Service Catalogs

Crossing the 1000 service definition barrier

Last week's Service Catalog conference is over and what a great week it was.  So many good sessions and case studies that I'll be commenting on.

As I watched the customer presentations last week, one trend jumped at me: newScale customers are accelerating the number of service definitions in their catalogs faster than industry norms.   

Many of our customer’s catalogs are on their way to break the 1,000 service definition barrier—what I call Catalog Mach 1.  Some have already passed it; some will pass it soon. And I expect most will break Catalog Mach 1 in 2009 with our new industrial-strength catalog management.

The business cases presented were compelling.  The more service areas they convert to their service request catalog, the better and better their ROI.

First, as they expand their catalogs, they are taking out other systems or avoiding purchasing additional software and concurrent projects.  In some cases, these are very hard dollars in cost avoidance, elimination of obsolete systems, etc.

Second, the more services in the catalog, the more users that go for it as the source of truth, which leads to more services.  And adoption is key to attaining value.

Third, several customers had already expanded beyond IT services and were looking at services that would impact the business directly and / or be external facing. 

So you end up with a metric that has Cost per Service per Person that is very compelling.

So that’s cool.  But then I thought, how long would it take our competitors to cross catalog Mach 1?  The answer is 80 years. 

Stay tuned for the next post and find out why it takes 80 years.

Self-service is not Service catalog. it's necessary but not sufficient

At the November 2007 Data Center Conference and the June 2007 Infrastructure,
Operations and Management Summit, Gartner analysts conducted interactive polling during the
presentation "What, Why and How of IT Service Portfolio Management and Service
Catalogs."  If you are a Gartner client you may be interested in the results; ask for Document ID Number: G00156964.

The report is full of very exciting findings -- some which I hope to share as I am allowed to.  But here's a quote from Kris Brittain and Debra Curtis.

"It is important to note that, despite the marketing hype to the contrary, the service request and self-service portal capabilities offered by IT service desk vendors do not address the full range of ITSPM [IT Service Portfolio Management] requirements, which include managing service definition, service cost/profitability financial management and aggregation of service-level reporting."

This is consistent with what we have been saying -- the service request products from the big players do not meet the requirements for ITIL v2 or v3 service catalog or portfolio. 

This means that they will have to be thrown out and restarted as soon as you try to Service Level, Portfolio, Demand, or Financial management. Ouch. I wouldn't want to explain that to senior management.

At catalog conference next week

I'll be attending newScale's Service Catalog conference next week in Palm Springs.  There are some great sessions, including one of the most popular ever: Stump the Expert. Every year, our customers try to stump our experts and ... sometimes they do. Hilarity ensues.

Here's the full agenda. Hope to see you there.

Day 1 — Monday, May 5th

12:00 - 7:00pm	Registration
12:00 - 5:30pm	Optional Pre-Conference Working Session
	Solving Advanced Service Catalog Challenges (Exclusive session - available for newScale customers, by advance registration only - includes lunch) Stump the Experts! In this focused drill-down session, join a team of newScale experts to dive into real life Service Catalog design challenges and solutions. Registrants will be invited to submit their toughest challenges two weeks prior to the conference. During the session, the experts will present their solutions to your challenges to the group. Challenge categories include: User Friendliness:  Get help designing your request forms that are understandable to the user, and efficient and thorough for IT. Reporting:  For good reporting, you'll need to design services that are measurable, and integrate them with your reporting tools. Interactive Forms:  Need help creating an Interactive Service Form?  Submit a challenge to the newScale team. Other Challenges:  Submit to the team and we'll field as many as time allows.
6:00 - 7:30pm	Welcome Reception

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Day 2 — Tuesday, May 6th

7:30 - 8:30am	Registration & Continental Breakfast
8:30 - 8:45am	Welcome & Introductions
8:45 - 9:45am	Opening Keynote - Introducing IT 2.0: Making IT Relevant to the Business Scott Hammond, CEO, newScale The role of IT continues to evolve. Today it is no longer sufficient to provide a reliable, effective infrastructure. Your business customers expect more. This session will introduce IT 2.0: a new era where IT must become a relevant change agent for the business. It's a model where IT truly takes care of business - both managing IT as a business and moving forward the business of the enterprise. Are you ready? Scott will outline where a Service Catalog fits in the IT 2.0 model, and how it can help IT implement the Front Office processes required to take care of business.
9:45 - 10:15am	General Session - Service Catalog: "One of the Best Things IT Has Ever Done" A Service Catalog and Request Fulfillment Case Study Presentation Learn why the Service Catalog initiative was a huge success for this global IT organization and how it became the leading light within their reinvigorated ITIL program. Hear how they deployed an actionable Service Catalog integrated with request fulfillment, providing a one stop shop for all IT service requests. Find out how they achieved immediate benefits, including both financial payback and greater IT credibility - with improved IT governance, service automation, cost controls, and feedback that the Service Catalog is "One of the best things IT has ever done".
10:15 - 10:305am	Break
10:30 - 11:20am	General Session - Executive Panel: CIO Priorities and the IT Service Catalog Featuring Executive Panel Members from Multiple Industries Sometimes it seems like the priorities of the CIO just don't align with the day-to-day realities of delivering IT services to the business. This panel discussion - featuring IT executives from several different industries - will provide insight into what keeps CIOs up at night, what their metrics for success are, and how a Service Catalog project can help the CIO achieve these goals. The panelists will share their own experiences and challenges in this interactive discussion.
11:20 - 11:50am	General Session - Service Catalog: Foundation for Strategic Business Alignment A Service Catalog and Service Portfolio Management Case Study Presentation This case study - from one of the world's largest and most admired investment firms - highlights how a Service Portfolio and Service Catalog can improve cost transparency, demand management, and IT-business alignment. Learn what methodologies they used, including ITIL and analyst research, to define their portfolio of IT service offerings. Hear how they are rolling out their Service Catalog to establish a cost model for annual budgeting, benchmark services against industry standards, and quantify the value of IT for the business in financial terms.
11:50 - 12:00pm	Break for Lunch
12:00 - 1:15pm	Lunch - Sponsored by ManageSoft
	Business Track		Technical Track
1:15 - 2:00pm	Rolling Out Services in a Shared Services Environment The shared services model allows organizations to centralize and consolidate common corporate services, in order to improve efficiency and achieve economies of scale. Hear real-world examples of how to deploy a Service Catalog in a shared services model. Learn from a panel of newScale customers as they talk about their experiences with rolling out IT services across multiple business units.		Enabling Service Automation and Operational Efficiency Through Integration This panel discussion focuses on best practices for integration in a Service Catalog program. We will review example integrations with LDAP/SSO, help desk, ID management, software distribution, and other 3rd party systems. This session will also examine the benefits of integration, based on real-world examples - including process efficiency, improved reliability, and faster cycle times.
2:00 - 2:15pm	Break
	Business Track		Technical Track
2:15 - 3:00pm	Organizing Your Project Team For Success - Roles and Staffing Best Practices Centralized or de-centralized service teams, on-site or off-shore staff, face-to-face interaction or on-line collaboration? These are just a few of the questions involved in determining the right roles, structure, and staff for your Service Catalog program. Panelists from the hospitality, financial services, and manufacturing industries will discuss team structures that worked for them and provide suggestions on roles and staffing.		Real-World Scenarios for  Deploying a Service Catalog in a Global Organization This panel features representatives from U.S.-based and international organizations in retail, energy, financial services, and other sectors - for a discussion on best practices for deploying a Service Catalog in a global environment. The panel will cover both technical and business topics, including global standards, distributed service design across multiple geographies, and service delivery in a 24 x 7 world.
3:00 - 3:15pm	Break
3:15 - 4:00pm	Using Your Service Catalog as the Cornerstone for ITIL v3 and a Service-Centric Transformation As the foundation for defining services and communicating with the business, the Service Catalog can ensure a service-centric approach to ITIL. This panel session features ITIL practitioners and industry experts discussing the implications of changes from v2 to v3, perspectives on ITIL adoption, and how ITIL v3 can help increase the visibility and impact of your Service Catalog initiative.		Leveraging Packaged Content to Accelerate Service Catalog Time-to-Value This interactive workshop presentation will showcase innovative new capabilities and pre-built Service Catalog content. Learn about new packaged service content and how tools to move and share content across systems can help to shorten deployment times for new services, facilitate service component re-use, and make complex service design easier.
4:00 - 4:15pm	Break
4:15 - 6:15pm	Service Catalog Expo and Cocktail Reception Come ready to ask questions of the experts at newScale and other premier Service Catalog solution providers. Product managers and services staff will be available in a series of booths to provide insights on key solutions, review new service offerings, discuss specific customer issues, and provide feedback and answers to individual questions. Expo areas will showcase several providers and solutions, including: Accenture ManageSoft Northwind Siemens Third Sky newScale Strategic Services newScale Content Libraries newScale  Knowledge Services newScale PortfolioCenter and DemandCenter newScale Analytics and Reporting newScale RequestCenter
7:00 - 10:30pm	Conference Dinner Event - Sponsored by newScale and Partners

