Roles, Responsibilities and Processes are the key to developing crisp problem, incident, and root cause corrective action resolution. How do you manage the variety and prepare the disciplines that get results.

Aligned IT Services to meet current needs and future problems then becomes even more important as you establish your ITIL disciplines. ITIL suggests remembering that the Business comes first, where techies often confuse their value add for being a hero and solving a problem, ITIL hero'es are those that realize the cost of disruption, and plan to mitigate and resolve that, so heroic efforts are not necessary, and in fact, obstructs IT from recognizing it's true potential by becoming a great partner, consistent in roles, responsibility and service delivery. Perhaps we have misdefined hero??

* Is your organization rewarding the right behavior to support Business first logic?
* Common language is key to improving communication-- problem management, service management, even ownership benefits from a commit to the right business solutions at the right time, to solve the problems that matter.
* "Looking" good can be achieved by producing standard performance values. "Being" good is achieved by listening to the business needs, planning, and delivering.

ROLES:
* Accountable to maintaining positive working relationship with customers and all levels of support staff.
* Analysis Skills towards technical problem solving, business logic, and product life cycle documentation.
* Level 2 can coordinate communications with top executives, influence change, and deliver leadership to identify and collaborate on resolution of technical services.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
* Provide consistent response for technology issues, assist in knowledge management and service requests.
* Input to the Service Improvement Standards, SLA Metrics, process and policies.
* Workflow Analysis for process, tools, or personal service improvement planning.
* Creating supportability documentation, partnership and mentoring for Level 1 staff and helping Level 1 to close a greater percentage of first call resolution.
* Influencing availability strategies by problem and incident management improvement activities.
* Root Cause Identification: Analyzing operational and service reporting for opportunities to improve availability, reliability, and security of IT Services.

TRAPS:
* "Over- or Misaligned" Owners that obstructs business value, but response to every issue.
* Siloed Goals-- setting targets that seem well intentioned, but disconnected from strategic objectives.
* Performance Objectives Being Set without Governance, Business, or Financial Implications.
* "Good, Good Enough, and Top Notch Great" all costs something, challenge assumptions, understand and articulate the implications of your organizational choice.
* Unrealistic expectations from insufficient or unassumed measures of what represents your Key Performance Indicators of success.

PROCESS:
1. Document the current and desired state.
2. Determine the key process elements affected by the desired state.
3. Define the key success criteria and in/out scope activities communications plan for this phase.
4. Plan the activities, quick wins, and long term strategy milestones.
5. Analyze the People, Process and Technology Process indicators for opportunity.
6. Create the standard, the metrics, the process, and roles for how you will begin.
7. Set the operational and service review standards that will prioritize your next steps.
8. Use the Operational and Service Review stages to affirm, satisfy, celebrate, and communicate business value!