Design and evaluation of a self-service delivery framework

Abstract

We present a framework for automating change and service request management, a process that has remained almost entirely human-centric, despite the fact that it involves complex workflows, takes a significant amount of time, and is prone to errors. We extend previous work on modeling process complexity to evaluate the impact of automating business constraints (such as policy approvals and entitlements). Our results indicate that automation eliminates a significant amount of operational complexity, reducing it by 68% compared to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) guidelines, and by 80% compared to actual client processes. Automation also reduces, between 55% and 82% for different client accounts, the average time that elapses from the moment that a change request is received until it starts executing.