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Day 3 — Wednesday, May 7th

8:00 - 9:00am	Registration & Continental Breakfast
9:00 - 9:45am	General Session - A Transformation Approach for IT Service Management Diamond Sponsor Presentation - Featuring Accenture Intensifying scrutiny on business performance presents a clear imperative to build and secure the relevance of IT within the business. Failure to do so could result in a decline in the influence of IT across the organization. ITIL version 3 provides the platform to reshape and reposition the IT department as a true service provider to the business. Hear Accenture's recommendations on how to achieve this transformation and best maximize success with ITIL version 3.
9:45 - 10:15am	General Session - The Service Catalog Journey: Establishing an IT Front Office Featuring Service Catalog Experts and Panel Members from Multiple Industries Most IT organizations are at the early stages of their Service Catalog journey - we still have a lot to learn from each other. What have we learned from our collective experiences? What are the learnings and best practices? What kind of organizational change is required? What does the optimal project team look like? What kind of skill set is needed for a successful Service Catalog? This panel discussion will cover the key elements of the Service Catalog journey, addressing the Strategy, Process, People & Technology requirements for a customer-focused IT Front Office.
10:30 - 10:55am	Break
10:55 - 11:40am	General Session - Unique and Impactful Use Cases that Extend the Value of a Service Catalog for Greater Business Impact Featuring Service Catalog Experts and Panel Members from Multiple Industries Once again, our team of experts has compiled some of the most unique and impactful uses of newScale Service Catalog solutions from our customer base. These include an end-to-end ID provisioning process; an automated service migration process; a closed loop requisition-delivery-invoicing process for telecom services; usability testing that borrows from B2C e-commerce concepts; and more. Discover these innovative ideas and apply them to our own organization to extend the value of your Service Catalog program!
	Business Track		Technical Track
11:40 - 12:25pm	Service Catalog Case Study Presented by Siemens Many IT shops are modeling their operations to run more like that of an external service provider. Here's your chance to learn how they do it! Siemens is deploying newScale RequestCenter to provide self-service Request Management and a consolidated view into the Siemens Service Catalog for their clients. Hear how services are designed, published, requested, and delivered at a leading managed services provider. Specific topics will include integrated self-help & software license management.		SPACL - Service Portfolio and Catalog Language How do you define a "service"? Services are defined at different levels in the Service Catalog, in the Service Portfolio, in financial systems, in provisioning systems, and a myriad of other applications. But there hasn't been a common definition that can traverse these systems. The Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL) provides a standards-based framework to share Service Catalog information with other IT functional areas and promote the exchange of service definition content across multiple systems.
12:25 - 12:35pm	Break for Lunch
12:35 - 1:45pm	Birds-of-a-Feather Lunch
	Departure or Dinner on Your Own

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Exclusive Customer-Only Sessions

