ITIL Roles and Responsibilities - Process Wise

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ITSM Roles or ITIL Roles - The Concept

People represents a part of the resources and capabilities needed to deliver quality IT services to users and customers. No IT Service Management (ITSM) processes or functions can ever be exercised without people.

In fact, the 4 P’s of ITIL Service Design include People to show us that how important it is to structure and organize those peoples involved in the delivery of IT services. And since quality service delivery is all about dealing with users, customers, and suppliers, the value of assigning proper roles and responsibilities to people should not be underestimated.

[See Also: Understanding 4 P's of Service Design]

ITIL Roles or ITSM Roles are used in order to define responsibilities. More specifically, roles are used to designate process owners to the various ITIL processes and functions and to illustrate duties and responsibilities for every single activity within the detailed process descriptions.

ITSM Roles and Responsibilities According to Organization Structure:

There is no single way to organize peoples and roles. The ITIL best practices require being tailored to suit every individual organizations and situation.

The starting point for any organizational design is the strategy, as it sets the direction and provides guidance to the design process. For the strategy to be successful, an organization needs to clearly specify all the ITSM roles and responsibilities required to undertake the ITIL processes and activities.

An organization’s age, size, geographical spread, and technology use determines its structure. As the organization grows bigger, changes in roles and responsibilities must be made according to that. This is especially important for organizations taking up a service orientation, as pressures for efficiency and discipline pushes towards greater formalization and complexity.

In a smaller organization, multiple ITSM roles may be combined and assigned to one person. But In large organizations there might be many different people carrying out these roles individually, separated by geographic location, technology or other criteria.

Categorization of ITIL Roles and Responsibilities:

According to ITIL 4, roles and responsibilities can be categorized or combined in many numbers of ways, depending on the organizational structure. Some roles directly interact with people (front facing) while others deal with technology (backend). Moreover, there are roles that are directly associated with services and others associated with processes.

Clearly in accountability and responsibility for each role is essential for effective service management. To achieve this, the RACI (Responsible – Accountable – Consulted – Informed) model or "authority matrix" is often utilized within organizations to specify the roles and responsibilities in relation to processes, functions, and activities.

According to ITIL, "the RACI matrix provides a compact, concise, easy method of tracking who does what in each process and it enables decisions to be made with pace and confidence".

When using RACI, there is only one person accountable for an activity under a defined scope. This implies that there must be only one process owner for each process and one service owner for each service.

To know more about RACI Model and responsibility Matrix follow this: What is RACI Model in ITIL? ITIL Roles & RACI Matrix.

ITIL Roles and Responsibilities (Process Wise):

The descriptions of ITIL roles and responsibilities we have written here are summarized to be short and only show up the main characteristics of a specific ITIL role according to ITIL 4.

If you require in-depth information on a role's tasks and responsibilities, visit and read the main process lessons in which the role pertains to. All the tasks carried out within that process represents the full responsibility of the particular process owner.

This is a long article and divided into multiple parts. Use can use the below menu to navigate to the Specific ITSM Roles and Responsibilities if you wish to.

[Note: If you want to search for specific roles of any particular process, use the browser search function. Such as for ITIL Change Management Roles, Press CTRL+F (CMD+F for MAC) and type Change Management.]

ITIL Service Strategy Roles
ITIL Service Design Roles
ITIL Service Transition Roles
ITIL Service Operation Roles
ITIL Continual Service Improvement Roles
Other ITIL Roles outside the Organization

ITIL Service Strategy Roles:

This list contains all the important roles that are defined within the ITIL Service strategy module.

IT Steering Group (ISG):

The IT Steering Group (ISG) sets the strategy and direction for IT Services. It includes members from senior management and from business and IT.
The ISG reviews the business and IT strategies in order to ensure that they are aligned with each other.
It also sets priorities to the service development projects/programs.

Service Strategy Manager:

The Service Strategy Manager is a new role introduced in ITIL 4 edition.
The Service Strategy Manager primarily supports the IT Steering Group in developing and maintaining the IT service provider's strategy.
This role is also accountable for communicating and implementing the service strategy.

Service Portfolio Manager:

The Service Portfolio Manager helps to determine on a strategy to serve customers.
This role works in cooperation with the IT Steering Group to improve the service provider's offerings and capabilities.

[Read more about ITIL Service Portfolio Management Process]

Financial Manager:

The Financial Manager is responsible for managing an IT service provider's accounting, budgeting, and charging requirements.
Responsible for formulating the annual IT budget and submit them for review and approval by the IT Steering Group
This role also helps to negotiate prices at the time of procuring CI's and service components.

