Implementing a Service Desk: A practitioner's perspective

We describe the implementation of a Service Desk from the perspective of a delivery practitioner based on several recent client engagements. Getting Service Desk implementations right is crucial because many enterprises regard service desks as the first step on the road towards IT Service Management (ITSM). Given the complexity and novelty of ITSM solutions, many enterprises rely on service delivery organizations-such as IBM Global Technology Services-to perform the configuration, customization, integration and roll-out of the system into production. This can be done either on the customer premises (within the scope of a so-called project-based service engagement), or by subscribing to a managed service, and thus leveraging the IT service management environment that the service provider has already set up. While this paper is based on the former project type, it is applicable to both engagement types.