1:45 - 2:25pm	General Session - Preview of Enhancements in the Upcoming newScale 2008 Product Release The next major release for the newScale FrontOffice™ Suite is quickly approaching. Learn about the new features and enhancements of this release to plan your Service Catalog program for 2008. This newScale-led session will include highlights of the new capabilities and a sneak peek product demonstration, with audience feedback and discussion.
	Customers - Business Track		Customers - Technical Track
2:30 - 3:15pm	Driving Continual Service Improvement With Analytics and Reporting The old saying goes, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it". How do you apply this to your Service Catalog initiative? A panel of experts - featuring both product specialists and fellow practitioners - will discuss how advanced reporting and analysis can help to provide visibility into service demand, streamline the service delivery process, and eliminate fulfillment bottlenecks.		newScale Upgrade Best Practices and Methodologies Learn how to plan for future upgrades, when to time your upgrades, and what to expect with your next upgrade. This newScale customer-led discussion will dig into practical examples of what works - and what doesn't work - to ensure a smooth and successful transition in your upgrade. Learn the keys to success for upgrades from fellow customers and implementation experts.
3:15 - 3:30pm	Break
	Customers - Business Track		Customers - Technical Track
3:30 - 4:15pm	How to Successfully Expand Your Service Catalog Program This session will address long-term program planning, with anecdotal experiences and best practices from successful multi-year programs. Panelists will discuss how their programs evolved over time and how they plan ahead for maximum effectiveness. Topics covered include newScale upgrade strategies, expansion projects, staffing over time, and more.		Tips and Tricks for Effective Service Design - Learn from the Experts This interactive workshop presentation will dive into practical examples of service design, with tips and tricks based on real-world situations. Learn how to leverage advanced newScale product capabilities for designing effective services. Discover best practices and how to avoid common service design pitfalls from product specialists and implementation experts.
4:15 - 4:20pm	Break
	newScale Customer Track
4:20 - 5:00pm	General Session - newScale Solutions Roadmap - 2008 and Beyond Presenter: Bill Fine, Product Strategy, newScale newScale’s product management executive will present the roadmap and strategic direction for upcoming product enhancements and long-term future products from the Service Catalog market leader. This "can't miss" session includes previews of innovative new product capabilities and highlights many of the key business benefits to expect from future releases.
5:00 - 5:15pm	Final Conference Wrap-up
	Departure or Dinner on Your Own

Serge Thorn's IT Blog: IT Governance, finally a worldwide recognition: ISO 38500

Interesting news from Serge Thorn's IT Blog on IT Governance.
We are not the in the old west anymore... But that's ok -- the piping wasn't anything to talk about.
Seems there's to be a new standard, ISO 38500, which will cover the governance of information technology.

The six principles (and examples of each) are:

1 Establish clearly understood responsibilities for ICT (eg, ensure individuals understand and accept their responsibilities)

2 Plan ICT to best support the organisation (eg, ensure ICT plans fit current and future needs and the organisation’s corporate plans)

3 Acquire ICT validly (eg, ICT acquisitions should be made for approved reasons and in the approved way; on the basis of ongoing analysis)

4 Ensure ICT performs well, whenever required (eg, ensure ICT is fit for its purpose and is responsive to changing requirements)

5 Ensure ICT conforms with formal rules (eg, ensure compliance with external regulations and internal policies and practices)

6 Ensure ICT use respects human factors (eg, ensure ICT meets the evolving needs of the ‘people in the process’)

In some moment, all these standards and frameworks will tips into really thinking what parts of IT can be managed in-house in a cost-effective manner. 

Service Catalog Conference 2008

We have just announced our Service Catalog Conference 2008.  For the first time, this year we are opening the conference to all end-user practitioners whether you are an existing customer or not.

What makes this conference great are all the case studies and customer presentations; the chance to network with other people who are at different stages in their implementation.

We'll see sessions on request catalog, service portfolio, finance and service costing. 
New this year, we are adding sessions specially useful for people who are just at the learning or planning stage. Whether figuring out what your objectives, learning how to run a catalog project, or getting consensus in your team as to what is a service, these sessions will be very useful.

We'll have those up on the website soon. And I'll blog about it.

And this year the conference is Palm Springs -- it will be a great event.  I hope to see you there.

The Business Case for an IT Service Catalog

What's the justification? How do I convince my boss / peers / executives that we should do?  What's the return on this investment?  If you have any of these questions, you will be interested in attending this free webinar:

How to Build the Business Case for an IT Service Catalog

With ITIL version 3, the Service Catalog has transitioned from a “nice to have” to a “must have” project. It’s now a top priority for CIOs – to improve IT’s credibility and to help business unit managers understand the value that IT delivers.

You know that you need a Service Catalog. Yet budgets are tight and there are lots of competing projects. You have to make a sound business case to receive approval and funding to move forward.

So how do you build a compelling business justification for your Service Catalog initiative?

Attend this Webinar and learn how to convince senior management to fund your Service Catalog project:
Get the facts on proven Service Catalog benefits – including hard and soft benefits
Find out how to establish the base case or "do nothing" scenario
Prepare to defend your business case with sound financial metrics
Hear cost savings and ROI examples from Service Catalog case studies.

Link: The Business Case for an IT Service Catalog.

The self-delusion continues: IT Leaders' Compensation Increases but Job Satisfaction Plummets

This survey from CIO magazine below is spot on on what's going on in the IT.  My comments in italics.

"Despite the money they're making, fewer IT leaders say they're satisfied with their jobs this year. In 2007, 88 percent of IT leaders called their jobs fulfilling, compared with 79 percent this year. And one-fifth of respondents (21 percent) don't find their jobs fulfilling.

Consequently, 28 percent of respondents say they're hunting for a new job and the 54 percent who aren't actively looking say they'd entertain calls from recruiters."

While IT is more important than ever to run the business, its strategic value as a differentiator in the market place is diminishing.  Put in another term, garbage collection is necessary, but the job may not be what you dreamed of.  This is not the first year this decline is reported, so we are seeing a trend.

One factor fueling that eagerness to switch jobs: CIOs feel less influential in their roles and in their organizations, according to the survey. The number of CIOs who view their role as becoming "more strategic" to their company declined from 80 percent last year to 69 percent this year.

What's more, fewer IT leaders now report to the CEO. Only 29 percent of the Harvey Nash survey respondents say their boss is the CEO, compared with 36 percent last year. (In our research, 41 percent of State of the CIO survey respondents call the CEO boss.)

CIO's are less influential because they cannot articulate what they do in terms that allow the executives to make business decision. Traditional IT is a tool provider.  And there are a lot of tool providers, and competitors.  Bottom line: If IT is a non-differentiated commodity, then why do you need that person reporting to the CEO? 

The number of IT leaders who sit on the management team, 37 percent, also declined this year, by 10 percent. The majority of respondents (54 percent) aren't members of their companies' executive management teams. (According to our 2008 State of the CIO research, 71 percent of IT executives report sitting on their companies' executive management teams.)

If IT can only talk about resources and activities rather than outcomes, why would a management team measured in outcomes want to be at the same table with thet CIO? Answer: they wouldn't. 

The problem is that we in IT are stuck thinking bottom up from our capabilities to see what's possible within the constraints we have.  Our peers are measured top down and from an outcome perspective: did you grow your market? Did you deliver the new products? Did you increase revenue?  Being able to articulate our IT services in terms of outcomes that matter to the business changes everything.

Nevertheless, CIOs think they're making strides on the IT-business alignment front: Some 73 percent of respondents believe their IT departments are integrated "well enough" with the business, according to the Harvey Nash survey.

