In any organization, the main purpose of the transition planning and support process is to provide complete planning for the transition of the service and to coordinate all the resources they need. In this blog, we will learn about the ITIL transition planning and support objectives, value, scope, risks, challenges, etc.
The Objective of ITIL Transition Planning and Support
The process of transition planning and support has many objectives which primarily deal with planning, coordination, standardization, and improvement. They are as follows:
- To make plans for the service transition activities and coordinate the service transition resources within the IT department across various projects, suppliers, and service teams wherever it is required.
- The newly introduced services and the services which have been recently modified should be established within the estimated costs with the required level of quality and within the decided timeframe.
- New or improved information management systems should be established along with the necessary tools, technology and management architectures, service management processes, and metrics to meet the agreed-upon needs and requirements.
- To make plans that will allow the business change projects to align with service transition.
- To identify the risks which are involved in the projects, manage them, and keep them under control to ensure that the chances of failure are low.
- Constant monitoring and improvement of the performance of the service transition
Scope of ITIL Transition Planning and Support
The following come under the scope of transition planning and support:
- Maintenance of the laid down policies, fixed standards, and models for service transition.
- To guide the major changes which have been made through the service transition process.
- The resources available need to be prioritized and coordinated so that multiple transitions can be managed at the same time.
- The required budget and resources for the service transition need to be planned.
- The performance of the transition planning and support needs to be reviewed and improved periodically.
Value of ITIL Transition Planning and Support to Business
- The ability of a service provider to handle large volumes of change and releases across its customer base can be significantly improved by effective transition planning and support.
- The alignment of service transition plans with the customer, supplier, and project plans for business change can be improved with an integrated approach to planning.
Principles and Basic Concepts of ITIL Transition Planning and Support
The development of a Service Design Package which documents every new or modified service is overseen by the Service Design Coordination team. The Service Design Package includes important information which is needed by the service transition team such as:
- The anticipated utility and warranty of the service.
- Outlines of the available budget and the timescale.
- The exact specifications of the service.
- The precise service models, architectural design, and detailed designs of every release.
- The management plans for the release and deployment of the service.
- The service acceptance criteria (SAC) for each service.
Process Activities of ITIL Transition Planning and Support
The main activities in the transition planning and support are:
- To define the overall strategy for transition, which includes the policy, roles, responsibilities, standards, frameworks, and success criteria.
- Review and accept inputs such as service design package, raise requests for change (RFC), check transitional readiness, and baseline the configuration as a part of planning and coordination for service and transition.
- To plan and coordinate the service transition which includes the production of the service transition plans, reviewing and coordinating with the release deployment plans.
- Provide support and advice for the transition process along with monitoring and reporting the progress made.
Challenges of ITIL Transition Planning and Support
A lot of challenges are faced during the service transition process. Some of them include building the right relationships which are needed to manage the various project stakeholders involved in the service transition and coordinate their activities.
The other challenge lies in coordinating and prioritizing the services which have been newly introduced or modified and giving special attention if there are delays or failures of tests which can cause projects to fail.
Risks of ITIL Transition Planning and Support
- The main risk is the possibility of a lack of information from the demand management and service portfolio management which can result in insufficient long-term planning.
- If the relationship between the project and program teams is poor, it can result in unexpected service transition requirements.
- If there is a delay in a particular transition, it can have an effect on all future transitions.
- When there are conflicting requirements, the availability of insufficient information can affect the ability to prioritize the requirements.
Conclusion
ITIL transition planning and support benefit the organization by making plans for the service transition activities, and business change projects, and coordinating the service transition resources. Identifying the risks in the projects helps to manage them and keep them under control to ensure that the chances of failure are low. Therefore, get yourself enrolled in an ITIL 4 Foundation certification and master the various ITIL concepts and processes.
Know more about Service Management best practices through Invensis Learning’s IT Service Management certification training on ITIL 4 Foundation, SIAM Foundation, SIAM professional, VeriSM, etc.