[Read more about ITIL Financial Management Process]

Demand Manager:

The Demand Manager is a new role introduced in ITIL 4 to execute activities related to Demand Management process.
The Demand Manager is responsible for understanding, anticipating and influencing customer demand for services.
Identifying and analyzing patterns of business activity to find out the levels of demand that will be placed on a service.
The Demand Manager works jointly with the capacity manager to ensure that the IT service provider has adequate capacity to meet the expected demand.

[Read more about ITIL Demand Management Process]

Business Relationship Manager:

The Business Relationship Manager is a new role introduced in ITIL 4.
The responsibilities of Business Relationship Manager includes maintaining a positive relationship with customers, identifying customer needs, and ensuring that the service provider will be able to fulfill those needs with an appropriate catalogue of services.
The Business Relationship Manager works very closely with the Service Level Manager and sometimes in smaller organizations, these two roles are combined.

Strategy Analyst:

Assisting Service Strategy Manager in documenting and maintaining the organization’s overall IT strategy.
Helps in informing and communicating the key aspects of the IT strategy, so that all stakeholders like customers, staff, suppliers etc are aware of the IT strategy.
Assists IT steering group in successful implementation and operation of the IT strategy.
Responsible for reviewing the performance of the IT strategy and if required making minor changes to the IT strategic plans or the way they are enforced.
Creating an interface between "Strategy Management for IT Services" and other ITIL processes.

Finance Analyst:

Assisting Financial Manager in doing budgeting, accounting, and charging procedures.
Publishing statements of accounts to management to enable process managers to manage their own areas of the budgets.
Evaluating and reporting on the value-for-money analysis of all major activities, projects, and proposed expenditure items.

Demand Analyst:

This strategic role acts as a critical support to the Demand Manager in understanding, anticipating and influencing customer demand for services.
Defining and studying user profiles to find out the expected demand for services from different types of users.
Helping at designing services to meet the patterns of business activity and support business outcomes.
Optimizing the utilization of resources to encounter the fluctuation in the levels of demand for those services.

ITIL Service Design Roles:

This list contains all the important roles that are defined within the ITIL service design module.

Service Design Manager:

The Service Design Manager is responsible for developing quality, secure and resilient designs for new or improved services.
This Role is also responsible for producing and maintaining all design documentation.

[Read more about ITIL Design Coordination Process]

Service Catalogue Manager:

The Service Catalogue Manager is responsible for maintaining and timely updating the Service Catalogue.
This role also ensures that all information within the Service Catalogue is accurate and up-to-date.

[Read more about ITIL Service Catalogue Management Process]

Service Level Manager:

The Primary responsibility of Service Level Manager is to negotiate Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and ensuring that they are met.
He makes sure that all IT Service Management processes, SLAs, Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) and Underpinning Contracts (UCs) are tailored to meet service level targets.
The Service Level Manager also monitors service levels and produces periodic reports on service level achievements.
He also ensuring that breaches of SLA targets are highlighted, investigated and appropriate actions are taken to prevent their recurrence.

[Read more about ITIL Service Level Management Process]

Service Owner:

The Service Owner is a counterpart of Service Level Manager, and responsible for delivering a particular service within the agreed service level targets.
He also assists Service Level Manager in negotiating Operational Level Agreements (OLAs).
Usually, the Service Owner leads a team of technical specialists or an internal support unit.

Capacity Manager:

The Capacity Manager is responsible for ensuring that services and infrastructure have adequate capacity to deliver quality services and meet performance targets in a cost-effective and timely manner.
This role considers all resources required to deliver a service, and plans for achieving short-term, medium-term and long-term business objectives.

[Read more about ITIL Capacity Management Process]

Availability Manager:

The Availability Manager is responsible for defining, analyzing, measuring, planning, and improving all aspects of the availability of IT services.
This role also ensures that all IT infrastructure, processes, tools, roles are appropriate for the achieving agreed service level targets for availability.

[Read more about ITIL Availability Management Process]

IT Service Continuity Manager:

The IT Service Continuity Manager is responsible for managing and reducing risks that could seriously impact IT services.
He ensures that the IT service provider can continue to provide service at minimum agreed service levels in cases of disaster, by reducing the risk to an acceptable level and planning for the recovery of IT services.

