AVAILABILITY MANAGEMENT: Annex 8A - Role, responsibilities and key skills

Annex 8A - Availability Manager - Role, responsibilities and key skills

Role

In today's competitive market place organisations are demanding more and more from IT to enhance their business and deliver Cost effective, high levels of Service to their Customers. As business needs and Customer expectations increase, the Availability and reliability of IT Services is essential in ensuring the organisation can meet its business objectives.

The objectives of Availability Management are:

to define and deploy the Availability Management Process within the organisation and be accountable for execution and compliance of the process across the IT support organisation
to ensure IT Services are designed to deliver the required levels of Availability required by the business
to provide a range of IT Availability reporting to ensure that agreed levels of Availability, reliability and maintainability are measured and monitored on an ongoing basis
to optimise the Availability of the IT Infrastructure to deliver cost effective improvements that deliver tangible benefits to the business and User
to achieve over a period of time a reduction in the frequency and duration of Incidents that Impact on IT Availability
to ensure shortfalls in IT Availability are recognised and appropriate corrective actions are identified and progressed
to create and maintain a forward looking Availability Plan aimed at improving the overall Availability of IT Services and Infrastructure components to ensure that existing and future business Availability requirements can be met.

Responsibilities

to be accountable for the deployment of the Availability Management process and associated methods and techniques
to be responsible for ensuring the Availability Management process, its associated techniques and methods are regularly reviewed and audited, and that all of these are subjected to continuous improvement and remain fit for purpose
to be responsible for determining the Availability requirements from the business for new or enhanced IT Services
to be responsible for the creation of Availability and recovery design criteria to be applied to new or enhanced Infrastructure design
to be responsible for ensuring the levels of IT Availability required are cost justified
to be responsible for defining the targets of Availability required for the IT Infrastructure and its components that underpin a new or enhanced IT Service as the basis for an SLA agreement
to be responsible for the establishment of measures and reporting that reflect business, User and IT support organisation requirements
to be responsible for the monitoring of actual IT Availability achieved vs targets and to ensure shortfalls are addressed
to be responsible for the production and maintenance of an Availability Plan which prioritises and plans IT Availability improvements
to promote Availability Management awareness and understanding within the IT support organisation
to maintain an awareness of technology advancements and IT best practice, e.g. ITIL.

Key skills

to have practical experience of process management
to have a good understanding of the ITIL disciplines
to have practical experience of continuous improvement methods and techniques
to have a good understanding of statistical and analytical principles and processes
to possess good interpersonal skills for written, oral and face to face communications
to possess skills in influencing and negotiation methods and techniques
to have reasonable numeric skills
to have a good understanding of available and emerging IT technologies
to have the ability to understand how the IT technology supports the business
to have a reasonable understanding of Cost Management principles.