University IT
A Guide to IT Service Roles and Responsibilities
This matrix provides a jargon-free comparison of six key IT service roles, distinguishing their strategic or operational focus and duties regarding service roadmaps, incident handing, and change management.
| Role | Service roadmap | Incident management | Change management | Problem management | CMDB and Service Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service Owner Accountability & Value | Sets the direction, strategy, and roadmap; oversees budget, cost recovery, security, and compliance; ensures accuracy of all service information (descriptions, support guides, request forms); drives vendor performance — particularly with SaaS/PaaS providers. | Acts as the final escalation point and key decision-maker for Priority 1 and 2 incidents; designates personnel to collaborate with ITOC. | Approves major changes; ensures change requests follow the correct process for their risk level, with required technical/business approvals and stakeholder communications. | Provides oversight and direction for Problem Management; confirms risk and impact; guides the Service Manager on corrective-action prioritization; ensures fixes are tested and implemented. | Guides the Service Manager in establishing the service CI in the CMDB; approves the content, design, and presentation of the service request form in the ServiceNow Catalog. |
| Service Manager Day-to-Day Operations | Oversees the launch, modifications, or retirement of services; manages vendor relations; ensures SLAs are met; tracks delivery metrics and user feedback to drive continuous improvement. | Reviews the incident queue daily and leads root-cause investigations. | Reviews the incident queue daily; notified of Priority 1 and 2 incidents; reviews incident reports and trend data to improve service health; leads root-cause investigations. | Proactively investigates and creates Problem records; leads root-cause investigations for recurring incidents; follows the Problem Management process. | Submits and maintains the service CI in the CMDB; manages service catalog entries throughout their lifecycle; reviews and approves knowledge articles for accuracy. |
| Technical Operations Lead Technical Health & Reliability | Designs architecture to align with resiliency and security needs; maintains technical documentation, runbooks, and knowledge articles; ensures integrations with other university systems (SSO, Workgroup Manager, etc.). | Acts as the primary technical contact and solves complex issues; serves as the vendor escalation point during major outages; keeps on-call instructions in the CI current. | Evaluates technical risk and implements approved changes;leads implementation with clear rollback plans. | Coordinates SME contributions to RCA for assigned problem records; drives completion of technical corrective actions; escalates risks and delivery constraints to Service Owner and Service Manager. | Keeps on-call instructions and technical support details in the service CI current. |
| Business Owner Strategic Vision | Owns the roadmap and defines the high-level vision; validates the service meets expected business outcomes prior to launch; reviews and approves identified service risks and mitigations; facilitates training and communication across distributed user groups. | Approves communications for major (Priority 1 and 2) incidents; keeps the business community informed. | Has the authority to approve change requests at all impact levels. | ||
| Business Operations Owner User Support & Functional Knowledge | Ensures service processes and functional requirements are met; collects user feedback and relays operational insights to the Service Owner; develops and maintains end-user support documentation and training materials; acts as liaison between users and the IT team. | Manages and monitors the incidents/requests assigned to your group; notified of Priority 1 and 2 incidents; coordinates resolutions and participates in "Open Bridge" calls. | Manages service configuration and user access (adding/removing users) of the application. | ||
| Subject Matter Expert (SME) Specialized Expertise | Provides technical input for specific system components. | Provides technical expertise to resolve complex issues. | Determines technical feasibility and impact on specific systems. | Investigates root causes for specific system components; may serve as the vendor escalation contact during major incidents. |
Key terms defined
Incident management
The process of restoring services as quickly as possible after an unplanned interruption. | Change management
Controlling the lifecycle of updates to ensure beneficial changes are made with minimum disruption. | Problem Management / RCA
Investigates a "Problem" (the cause of one or more incidents) to identify the underlying issue and prevent recurrence. | CMDB & Service Catalog
The CMDB holds service configuration data (CI) in ServiceNow; the Service Catalog is the published portal for clients to request services. |
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