Managing Technical and Consumer Service Catalogues

Manage technical and consumer service catalogues as separate views for different audiences that remain firmly linked, so consumer experience, ownership and component impact can always be traced. The consumer catalogue translates the provider's service model into information consumers can find and use, while the technical view establishes ownership and traceability behind it.

• Separate audience views. Showing technical detail to consumers is a named pitfall, so test each view with the people who will actually use it.
• Link consumer services to technical services, and remember that one technical service may support several consumer services. In the article's example, a shared identity component links to several consumer services, so change and incident impact can be understood quickly.
• Maintain shared identifiers and owners. Where ownership crosses boundaries, put this on the shared agenda and keep the resulting commitments visible; disconnected catalogues undermine traceability.
• Use impact analysis to verify that the links are correct, connecting the work to consumer outcomes rather than local efficiency.
• Measure service linkage coverage, impact accuracy and catalogue consistency together, with agreed baselines, data sources and owners. Start with one priority service, learn from it, and expand only when the approach is credible.