ISO/IEC 20000

International Standard for IT Service Management

ISO20000 specifies a set of inter-related management processes and is based heavily upon the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework. ISO20000 differs only in minor ways from BS15000.

ISO20000 Part One

Part 1 of ISO20000 is the specification against which the organisation will be audited.

This comprises the eight key areas for service management:

• Requirements for a Management System
• Planning and Implementing Service Management
• Planning and Implementing New or Changed Services
• Service Delivery Processes
• Relationship Processes
• Resolution Processes
• Control Processes
• Release Process

These sections define the requirements for an organization to deliver managed services of an acceptable quality for its customers.

Part 1 of the standard may be used for a number of purposes, but typically:

• for organizations seeking tenders for outsourced services;
• existing providers to benchmark their IT service management;
• organizations that require a consistent approach by all service providers in a supply chain;
• as the basis for formal certification.

ISO20000 Part Two

This part provides guidance to auditors. It also offers assistance to organizations that are planning service improvements or are to be audited against ISO20000-1

The two parts align with the requirements of ISO 9000 and include a Plan-Do-Check-Act process. This will actually be a precursor to a formal certification scheme against which organizations can be audited.

Certification

ISO20000 is the quality standard for IT Service Management

Around the world many organisations have already completed the journey to BS15000 and many are beginning the journey to adopt ISO20000 best practice, for their own benefit and also to prove themselves to be better suppliers and partners for service delivery.

Conformance to the standard is achieved through an independently verified, formal certification scheme in the same ways that ISO9000 and ISO27001 use certification schemes. The itSMF has overseen the development of, and now manages the ISO20000 IT Service Management Certification Scheme, and has developed a specific web-site for Certification (see www.isoiec20000certification.com for more details).

This scheme provides independent verification against ISO20000 and any organisation wishing to be formally certified against the scheme will need to be assessed by an itSMF registered certification body (RCB). When the requirements of ISO20000 have been attained, the organisation will be eligible to use the itSMF ISO20000 logo as a sign of their achievement.

RCBs can undertake external assessments only but not consultancy to support the implementation of ISO20000 for an organisation. Fox IT wish to support their customers in training and consultancy to support the journey to ISO20000 and so will not be an RCB. Fox IT are able to undertake a range of integrated services for ISO20000.