Information Security Manager:

The Information Security Manager is responsible for ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and security of an organization’s information, data and IT services.
This role is usually involved in an organizational approach to Security Management which includes handling of paper, building access, phone calls etc. for the entire organization, and has a wider scope than the IT service provider.

Supplier Manager:

The Supplier Manager is responsible for making sure that value for money is obtained from all suppliers.
He also ensures that contracts made with suppliers are in line with the business requirement and that all suppliers meet their contractual commitments.

[Read more about ITIL Supplier Management Process]

Risk Manager:

The Risk Manager is responsible for identifying, assessing, controlling, and mitigating risks.
The scope of this role includes analyzing the value of assets to the business, identifying threats to those assets, and evaluating how vulnerable each asset is to those threats.

[Read more about ITIL Risk Management Process]

Compliance Manager:

The Compliance Manager has the responsibility to ensure that all the industrial standards and guidelines are being followed.
This role also ensures that proper & consistent accounting and/or other practices are being employed.
This Role also makes sure that all external legal requirements are being fulfilled.

[Read more about ITIL Compliance Management Process]

Enterprise Architect:

The Enterprise Architect has the responsibility of maintaining the Enterprise Architecture (EA), a description of the necessary components of a business, including their interrelationships.
Larger organizations may also employ specialist EA roles like Business Architect, Infrastructure Architect, Application Architect, or Information Architect.

[Read more about ITIL Architecture Management Process]

ITIL Service Transition Roles:

Project Manager:

The Project Manager has the responsibility for planning, coordinating, and scheduling required resources to deploy major releases within the predicted cost, time and quality estimates.

Change Manager:

The Change Manager is responsible for controlling the lifecycle of all Changes.
His primary duty is to enable beneficial Changes to be made, with minimum disruption to IT services.
For important/major Changes, the Change Manager needs to seek the authorization from the Change Advisory Board (CAB) before proceeding.

[Read more about ITIL Change Management Process]

Change Advisory Board (CAB):

A group of people (usually important stakeholders) who advises the Change Manager in the assessment, prioritization, and scheduling of Changes.
This board is usually comprised of representatives from all areas within the IT organization, such as the business, the IT Department, and also third parties like suppliers.

Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB):

This is a subset of the Change Advisory Board (CAB) who takes decisions about high impact and Emergency Changes.
Members of the ECAB are usually chosen dynamically at the time of calling for a meeting, and depend on the nature of the Emergency Change.

Configuration Manager:

The Configuration Manager is responsible for maintaining proper information about Configuration Items (CIs) required to deliver IT services.
He also has to maintain a logical model, containing the components of the IT infrastructure (CIs) and their associations.

Release Manager:

The Release Manager has the responsibility of planning and controlling the movement of Releases to test and live (production) environments.
His primary duty is to ensure that the integrity of the live (production) environment remain stabilized and that the correct components are released.

Test Manager:

The Test Manager has the responsibility of ensuring that the deployed Releases and the resulting services meet customer expectations, and verifies that IT operations department is able to support the new service.

Knowledge Manager:

The primary duty of Knowledge Manager is to ensure that the IT organization is able to gather, analyze, store, and share knowledge and as well as information.
His primary objective is to improve efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge.

[Read more about ITIL Knowledge Management Process]

Application Developer:

The Application Developer is responsible for building and coding applications and systems which provide the required functionality for IT services.
His duty includes the development and maintenance of custom applications/software as well as making customization to the products received from software vendors.

ITIL Service Operation Roles:

IT Operations Manager:

An IT Operations Manager has the overall responsibility for a number of Service Operation Processes and Functions.
This role is responsible for Event Management, IT Operations Management, IT Operations Control etc
This role ensures that all day-to-day operational activities are executed in a timely and reliable way.

[Read more about ITIL Event Management Process]

IT Operator:

IT Operators are the staff who perform the day-to-day activities related to IT operations.
Their responsibilities include: Performing backups and restore, ensuring that scheduled jobs are executed, software installation, and installing standard equipment in the data center.

[Read more about ITIL IT Operations Management Function]

1st Level Support:

The responsibility of 1st Level Support team is to register, categorize, and prioritize received Incidents and to undertake immediate actions in order to restore a failed IT service as quickly as possible.
If no ad-hoc resolution can be provided, 1st Level Support will transfer the Incident to relevant expert technical support groups (2nd Level Support).
1st Level Support is also responsible for processing Service Requests and keeps users informed about their Incidents' status at pre-defined intervals.

