How to describe your service

Abstract

Service management has underestimated the importance of a process description in achieving service and organizational excellence. What service managers need is a methodology for describing service processes. Recommends the use of the structured analysis and design technique (SADT), a methodology particularly suitable for activity‐based processes. It can be used to help service providers obtain a better picture of the processes in which they participate, achieve improvements in service delivery, foster internal communication, and even design a service. Illustrates in two models the concepts of the SADT and its graphics language – the first developed in a professional service firm, and the second in an academic setting. Evaluates the SADT against eight criteria and concludes that the SADT is a versatile and useful modelling methodology that will help service management and employees reach organizational consensus on a service process.