"Hey we are losing power, prestige and importance. Heck, the CEO doesn't want work with me and my peers don't want me in their meetings. But over all, I feel we are doing a "good enough" job -- but it really sucks to be here." In other words, the self-delusion continues.

Link: Can't Buy Them Love: IT Leaders' Compensation Increases but Job Satisfaction Plummets.

Using Your Service Catalog as the Cornerstone for ITIL v3 and a Service-Centric Transformation

I'll be leading a Breakout Panel Discussion: Using Your Service Catalog as the Cornerstone for ITIL v3 and a Service-Centric Transformation at the Service Catalog Conference 2008

Tuesday, May 6, 3:15 – 4:00 pm

As the foundation for defining services and communicating with the business, the Service Catalog can ensure a service-centric approach to ITIL. This panel session features ITIL practitioners and industry experts discussing the implications of changes from v2 to v3, perspectives on ITIL adoption, and how ITIL v3 can help increase the visibility and impact of your Service Catalog initiative.

Panelists:  Samantha Reed – REI, Jack Bischoff – Accenture, Lou Hunnebeck – Third Sky

This session is open to all attendees. The rest of the agenda is here.

Service catalog templates and examples

The number one Google query that points to this site and our community site are:
Service catalog template
Service catalogue template
ITIL Service catalog
ITIL Service request
etc, etc, etc.

To make it simple for every one. They are here:  Service Offerings & Service Requests - ServiceCatalogs

You will find blank service catalog templates for portfolio service offerings and for service requests. There are also filled examples.

Remember to contribute your examples to this community. You are welcome

ITIL V3: Service Strategies

Majid Iqbal, Senior Project Scientist, IT Services Qualification Center, Carnegie Mellon University (now with Gartner) gave a presentation at the itSMF Great Lakes Local Interest Group introducing the service life cycle concept.

ITIL V3 presentation.

Why clients fail.

Link: Beyond the 7-minute attention span: getting management interested in ITIL (or anything) | The IT Skeptic.

1. Lack of ownership. "I wasn’t sure this ___ idea would work in the first place. I tried it out – it didn’t do that much good. As I guessed, this was kind of a waste of time and money!” Management is, ultimately, responsible for their own success. As Abraham Lincoln wrote, “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”

2. Time. "I had no idea this process would take so long. I am not sure it is worth it!” The result of Optimism-Bias – goal-setters have a natural tendency to underestimate the time needed to reach targets.

3. Difficulty. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It sounded so simple when we were starting out!” Optimism-Bias – applies to difficulty as well as time. Leaders often confuse the seemingly synonymous, but quite different – simple and easy Diet books make getting in shape simple; yet, actually doing so is difficult isn’t easy – success comes not from understanding how, success comes from actually doing. Long-term change in effectiveness requires real, persistently-applied, effort.

4. Distractions. “I would really like to work toward my goal, but my company is facing a new and unique challenge right now. It might be better if I just stopped and did this at a time when things aren’t so crazy.” Optimism-Bias again – goal-setters have a natural tendency to underestimate the distractions and competing goals that will invariably appear throughout the years. Build in time in change projections to “expect the unexpected.” By planning for distractions in advance, leaders can set more realistic expectations for change and be less likely to give up on the change process.

5. Rewards. “Why are we working so hard at becoming a (supposedly) more effective organization? After all of this effort – we still are …” Goal setters tend to become disappointed when the achievement of one goal doesn’t immediately translate into the achievement of other goals and immediate appreciation from their customers. 6. Focus. The end game is improvements to business performance, NOT business process improvements. Realized benefits are primarily an outcome of good management and not necessarily the best technology.

ServiceCatalog versus Service Web Site

This is a great discussion at the community. I'm late posting, but it's so relevant and the answers are very thoughtful.

Best of the community at work.  ServiceCatalog versus Service Website (Free registration required).

Get met there FAST! CMDB: A Journey, Not a Destination. Pleeeez!

I was reading this article: CMDB - A Journey, Not a Destination while coming back from Chicago. The article is nice, but I was in the wrong mood to read it.

Stuck in the last row, middle seat, knees bumping on the front seat, over-sold and delayed plane, no food, funny smells (funny like.. never mind). In the middle of a way too long and unpleasant journey.

And I thought, "Hey, I'm American. I don't want the journey, I want to be tele-transported home now, damnit!" 

Enjoy this Delta video about life and manners in the middle seat. (Although they could make the seats bigger, they publish this video trying to change our behavior. I'm but mildly amused)

This article is published in accordance with the rules of this blot that state: on Fridays, try to be funny.

Request Fulfillment - Managing Service Requests According to ITIL v3

I wrote this article for the ITSMf newsletter The Forum.

Request Fulfillment - Managing Service Requests According to ITIL v3

Today’s IT operations must deal with a multitude of application options, new mobility options, and the increasing demands of a continually connected workforce. Not only is there more technology per user, but the applications, devices, and options are more complicated than ever.

As a result, the volume and complexity of service requests – requests for everything from access to applications, to software enhancements, to computer upgrades, to email and network access – have expanded dramatically.  That challenge is compounded by the fact that each IT silo typically has a different system in place for managing requests.  Many large enterprises have dozens if not hundreds of different Web forms, intranet pages, Lotus Notes databases, and homegrown request systems.  This creates chaos and confusion for both the requester and the IT service teams.

The burden is often on the requester (or designated coordinators) to navigate through these disparate service request mechanisms, manage the various tasks associated with every service, and ensure that the request is ultimately fulfilled. And the service delivery teams spend an inordinate amount of time responding to requests, researching requirements, validating information, and providing status updates.

Figure 1: Typical Service Request Process = Complexity, Confusion, Complaints

The rest of the article is located here The Forum - 03/17/2008.

 

Service Catalog Conference Poll: Your Input needed

We are going forward with opening our annual catalog conference to practitioners and partners.  Your help with this two question will  help us select the best topics for you.  You can do it below or  here Thank you.

Update: Poll is closed. Thank you.

itSMF e-Symposium™

FYI, a pdf of the deck and an audio recording is now available on the itSMF e-symposium site (under archives) http://www.itsmf.e-symposium.com/

Link: itSMF e-Symposium™.

The dark side of SAAS or Google left us without a paddle

This week the dark side of SaaS landed on my lap.

SaaS (software as a service) is touted as the future of software. Why not have everything out in the cloud rather than running your own stuff?  The argument goes, "after all, you don't run your own power plant, do you?" I think for a lot of mature market and technologies, Saas is a good way to go. But not for everything

Here's what happened.   

