Functional Role Descriptions



These descriptions cover the basic roles needed to launch and run a service effectively and establish a governance process. Depending on staff and capacity, one person may fulfill the responsibilities of multiple roles.

Role Definition Responsibilities
Service Manager Operational lead of the service, accountable for operating the service in accordance with its design (including such processes as request fulfillment and incident management) and for managing service funding/revenue and expenses, per its spend plan.
  • Provide accountability for service transition (service readiness checklist) and operation.
  • Provide accountability for the documentation of, and adherence to, quality service delivery and support (provisioning, incident response, and on-call).
  • Ensure continual service improvement, including facilitating annual service audits.
  • Oversee internal supplier management.
  • Manage the cost of services.
  • “Manage the checkbook” (the services budget—funding/revenues and expenses) throughout the fiscal year.
  • Approve operational change requests.
  • Based on service level agreement (SLA), ensure appropriate metrics are captured.
  • Manage the Service Level User Group.
Service Owner Strategic lead of the service, accountable for service direction, evolution, roadmap, and strategy (per evolving customer/user needs), irrespective of where the technology components or professional capabilities reside.
  • Represent the service direction (strategy and design) by aggregating the evolving needs of customers, users, and “the business” across the institution.
  • Manage the risks associated with the service.
  • Finance and/or determine resources for the service(s).
  • Coordinate service offerings with Service Manager(s).
  • Ensure continual service improvement, including facilitating annual service reviews.
  • Ensure that the service entry in the service portfolio/catalog is accurate and maintained.
  • Approve service change requests.
  • Participate in negotiating service level agreements (SLAs) and operational level agreements (OLAs) for the service.
  • Manage the Service-Level Advisory Board.
Process Owner The authority on a process, ensuring that the process supports the institution’s mission; promote the value of the process as part of the Service Management Program and work with the Service Management Office to continually monitor process health and maturity.
  • Act as the point of contact for a process.
  • Act as the authority for a process at the institutional level.
  • Coordinate a process across the institution.
  • Champion policies, processes, roles, and responsibilities across the institution.
  • Maintain shared policy, process, and procedure documentation.
  • Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and critical success factors (CSFs).
  • Facilitate quarterly process reviews.
  • Facilitate annual process audits.
  • Ensure continual process improvement.
  • Take corrective action when needed.
ITSM Analyst The financial and business lead of a service offering, responsible for developing appropriate, consistent, sustainable service budgets, funding models, and billing mechanisms.
  • Lead the development and documentation of the service offering–related business model.
  • Develop and maintain the correct billing and service-offering tracking mechanism within the ITSM system.
  • Manage the service offering budgets on a daily, monthly, and annual basis, initiating corrective actions to balance income and expenditures with the budgets.
  • Assist and provide input with respect to Service Design and Development activities relative to the sustainability and business model development.
  • Monitor service offering budgets and cost centers, and initiate corrective action when discrepancies are found.
Project Manager Responsible for accomplishing the project objectives; this is someone who is formally recognized as having the title and the authority.
  • Conduct cost estimation and quality satisfaction.
  • Manage risks and contain issues.
  • Conduct activity and resource planning.
  • Organize and motivate project team.
  • Control time management.
  • Fulfill reporting and documentation.
  • Manage communication.
  • Monitor progress.
  • Ensure customer/stakeholder satisfaction.
  • Manage deliverables.
Service Desk

(aka, Help Desk Agent) 		Single point of contact between the service provider and the users; a typical Service Desk manages incidents and service requests and handles communication with the users.
  • Identify and diagnose issues and problems.
  • Categorize and record reported queries and provide solutions.
  • Support problem identification.
  • Advise users on appropriate course of action.
  • Monitor issues from start to resolution.
  • Escalate, if needed, unresolved problems to a higher level of support.
  • Provide essential online security advice and support.
  • Track call performance.
  • Recommend product improvements.
Subject-Matter Expert Provides the knowledge and expertise in a specific subject, business area, or technical area.
  • Apply subject expertise in evaluating business operations and processes.
  • Identify areas where technical solutions would improve business performance.
  • Provide input into and execute user documentation and training material.
  • Provide recommendations for procedural improvements
  • Determining whether technical solutions meet defined requirements.
  • Verify technical reference information, including user guides, training manuals, and system requirements.
  • Ensure accurate representation of expertise prior to the distribution of technical solutions to end users.
Product Owner Accountable for all aspects of (supporting) the product—the overall “health” of the product; this role is responsible for gathering input and feedback to be considered in order to make a final decision, for managing the process of changing how the product is used, and for managing the change itself.
  • Monitor and manage the health of the product. Ensure it is meeting the needs of the business.
  • Interface with Service Owners and managers on how the product might be used in support of services (and possibly service changes).
  • Review and approve/decline proposed product workflow changes.
  • Review requests for changes to the product. This includes configuration requests and changes to the application.
  • Consult with users, SMEs, and the Application Manager to determine whether a request should be pursued.
Project Portfolio Manager (PPM) Works to optimize the project portfolios, balance capacity against demand, and connect plans and resources to project execution.
  • Ensure the oversight and coordination of dependencies across the projects and programs in the portfolio, and resolve or escalate conflicts.
  • Manage the capital planning process for respective business line(s).
  • Drive vendor evaluation and selection for new solutions.
  • Support and advise executives on actions required to balance the portfolio of existing assets and services.
  • Direct the development and maintenance of communications and reporting around the IT project portfolios, their contents and the individual performance of initiatives to stakeholders, the IT steering committee, and senior executives.
  • Direct the creation and maintenance of the required project portfolio documentation and artifacts.
Business Relationship Manager (BRM) Translates the institution’s needs into proposed changes to the service portfolio, otherwise known as service packages, talking to customers, figuring out what their needs are, and then helping them work with IT to design a solution.
  • Collaborate, communicate, and represent a broad set of services throughout the organization (with the Service Managers as backup).
  • Collaborate with customers to gather changing requirements along with the Service Owners.
  • Ensure measurement of service relevancy and satisfaction.

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