Overview

Overview of ISO 20000 Standard

As discussed ISO 20000 is composed of mainly two parts – ISO 20000-1 i.e. Part 1 and ISO 20000-2 i.e. Part 2.

ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 Service Management System

ISO 20000-1 is meant for Certification and is known as “Specification for Service Management System”. Basically Part 1 of the standard i.e. ISO 20000-1 is used to Planning, Establishing, Implementing, Operating, Monitoring, Reviewing, Maintaining and Continual Improving of an intended Services Management System in the organization.

ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 can be used by:

  • Service Consumers, who consume services provided by Service Organizations and want to have assurance about the fulfilment of their service requirements
  • Organizations in having a consistent approach by all its service providers
  • Service Provider Organizations in demonstrating their capability and consistency in the design, development, transition, delivery of services
  • Service Provider organizations requiring continuous improvement of services
  • To monitor, evaluate and review Service Management Processes and Services delivered by Service Providers;
  • Auditors to conduct audit against the requirements given in ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011.

ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 provides a framework that helps in the establishment of an Integrated Approach that enables an Organization to identify interlinked activities and in order to manage them effectively. Having an integrated approach among service management processes offers a greater control, efficiency and provides continual improvement. As a result they are able to deliver managed services to clients and meet business requirements.

ISO/IEC 20000 provides a framework in terms of best practices, irrespective of the organizational domain, form, size or structure. Requirements of the standard are given as best practices and it does not matter where they are applied. ISO/IEC 20000 can be applied to small as well as large size of service providers. ISO 20000 provides the IT Service Management processes that optimise services deliveries within agreed resources levels and offer best to meet the customer needs.

ISO/IEC 20000-2:2005 Code of Practice

ISO 20000-2 i.e. the second part is referred to as “Code of practice for Service Management System” and describes about the best practices, and the requirements of Part 1 which needs to be implemented. It provides guidance on best practices for Implementation of Part 1.

ISO 20000-2:2005 provides guidance to auditors to conduct audit of organizations implementing ISO 20000-1:2011. In other terms they offer guidance to Service Providers in terms of implementation required for ISO 20000-1.