Continual Service Improvement

The objectives of CSI are to:

• Review, analyse, prioritise and make recommendations on improvement opportunities in each ITIL v3 lifecycle stage: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and CSI itself.
• Review and analyse service level achievement.
• Identify and implement specific activities to improve IT service quality and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the enabling processes.
• Improve the cost-effectiveness of delivering IT Services without sacrificing customer satisfaction.
• Ensure applicable quality management methods are used to support continual improvement activities.
• Ensure that processes have clearly defined objectives and measurements that lead to actionable improvements.
• Understand what to measure, why it is being measured and what the successful outcome should be.

Implementation of CSI within an organisation requires an understanding of CSI activities. These activities are not necessarily executed by the CSI Manager or CSI Analyst; they are often (and should be) executed within other processes of the ITIL lifecycle. Empowering individuals to take action and recognise improvement areas is one of the mainstays of CSI. CSI brings a single point of accountability for improvement efforts – ensuring that funds are not wasted or spent without return expectations

Adopting and implementing standard and consistent approaches for CSI will:

• Lead to a gradual and continual improvement in service quality, where justified.
• Ensure that IT Services remain continuously aligned to business requirements.
• Result in gradual improvements in cost-effectiveness through a reduction in costs and/or the capability to handle more work at the same cost.
• Use monitoring and reporting to identify opportunities for improvement in all lifecycle stages and in all processes.
• Identify opportunities for improvements in organizational structures, resourcing capabilities, partners, technology, staff skills and training, and communications.