The USM Professional training is the only training in the world that prepares you for the position of Service Management Architect. Learn in a short time how to help user organizations set up their practices, their tooling, and their service organization, with no more than five processes and eight workflows, in an easy-to-learn management system.

USM is an eye-opener, even for seasoned experts. After USM training, you'll never see Service Management through the same eyes.

If you want to provide services as a USM professional (coach, trainer, product expert, or tool auditor), you can follow the USM Professional track. This track is ideally suited for professionals in sectors with a high demand on the quality of services. This is not (anymore) just IT, where people have long been accustomed to structure, quality agreements, and tooling for the control of processes. Control is central in many fields because of the high degree of dependence on the services provided.

Goal

Service organizations that want to get their organization in order can use USM, the Unified Service Management method. USM training deals with the management system of service providers. The participant learns to make practical choices with USM for managing his own organization. These choices are well-founded and easy to understand because they are based on a powerful service management architecture. This creates insight and tranquility in the organization, its management and its routines - which is a precondition for a structural improvement of the organization's performance.

Target audience

The USM Professional training can be used for professionals in all facility domains (from IT to building management, from human resources to security and cleaning), but is equally applicable to service organizations from the 'primary' domain: government ministries, municipalities, telcos, healthcare institutions, etc.
In training for Facility Management, Business Administration, HRM, Financial Management, etc., very little attention is paid to management systems. Professionals in IT have often been allowed to put more energy into this during their education. Those who have not enjoyed that last benefit, or have not yet retrained themselves, will do well to prepare themselves for this USM Professional training, e.g. by thoroughly studying the USM book in advance.

Content

USM Professional training emphasizes the process design of the service organization and its routines. After all, processes are the shortest and most efficient way to customer-relevant goals. The term 'process' is one of the most abused terms in the management domain: usually, what is meant by process is really the practical routines of the organization: practices. USM does use pure processes. However, USM goes one step further and focuses entirely on the workflows that ultimately organize those daily routines. Organizations that have a strong focus on hierarchical or project-based routines - or even have based their organizational structure on them - can gain a lot of effectiveness and efficiency with this.

The USM Professional track includes 4 steps:

  1. The 2-day USM Foundation training.
  2. A pre-course assignment, analyzing your own organization or a client’s organization.
  3. The 2-day USM Professional training, full of exercises and discussions.
  4. The final assessment, where you demonstrate that you can convincingly explain USM to an unwilling audience. And you’ll need to have passed the Foundation exam with a score of 30+ out of 40.

Although an onsite Professional training is preferred, an online option will also be available. The online Professional training has the same content, but you participate in this training from your own workplace, with online exercises, in several blocks of 2.5-3 hours, which are spread over 3 or 4 working days. In this way you will not be overburdened and you can continue to pay attention to your other work.

Exams

USM knowledge is tested with the USM Foundation Exam. USM Professionals need to have passed the exam with score of at least 30 out of 40. The exam may be included in the USM training, depending on the training provider and your score.

Preparation

The USM method can be learned easily. For professionals in disciplines where there is limited attention for control and for management systems, a thorough preparation is recommended. Reading “The USM book” (online) in advance is highly recommended as it promotes the effect of the training.

Register here

Training is provided by USM Education partners that are also APMG Accredited Training Organizations (select an ATO here).  The USM Professional trainings for the next couple of months can be found in the USM Training Calendar. More info? Contact the SURVUZ Foundation, or one of the ATOs.

Follow-up

Those who have completed the USM Professional track will automatically be certified as a USM Coach. If you also want to become a USM Trainer, a USM Product expert, or a USM Tool Auditor, you'll need to do some additional self-study and finish the additional track with an assessment for that specific role.
All USM professionals are provided by SURVUZ Foundation with a comprehensive USM toolkit that they can use in coaching USM user organizations. That toolkit contains numerous templates, tools and other resources specifically aimed at providing structured coaching for the USM deployment.

Group size

The on-site training is suitable for groups of 6-12 participants. The online training can accommodate 4-8 participants.

Language

The USM Professional training is delivered in English and in Dutch, but Spanish, Portuguese, German and Finnish are options that can be served.

Cost

The cost of training is determined by the training organization. All trainers use the same certified training resources.

Feedback

  • "There is a plenty of room in the world for Service Management professionals, there is no room for mediocre Service Management professionals at USM."
  • " In 20 years time, absolutely best and most thought provoking training and subject that i have ever taken part. Honestly, astounding!" [IT Management consultant]
  • "Two intensive but very useful days on USM give a lot of (renewed) insight on how to achieve service excellence. Absolute recommendation. It was inspiring, useful and I enjoyed it!" [IV management consultant]
  • "Great training, thank you very much for that! What an energy and enthusiasm, fantastic experience. I already enjoyed my work so much, now with the USM knowledge, it is even more fun and interesting! I am very happy!!! " [Owner of consultancy organization]
  • "It was great again! Super nice training and great location!" [Service manager of service provider]
  • "One of the best trainings/trainers I have had in my career. Great!" [Management consultant]
  • "Learned a lot." [IT expert]
  • "This training was given with a lot of passion and energy, thanks!" [IT security officer]
  • "Thanks to your passion, the USM boost has also completely landed with me." [ICT team leader]
  • "Thanks for the training; it was great!" [Transition manager]
  • "Thank you for the excellent and practical useful feedback!" [Senior service and process manager]
  • "Overall I was very satisfied, and it left me eager to learn more and see if I can apply this in the real world. Not sure anything really needs to be changed at this point. Need to get my hands dirty!" [IT director]
  • "The trainer is an extremely detailed but simplistic teaching lead who showed me the level of detail which I feel very comfortable with in taking the USM approach forward and confidently going to the next level of coaching. Thank you for a very interesting and enjoyable course of learning." [ITSM Consultant]

Average rating in the 2018 training evaluation: 9.2
Average rating in the 2019 training evaluation: 9.0
Average rating in the 2020 training evaluation: 8.9
Average rating in the 2021 training evaluation: 8.9
Average rating in the 2022 training evaluation: 9.2