IT Service Management Starts with?

According to Mark Schouls, the three processes that IT Service Management starts with are Change Management, Configuration Management and Release Management.

Release Management – Proper release management, which defines the process of building and releasing software, results in a greater success rate in the provisioning of software and hardware to the business, and perhaps more importantly, results in a perceived improvement in the quality of service. Bringing consistency and documented processes to software and hardware releases minimizes downtime, reduces support costs, improves resource utilization and increases confidence across all levels of management.

Configuration Management – Enacting configuration management processes gives organizations a single view of all corporate assets, including their dependencies and interrelationships. Having one federated repository as a point of reference ensures accuracy and eliminates time-consuming duplication of efforts.

Change Management – Codifying change management practices helps organizations better align IT services to business requirements. With rigid processes in place, they eliminate rogue changes, thereby reducing risk and improving user productivity. To undertake change management initiatives, businesses must first accurately assess risk, understand the impact due to any change, analyze resource requirements and make adjustments to align resources as required. At that point they can enact a formal method for approving changes.

Read more of this article on ITSMwatch here.

I would also put Incident Management in this list. IT has to exist in the organization in some form or the other right from the start. Incident Management is one of the key bridges between the IT and its users. It gives a first hand information about the issues which are being faced by the users and would be a key driver for a lot of changes that would be done to restore services.