INTRODUCTION
There has frequently been a disconnection between the development and operations departments within IT, which has consequently led to many failed implementations of new or changed services. Service transition is concerned with bridging that gap smoothly, ensuring that operational requirements are fully considered and catered for before anything is moved into the live environment, including documentation and training for users and support staff. Service transition is also responsible for the decommissioning and removal of services that are no longer required.
Smooth transition is achieved by taking a new or changed service design package (SDP) from the service design stage, testing it to ensure that it correctly meets the needs of the business, and deploying it within the production environment.
Some of the processes that are described within this phase are also used within other phases, in particular service knowledge, change and service asset and configuration management.
Figure 4.1 shows the seven processes covered by service transition, along with managing organisational and stakeholder change, which is a key service transition activity.
The Foundation syllabus only requires detailed knowledge of the five shaded areas in the diagram (i.e. change management, SACM, release and deployment management, knowledge management and transition planning and support), each of which has a separate chapter in Section 3. The remainder are covered later in this chapter.