span multiple customers and agreements
• Establishing and maintaining standard services, service levels, and descriptions that reflect these capabilities and needs

Strategic service management processes improve alignment between the set of services offered by a service provider organization and its strategic business objectives. If the organization is small or has a narrow focus, the standard services can consist of a single service or small related group of services. Larger organizations can have a more complex set of standard services.

Active analysis of customer and competitor data, market trends and opportunities, and organizational characteristics such as capabilities and strengths yield information that the organization uses to establish standard services. Standard services are one enabler of consistent service performance across the organization. The objective of this process area is not to manage individual services but to get the information needed to make effective strategic decisions about the set of standard services the organization maintains.

Standard services provide a basis for making the most of the service provider organization’s capabilities to meet its business objectives. Standard services can also improve service quality, business capture, and satisfaction of both customers and end users while reducing costs, errors, and time to develop and deliver services. Standard service levels are a key component of standard services. Service levels make expectations and responsibilities clear, specific, and measurable between the service organization and the customer.

In this process area, when customer needs are mentioned, end-user needs are also implied. The needs of the customer and end user can differ. Both are critical when collecting and analyzing data to develop standard services and understand strategic needs and plans.

Standard services are typically described in a service catalog that is oriented to the information needs of customers. In addition, standard service descriptions oriented to the needs of the service provider organization’s staff can be maintained.

Attention to satisfaction with and use of current services allows the organization to adjust or correct some services and can contribute to planning for future services. The organization can also identify requirements for new service systems or changes to existing systems. These systems can support single or multiple customers.

The specific practices in this process area complement the practices in Organizational Process Definition, Organizational Process Focus, and Organizational Process Performance. In these process areas, the organization defines, improves, and quantitatively understands its standard processes. In contrast, the broader focus of STSM is on services rather than only on service system components that can be processes.