Posted September 19th, 2010 by editor
[adapted] ISO20000 is now specifcally required by the first US Government agencies, as a requirement for service providers who want of offer their services for government IT services. Recently, the US Airforce, for their Enterprise Integration and Services Management (EISM) system, required an ISO20000 certificate from sourcing providers (see page 112 of the RFI).
Requirements are very specific: "The prime contractor shall have evidence of ISO/IEC 20000 certification throughout the life of the contract, inclusive of options. The Government will evaluate (confirm) the offeror’s certification(s) based on the documentation provided in the proposal." This obviously requires a regular confirmation of the certified status.
Also: "This certification must be held at the organizational level of the legal entity performing the contract." Which means that a service provider cannot get this status cheap, by certifying just one team or just one service against the ISO20000 requirements (which is a common trick amongst providers, ever since the introduction of ISO standards).
Another RFP by US Dept of Defense, to be published in February, will be requiring the ISO 20000 certification. Also, NIST seems to be going to require ISO 20000 for an upcoming proposal, as well as the US Veteran's Affairs has indicated a preference for ISO 20000 certificate for upcoming Help Desk proposals. These findings confirm the uptake of ISO20000 in the US.
More information on the ISO20000 can be found in the standards, but more efficiently in the ITSM Library books.
E.g., in "ISO/IEC 20000, An Introduction" you'll find all details on the standard, with additional practical guidance. This book contains the full text of the standard, which will save you the cost of Parts I and II (together some 150 GBP, or 180 Euro, or 200 USD).
Guidance on the ISO20000 certification project can be found in "Implementing ISO/IEC 2000 - The Roadmap". This Roadmap explains in detail how a certification project is done, and includes 8 practical Case Studies.
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Administrator
(27/09/2010)
Ian - at your service. The link is now added to the article above. This seems to be hard enough evidence that a US Government agency is now requiring ISO20000 certifications from their service provider.
The announcement indeed received many comments in LinkedIn groups, e.g.:
- Becoming the case in the UK - Gartner forecasted in 2009 that it was likely to become a pre-requisite in 70% of buying decisions surrounding IT Managed Services in the coming few years.
- Currently in most bids in the US this is exclusive to the Federal market. However the language that they are currently using allows for the selection of ISO 9001, ISO 20000 and/or CMMI SVC Level 3. I have seen little activity from the commercial market other than early adopters trying to differentiate themselves.
- There is also a statement within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposal for Eagle II that responders with CMMI and/or ISO 20000 is preferred.
This indeed confirms that there are now initial movements towards ISO20000 requirements for service providers. Whether Gartner wil be right or not: we'll see. As soon as we see new confirmations of this, we'll let you know.
Ian Clayton
(24/09/2010)
This article is extremely misleading and has already been cited on third-party blogs as a dramatic announcement. To my knowledge there has been no official statement by the US Federal Government on use of ISO20K and each agency can make their own determinations.
Would you please post links to the documents you reference so the entire context can be available to us all. As for the US Government position - as an active participant in the standards process here, and with representation on the voting for recognition and use of international standards in the US - its my understanding ANSI has 'no position' as yet on ISO20K as it remains a 'work in progress'.
As for the statements you have shared - there are ample organizations who hold contract vehicles with US Government agencies and that typically act as the 'prime contractor'. It is very common for many of us to work through prime contractors who have long term account management of the relationship.
Add this to the planned makeover of ISO20K and addition of extra parts and I foresee no rush to organizational certification for a while...
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