by David Wheeldon FBCS, d.wheeldon@ceceurope.com
© 2002, David Wheeldon All Rights Restricted

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Guidance from CEC Europe, based upon extensive practical experience, on how ITIL processes be mapped onto an organisational structure.

The ITIL Guidelines give very little specific guidance regarding IT organisation structures – on the basis that each organisation is unique and therefore any guidance would have to be very generic.

This is however an area that people struggle with in the real world, so we have produced the attached example organisation chart and these accompanying notes – which may be of assistance in this area. We have also given some brief guidance on how to introduce your new structure.

The organisation chart is intended to give generic guidance covering a medium sized IT organisation – with around 40-50 staff in the Service Support and Delivery (‘Live’) areas. These documents need to be used with care – because each organisation is indeed unique, and needs to take into account its own personal circumstances. In particular this organisation structure needs to be regarded as scalable – so these notes give some advice on where roles can be combined for smaller organisations – or where they may need to be expanded for larger ones.

Please note that there are a number of other potential roles not included in the organisation chart but which some organisations may wish to adopt. These are discussed in section 2, with some suggestions given on where they may be located in the structure.

The term ‘Manager’ is used quite a lot in this document – some organisations may wish to substitute the titles ‘Supervisor’ or ‘Team Leader’, or whatever, where appropriate if these titles better suit their structure and culture.

Click here for the Organisation Chart

1. Head of IT

May be entitled Director of IT and would ideally have either a seat on or at least a direct route into the Board/Senior Management Structure. A lot of time and activities may be facing upward to deal with demands of the board and senior business managers, or dealing with strategy issues. (Note that some, usually larger, organisations may have a separate Strategy Manager reporting into this post – see section 2).

The person with overall responsible for day to day running of all of IT Service Management – this is the area primarily covered by this organisation chart. This role will be far more operational than that of the Head of IT.

1.1.1. Service Support Manager

This role is responsible for all of the Service Support Activities, many of which involve a strong re-active element. Because of the relatively large number of staff involved in this area, this role will have a significant staff managerial responsibility.

1.1.1.1. Problem Manager

This role is responsible for both reactive root-cause analysis and proactive trending and incident/problem prevention. May be part-time in smaller organisations, or merged with other roles – Availability would be a prime choice, but may also be combined with Capacity Management or perhaps with IT Service Continuity Management. There are dangers with sharing responsibilities with the Service Desk Manager/Supervisor role and this should generally be avoided to prevent conflicting objectives and timescales. The Problem Manager may need support staff in larger organisations.

1.1.1.2. Technical Support Manager

This role is responsible for the technical support and maintenance of the central systems (Mainframe, Servers, Operating systems, Disk subsystems etc) team members may have specialisms – but ideally should have level of cross-skilling. Should have some responsibility for Capacity and Availability, particularly if these roles do not exist elsewhere.

1.1.1.3. Service Desk Manager

This role has overall responsibility for the Service Desk. In larger Desks one or more Service Desk Supervisors may be needed to handle staffing and call escalation issues. The number of operatives required will depend upon the nature of incidents, average handling time and patterns of hours – which may include shift working.

NOTE: You will see from the organisation chart that there is an imbalance between the numbers of staff under the Service Support Manager and the Service Delivery Manager – which can create difficulties regarding line management activities (appraisals, reporting etc). Some organisations may wish to redress this balance somewhat by placing the Service Desk under the Service Delivery Manager. This has other advantages as well in that the Desk may be seen as separate from the other support functions and more able to represent the customer community’s views. If an organisation has a CRM function this may also fit under Service Delivery and may have overall responsibility for the Service Desk.

1.1.1.3.1 Service Desk Operators/Second Line Support

These are the staff that will deal initially with incidents reported to the Service Desk. They have been divided into Service Desk Operators (sometimes called SD Analysts) and Second Line support staff – who may have more detailed technical skills/training. The SD Operators will provide first line support – but if the incident cannot be resolved whilst the customer is on the telephone and/or requires further work and/or more detailed knowledge - than it will be escalated to Second Line support staff to deal with. Larger organisations may wish to create second line support as a separate unit with its own manager/supervisor. Staff rotation between these units can be advantageous, as it will engender skills transfer to SD staff and will allow Second Line support staff to come to the assistance of the SD by taking overflow calls during busy periods.

1.1.1.4. Computer Operations Manager

This role is responsible for all operations activities such as work scheduling, central printing, data back-up etc. There may be between 1-3 shifts depending upon the hours covered. There would normally be at least 2 operators per shift for health & safety reasons. Additional numbers would depend upon workloads, hours of cover etc.

1.1.1.5. Desktop Support Manager

The exact nature of Desktop support will vary depending upon geographic location (may need to be distributed to customer locations, but deployed via the Service Desk) and range of duties – and will depend upon whether any activities, such as hardware support, have been outsourced.

1.1.1.6. Change, Configuration and Release Manager

In larger organisations these roles may need to be separated, but the processes are closely linked so should come under one reporting structure. By having a combined CCR Manager, the seniority aspects required in the role can be done by one person, where the day-to day activities can be devolved to administrative staff. In larger organisations a small team may be needed in each area. There will need to be a link to Procurement, and smaller organisation may wish to combine this role here as well.

