Defining Business Services
A business service is created to realize business capabilities. The business capability (along with supporting capabilites and delimitations) form the purpose for the business service.
Viewed from the outside, a business service has commitments to deliver services to it’s customers based on the purpose. From a technology perspective most business services will offer digital services and/or conversion services (interfaces) for the customers to use in a self-service manner. Defined metrics (given to the service upon creation or revision) help the service to evaluate how it’s performing and also for other services to see the progress.
Viewed from the inside the business service is operated be the business owner with the help of his/her cross-functional team, it’s own technology (not shared with other services), information and processes.
The cross-functional team
The core of the business service is the team. Each individual in the team ONLY works with one business service and does not share his/her time with other engagemants except for time spent in i.e. guilds or other cross-team knowledge sharing activites. The should adhere to the “two pizza rule” two prevent communication in the service from being to hard.
Bezos’s two-pizza rule works out to at most 6 or 7 non-ravenous people. Teamwork expert Hackman pegs his magic number at 5 and fervently warns against going above 10. Management expert Bob Sutton cites the U.S. Navy Seals as having learned that 4 “is the optimal size for a combat team.”
It’s safe to say that a small team count sticks to single-digits, so start thinking of splitting into subgroups when you get beyond 10 people.
Source: http://blog.idonethis.com/
The business owner
The business owner is the only resource that is allocated to the service upon creation. The business owner shall have the vision and insight to guide the business service to success. The business owner is responsible for forming his/her autonomous team and together they will solve it’s purpose with the help of technology, processes and the team itself.
The “mother” of all (other) business services
As with the chicken or the egg causality dilemma first there has to be a egg that becomes a chicken that can lay other eggs. The first business service that has to be formed is the service that has the purpose of creating all other business services. This service is the only one that can create, change and remove business services.
Review process
Due the importance of the decisions made by this service, the review process is of the utmost importance. It’s important to get different groups opinions before making a decision. The whole process should be made as public as possible to minimize any negative effect on other business services or the company as a whole.
Template for establishing a business service
| Business Service Canvas | <th class="tg-vr8s"colspan="2">Name:Owner: |
Version: | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Rights | Critical Capabilities | Governing Framework | Justification Of The Choices Made |
| <The purpose of the business service> | <What the business has the right to decide> | <Capabilites that are critical for the business service> | <Which framework (e.g. GUARDIAN) should the business service adhere to> | <Justification of the choices made> |
| Commitments | Delimitations | Critical Success Factors | Metrics | The Other Alternatives That Were Not Chosen |
| <What the business service is required to deliver> | <What the business service is NOT allowed to do> | <What is critical for the success of the business service> | <Key metrics for measuring the success of the business service> | <The other alternatives that were not chosen> |
Justification Of The Choices Made
We believe in giving the team a clear (and small) purpose, the freedom to solve the purpose in the way that they feel is best. We belive that this is the only way to get outstanding customer value and efficiency.
The Other Alternatives That Were Not Chosen
- Functional/hierarchical organization