How organizations respond to the challenge of running businesses that are increasingly dependent on information technology services?

The need to integrate various types of technologies, the increase in the degree of complexity and the dependence on networks of suppliers, require organizations to take effective control of their services.

Such control requires management skills, clear guidelines, cooperation and integration of contributions from internal teams, partners and suppliers.

To achieve this objective, organizations initiate improvement projects, based on the recommendations of references such as ITIL or COBIT or aiming at compliance with international standards such as ISO / IEC 20000 or ISO / IEC 27001.

These projects often absorb considerable resources, extend over time and take time to produce tangible results. Too many times result in frustration of initial expectations.

This reality shows that in order to obtain the desired results, an approach is needed that reduces complexity, defines a clear path and concrete objectives, achievable with a reasonable effort.

It was to support this type of approximation that the FitSM standard was created, with the support of the European Commission, defining the requirements for an accessible, pragmatic, simple and practical IT service management system.

What is the main message of FitSM?

It is possible to implement an IT service management system, based on just 14 processes (or practices), with clear and simple requirements, each defined in terms of its objectives, activities, input and outputs and roles necessary for its control and execution.

Applicable in organizations of any size, it can be used in different collaboration scenarios between organizations.

FitSM is designed to be compatible with ISO / IEC 20000 and ITIL and synthesizes the essentials of the most used standards and benchmarks, defining a baseline for an effective service management system. This system can then be expanded, if and when deemed necessary.

FitSM is managed by a non-profit organization, ITEMO and the standard and supporting materials are freely available on that organization's website (www.itemo.org).

What is the structure of FitSM?

FitSM includes the standard itself and a set of implementation aids.

Figure 1 - Composition of the FitSM standard

How can an organization implement FitSM?

Three options:

• Fully autonomous: by studying the material of the standard that is freely available.
• Training its employees on the FitSM standard: ITEMO offers a certification scheme with three levels: Foundation, Advanced (SOC and SPD) and Expert. The Foundation course and exam is also available in Portuguese.
• Using the services of an external consultant to support and accelerate the process of adopting the standard.