Service Ownership Standards
What is a Service Ownership Standard?
The IT Service Ownership Standard establishes a common definition of IT Service Ownership and Service Owner responsibilities. These standards provide clear accountability, roles and responsibilities for IT service and system management to ensure consistency, and quality of IT service delivery across 91É«ÇéƬ.Ìý
The standard applies to technology services and systems at 91É«ÇéƬ and focuses on the Service Owner Role.Ìý
At 91É«ÇéƬ, we rely on technology every day to support teaching, research, and operations. From student systems to faculty applications, these services enable our strategy of progress for all. Over the past few years, we’ve strengthened how we manage technology across the university. This began with the cybersecurity asset audit and the technology asset management program, which improved visibility of our systems and risks.
Last year, the University Leadership Team endorsed the new IT service ownership standards. We’ve always had IT service standards at 91É«ÇéƬ, but these standards clarify ownership roles and accountability.
So, what does this mean for you?
For most staff, this is about understanding the IT service standards, confirming appropriate ownership of the technologies used by your faculty or division, and understanding who is accountable for what.
The four ownership roles
The business owner owns the purpose and value of the technology. On a typical day, they decide why the technology exists, who it serves, approve funding, and determine whether it should be kept, consolidated, or retired.
A business operations owner acts on behalf of the business owner to ensure the system works effectively in day‑to‑day operations. They are the bridge between end users and 91É«ÇéƬ IT and ensure the technology continues to meet business needs and compliance requirements.
The service owner owns the service life cycle and roadmap. They ensure the system meets 91É«ÇéƬ’s IT service standards. This includes having oversight of compliance, security, performance, and advising the business owner on improvements or retirement. For example, if multiple schools are separately purchasing licenses for online surveys, the service owner may work with the business owner and 91É«ÇéƬ IT to consolidate those licenses under an enterprise agreement to reduce costs and improve support.
A delivery owner has the technical skills to own the day‑to‑day operation of the technology. For example, they coordinate or fix incidents, perform maintenance, apply upgrades, and monitor usage or support.
Responsible service ownership is not optional because protecting our students, staff, and research is critical. If you are nominated to one of these roles, make sure you are aware of what you will be held accountable for by visiting the IT service standards website.
Together, we are creating a connected and coherent technology landscape that reduces risk, simplifies our systems, and supports technology powering progress for all.
Service Management Practices
To understand roles and responsibilities, the Service Ownership Standard identifies and defines key service management practices.
Explore the service management practices below:
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Change Management is a set of processes and procedures that provide a systematic approach for managing changes to IT systems, services, and infrastructure to minimise business disruption.
Release management refers to the process of planning, designing, scheduling, testing, deploying, and controlling software releases.ÌýÌý
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Why is this important?
Unmanaged change to services and systems can result in business disruption and unintended negative impacts to service users. Change management is an IT Service Management (ITSM) discipline that ensures changes are effectively introduced and negative impacts and disruption avoided.
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This dimension ensures ongoing compliance of the Service with Cyber Security Policy and Standards.
Why is this important?
Cyber and regulatory compliance ensures the security of our information resources, and the privacy of our students and staff which are essential to 91É«ÇéƬs operations.
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Provision of support and training materials for end user of the service or system; for example, administrative staff in faculties who use the system to perform their workÌýÌý
Why is this important?
End user support, documentation and trainingÌýenables staff to feel empowered and supported in their use of a service or system, so that they can get their jobs done effectively.Ìý
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This dimension involves the reviewing of service budgets and expenditure plans to ensure financial health; managing all costs and resources required to deliver and manage the service. Financial management and vendor management are closely aligned.
Why is this important?
Financial budget and resource management ensures that the resources required to operate the service are in place, including the budget to pay for essential third-party costs such as licensing and support.
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An incident is an unplanned interruption or reduction in the quality of an IT service. Incident management is the process responsible for managing the lifecycle of all incidents. Incident management ensures that normal service operation is restored as quickly as possible and the business impact is minimised. This includes Major Incident Management and Post Incident Reviews.Ìý
Why is this important?
The goal of Incident Management is to restore normal service operation as soon as possible and minimise the impact on business operations. If Incident Management is not performed, a service or system could remain unavailable for an extended period of time resulting in major business disruption and potential financial impacts.
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This dimension ensures that data and information is managed in compliance with 91É«ÇéƬ Data Governance Policies and Standards.
Why is this important?
Correct governance and legislative compliance of our data and information keeps our services, customers, staff and students safe.
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At 91É«ÇéƬ, the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) tool in our organisation's ITSM toolkit is called 'CA Service Desk', and is commonly referred to as CASD.
CASDÌýholds information about services including service name (CI), description, service role assignments, incident and support assignment groups. All incidents, requests and changes need to be logged against this entry in the CMDB.Ìý
Why is it important to keep service offering records up to date?
