Published: April 25, 2008

Position of the Project Planning 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 Project Planning SMF belongs to the Deliver phase of the MOF IT service lifecycle. The following figure shows the place of the Project Planning SMF within the Deliver phase, as well as the location of the Deliver phase within the IT service lifecycle.

Figure 1. Position of the Project Planning 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 Deliver Phase:

• MOF Overview
• Deliver Phase Overview

Why Use the Project Planning SMF?

The Project Planning SMF should be useful to anyone who has the primary role in planning an IT service project, including preparing the functional specification and solution design and preparing work plans, cost estimates, and schedules.

This SMF addresses the following IT service project planning actions:

• Evaluate products and technologies.
• Write the functional specification.
• Package the master project plan.
• Create the master schedule.
• Review the Project Plans Approved Milestone.