Identify the current service related work load and gather relevant information, volumetrics and statistics.

This may be from a number of sources including:

• Service reports from the Client and/or incumbent(s)
• Access to existing service management tools and logs (e.g. ITSM, ServiceNow)
• Discovery tools
• Release plans
• Meetings/interviews.

The type of information that must be gathered and analysed should vary according to the scope of each deal, some examples include:

• Number and type of support calls/contacts per week/month, e.g.-
  • Events
  • Incidents and major incidents
  • Problems
  • Access requests
  • Service requests, including items that make up the Service Catalogue
  • Change requests
  • Items/services ordered through the current ordering process
• Additional business as usual (BAU) activities-
  • Service improvement activities
  • Enhancements and ‘business as usual’ projects
    • Number and size of enhancements
    • Average backlog of enhancements at any time
  • Types and frequency of routine housekeeping activities, e.g. patch management/data archiving
• Trends-
  • Arrival pattern (time of day, week, month) and method of contacts (email, phone, fax, direct entry into service management toolset, etc.)
  • Average time to fix by problem type
  • Average backlog of calls at any time
  • Average speed to answer phone calls, emails, faxes etc (Grade of Service)
  • Number and frequency of out of hours incidents
  • Average backlog of administration requests at any time
  • Number of users and rate of growth
  • Box capacity and headroom trends
  • Peak business periods.

How frequently you require updates, i.e. weekly, fortnightly,  monthly etc. should depend on a number of factors including the size and complexity of the engagement, the rate of change and error reporting, the type of SLA and service credit regime in the contract and the length of the transition project. For example a 6 month transition might be okay with monthly updates to track, but an 8 week transition would need more frequent updates.

How far back you want to go for information should depend on similar factors. You need to have sufficient information to evaluate the commercial risks and to identify trends.

It can be quite difficult to get accurate information from incumbents on second / third etc generation outsourcing deals. Incumbents may cite Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), commercial issues or the difficulty in separating one Client’s information from all of the others in their central system. It is important to set expectations and confirm obligations early (typically obligations are included in the contract) and discuss the importance of the availability of this information with the Client.

Populate the Support WIP Inventory (artifact) with all of the relevant information gathered. This artifact must be modified according to the specific scope of the deal. Gather as much information as is available and update this spreadsheet throughout the transition.

Update the Service Engagement Risk Log and Service Engagement Issue Log as appropriate.