Resumo:
Modern IT service provider organizations are under a continuous pressure to increase their competitiveness. Ways to reduce costs while improving performance – in terms of productivity and quality – of services are a key focus area for companies in the IT indus- try. However, despite all the solutions that have been proposed, modelling and optimizing human-centered processes remains a burdensome task. The human operator may be in- fluenced by multiple factors and execute the process in a different way each time, thus introducing a significant variability in the final process outcome.
Although the research proposed so far have introduced improvements on service man- agement, there are several challenges (e.g., rapid change, budgetary constraints, skill shortages, system complexity, current and future user requirements, and growing user expectations) that are not completely covered by the current efforts. Among the new technologies available today, a set of novel ones, referred to as Web 2.0, has not yet been investigated by both industry and academia in the ITSM context. In the myriad of tech- nologies and applications that define the Web 2.0, one is of special interest in this thesis: the mashups. Easiness of use, extensibility, and context specific development are exam- ples of characteristics presented by mashups that candidate them to be a viable technology for improving IT Service Management.
Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to investigate the feasibility of mashups as an effective approach to improve performance (i.e., in terms of productivity and reliability) of human-centered ITSM activities. In particular, this thesis aims to define management solutions required to deliver and demonstrate improvements in performance of human- centered ITSM processes. Specifically, the focus is on individual steps in the process that can be assessed through instrumentation or observation, and can be improved through design and automation. The analysis of exogenous events are not addressed, such as answering telephone calls or other interruptions.
The introduced management solutions are examined through a real case study, related to the Request Fulfillment process. The focus of this case study is on dispatch, an activity centered on human operators called dispatchers, with knowledge of standard fulfillment procedures. In this context, mashups are analyzed as an effective approach to cope with inefficiencies and errors introduced by human operators while performing their daily ac- tivities in the context of ITSM. An extensive analysis of tasks performed by a group of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in a global IT Service Support and Delivery organization was performed. The results demonstrate the viability of the mashups technology as a means for improving IT Service Management.

Palavras-Chave: IT Service Management, Mashups, Web 2.0, Performance Management, Quantitative Analysis.