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Years of collaboration

2022 – 2023

Context

Economic development bank dedicated to UK small businesses

The British Business Bank are an economic development bank wholly owned by the Department for Business and Trade, but operationally independent. They are dedicated to helping UK small businesses survive, prosper, and grow.

Aim

Outsourced partner to create documentation to support ITIL implementation

The British Business Bank had grown significantly, including a busy period as part of the delivery of coronavirus support schemes. The demands on the IT operation were increasing and the team was growing, so the IT Service team had agreed on a Service Delivery Transformation programme using the ITIL framework as a guide.

Good documentation is essential for the policies and procedures associated with ITIL, but the IT Service team weren’t confident they had the capacity and skills to ensure documentation was fit for purpose, usable, and easy to maintain.

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Challenges

Establishing process documentation alongside processes being developed

The British Business Bank were in the early stages of defining ITIL processes, and setting up supporting workflows. Decisions were still being made about the policies and procedures, but at the same time the IT Service team was busy and growing: they needed documentation fast, so they could start to follow improved, more robust processes as soon as they were agreed.

The established ways of managing documentation at the British Business Bank involved multiple copies of Word documents, making it difficult to find reliable information. The IT Service team were keen to use Confluence to manage their ITIL documentation instead, though some information would also need to be made available to the wider business in a defined PDF template.

While 3di could help with kick-starting the documentation effort, the intention was that the British Business Bank should be able to maintain and extend the documentation in the long term. This meant that clear, simple templates were essential, along with guidance for using them.

Solution

Providing technical writing services and setting up Confluence assets

The 3di team:

  • Defined a clear and repeatable documentation structure: policies, processes, procedures, and supporting materials that could be used to document any area of ITIL.
  • Worked alongside IT Service Managers to document processes as they were defined. Drafting documentation raised questions about incomplete or difficult parts of a process or procedure – which in turn led to additional iterations of both the ITIL processes and the documentation.
  • Ensured it would be simple for IT team members to write and maintain documentation in future, establishing templates in Confluence but avoiding advanced features that could be difficult for day-to-day users to update.

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Result

Documentation for first ITIL areas, templates ready for the future

The 3di team:

  • Created detailed documentation for four ITIL areas, including a mix of BPMN process diagrams, procedures, and RACI charts.
  • Created templates and guidance to help the IT Service team to maintain the documentation and extend the approach to additional ITIL areas.
  • Set up Confluence features such as PDF export templates to enable policy documents to reach the wider business in the required format.

Testimonial

“I very much appreciate the help 3di has given to BBB … the team have remained close and involved throughout the delivery and we have achieved what we set out to do.


Andy Littlewood, Managing Director – IT Infrastructure and Operations

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