IT Service Delivery in Nicaraguan Internet Service Providers : analysis and Assessment

Abstract:  The thesis addresses the research question: How to describe, understand, and explain IT service delivery? Based on the research question, the following research questions were derived:  How to analyse IT service delivery based on ITIL in order to determine its current situation? How to formalize elements of IT service delivery in maturity level that can be used to assess its current status? These research questions are answered by two IT artefacts: an analysis method and a maturity model for IT service delivery. Both of them are constructed by design-science research guidelines. The analysis method is focused on understanding the IT service delivery in organizations; it is founded on the IT service delivery processes of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) version 2. The method proposed has been applied through three case studies of Nicaraguan Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The maturity model is oriented to formalize and assess the maturity level of IT service delivery; it is supported by IT service delivery elements that are considered significant for managing IT service delivery by the Nicaraguan ISP sector, by IT service concepts, and by maturity model properties, and complemented by the IT Service Capability Maturity Model. The maturity model provides a mechanism for evaluating the maturity level of IT service delivery through a set of maturity statements and includes a graphical representation; it is also applied to the traceable information of the current status of IT service delivery of one of the Nicaraguan ISPs.