Each participant for the USM Professional track has already taken the USM Foundation training. The participant has also read the USM book.
Based on this knowledge, the candidate does a pre-course assignment for the USM Professional track:

  • to exercise this knowledge
  • to prepare for the USM Professional training
  • to provide material that is used during the USM Professional training

The pre-course assignment is a list of questions (download or view online) used to analyze a client organization. Answer the questions of the assignment and submit these in the form below before the start of the training.

  • ================= Questions on STRATEGY =================
  • Are these principles managed explicitly? Are the principles applied consistently?
  • Argue your assessment.
  • Is continual improvement a default agenda item for the MT? Are the operators of the teams involved in the planning of improvements?
  • ================= Questions on SERVICES =================
  • Which frameworks are used? Which practices from these frameworks are actually practiced?
  • Does the organization have a list of its services? Does the organization have a single clear definition of 'service'?
  • With external customers? With internal solution teams? With external suppliers? Are all these agreements structured in the same way?
  • ================= Questions on ORGANIZATION =================
  • Have process managers been trained? Have task profiles been determined? Have workflow and process manager profiles been assigned?
  • Has the distribution of steering power for the two been defined? Have escalation schemes been defined?
  • Is it documented? What are the (explicit) principles that are set in strategy?
  • Does the organization have a list of its customers? Does the organization have a list of its suppliers? Does the organization have a list of its internal solution teams?
  • ================= Questions on PROCESS =================
  • Do they differentiate processes from practices? Have processes been documented? Have processes been standardized and templated?
  • Are prioritization schemes available? Does the organization have one single prioritization table for all activities throughout the organization?
  • Does the organization apply workflows/workflow techniques? Does the organization differentiate between processes, procedures and work instructions?
  • To what level? How many? Give some examples.
  • With all customers? With all suppliers? With all internal solution teams?
  • Is there a MIR model agreed? Is there a shared MIR database?
  • Does the organization separate incidents from service requests? Does the organization separate risk management from incident management?
  • Does the organization plan all of its operational activities in an OPS calendar?
  • Are threats and opportunities captured as improvement options in the risk database?
  • ================= Questions on TECHNOLOGY ==================
  • Does the tool have a single database for all call handling?
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.