Service Management needs to not miss seeing the forest for the trees. Part of that is remembering that management is not defined by services, and that service is recognizable and manageable in four typical forms.

1. The Four Dimensions
of Service
Demystified

2. Recalibrating service management
The most important thing about any service is that it is intentional, and that
its fundamental intention is to be accessible on demand.
The key distinguishing feature of a service is that it is formed to respond to
demand.
Managing service is complicated in lockstep with the complications of
functionality in the core operation that is made accessible as a service.
Unfortunately, managing operational functionality is often mistaken for
managing service, so if operational functionality is difficult or elaborate, the
service management is also seen as difficult or elaborate.
But management itself is more often just confused due to not knowing what
matters it should be managing.
There are four (inter-related) ways to manifest a service, and each way has a
distinctive aspect to be managed.

3. Intentionality versus demand
Meaning
of “serve”
Forms of
Service
Common examples of
“service”
Occurrence to manage What to manage
ASSIST Incidental basketball or soccer event “instance”
“execution”
Practice-based competency
PERFORM Planned work event “timing”
“impact”
Schedule-based availability
PROVIDE Recurring church event “delivery”
“quality”
Model-based offering
PRODUCE Continual military or business
organization
“class”
“capability”
Readiness-based selection
Manage: to conform and direct towards targeted conditions Service: to supply outputs of operation on request within agreement
©2019 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra Research

4. PRODUCTION
PROVISION
PERFORMANCE
ASSISTANCE
instancetimingdeliveryclass
relevantagreedassuredstanding
EXPERIENCE
DESIGN
Manage: to conform and direct towards targeted conditions
©2019 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra Research

5. Archestra notebooks compile and organize decades of in-the-field and ongoing empirical findings.
All presented findings are derived exclusively from original research.
Archestra notebooks carry no prescriptive warranty.
As ongoing research, all notebooks are subject to change at any time.
©2019 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra Research
www.archestra.com
mryder@archestra.com
Archestra research is done from the perspective of strategy and architecture.
With all subject matter and topics, the purpose of the notes is analytic, primarily to:
* explore, expose and model why things are
included, excluded, or can happen
in given ways and/or to certain effects.
* comment on, and navigate between,
motives and potentials that predetermine
decisions about, and shapings of, the observed activity.