Our Service Catalog community, ServiceCatalogs.com was built on the JotSpot wiki platform and hosted by them.  Then Google acquired Jotspot.  But Google has different plans for JotSpot, plans that don't include the old business model or technology.

Google has renamed JotSpot sites and downgraded functionality (no more forums), changed the model (only for Google Apps, not open communities), and got rid of the API (many features gone).  Worse they'll shut down the servers we are on later his summer.

So without a clear or reasonable migration plan, and a clear deadline for shutdown, this means that we most likely have to migrate the community off the platform we are on (5,000 users) and move it to another technology or hosted service. Even if we stay with Google, it will be a whole new and downgraded platform.

This will cost us time and money are not budgeted, and all the customization code is now useless and our designs need to be changed. We are left in a spot of that famous creek without a jot of paddle. Doing nothing, an option when you run your own software in house, is not an option.

This is the dark side of Saas, one that ultimately companies like salesforce.com or servicenow will have to address.  What happens if the provider gets acquired? What happens if you choose to change your business model /charging model? What happens if you deprecate functionality that I'm dependent on?

Saas proponents claim that it ends the upgrade cycle, as the service provider now upgrades the platform.  This is what happened to us.  But what's an upgrade to them, it's a downgrade to me.  And the option of "I'll keep running the old code until I figure out what to do or my provider adds the needed functionality" is just not available in the SaaS model.

Think about it, how many of our companies are all up on the latest versions of everything we use?  Not one. We are always behind the upgrade cycle and always running some stuff that is going out of support or has gone.   

With SaaS, we no longer have that option.  That's the dark side of Saas.  I'm still a fan but now I would be more careful about the questions I'd want in the contract before I go to Saas.

ITIL v3: Utility and Warranty - two sides of the same coin « ITIL Blues

I'm always looking for a metaphor to explain Utility and Warranty.  I like this one from ITIL Blues.

For example, if I go to a hairdresser to get a haircut (the Utility being the haircut service; it could also include shaving or hair dying) I’ll certainly will be expecting that:

   1. It won’t take too long to get my hair cut
   2. My head suffers no harm
   3. I have a comfortable chair
   4. and so on…

All these build up my perception of “how the service is being delivered” - the Warranty.

Link: ITIL v3: Utility and Warranty - two sides of the same coin « ITIL Blues.

Usability of ITSM Software: Stuck in the 80’s

I attended Pink Elephant's conference in Vegas last week.  One of the more interesting sessions was a vertical user group meeting.  This was a facilitated event where the users drove the topics and the conversations.  Usability– to my surprise and pleasure – was a hot topic. I mean, hot as in people got pretty heated about the lack of usability in their ITSM software and help desk products.

Some of the comments heard were:

• "It's all from the same company, but it doesn't even look the same."
• "The modules don't talk to each other"
• "It takes 10 consoles to do a basic function"

And on and on. I am a big fan of usable software and have spent many hours worrying newScale User Interface engineers about 1 pixel differences and screen flows.

So there I was listening from the back.  Then someone said, "Hey, we have a vendor here! Let's ask him."  Now, none of these nice people were my customers, and somehow I must answer for all the sins of the vendors they've chosen. As Borat would say, "Great success!!" So here is what I said: 

Most Request for Proposal (RFP's) are feature and function driven. There are two problems with this approach.

One, when you break down a product that way, it has the effect of making all the products look similar (that's part of the purpose of the RFP as it enables a price negotiation).  But think about it:  a chimp and a human being are 95% the same, but that 5% makes a big difference.   That 5% is usability

Second, important usability engineering , information architecture and aesthetic principles  of industrial design are not made requirements or conveyable in a grid type evaluation.   They could be, but with two exceptions, they are not.

At that moment, I became possessed by the Imp of the Perverse, and I continued.

If you really want to ruin  a software vendor's day, ask for a Proof of Concept on usability and make that test part of the RFP. That's the only way that you will change vendor attitudes to usability.  It's happened in the consumer space. Apple's iPod is a more usable product than the competitors, so every vendor there is scrambling to make their products easier to use and more compelling.  The same thing needs to be done for ITSM software.

Why bring this up for service catalogs?  Because with a user-facing catalog, you only get one chance to do this well.  Neither business executives nor users work for IT. You can't make them do what they don't want to. If the catalog is not usable it will not get adoption.  It will be like having an e-commerce portal without sales.

Unless usability is made part of the evaluation, I would have a significant concern over the potential of a failed project, the ability to deliver, time to production, ease of operation and administration, and cost of ownership. 

So my marketing and sales folks may not like my answer, but  I don't see how to make usability a priority, if you, the customer, don't.

Until then, most ITSM software is client-server code from the 80's. 

The BIG 4:  Is your IT software stuck in the 80's?

Happy 304th Post

I've been meaning to commemorate my 300^th blog post. As usual, I'm behind.  So instead, let's celebrate my 304^th blog post.  It's been 2 years of blogging about Service Catalogs and ITIL.  There's a wealth of information in this blog.  By the way, 304 posts averages about 1 post every 2 ½ days, excluding vacations and Christmas holidays.

So join the celebration and leave a comment.

And yes, these are 304 candles. Count them if you wish.

The Shadow IT department

  The era in which IT comes only from your IT department is over.
This has an impact on your users expectations for services. In a nutshell, consumer technologies are setting the bar for user experience, feature, convenience, etc.

New IT service organization will be one that helps users broker these services, not deny them.  Your future is here.

The Shadow IT Department

The consumer technology universe has evolved to a point where it is, in essence, a fully functioning, alternative IT department. Today, in effect, users can choose their technology provider. Your company’s employees may turn to you first, but an employee who’s given a tool by the corporate IT department that doesn’t meets his needs will find one that does on the Internet or at his neighborhood Best Buy.

The emergence of this second IT department—call it “the shadow IT department”—is a natural product of the disconnect that has always existed between those who provide IT and those who use it.

Link: User Management - Users Who Know Too Much and the CIOs Who Fear Them.

Big announcement: The Service Portfolio and Catalog Language

We are making a big announcement today: the formation of a industry standards group to define standards for the exchange of service portfolio and service catalog information between different systems and vendors. This standard will be known as the Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL)

ITIL v3 introduced service portfolio, catalog, and request processes which have generated great excitement and a number of projects. In fact, in ITIL v3 the catalog is the beginning of the ITSM journey. 