2nd Level Support:

2nd Level Support team takes up Incidents that cannot be resolved immediately by the of 1st Level Support.
If required, it will request external support, e.g. from software or hardware manufacturers (3rd Level Support).
The primary objective of this role is to restore a failed IT Service as quickly as possible.
If no resolution is found, the 2nd Level Support transfer the Incident to Problem Management group.

3rd Level Support:

3rd Level Support typically means third-party suppliers, such as hardware or software manufacturers.
The look into an incident, if they receive any request from 2nd Level Support.

Incident Manager:

The Incident Manager is responsible for the effective implementation of the ITIL Incident Management process and performs corresponding reporting.
He represents the first stage of escalation for any Incidents that are not resolvable within an agreed Service Level.

[Read more about ITIL Incident Management Process]

Major Incident Team:

A dynamically constructed team of IT managers and technical experts typically formulated to work for the resolution of Major Incidents.
This Team usually performs under the leadership of the Incident Manager.

Service Request Fulfillment Group:

Service Request Fulfillment Groups are teams that specialized on the fulfillment of certain types of Service Requests.
Usually, 1st Level Support processes simpler requests, while other complex ones are forwarded to the specialized Fulfillment Groups.

Problem Manager:

The primary duty of Problem Manager is to manage the lifecycle of all Problems.
He is responsible for preventing Incidents from happening, and to minimize the impact of Incidents that cannot be prevented.
To accomplish this he also maintains information about Known Errors and Workarounds.

[Read more about ITIL Problem Management Process]

Access Manager:

The Access Manager the responsibility of granting authorized users the right to use a service, while preventing access to non-authorized users.
The Access Manager basically executes organizational policies defined in Information Security Management.

[Read more about ITIL Access Management Process]

Service Desk Manager:

In some larger organization, a separate Service Desk Manager is appointed to manage the Service Desk.
He is responsible for managing the service desk under the supervision of Incident Manager.

[Read more about Service Desk Function]

Technical Analyst:

The Technical Analyst is a role under Technical Management Function, that provides technical expertise and support for the management of the IT infrastructure.
Usually, there has to be one Technical Analyst or team of analysts for every key technology area.
Technical Analyst has a significant role in the technical aspects of designing, testing, operating, and improving IT services.
This role is also responsible for developing the skills needed to operate the IT infrastructure.

[Read more about ITIL Technical Management Function]

Facilities Manager:

The Facilities Manager is responsible for managing and maintaining the physical environment where the IT infrastructure is located.
This includes all aspects of managing the physical environment, such as power, cooling, fire safety, building access management, and environmental monitoring.

[Read more about ITIL IT Facilities Management Process]

Applications Analyst:

The Applications Analyst is a role under Application Management, responsible for managing applications throughout their lifecycle.
Usually, there has to be one Applications Analyst or team of analysts for every key application.
Application analyst has a significant role in the application-related aspects of designing, testing, operating and improving IT services.
This role is also responsible for developing the skills needed to operate the applications required to deliver IT services.

[Read more about ITIL Application Management Process]

ITIL Continual Service Improvement Roles:

CSI Manager:

The Continual Service Improvement (CSI) Manager is responsible for managing and making continuous improvements to IT Service Management processes and IT services.
This role continually measures the performance of the service provider, identify the opportunity areas, and designs improvements to processes, services, and infrastructure in order to increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Process Architect:

The Process Architect has the responsibility of maintaining the Process Architecture (a part of the Enterprise Architecture).
This role is also responsible for coordinating all changes to processes and ensures that all processes work together in a seamless way.
Process Architect also supports all stakeholders involved in managing and improving processes, especially the Process Owners.
Some organizations combine this role with the Enterprise Architect role.

[Read more about ITIL Process Evaluation Process]

Process Owner:

Process Owner is responsible for ensuring that a process is fit for purpose.
The responsibilities of Process Owner include designing, sponsorship, and continual improvement of the process and its metrics.
Larger organizations usually employ separate personnel for Process Owner and Process Manager roles, where the Process Manager generally has the responsibility for the operational management of a process.

ITIL Roles and Responsibilities outside the IT organization:

Customer:

Someone who buys, rent, or avail IT services from IT Service Provider.
The Customer of an IT service provider is considered to be the person or group who defines and agrees with the service level targets.

Service User:

A person who uses one or more IT services on a day-to-day basis.
Theoretically, Service Users are somewhat distinct from Customers, as some Customers (such as any company) do not use IT services directly. These companies are customers but not users. The Employees of that company, who are using the service is termed as users.