Reference models for IT service provision

The new age, the "Information Age" (Davenport and Prusak 1997) has increased society's and businesses' reliance on Information Technology (IT). Hence, there is an increasing focus on the management of IT, not only from a technological perspective but also from a business perspective. This research, sponsored by REALTECH and the Australian Research Council, applies one of the modern management approaches, business process management (Hammer 1990), to the domain IT service provision, by designing a business process reference model for IT Service Provision. A reference model is an abstracted depiction of reality that serves as a standardised or suggestive conceptual basis for the design of enterprise specific models, usually within a like domain. They are one method of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of enterprise modelling and can also be used to standardise communication or capture knowledge. There is a general lack of theory regarding the classification, design and quality of reference models. The first part of this thesis attempts to fill these gaps, by presenting a reference model classification scheme, outlining 7 philosophies for the design of reference models and detailing 2 case studies on the user-perceived quality of business process reference models. Reference models and the Business Process Management Lifecycle (Rosemann 2000) are integrated to show how reference models can be applied to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business process improvement projects. This reference model theory was then applied to produce a model for domain of IT Service Provision. Investment in IT has increased to become the largest single element of capital expenditure (Thorp 1998). Gartner predicted that organisations will spend over 10% of revenue on IT by 2005 (Haines 2000). A major input for this model is the ITIL best practice documents (CCTA 2000). The reference model focuses on Incident Management and used focus groups with participants from several large IT service providers to validate the models. The designed reference model is then tested in two case studies to determine its accuracy and usefulness. The thesis finishes with a discussion of the designed model, the effectiveness of the procedural model and provides suggestions for the design of other reference models. The final chapter provides a summary and an outlook for further research into the area.