Published: April 25, 2008

Position of the Business/IT Alignment SMF Within the MOF IT Service Lifecycle

The MOF IT service lifecycle encompasses all of the activities and processes involved in managing an IT service: its conception, development, operation, maintenance, and—ultimately—its retirement. MOF organizes these activities and processes into Service Management Functions (SMFs), which are grouped together in lifecycle phases. Each SMF is anchored within a lifecycle phase and contains a unique set of goals and outcomes supporting the objectives of that phase. The SMFs can be used as stand-alone sets of processes, but it is when SMFs are used together that they are most effective in ensuring service delivery at the desired quality and risk levels.

The Business/IT Alignment SMF belongs to the Plan Phase of the MOF IT service lifecycle. The following figure shows the place of the Business/IT Alignment SMF within the Plan Phase, as well as the location of the Plan Phase within the IT service lifecycle.

Figure 1. Position of the Business/IT Alignment SMF within the IT service lifecycle

Before you use this SMF, you may want to read the following MOF 4.0 guidance to learn more about the MOF IT service lifecycle and the Plan Phase:

• MOF Overview
• Plan Phase Overview

Why Use the Business/IT Alignment SMF?

This SMF should be useful for anyone wanting to better align business and IT strategy to ensure that IT services provide business value. It provides an understanding of the fundamental process steps involved and describes the context of aligning business and IT goals, developing an IT service strategy, identifying an IT portfolio of work, and establishing methods of keeping business and IT aligned.

It addresses how to do the following:

• Define IT service strategy.
• Identify and map IT services.
• Measure demand and manage business requests.
• Develop an IT service portfolio.
• Establish service level managements.