The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a framework and set of best practices for delivering IT-enabled services. It is widely adopted as the industry standard for IT Service Management (ITSM).

So what is ITSM? In an organisation, an end-user would interact with ITSM services when requesting to reset a password for an application, report system issues, or request an enhancement to an existing application.

Almost all medium to large organisations perform ITSM services for end-users, often using different technologies to deliver those services (e.g. ServiceNow, JIRA, Trello, Email). These organisations might use other technologies; however, ITIL is more often than not the backbone for providing ITSM services.

Now that you know about ITIL and ITSM, you might be wondering how this relates to RPA? Excellent question! Well, at its core, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) services within organisations are indeed IT-enabled services. Suppose we define RPA as an IT-enabled service. In that case, it stands to reason that the ITIL framework and best practices should be applied to deliver those services.

RPA is as much about management practices applied in detail, as it is about technology attributes”

(page 43, Becoming Strategic with RPA, 2019)

After completing my ITIL v4 certification in 2019, I naturally reviewed the 34 different ITIL management practices and started thinking about how they can be applied to cater for RPA-enabled services. It turns out that most ITIL v4 management practices are needed to deliver RPA-enabled services. However, some were missing or needed modification.

Below are the 47 different management practices for delivering RPA-enabled services. These management practices have been categorised into five primary and four secondary categories based on their applicability to the various functional areas within an RPA team (executive, discovery, delivery, run).

1. Executive Management

These management practices aim to guide executive-related decisions and processes.

• Financial management: Supporting strategic objectives by ensuring that financial resources and investments are used effectively.
• Talent management: Ensures the right people exist and are hired with the appropriate skills and knowledge for their roles.
• Strategy management: Establishing clear goals and directions for achieving those goals and providing corrective decisions when the environment changes.
• Portfolio management: Ensuring that the balance of different programs, projects, products, and/or services aligns with strategic objectives and resource constraints.
• Supplier management: Maintaining relationships with suppliers and providing oversight on their performance in delivering quality products and services.
• Governance management: Ensuring that appropriate governing structures and committees are established and followed.

2. Discovery Management

These management practices aim to guide identifying, prioritising, and selecting opportunities for automation.

• Organisational change management: Ensuring that changes in an organisation are smoothly and successfully implemented by managing the human aspects of change.
• Process pipeline management: Identifying and appropriately prioritising new organisational improvement opportunities.
• Process benefit management: Aligning quantitative value-based prioritisation practices with strategic objectives.
• Business analysis management: Ensuring the appropriate elicitation of functional and non-functional requirements from internal and external stakeholders.

3. Delivery Management

These management practices guide designing, developing, enhancing, and stabilising automation solutions.

• Solution design management: Ensuring the overall design of new solutions meet the requirements of both internal and external stakeholders.
• Process testing management: Conduct thorough tests on new solutions before being deployed into production to prevent future issues.
• Stabilisation management: Providing hypercare support to solutions that have been implemented into production and have not yet stabilised.
• Enhancement management: Implementing significant modifications or changes to existing solutions and/or services.
• Process delivery management: Ensuring the successful delivery of new solutions by planning, delegating, monitoring, and maintaining control of projects while keeping team members motivated.

4. Run Management

These four management practice categories guide the configuration and operations of automation solutions and related platforms.

4.1. Transition and Run Management

These management practices aim to guide migrating processes from development to production.

• Quality assurance management: Ensuring all solutions uphold expected quality metrics predetermined by internal and external stakeholders.
• Service validation management: Confirming that once the solutions are running in production, they meet the expectations of internal and external stakeholders.
• Release management: Ensuring that new and changed solutions are available for use in and between environments.
• Schedule management: Providing oversight on when existing or new solutions are scheduled.
• Change control management: Ensuring the successful release of Production changes by managing the change schedule and approval process.

4.2. Service Management

These management practices provide guidance on service management for internal and external stakeholders.

• Service desk management: Providing a single point of contact for services to capture demand for incidents and service requests.
• Incident management: Ensuring the minimisation of negative impacts caused by incidents by restoring normal operations as quickly as possible.
• Problem management: Reducing the likelihood and impact of incidents by identifying root causes, resolutions, and workarounds for known errors.
• Service request management: Providing support for services by handling all user-initiated service requests effectively and efficiently.
• Service catalogue management: Providing a single source of consistent information on all services and service offerings.
• Knowledge management: Providing a searchable knowledge base for internal and external stakeholders that is mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.
• Continuous improvement management: Maintaining a list of initiatives to improve the existing environment and/or remove technical debt.

4.3. Performance and Utilisation Management

These management practices aim to guide the monitoring of performance and utilisation of automation solutions and related platforms.

• Process performance management: Providing quantitative visualisations for reviewing and communicating the performance of processes.
• Monitor and event management: Ensuring appropriate mechanisms exist for proactive monitoring, and relevant alerts exist for when events occur relating to solutions.
• Availability management: Negotiating, planning, monitoring, analysing, and reporting on the availability of all services.
• Utilisation and capacity management: Ensuring current and future demand for services is managed cost-effectively.
• SLA management: Providing a documented agreement between the service provider and the customer that identifies the services required and the expected level of service.

4.4. Infrastructure and Architecture Management

These management practices guide the infrastructure and architectural considerations for automation solutions and related platforms.

• Service configuration management: Ensuring that accurate and reliable information about a configuration item or service is available when and where it is needed.
• Infrastructure and platform management: Providing oversight on the various infrastructure technologies and solution platforms used within an organisation.
• IT asset management: Planning and managing the entire lifecycle of all IT assets to help maximise value and compliance and reduce costs and risks.
• Disaster recovery management: Ensure that the availability and performance of services can be maintained at a sufficient level in case of a disaster.
• Deployment management: Supporting new or changed hardware, software, documentation, processes, or any other configuration item being moved to live environments.
• Architecture management: Providing an understanding of all the elements that make up a system or platform and how those elements interrelate.

5. Shared Management

These management practices are shared responsibilities across discovery, delivery, run, and executive functions.

• Design documentation management: Documenting and maintaining accurate and reliable information about a solution.
• Standards management: Standardising the documentation and development of solutions as templates so they can be iteratively improved.
• Innovation management: Providing mechanisms for exploring, identifying, and applying novel technologies to existing problems.
• Training management: Identifying clear technical and non-technical learning pathways for individuals’ professional growth and development.
• Security management: Ensuring the security and protection of all information used and needed by an organisation to conduct business operations.
• Risk management: Providing mechanisms for identifying, understanding, and effectively mitigating and handling risks.
• Communication management: Providing proactive communication and engagement with external stakeholders to increase customer satisfaction.
• Remote work management: Establishing, maintaining, and documenting team norms regarding communication and collaboration when working remotely.
• Event management: Ensuring that required meetings are booked in advance where possible and efficiently and effectively managed by providing value to all participants and ending within predetermined timeframes.

If you’re interested in a customised management plan for your RPA-enabled services, or would like an audit of existing management practices, let me and the team at Cognitive Automation Labs know, and we will be happy to discuss a plan that uniquely fits your goals and requirements! If you want access to more content like this, just make sure to subscribe to our newsletter below or via the contact page to receive our latest updates.

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