Support
Stage 8 in the Lifecycle
Support responds when incidents and disasters disrupt products or service delivery. It also drives learning through problem work to prevent similar harm, with insights flowing back to Discover for continuous improvement.
Official purpose
"The purpose of support is to identify and resolve incidents, fulfil disaster recovery when needed, and capture consumer feedback."
Key definitions
- Disaster: A sudden unplanned event causing serious loss or damage that stops critical business functions beyond tolerable timeframes
- Error: A flaw or weakness that can cause incidents
- Problem: A cause or potential cause of one or more incidents
- Known error: A problem analyzed but not fully removed, often managed with workarounds
Key facts
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Why do it? | Identify and resolve incidents, fulfil disaster recovery, capture consumer feedback |
| Who does it? | Service desk, support teams, operations teams |
| When performed? | Continually; triggered by incidents, disasters, and consumer contacts |
| Key outputs? | Restored service, satisfaction data, trends, improvement signals |
| Success metrics? | Customer/user satisfaction, speed of restoration, incident impact, SLA performance |
Success metrics
- Customer and user satisfaction with support services
- Speed of normal service restoration
- Negative impact of incidents and disasters on organizations and customers
- Support performance against agreed SLA targets
High-level workflow (three steps)
Identify and assess incidents and disasters
Respond and restore normal operations and delivery
Review and report support actions
Problem management across the lifecycle
Problem-related work spans all lifecycle stages:
| Stage | Examples |
|---|---|
| Discover | Proactive error signals; review reactive findings |
| Design | Structural fixes or workarounds designed |
| Acquire | Resources to implement fixes |
| Build | Build and test without the error |
| Transition | Deploy fixes; communicate workarounds |
| Operate | Reactive detection from operations data |
| Support | Reactive detection; apply fixes and workarounds |
Key operational aspects
Automation and collaboration
Support should be highly automated where safe. Proactive operations reduce load; automated recovery limits user impact. Multiple teams may join during major incidents.
Related management practices
| Practice | Role in Support |
|---|---|
| Service Desk | Front door for users |
| Service Request Management | Normal fulfillment |
| Incident Management | Restore service |
| Problem Management | Underlying causes |
| Knowledge Management | Known solutions |
Inputs and outputs
Inputs: User contacts, knowledge base, service catalog, SLAs, procedures
Outputs: Restored service, satisfaction data, trends, improvements fed back to Discover
Extended support topics
- Single point of contact service desk models
- Omnichannel and self-service patterns
- AI-powered routing, knowledge suggestions, and classification
ITIL Car Rental scenario: Support in action
The scenario illustrates all three workflow steps when driverless cars became stranded due to insufficient battery charge. Teams identified incidents, deployed recovery vehicles, and analyzed root causes, updating vehicle assignment rules and expanding charging partnerships.