1.1.1.7. Network Support Manager

The exact number and profile of staff in this area will depend upon the range and scale of networks being supported and whether any are outsourced. Some responsibility for network availability and capacity will exist, so will need to liaise closely with the Availability/Capacity Manager in Service Delivery.

1.1.2. Service Delivery Manager

This role is responsible for all Service Delivery activities – many of which include a strong pro-active element and/or are longer term planning roles.

1.1.2.1. Test Manager

ITIL defines the need for an independent testing function, but gives no real guidance on where this should be located. This sits best under Service Delivery where it can be independent of both the change builders and the Release Management function (though in small organisations it may have to be combined with Release Management).

1.1.2.2. Service Level Manager

This role will be responsible for managing SLAs and OLAs and may also have some responsibility for Supplier Management (though some organisations may choose to have this as a separate function, perhaps combined with some procurement duties. Some organisations may have Customer Relationship Management or Account Management roles (see section 2) that may take responsibility for SLA review meetings and feed-back on service quality.

1.1.2.3. Availability and Capacity Manager

These two roles are closely associated and have been combined in this structure, but in larger organisations separate functions may be required. In smaller organisations these duties can be shared with IT Service Continuity responsibilities and/or with Problem Management (but would probably best be retained under Service Delivery). Some of the day to day Capacity and Availability responsibilities are likely to be devolved to support groups, but this centralised function will have responsibility for longer term planning activities.

ITIL places responsibility for keeping up to date with new technology with the Capacity Management role – but some larger organisations may have a Technical Architect role that may perform this function.

1.1.2.4. IT Service Continuity Manager

This role will have overall responsible for IT Service Continuity but should ideally form part of an organisation’s Business Continuity Team. In smaller organisations, it may be combined as previously described with Availability and/or Capacity Management. This role may also be combined with a Security role, particularly if the organisation is seeking security accreditation (e.g. BS7799).

1.1.2.5. Financial Manager

This role will be responsible for overall financial control including budgeting, IT accounting and, where relevant, charging. Procurement/purchasing may also come under this role – which is why administrative support has been given – which may not be needed in smaller organisations.

Please note that in some organisations this role may report directly to the Head of IT and additionally include overall responsibility for Financial Planning and Management of the development group.

1.2. Development Manager

This area is outside the scope of ITIL – so applications development and support is not covered in this chart – and neither is project management. Some organisations may wish to have an Application Support function outside of Applications development – and this could be bought under Service Management – but staff rotation may be a good idea to keep skills fresh.

Some organisations specifically appoint a role which is responsible for liaison with Development roles and which may also be responsible for ‘transition to live’ of new IT systems – see section 2 below.

2. Additional Roles

There are a number of additional roles, covered below, which some organisations may wish to include within their organisations structure. Advice is offered on where they may fit if needed.

2.1. Strategy Manager

Larger organisation may wish to consider a role of Strategy Manager who can take some of the responsibilities for strategy from the Head of IT, who they would normally report in to. This role may have the time and freedom to be able to ‘think blue sky’.

2.2. Account Manager/Customer Relationship Manager

This role acts as a liaison point between IT and the Business. Some larger organisations may wish to have a separate Account/CRM Manager for each major customer group. Where this role exists, some of the reporting and reviewing responsibilities from Service Level Management may be handled by this function.

Where the CRM post is created at a senior level, it may encompass responsibility or the Service Desk, as the day-to-day interface with the customer.

2.3. Security & Audit

Security and Audit are not specifically covered in ITIL, other than a small element under Availability Management. If Security has to be added into this organisation chart it would best sit under Service Delivery as a separate function or combined with Availability Management.

2.4. IT Architect

This role will have responsibility for planning and defining the organisations technical infrastructure, and may also include some responsibility for defining standards. In some cases responsibility for evaluating new technology may sit with this role.

2.5. Special Projects

Some organisation’s sometimes have occasional need for special projects staff. If these cannot be resources from existing within existing resources then a separate role or function may be needed. This would probably best be located within Service Delivery. Ideally any such projects should come under a formal project management method and would perhaps be under the control of a project office.

2.6. Contracts/Procurement Manager

This role may come under Financial Management, particularly if the Financial Manager has a senior role. There is some link required between procurement and Configuration Management – to ensure that all new assets are labelled and included in the CMDB.

2.7. Transition to Live

There are many points in the Application Development cycle where consideration needs to be given to ‘live’ running issues. This role can get involved with Applications Development and ensure that these areas are considered and addressed. It can also handle all the preparation needed during the time prior to the application going live (e.g. training, familiarisation, incident categorisation, diagnostic scripts, known error entries etc.)

3. Introducing New Structures

Unless there are compelling reasons to justify radical change, evolution rather than revolution may be advisable for most organisations – so that disruption to the delivery of live services is not adversely impacted during the change period. By publishing the proposed new structure, allocating roles and giving staff time for preparation and training - and gradually phasing in the actual changes, the disruption can be minimised.