Up to date records ensures services and systems are holistically understood and that the right people can be contacted to resolve issues.
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This dimension involves both the planning and execution of proactive ongoing preventative maintenance. This is required to keep technology components current so that it is within support and recommended security versions.
Why is this important?ÌýÌý
Preventative Maintenance reduces the risk system failure or security breaches as well as keeps software applications updated with the latest features.
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Risk management is the identification, assessment and control of service risksÌý
Why is this important?
Risk enables 91É«ÇéƬ and its controlled entities, through understanding uncertainty, complexity and their impacts on strategic objectives, to maximise opportunity, build resilience and enable insights that support effective decision making and governance.
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Security Patching is the timely application of relevant updates or fixes to software systems to address known vulnerabilities or security weaknesses.Ìý
Why is this important?
Scheduled and as-required security patching ensures that any vulnerabilities or weaknesses in services or systems are addressed so that we can keep our customers, users and university safe.
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A collection of back-up and recovery procedures to be followed in the event of a disaster or damaging event that affects 91É«ÇéƬ IT services.
Why is this important?
A tried and tested disaster recovery plan ensures that systems and services can be restored in the event of a major failure
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The creation of the service lifecycle roadmap aligns with the vision of the Business Owner and defines the activities of the service from launch through to service improvement to service sunsetÌýÌý
Why is this important?
A clear and considered service lifecycle roadmap enables a future proof service vision that supports and delivers on business outcomes of a service, system or process
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Service monitoring is the process of monitoring service performance, availability, and end-user experience to ensure it is functioning properly. Includes both automated technical monitoring as well as manual service performance and compliance against Service Level Agreements (SLAs).ÌýÌý
Why is this important?
Consistent Service Monitoring, Alerting and Reporting provides teams with an ability to identify potential issues with a service before they become an incident impacting users
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The Service support model is captured in the Service Management Pack (SMP) and defines the key service attributes including service criticality, service level agreements, roles and support processes and groups responsible for the various technical parts of the service.Ìý
Why is this important?
An up-to-date Service Support Model ensures seamless and accountable management of a service, system and all involved processes.ÌýÌý
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Solution architecture captures the design of the application and any integrations. Technical and technical support documentation is typically contained in Confluence for technical support staffÌý
Why is this important?
Technical documentation ensure that teams can effectively support a system and introduce change efficiently
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User Access Management is the process by which users are added and removed and what access they have within the system (to data and functions)ÌýÌý
Why is this important?
User Access Management ensures that we are compliant with privacy legislation, and we manage risk associated with inappropriate access to data and functions within a system.
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This dimension covers the management of third-party suppliers that contribute to the delivery of the service and monitoring their performance. Renewal of contracts – for example, software licensing, managed services.Ìý
Why is this important?
Correct management ensures that third-party suppliers essential to the delivery of the service are appropriately managed so that the service is effective.
At 91É«ÇéƬ, we rely on technology every day to support teaching, research, and operations. From student systems to faculty applications, these services enable our strategy of progress for all. Over the past few years, we’ve strengthened how we manage technology across the university. This began with the cybersecurity asset audit and the technology asset management program, which improved visibility of our systems and risks.
Last year, the University Leadership Team endorsed the new IT service ownership standards. We’ve always had IT service standards at 91É«ÇéƬ, but these standards clarify ownership roles and accountability.
So, what does this mean for you?
For most staff, this is about understanding the IT service standards, confirming appropriate ownership of the technologies used by your faculty or division, and understanding who is accountable for what.
The four ownership roles
The business owner owns the purpose and value of the technology. On a typical day, they decide why the technology exists, who it serves, approve funding, and determine whether it should be kept, consolidated, or retired.
A business operations owner acts on behalf of the business owner to ensure the system works effectively in day‑to‑day operations. They are the bridge between end users and 91É«ÇéƬ IT and ensure the technology continues to meet business needs and compliance requirements.
The service owner owns the service life cycle and roadmap. They ensure the system meets 91É«ÇéƬ’s IT service standards. This includes having oversight of compliance, security, performance, and advising the business owner on improvements or retirement. For example, if multiple schools are separately purchasing licenses for online surveys, the service owner may work with the business owner and 91É«ÇéƬ IT to consolidate those licenses under an enterprise agreement to reduce costs and improve support.
A delivery owner has the technical skills to own the day‑to‑day operation of the technology. For example, they coordinate or fix incidents, perform maintenance, apply upgrades, and monitor usage or support.
Responsible service ownership is not optional because protecting our students, staff, and research is critical. If you are nominated to one of these roles, make sure you are aware of what you will be held accountable for by visiting the IT service standards website.
Together, we are creating a connected and coherent technology landscape that reduces risk, simplifies our systems, and supports technology powering progress for all.
More information
For further information and supporting policies please view:
Do you have a question?
Email your question to Itservicecentre@unsw.edu.auÌýand our team will get back to you.Ìý