Newly revised international guidance on service management systems just out

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By Clare Naden
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An IT service management system (ITSMS) is a strategic tool to help organizations improve efficiencies, optimize the use of technologies, save money and provide many other benefits that go beyond IT. The ISO and IEC’s 20000 series provides international best-thinking for an effective ITSMS. Parts of the series have just been updated.

Some of the world’s most knowledgeable experts on ITSMS worked together to develop ISO/IEC 20000-1, Information technology — Service management — Part 1: Service management system requirements. It is a valuable tool for organizations wanting to implement or maintain an ITSMS. Following its revision late last year, two guidance documents in the series have been updated and another has been developed.

ISO/IEC 20000-2, Information technology — Service management — Part 2: Guidance on the application of service management systems, and ISO/IEC 20000-3, Information technology — Service management — Part 3: Guidance on scope definition and applicability of ISO/IEC 20000-1, have been revised and joined by the new technical report ISO/IEC TR 20000-7, Information technology — Service management — Part 7: Guidance on the integration and correlation of ISO/IEC 20000-1: 2018 to ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 27001:2013.

They provide important information and recommendations for service providers, consultants and assessors to conform to the requirements of ISO/IEC 20000-1. These, and other documents in the series, help users to interpret the requirements of ISO/IEC 20000-1 more accurately and also include examples and suggestions to enable them to apply it more effectively.

This includes service management policies, objectives, plans, service management processes, process interfaces, documentation and resources.

Ms Jan Begg, Chair of the ISO and IEC technical subcommittee1 that revised the standards, said improvements to the newly revised parts 2 and 3 include greater clarity of guidance for each clause, and advanced guidance around writing appropriate and accurate scoping statements.

“Both documents take into account the high level structure, which is a structure common to all ISO management system standards (MSS), thus creating additional functionality and compatibility with other standards. Part 7 provides additional information and guidance when adopting ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 27001 in addition to ISO/IEC 20000-1.”

The ISO/IEC 20000-2, ISO/IEC 20000-3, ISO/IEC TR 20000-7 and all standards in the ISO/IEC 20000 series can be purchased from your national ISO member or the ISO Store.


1) The ISO/IEC 20000 series, including ISO/IEC 20000-2, ISO/IEC 20000-3, and ISO/IEC TR 20000-7, were developed by the ISO and IEC joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, subcommittee SC 40IT Service Management and IT Governance, the secretariat of which is held by Standards Australia (SA), ISO’s member for Australia

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