Six Sigma, ITIL and Quality Method World

Welcome to Service Management and Quality Methodology World. Here we will explore the different methodologies pertaining to service management. These will include Six Sigma, ITIL, ISO 9000, and a growing range of other emerging approaches.

This is a new portal, but over time will expand its content to hopefully become an indespensible resource for service management professionals.

Six Sigma


	Six Sigma is a process-focused methodology designed to improve business performance through improving specific areas of a strategic business processes.

Sigma is a symbol meaning how much deviation exists in a set of data. It is sometimes called a “bell curve.” In statistics, this is called a standard normal distribution, but the idea is the same. In a bell curve, 50% of the values lie above the mean (average) and 50% of the values lie below the mean. All to often businesses base their performance on an average and average-based measures of the recent past. However, customers don’t judge businesses on averages; they feel the variance in each and every transaction. Customers value consistent, predictable business processes and products that deliver world-class levels of quality. Six Sigma focuses first on reducing variation and then on improving process capability.

ITIL


	ITIL consists of a series of books offering guidance on the provision of IT services, and on the accommodation and environmental facilities needed to support information technology.

ITIL is the most widely accepted approach to IT Service Management in the world. It offers a cohesive set of best practice, drawn from both private and public sectors internationally. It comprises a number of volumes, each describing a range of service management disciplines. New: A forum dedicated exclusively to ITIL

ISO 9000


	The ISO 9000 standards are a set of international quality management standards and guidelines. Since their initial publication in 1987, they have earned a global reputation as the basis for establishing quality management systems.

Three of the current standards, ISO 9001, 9002 and 9003, have been used extensively as the basis for independent (third party) quality system certification. This has resulted in the certification of around 300,000 organisations worldwide, with many more in the process of setting up and implementing quality management systems. ISO protocols require that all standards be reviewed at least every five years to determine whether they should be confirmed, revised or withdrawn. Link: ISO