1.2JIS Q 20000 and the SMS

Whereas ITIL is best practice on "how to run things well," JIS Q 20000 (the national edition of ISO/IEC 20000) defines, in a certifiable form, "whether the service-management arrangement meets the requirements." Its central concept is the service management system (SMS): a management arrangement that operates policy, objectives, plans, and processes as one whole and improves continually. A service manager must, from the design stage, keep in mind whether daily operations leave the evidence the standard demands.

The SMS continually improves through a plan-operate-check-improve cycle. PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is the underlying improvement concept: Plan sets service objectives and SLAs; Do operates; Check confirms conformity and effectiveness via internal audit, review, and measurement; Act drives correction and improvement. Note, however, that the current JIS Q 20000-1 (the 2020 edition, aligned to ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018) adopts the common high-level structure (Annex SL) shared across management-system standards, so PDCA appears not as explicit clauses but embedded as the "continual improvement" requirement. Crucially, both the "documented procedure" and the "record of execution (evidence)" must exist; without records, an audit treats the work as "not performed." Certification is granted after an accredited body's assessment, and surveillance audits keep testing ongoing effectiveness.

With a JIS Q 20000 surveillance audit two months away, a service manager reviews incident records and finds that although major incidents were recovered quickly, records showing "root-cause analysis performed and corrective action completed" are partly missing. Judging that "the procedure exists, so it is fine" is wrong: the standard demands evidence. Detecting the gap in the Check-stage internal audit and, in Act, fixing the record format and operation to fill the shortfall—this is running PDCA to close a nonconformity before an auditor flags it. The manager's key insight is to design operations around "does proof of execution remain," not merely around whether a procedure exists.

1.2.1Section summary

• JIS Q 20000 defines certifiable SMS requirements; its role differs from ITIL's best practice.
• The SMS runs on PDCA: Check confirms conformity and effectiveness via internal audit and measurement, Act corrects and improves.
• The standard requires records of execution, not just procedures. Designing operations that leave evidence is key to maintaining certification.