A - acceptance to availability plan | B - back-out to business unit | C - call to customer-facing service | D - dashboard to driver | E - early life support (ELS) to external service provider | F - facilities management to functional escalation | G - H - gap analysis to hot standby | I - identity to ITIL | J - K - job description to known error record | L - lifecycle to live environment | M - maintainability to monitoring | N - near-shore to notional charging | O - objective to overhead | P - pain value analysis to PRojects IN Controlled Environments (PRINCE2) | Q - qualification to quick win | R - RACI to running costs | S - Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) to system management | T - tactical to Type III service provider | U - underpinning contract (UC) to utility | V - validation to vulnerability | W - warm standby to workload
back-out
(ITIL Service Transition) An activity that restores a service or other configuration item to a previous baseline. Back-out is used as a form of remediation when a change or release is not successful.
backup
(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) Copying data to protect against loss of integrity or availability of the original.
balanced scorecard
(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A management tool developed by Drs Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton. A balanced scorecard enables a strategy to be broken down into key performance indicators. Performance against the KPIs is used to demonstrate how well the strategy is being achieved. A balanced scorecard has four major areas, each of which has a small number of KPIs. The same four areas are considered at different levels of detail throughout the organization.
back-out
(ITIL Service Transition) An activity that restores a service or other configuration item to a previous baseline. Back-out is used as a form of remediation when a change or release is not successful.
backup
(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) Copying data to protect against loss of integrity or availability of the original.
balanced scorecard
(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) A management tool developed by Drs Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton. A balanced scorecard enables a strategy to be broken down into key performance indicators. Performance against the KPIs is used to demonstrate how well the strategy is being achieved. A balanced scorecard has four major areas, each of which has a small number of KPIs. The same four areas are considered at different levels of detail throughout the organization.
baseline
(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Transition) A snapshot that is used as a reference point. Many snapshots may be taken and recorded over time but only some will be used as baselines. For example:
- An ITSM baseline can be used as a starting point to measure the effect of a service improvement plan
- A performance baseline can be used to measure changes in performance over the lifetime of an IT service
- A configuration baseline can be used as part of a back-out plan to enable the IT infrastructure to be restored to a known configuration if a change or release fails.
benchmark
(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Transition) A baseline that is used to compare related data sets as part of a benchmarking exercise. For example, a recent snapshot of a process can be compared to a previous baseline of that process, or a current baseline can be compared to industry data or best practice. See also benchmarking; baseline.
benchmarking
(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) The process responsible for comparing a benchmark with related data sets such as a more recent snapshot, industry data or best practice. The term is also used to mean creating a series of benchmarks over time, and comparing the results to measure progress or improvement. This process is not described in detail within the core ITIL publications.
Best Management Practice (BMP)
The Best Management Practice portfolio is owned by the Cabinet Office, part of HM Government. Formerly owned by CCTA and then OGC, the BMP functions moved to the Cabinet Office in June 2010. The BMP portfolio includes guidance on IT service management and project, programme, risk, portfolio and value management. There is also a management maturity model as well as related glossaries of terms.
best practice
Proven activities or processes that have been successfully used by multiple organizations. ITIL is an example of best practice.
billing
(ITIL Service Strategy) Part of the charging process. Billing is the activity responsible for producing an invoice or a bill and recovering the money from customers. See also pricing.
(ITIL Service Design) (ITIL Service Operation) A technique that helps a team to generate ideas. Ideas are not reviewed during the brainstorming session, but at a later stage. Brainstorming is often used by problem management to identify possible causes.
British Standards Institution (BSI)
The UK national standards body, responsible for creating and maintaining British standards. See www.bsi- global.com for more information. See also International Organization for Standardization.
budget
A list of all the money an organization or business unit plans to receive, and plans to pay out, over a specified period of time. See also budgeting; planning.
budgeting
The activity of predicting and controlling the spending of money. Budgeting consists of a periodic negotiation cycle to set future budgets (usually annual) and the day-to-day monitoring and adjusting of current budgets.
build
(ITIL Service Transition) The activity of assembling a number of configuration items to create part of an IT service. The term is also used to refer to a release that is authorized for distribution – for example, server build or laptop build. See also configuration baseline.
build environment
(ITIL Service Transition) A controlled environment where applications, IT services and other builds are assembled prior to being moved into a test or live environment.
business
(ITIL Service Strategy) An overall corporate entity or organization formed of a number of business units. In the context of ITSM, the term includes public sector and not-for-profit organizations, as well as companies. An IT service provider provides IT services to a customer within a business. The IT service provider may be part of the same business as its customer (internal service provider), or part of another business (external service provider).
business capacity management
(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) (ITIL Service Design) In the context of ITSM, business capacity management is the sub-process of capacity management responsible for understanding future business requirements for use in the capacity plan. See also service capacity management; component capacity management..
(ITIL Service Strategy) Justification for a significant item of expenditure. The business case includes information about costs, benefits, options, issues, risks and possible problems. See also cost benefit analysis.
Download a Business Case - Word or PDF format
Download a PRINCE2 Business Case - Mind map, Word or PDF format
business continuity management (BCM)
(ITIL Service Design) The business process responsible for managing risks that could seriously affect the business. Business continuity management safeguards the interests of key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value-creating activities. The process involves reducing risks to an acceptable level and planning for the recovery of business processes should a disruption to the business occur. Business continuity management sets the objectives, scope and requirements for IT service continuity management.
business continuity plan (BCP)
(ITIL Service Design) A plan defining the steps required to restore business processes following a disruption. The plan also identifies the triggers for invocation, people to be involved, communications etc. IT service continuity plans form a significant part of business continuity plans.
business customer
(ITIL Service Strategy) A recipient of a product or a service from the business. For example, if the business is a car manufacturer, then the business customer is someone who buys a car.
business impact analysis (BIA)
(ITIL Service Strategy) Business impact analysis is the activity in business continuity management that identifies vital business functions and their dependencies. These dependencies may include suppliers, people, other business processes, IT services etc. Business impact analysis defines the recovery requirements for IT services. These requirements include recovery time objectives, recovery point objectives and minimum service level targets for each IT service.
business objective
(ITIL Service Strategy) The objective of a business process, or of the business as a whole. Business objectives support the business vision, provide guidance for the IT strategy, and are often supported by IT services.
business operations
(ITIL Service Strategy) The day-to-day execution, monitoring and management of business processes.
business perspective
(ITIL Continual Service Improvement) An understanding of the service provider and IT services from the point of view of the business, and an understanding of the business from the point of view of the service provider.
business process
A process that is owned and carried out by the business. A business process contributes to the delivery of a product or service to a business customer. For example, a retailer may have a purchasing process that helps to deliver services to its business customers. Many business processes rely on IT services.
business relationship management
(ITIL Service Strategy) The process responsible for maintaining a positive relationship with customers. Business relationship management identifies customer needs and ensures that the service provider is able to meet these needs with an appropriate catalogue of services. This process has strong links with service level management.
business relationship manager (BRM)
(ITIL Service Strategy) A role responsible for maintaining the relationship with one or more customers. This role is often combined with the service level manager role.
business service
A service that is delivered to business customers by business units. For example, delivery of financial services to customers of a bank, or goods to the customers of a retail store. Successful delivery of business services often depends on one or more IT services. A business service may consist almost entirely of an IT service – for example, an online banking service or an external website where product orders can be placed by business customers. See also customer-facing service.
business service management
The management of business services delivered to business customers. Business service management is performed by business units.
business unit
(ITIL Service Strategy) A segment of the business that has its own plans, metrics, income and costs. Each business unit owns assets and uses these to create value for customers in the form of goods and services.
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