Unfortunately, ITIL v3 does not provide specific schemas or models.  This creates significant confusion, waste and rework among end users.  They struggle with questions such as:

What should be documented in a Service Portfolio / Service Catalog?

How will this information be used with other IT functional areas?

What operational attributes should traverse different systems?

How can I interchange catalog information between different systems?

How can I be assured that my catalog can be made actionable with in a multivendor environment?

How can I bring in my supplier’s or managed service provider’s catalog into my own?

The end result is that customers spent a lot of money and effort to document services that cannot be used inside any toolset. Everyone has a different framework, structure, concept; interoperability is non-existent. 

Thus the urgent need exists for a standard.  This standard will support the growth of the industry by establishing a basic Service Portfolio and Service Request schema  that is implementation-independent, definitional and open.  This model should map to ITIL v3, be rigorous enough that tools can consume it,  and extensible to support specific needs of vendors and customers, but still remain interoperable.

We are opening a forum for questions at:  servicecatalogs.com

See announcement below

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Service Catalog Community Announces Service Catalog Standards Initiative

Interested Parties Invited to Attend Initial Meeting February 20th in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, NV – February 19, 2008 - The Service Catalog Community announced that it is hosting a forum on Wednesday, February 20th – at the Pink Elephant IT Service Management Conference – for interested parties to discuss formation of Service Catalog industry standards.  A recent survey of community members showed that 70% of IT organizations plan on deploying a Service Catalog in the next 12 months. But the survey also showed that organizations are struggling to achieve their Service Catalog objectives due to the lack of standardized structures, elements, content, implementation guides, and clarity on how to use their Service Catalog across different systems.

To address this issue, representatives from leading Service Catalog providers, IT Service Management industry associations, systems integrators, consultants, and the Service Catalog user community have been invited to meet at the Bellagio Hotel, Cezanne Room 1 in Las Vegas starting at Noon on Wednesday, February 20th to initiate the formation of the Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL) group.

“IT organizations are looking for guidance on what should be documented in a Service Portfolio and Service Catalog.  With version 3 of ITIL, the Service Catalog and service definition are central to a successful ITIL program. These service definitions live in the Service Portfolio, in financial systems, in provisioning systems, and a myriad of other systems. Until now there hasn’t been a common definition that can traverse these systems,” says Rodrigo Flores, CTO of newScale and chairman of the Service Catalog Community editorial board. The Service Portfolio and Catalog Language (SPACL) proposal provides a standards-based framework that will allow Service Catalog information to be shared with other IT functional areas and to promote the exchange of Service Portfolio and Service Catalog content among multiple vendors.  The goal of this initiative is to establish a working technical group within 60 days to define the standard.

Parties interested in learning more about SPACL can register on www.ServiceCatalogs.com. Alternatively, you can contact the chairman directly.  With more than 4,500 members, the Open Source Service Catalog Community is the most popular forum worldwide for IT practitioners to leverage best practices and proven examples as they get started with their Service Catalog initiatives. The vendor-neutral community includes areas for members to download Service Catalog templates, and encourages members to upload their Service Catalog examples to share among the community. The site also includes free resources, articles, community forums and links to relevant blogs.

Membership to the community is free and open to everyone, to encourage cross-industry collaboration and an open dialogue among ITIL experts, practitioners, and novices.

About The Open Source Service Catalog Community
This community is dedicated to the creation, sharing and distribution of Service Catalog and Service Portfolio best practices. The community is created, managed and maintained by independent IT practitioners committed to helping you deliver greater IT value and to foster better IT-business alignment. As an Open Source community – your contributions are critical to building and fostering a vibrant forum to achieve our goals. For more information, please visit the Open Source Service Catalog Community web site at www.servicecatalogs.com.

The State of the CIO 2008: The CIO's Time to Shine

Link: The State of the CIO 2008: The CIO's Time to Shine.

Stop Talking About Alignment

We can't imagine a CIO who doesn't know that technology must support the business's processes and goals. If you don't understand that, nothing in this survey will help you. In our 2008 "State of the CIO" survey, 82 percent of respondents said that aligning IT and business was their number-one activity. Of course it was. Does a therapist listen? Does a general command?

It's clear, however, that CIOs who worry about alignment conceive of themselves, their function and their department as a thing apart. Whether that's a problem of their own making or a dysfunction generated by their executive peers and their enterprise's culture, these CIOs have already lost. As Roger Parks, VP of information technology and CIO at J.R. Simplot, a $4.2 billion agribusiness, puts it, "If other senior executives don't see you as one of them, you usually can't change their minds. You have to realize that."

"The IT discipline still has some maturing to do," says Rick Roy, senior vice president of customer operations at CUNA Mutual Group. Before he took over Customer operations, Roy was CIO at the financial services company from 2003 to 2005 when it had $15.2 billion in assets. "I don't talk about aligning customer service operations with the business," says Roy. "The CFO doesn't talk about financial alignment with the business. So why say 'align IT and the business?'

"Language informs approach."

Service catalog templates and examples - Valentine edition

These are the top queries people are looking at this blog. So it seems you really want templates.

	Num	Perc.	Search Term
	45	1.64%	service catalog template
	45	1.64%	service catalogue template
	37	1.35%	service catalog example
	34	1.24%	product manager role
	34	1.24%	request fulfillment
	27	0.98%	itil service catalog
	26	0.95%	itil service request
	25	0.91%	it demand management
	23	0.84%	itil request fulfillment
	22	0.80%	service catalog blog
	22	0.80%	service catalogs
	16	0.58%	itil v3 service catalog
	15	0.55%	service catalogue example
	15	0.55%	service catalog templates
	14	0.51%	service catalog
	14	0.51%	service catalog examples
	13	0.47%	it service catalog template

So in the spirit of valentine, here's are simple gift. Service Portfolio and Service Requests templates are here:  Service Offerings & Service Requests - ServiceCatalogs (free registration required).

You will find blank service catalog templates for portfolio service offerings and for service requests. There are also filled examples.

Remember to contribute your examples to this community. You are welcome

In case you missed this webinar

In case you missed this webinar it is now posted  online.  Excellent presentation from Debra McMahon of Schwab.

This slide below talk about how their initiative was based on both Gartner concepts for running IT as a business and ITIL V3.  The full graphic is in the presentation.

Service Request Catalog: Strategic or Tactical? (part 2)

There are cases where you can achieve success with a tactical implementation of a service request catalog.

