About Us
What We're About
The founders of the Service Management Society (SM-S) had three very simple (yet profound) things in mind when creating the organization. The intention was and remains:
- To give practitioners a means to influence their profession;
- To implement a world-class certification program;
- And to promote an open, holistic and extensible body of knowledge.
It is for the profession, and by the profession
It's been said, “history is made by those who show up.” Those who choose to become Associates of the SM-S, or elect to take on a leadership role within the organization, are our partners in helping to define what the responsibilities of a Service Management professional should be, and what knowledge, skills and abilities are needed to fulfill those responsibilities.
Our aim is to provide a means for individual practitioners to have a meaningful say in how their chosen profession evolves. In this way, it offers support for the profession and the professionals working within the profession.
Serving as the "voice of the service management professional" isn't just a tag line -- it's what we are here to do.
We have structured the organization to ensure that it stays true to the vision and our core principles by:
- Ensuring our ability to act on behalf of the profession is not compromised by undue vendor influence or bias;
- Ensuring openness and transparency in operations, as well as a free exchange of information amongst the society's staff, directors and associates;
- Working diligently to ensure that the core programs remain relevant by accomplishing regular updates.
In other words, it’s our intention to serve as an example of, and live by, the principles of the kind of organization that we help others to become – a world-class service organization.
Implement a world-class certification program
Up until now, the Service Management profession has had no broad-based certification program applicable across service organizations and the service industry, and one in which they have had a direct say. The best that the industry has had to show for its efforts to-date are commercially-oriented certificate programs, focused on subsets of the required content and/or technical practice, and very little attention is paid to:
- Ensuring an understanding of the content that goes beyond the ability to pass an examination;
- How the participants will translate this new found knowledge into practice and benefit;
- What value this provides to the constituencies being served by the service organization.
The Society is committed addressing these shortcomings by running a world-class certification program that helps properly evaluate the knowledge, skills and abilities of practitioners fulfilling various roles within a successful service organization. This program, currently referred to as the Service Management Qualification Scheme (SMQS), was designed to:
- Be non-hierarchical, instead be role-based and standards compliant;
- Foster an appreciation for lifelong learning and continuing education;
- Encourage professionalism through formal adoption of an industry code of conduct;
- Acknowledge and respect other certification programs and personal accomplishments;
- Enhance the value of individual certification for industry professionals.
To accomplish these objectives, we will operate the certification program in a manner fully compliant with the guidance provided in ISO/IEC 17024, and compliant with the requirements of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Promote an open, holistic and extensible body of knowledge
In order to operate the certification program, a robust body of knowledge is required to codify and define what constitutes the domain of service management. The Society is proud to endorse and promote the Universal Service Management Body of Knowledge (USMBOK) as the reference upon which the practice of Service Management, and operation of a successful service organization can be based.
In addition to the value the USMBOK represents to our certification program, it also offers a source of significant value to the industry in general, by providing a common reference model that goes beyond the Information Technology-centric frameworks that dominate the marketplace today. Indeed, the USMBOK can be used to understand and reveal the value in these industry frameworks by enabling a mapping of their contents, harmonizing any guidance provided and establishing a context to consider its relative value. Truly a universal and holistic framework.
The USMBOK also reflects a fundamental market truth – IT services are a critical element in organizations today whether they are public, private or non-profit. The guidance embedded in the USBMOK better enables service organizations to integrate technology with daily operations by adopting a holistic approach that focuses on providing value to the customer, and challenges the traditional relationships based solely on minimizing cost.
Finally, the USMBOK extends the boundaries of service management to include and leverage the power of proven, existing service industry concepts that have broad-based applicability.
The Service Management Society invites you to join us in our efforts to further the profession of Service Management, and especially the career development of the professionals that work within the profession.