Information Technology Infrastructure Library - Continual Service Improvement (CSI)

Continual Service Improvement (CSI)

Continual service improvement, defined in the ITIL continual service improvement volume, aims to align and realign IT services to changing business needs by identifying and implementing improvements to the IT services that support the business processes. It incorporates many of the same concepts articulated in the Deming Cycle of Plan-Do-Check-Act. The perspective of CSI on improvement is the business perspective of service quality, even though CSI aims to improve process effectiveness, efficiency and cost effectiveness of the IT processes through the whole lifecycle. To manage improvement, CSI should clearly define what should be controlled and measured.

CSI needs to be treated just like any other service practice. There needs to be upfront planning, training and awareness, ongoing scheduling, roles created, ownership assigned,and activities identified to be successful. CSI must be planned and scheduled as process with defined activities, inputs, outputs, roles and reporting. Continual Service Improvement and Application Performance Management (APM) are two sides of the same coin. They both focus on improvement with APM tying together service design, service transition, and service operation which in turn helps raise the bar of operational excellence for IT.

Improvement initiatives typically follow a seven-step process:

1. Identify the strategy for improvement
2. Define what you will measure
3. Gather the data
4. Process the data
5. Analyse the information and data
6. Present and use the information
7. Implement improvement