If your company is small enough, and you set your expectations appropriately you can get a tactical service request catalog project to work; particularly if it's a small deployment to your IT staff.  For example, the storage team may deploy a service request management tool for requests from the application development group.  This would be a sensible small project.   Keep it small enough and you can get some success; the issue I've seen is that the ROI is not there, so it's hard to get funded. 

The other way to succeed is to keep the catalog wide but super simple.  Here are a few tips:

• Use a tested accelerated deployment methodology. If you don't have to invent it, it will save you a lot of time. Your vendor should have one or your consultant.
• Use standard, pre-packaged content. This saves you from the laborious effort of creating descriptions, pictures, forms, data models, messages, portals, etc, etc.
• Keep complex scripts out of the first roll out. This enables you to use lower cost internal resources to maintain the catalog.
• Don't touch or change back end workflow.  In fact, it's easier if you don't integrate with the existing stuff.  You can always do that later.  This issue is even true for the "pre-integrated" vendors; the catalog products are separate enough from the back end that you end up with a field mapping exercise along the way, error messages, etc, etc.  Lots of discussion about the types of issues all over the net.

In other words, the faster and cheaper you go, the more likely you will succeed.  The problem with this approach is that it's not really doable at the Global 2000 enterprise level.  But it's doable in smaller organization, or divisions.

Finally, as you evaluate your catalog software vendor, you ought consider this:

When I'm ready to expand the scope of my request management deployment, will they scale with me - or will I need to migrate to another enterprise-class product?

When we are ready to do a Service Catalog compatible with ITIL V3, will it get me there or do I need to throw out all my work?  Can the service request definitions be used as components of my service portfolio to drive consumption and cost visibility? 

Service Request Catalog: Strategic or Tactical?

I've been noticing customers approaching the service request catalog from one of two directions:
As part of a transformation of IT or as a feature of the help desk.

Either the project has high-level visibility, specific and measurable goals; or it is a tool to help the service desk put more data entry into the hands of users and swat away some objection (i.e., look, we now have a ‘service catalog’). The latter is tactical, the former is strategic.

This decision: tactical or strategic is going to be played out this year and next.  There are now (finally!) a bunch of competitive first generation service request management catalog products, the market is getting hot.  All this is goodness. We at newScale have been evangelizing Service Catalogs and request management alone for a long, long time (and for me, even longer).

In my observation, when pursued as simply an extension of the help desk, the tactical service request management projects tend to fail or not achieve meaningful ROI.  Here's why:

First and foremost, the tactical catalog does not get adoption by the user community.  This is a consequence of several factors:

1) These types of catalogs are not usable. They require too much "tech" knowledge to use. I saw one that makes the user select which "interaction template" they want to apply to pre-fill the request.  I know that just never gets used. But I see the value to the help desk technician!

2) The catalogs and the service items in the catalogs are oriented around the needs of the help desk, not the end-users.

3) The catalogs are mid-90's ugly e-commerce experiences or look like a software module that does not map what people are used to. For example, there's a pretty well accepted set of metaphors and features such as shopping cart or cross-category management.  If you don't use them, or use them weirdly, it will cost you adoption.

4) Ordering is hard because these catalog tools lack merchandising, product management, guided configurations, and just plain good content  management. 

5) It's not perceived as better than the existing approaches such as picking up the phone, using existing intranets, etc. See any of the case studies at newScale and you'll see this is a big part of the change management that customers go through. 6) Culture change in IT service delivery.

Second, the catalog does not get rolled out.  This is a consequence of:

1) The help desk team does not have enough power or executive support to sustain the marketing usually required to get users to change behavior (i.e., adopt self-service) in a large scale.

2) Most of the services provided by IT or requested by users are not actually delivered by the help desk.  The job of the help desk (even if you rename it the ‘service desk’) is to respond to incidents and help identify or resolve underlying problems.  The support services they offer are only a fraction of the services in a true Service Catalog – so tying the Service Catalog to the help desk just doesn’t make sense.

3) The help desk team does not get good cooperation from the silos to define, deliver services. Read the survey we did earlier this year and you'll see: Resistance from Silos as a pretty big issue.

4) For request management, why should service requests by funneled through the help desk for fulfillment?  Keep in mind, a lot of the efficiency benefits come from having the service requests bypass the help desk through automation.  Consider simple requests like desktop software distribution – or requests for access to one of your internal systems? Some requests may be sent to the help desk, but others may be routed directly to your software distribution process, your access management process, etc.  For more complex requests like employee on-boarding, is your help desk equipped to coordinate the entire end-to-end new hire process?

5) Enterprise activation issues are not considered or accounted for. These include: scalability (the catalog is published to everyone, right? That's 95-100x bigger than the number of help desk technicians that use a typical help desk product); security, single sign-on, directory integration, entitlement management (which requires a good clean organization unit design), organizational design, maintenance of the catalog post roll out.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  All these "issues" show up late in the project and prevent the team from getting roll out (unless they sneak deploy it, but then you end up with the adoption issue).

6) Unclear governance and change control for the catalog. Questions of process, roles, who can make changes, how often is the catalog updated, what controls do you put in the information.  There is a whole ITIL V3 process for this: "Service Catalog Management."

7) Finally, this type of tactical ‘service request catalog’ is not an ITIL-compatible Service Catalog. This is something discussed various times in this blog.  In nutshell, ITIL V3 treats the Service Catalog Management and Request Fulfillment as two separate but related processes, but doesn't provide specifics on how they relate.  So a tactical ‘service request catalog’ for Request Fulfillment still means you need an ITIL Service Catalog. 

Thirdly, tying service requests to the service desk creates problems of identity for IT by perpetuating the notion that a request is like an incident or a problem-- in other words, something to be avoided.  And it continues to generate the idea of IT as the problem.

If you can, the right approach is to start your Service Catalog as part of a transformation initiative, not a feature of the help desk;  (b) an ITIL-compatible Service Catalog deployed as part of a transformation initiative has a much lower failure rate than a tactical help desk add-on project.  Why? Executive sponsorship, proper set of resources, and meaningful business impact tied to specific ROI.

Do tactical service catalogs ALWAYS fail?  The answer is no.  More on that next post.

This is a big issue for the catalog community in 2008, so I'll be updating this post as I learn more.

 

Heard around the watercooler

CIO: We need to be customer-oriented and financially transparent.  Our customers are asking that we explain the value of IT to the business, to understand our cost model and provide them with choices that make sense in this down climate.  We need to understand our current portfolio of services and map to where the business is going. 

Director of help desk:  Yes sir.  We need to have a catalog to manage request. But it needs to tie it to the help desk and CMDB.

