Outsourcing Service Manager: Supporting People Work Across Lifecycle of Outsourcing Services

We present Outsourcing Service Manager (OSM) as an approach and toolset that support people work across the lifecycle of outsourcing services. The OSM enables the definition of service lifecycle phases, and the creation and maintenance of relationships among information pertinent to various lifecycle phases of a service. OSM includes a Conversation Manager component that offers a light-weight conversation-centered approach and a tool for dynamic and flexible definition and enactment of best practice processes in a collaborative and interactive manner among people. OSM addresses the issue of information loss related to people work using the concept of a conversation as a container of information and people interactions related to a service engagement. A conversation contains a semi-structured model of the process of how work gets done during the interactions among people. The conversation manager enables flexible and adaptive enactment of the best practice processes. It maintains the link of each conversation to a service lifecycle stage, as well as the relationships among conversations based on their input/outputs (deliverables) and exchanged information during hand-offs.