Process 3: Identify Demand and Manage Business Requests
Demand and request management analysis is a process that articulates how IT services are being used and requested by the organization and how future trends might affect the services. Demand management data helps managers plan and account for their IT expenditures, understand the IT business services they are receiving in return, and participate in decisions about future projects and resource allocation.
A fully matured demand and request management process will ensure that:
- There is a predictable process for managing requests.
- There is a consistent model for measuring current demand.
- There is a method of analyzing requests and current service capacity.
Activities: Demand and Request Management
The following table lists the activities involved in this process. These activities include:
- Managing new requests.
- Capturing current usage and demand.
- Identifying and validating future trends.
- Analyzing demand and requests.
Table 7. Activities and Considerations for Demand and Request Management Activities
Activities
Considerations
Manage new requests
Key questions:
- What tools (in addition to the service catalog) are used for requesting IT products and services? (see Customer Service SMF for more information)
- Do the requests channeled through these sources reflect planned or budgeted activities already defined in the service portfolio? Have they been budgeted as part of the approved IT operational plan?
- Do service requests reflect a new business opportunity or operational improvement within IT?
- What kind of change management system will be used to capture the requests? How will the requests be categorized and classified? How will the requests be mapped to current services? (see Change and Configuration SMF for more information)
Inputs:
- A service catalog capable of tracking all IT service requests
- Requests from the following sources:
- Other internal IT teams with support channels
- Third-party suppliers and business partners that are part of the service delivery value chain
- Managed outsourced services
- Bug tracking systems
- Support desk tools
Output:
- An organized and consolidated view of all requests made to the IT organization
Best practices:
- Manage requests using a consistent, well-defined request process that includes the following elements:
- A Request for Change (RFC) form that identifies key change approval criteria, including (but not limited to) business impact, service name, and risk of not accepting the request. Because many requests come from non-IT groups, initial RFCs might be missing IT-relevant information.
- Thorough classification and categorization of requests. Consider organizing requests by service impact, new service, risk, or initial resource requirements.
- A dedicated database to store the requests. Service owners, budget owners, and business relationship managers will want to query and view the requests in different ways.
- For more information about change request processes, see the Change and Configuration SMF.
Capture current usage and demand
Key questions:
- How is the performance of the business-critical services? Are the availability target and SLAs being met? If targets are not being met, is capacity an issue?
- Are there services that are not being used?
- Is there additional capacity that is not being used by services? Is there additional capacity in storage, bandwidth, or servers?
- Are adequate licenses purchased for installed software?
Inputs:
- Capacity reports
- Availability reports
- License reports, including those from audit
Output:
- Demand report (organized by current usage and anticipated growth of usage and mapped to services and business units)
Identify and validate future trends
Key questions:
- What services are critical to the business? How might the business plan affect those services?
- Is the cost of any resource going up? How will an increase in the cost of power affect IT’s ability to deliver services at a reasonable price? Are any services at risk because of increased costs?
- Do any current technology trends give the organization an opportunity to improve services?
- Can any new third-party offerings reduce the burden on the organization (for example, message filtering, network management, or help desk services)?
- Are some of the services that are traditionally provided or built in-house available as online services (for example, hosted messaging services)?
Input:
- Reports from technology- and organization-specific research firms such as Forrester Research, Inc., IDC, and Gartner, Inc.
- Other sources of information on technology trends
Outputs:
- Roadmap that identifies the integration of key technologies to support business objectives
- Risk analysis concerning industry-specific and technology trends
Best practices:
Make sure the organization has an understanding about the impact that IT services have on its effectiveness. For example, how do collaboration and messaging services provide more productivity, new ways of working, or the ability to expand geographically?
As your team identifies important trends, be aware of any major paradigm shifts—changes in technology or attitudes about its use—that might affect your IT operations. For example, starting in the 1990s, an explosion of Web services had an enormous impact on all of IT. A great deal of attention is being given to:
- Virtualization that dynamically handles change in demand.
- Collaboration tools that increase the effectiveness of virtual teams.
- Telecommuting.
- The increased use of consumer technologies (for example, mobile devices).
Be aware of your end users’ expectations about support in these areas; keep in mind that they will most likely expect 24/7 coverage. Also, make sure that you have provided for the security implications that these changes will require.
Analyze demand and requests
Key questions:
- How often should an analysis be performed? How can the analysis support the pace of business demand?
- How should the analysis be delivered to ensure understanding? How are the key messages and recommendations conveyed? What outcome is IT expecting from the analysis?
- Does the business have expectations about the depth of information in the data analysis? How can IT present its analysis in a way that demonstrates alignment to the business and the importance of the services it offers?
Inputs:
- Consolidated view of requests
- Analysis of service demand
- Roadmap of technology and industry trends
Output:
- Recommendations that provide input to the portfolio management process (recommendations take the form of proposed projects, enhancements to existing services, or the decommissioning of services)
Best practice:
- Recommendations for minor enhancements can be put forth at any time. Generally, recommendations that require capital spending or a new project concept are put forth during the organization’s planning process.
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