Glossary

Terms & Definitions

Accountable	The group or individual that is personally answerable for an activity. Accountability cannot be delegated, unlike responsibility.
Blackout Window	A scheduled period of time in which changes that may affect critical academic or IT services should be avoided. Only pre-approved, standard, or emergency changes required to resolve production issues should be made during this period.
Business Criticality	The importance of this service to the business.
Business Service	A service that is delivered to business customers by business units. For example, the Business Service of Email can have multiple Service Offerings, including Office 365, UT Mail, and UT Lists.
Catalog Item	A form used to submit information, a request, or to create a task.
Category	A logical group of services that benefit from being managed together.
Change	The addition, modification, or removal of anything that could affect an IT service.
Change Approver	The role that 1) reviews and authorizes RFCs submitted by their team and 2) ensures that Post Implementation Review (PIR) reports, action items, and lessons learned are reviewed and approved at the appropriate level following an unsuccessful change and 3) is typically fulfilled by the Service Owner.
Change Calendar	The official schedule of all authorized ET changes, Maintenance Windows, Reserved Maintenance Windows, and Blackout Windows.
Change Requester	The role that submits an RFC.
Change Reviewer	The role that reviews an RFC to verify that it is complete and technically sound.
Composite Customer Experience	A metric based on a questionnaire designed to capture customers’ thoughts and feelings about ET services.
Configuration Item	Any component or other service asset that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT service.
Consulted	The group or individual that is given the opportunity to contribute to and make recommendations on an action or document.
Critical Infrastructure Service	A service that other services are dependent on in order to support the business and academic efforts of the university. Only these services may be granted a Reserved Maintenance Window for their changes when appropriate.
Customer	The consumer or end-user of an IT service.
Impact	The scope of an incident, problem, or change on business processes. Impact is often based on how service levels will be affected.
Incident	An unplanned interruption to an IT service or reduction in the quality of an IT service. Failure of a configuration item that has not yet affected service is also an incident.
Informed	The group or individual that is advised of a change or a decision.
Key Performance Indicator	A metric that is used to help manage an IT service, process, plan, project, or other activity. Key performance indicators are used to measure the achievement of critical success factors and should be selected to ensure that efficiency, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness are all managed.
Maintenance Window	A scheduled period, preferably recurring, in which changes can be implemented.
Major Incident	The highest category of impact for an incident. A major incident results in significant disruption to the business.
Post Implementation Review	A review that takes place after a unsuccessful change that identifies, in a written report, the root cause, contributing factors, and opportunities for improvement.
Post Incident Review	A review that takes place after a major incident to identify, in a written report, the root cause, contributing factors, and opportunities for improvement.
Priority	A category used to identify the relative importance of an incident, problem, or change. Priority is based on impact and urgency and is used to identify minimum required times for actions to be taken.
Problem	A cause of one or more incidents. The cause is not usually known at the time a problem record is created, and the Problem Management process is responsible for further investigation.
Process Owner	The role that has end-to-end responsibility for process definition, documentation, and performance.
Requester	The role that submits a service request. Requestors may be anyone in the organization. Requesters may submit service requests on behalf of others.
Reserved Maintenance Window	A Maintenance Window for a Critical Infrastructure Service that should be prioritized over other Maintenance Windows.
Responsible	The group or individual who has the authority and is expected to deliver a task or activity; responsibility can be delegated.
Risk Assessment Value	A value that represents the expected risk and impact a proposed change may have on the IT service.
Service	An end-to-end IT service that delivers value to customers, typically not identified by specific product or application names. The service combines people, processes, and technology to provide outputs or results that enable business capabilities or a customer’s work activities and desired outcomes.
Service Level Agreement	An agreement between an IT service provider and a customer. A service level agreement describes the IT service, documents service level targets, and specifies the responsibilities of the IT service provider and the customer. A single agreement may cover multiple IT services or multiple customers.
Service Level Objective	The SLO is a key element between a service provider and a customer. SLOs are agreed as a means of measuring the performance of the service provider and are outlined as a way of communicating mutual understanding between the service provider and customer.
Service Offering	The specific technology-focused activity or product used to deliver a service. These can be software bundles, custom application solutions, or other technology that enables a service offering. Multiple service offerings might exist for a single service.
Service Owner	The functional manager of an IT service or suite of IT services who is empowered to make Incident Management decisions for the services for which they are responsible.
Service Request	A formal request from a customer for something to be provided.
Stakeholder	A person who has a technical, business, or institutionally-related interest in an organization, project, or IT service.
Unsuccessful Change	A change that either significantly deviated from the implementation plan, caused an incident, or did not achieve the desired outcome. For example, change backed out, change not made when scheduled, human error, exceeded maintenance window, or change incomplete.
Urgency	The actual or potential degree to which a user’s ability to do their work has been affected by an incident.
User	A person who uses the IT service on a day-to-day basis.

Acronyms

CCE	Composite Customer Experience
CAB	Change Advisory Board
CI	Configuration Item
CMDB	Configuration Management Database
CSI	Continual Service Improvement
ITIL	Information Technology Infrastructure Library
ITSM	IT Service Management
KB	Knowledgebase
KPI	Key Performance Indicator
MI	Major Incident
SLA	Service Level Agreement
SLO	Service Level Objective
RAV	Risk Assessment Value
RFC	Request for Change
VTB	Visual Task Board