CIO: We are outsourcing 30% of IT and most of the help desk.  But we will still be providing services

Director: oh.

This is an example of the chasm between senior management and the troops. The troops are paying lip service to the CIO, not out of malice, but because they are not able to connect what they do on a day to day basis with what the business needs.  The focus needs to be in the front-office of IT--that's the part that will survive.

The IT department is dead, author argues - Network World

Interesting.  There's some truth to this.  A lot of IT departments are focused on their back office, becoming irrelevant to their customers.  One day, the customers wake up and .....  read on.

Link: The IT department is dead, author argues - Network World.

Carr predicts that the same shift will happen with utility computing. He admits that utility computing companies need to make improvements in security, reliability and efficiency. But he argues that the Internet, combined with computer hardware and software that has become commoditized, will enable the utility computing model to replace today’s client/server model.

"It has always been understood that, in theory, computing power, like electric power, could be provided over a grid from large-scale utilities — and that such centralized dynamos would be able to operate much more efficiently and flexibly than scattered, private data centers," Carr writes.

Carr cites several drivers for the move to utility computing. One is that computers, storage systems, networking gear and most widely used applications have become commodities.

He says even IT professionals are indistinguishable from one company to the next. "Most perform routine maintenance chores — exactly the same tasks that their counterparts in other companies carry out," he says.

Carr points out that most data centers have excess capacity, with utilization ranging from 25% to 50%. Another driver to utility computing is the huge amount of electricity consumed by data centers, which can use 100 times more energy than other commercial office buildings.

IT Financial Management and the Service Lifecycle

Nick Schneider and Dean Meyer have written a good article on the linkage between services and finances.

IT Financial Management and the Service Lifecycle - How the Pieces of the Puzzle Come Together

By: Dean Meyer (NDMA) and Nick Schneider (newScale)

Service catalog, demand management, service management, service costing…. You’re implementing the buzz words, but how do they all come together into a comprehensive system of IT financial governance?

These are all pieces of a bigger puzzle, a set of processes that put IT’s clients in control of what they buy and align IT’s resources to fulfill those sales.

Note the context:  All these pieces make sense when you think of IT as a business within a business, “selling” (whether or not money actually changes hands) well defined products and services to clients throughout the enterprise.  Some products and services are sold to specific business units; others such as ERP are sold to a consortium of clients.  Some sales are products, like application development projects; others are ongoing services.  But they’re all sales.

We’re not necessarily talking about chargebacks.  Think of the IT budget – whether it’s the product of allocations or a simple budget from above – as a “pre-paid” account which is put on deposit at the beginning of the year.  Clients can then use that money as a checkbook to buy IT’s products and services all year long.

IT organizations which have implemented this paradigm quickly find that clients will defend the IT budget, including their allocations, since that budget effectively becomes their checkbook.

To make this market effect work, clients need to understand what we sell and how much our products and services cost. Then, we need to put clients in control of that checkbook – both during the budget negotiation process and all year long as priorities change.

There are three major processes required:

   1. Business planning – establishing a service catalog with costing
   2. Business negotiations – business planning and negotiating the budget, which fills up clients’ checkbooks
   3. Business dynamics – an ongoing customer decision process, called portfolio management or demand management, which empowers clients to decide their priorities and “write checks” (place orders). Also included is IT’s fulfillment, tracking and ongoing service improvement.

Link: The Forum - January 2008.

ITIL Webinar: Charles Schwab Case Study

If you are interested in a real case study at a large financial services firm, this ought  to be really good.

SERVICE CATALOG CASE STUDY: Learn How Charles Schwab & Co. is Using a Service Catalog to Transform Their IT Operations

With the release of ITIL version 3, the IT Service Catalog has become a top CIO priority in 2008. Attend this Webinar and find out why The Charles Schwab Corporation — one of the most admired companies in the U.S. according to Fortune magazine — deployed an actionable IT Service Catalog from newScale

Link: ITIL Webinar: Charles Schwab Case Study.

Good question to kick off the year

This question was asked on our community site here.
I've provided a interim response, not an answer. Please help Nigel out as this is a common issue.

Hi,
Just posting a few questions about the setting up a service catalog over four divisions in two geographic locations. I have renamed the divisions to A, B, C for simplicity and outline what country contains each division.

Country 1
Division A
Division B
Division C
 
Country 2
Division C
Division D

Up until now we have not had to worry about Country 2 too much,now I have been tasked with creating 250 services for Division D.  Division D will only be interested in ordering these 250 services, how would you present them to the customer?
 
Option 1
Top level of the catalog create a category for each division, then let them see a catalog structure underneath, possible cons with this is that there might be some of the Service Items quite a few clicks down as the structure is quite deep already
 
Option 2
Set ordering permissions at a service group level. This may be the best if the LDAP information is correct else but there will be a percentage that will have incorrect information and therefore will see the wrong services.(Still trying to estimate percentages, but its going to be over 20% after initial investigation)
 
Have people out there been in a similar position….?
If you were in a similar situation what would you choose…..?
Is there another way….?
 
Looking for any feedback
Thanks in advance
Nigel

My reply

 

What tool are you using to publish your catalog?  Some provide this capability. That would make a huge difference.

Some of the tools support Business Units, hierarchies, territories, groups, etc. So that makes it easy to publish a service offering to a particular group, territory, or any other grouping that you need. Common sub - groupings that I've seen are:
- VIP services only to VIPs.
- Datacenter services only published to App development groups.
- Business unit segregation due to cost, or regulation.

For example, if this type of structure gets connected to LDAP or Active Directory, then you don't really need to worry about managing that overheard. Unless, as you indicate, your LDAP structure is not right.  Then the answer is to create a separate database that brings it all into one source of truth. Our consultants are often required to do this because there's no single source of truth for people.  While this might not be your charter, you might get a lot of support because everyone needs this clean repository. 
Also, sometimes we have been able to discover that a group had solved it but just had not made the solution public -- worth an investigation.

If everyone in division D is in a different country, you could redirect their traffic to a specific landing page (got to write a script, though).  If not, then that's not going to work.

Regardless, you could just put it in a category (services should be able to be under multiple categories) and deal with it that way. The downside are:
1- Breaks your search
2- People get curious as to what the "other" guys get, leading to unpleasant discussions.
3 - Sometimes the terms and conditions vary leading to... very awkward conversations. For example, employee termination services are VASTLY different outside the U.S., with a lot less protection and benefits for U.S. employees. That is just a fact of law, but one that few executives want to publish in their internal catalog.
4 - Too many levels of hierarchy