As an IT organization, it is essential that we maintain a shared understanding of our service offerings and our approach to service management and support. While we continue evolving towards a process-based culture, we also must acknowledge there are overlapping and interwoven cultures that exist on campus. To build effective partnerships and foster collaboration, we often need to meet customers and users where they are. This is where the Core, Common and Unique (CCU) framework becomes a valuable tool.

The CCU framework enhances communication with our campus partners and informs conversations and decision-making during service reviews, planning sessions, and governance activities. It is particularly useful in shaping efforts around service management, incident management, disaster recovery, and long-term service strategies.

Designed to complement formal service management frameworks such as IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and IT service management (ITSM), the CCU model offers a flexible, culturally aware approach to understanding service ownership, funding, and support. While ITIL and ITSM provide structured and standardized practices, the CCU framework helps contextualize those practices within OneIT's distributed and diverse environment.

Rather than serving as an alternative to ITIL and ITSM, CCU enhances their implementation by enabling a more nuanced understanding of centralized versus localized services. It supports improved alignment with institutional goals while maintaining adherence to established service management principles.

The CCU model can also be understood through the lens of institutional mission alignment. Core services typically support multiple or all university missions, such as academic, administrative, research, and health care. Common services tend to enable a single mission broadly across many units. Unique services fulfill more specific needs within one function or department. This perspective provides a useful reference point for service classification, particularly when evaluating tools that may span CCU categories.

Finally, the Core, Common, or Unique classification is separate from the criticality attribute, which describes the potential business impact of a service disruption. Together, these two attributes provide a more complete understanding of a service’s function, support expectations, and role within the university.

Avoiding Duplication: A Guidepost for Classification

Duplication of services introduces unnecessary complexity, increases risk, and reduces cost efficiency. The level of allowable duplication should generally decrease as services move from Unique to Core:

• Core services should have a single, standardized instance or delivery model. Duplication at the Core level undermines business continuity, adds support overhead, confuses end users, and drives up costs through redundant licensing or infrastructure.
• Common services may include limited duplication at the feature or implementation level, especially to meet specific functional needs across multiple units. However, coordination and shared solutions are still encouraged to maximize efficiency and reduce support variation.
• Unique services are inherently more duplicative, as they address localized or highly specific use cases. Multiple departments may implement different solutions to meet distinct requirements.

In the case of Core services specifically, duplicative instances should be avoided because they can result in:

• Undue complexity of the campus IT environment.
• A business continuity risk.
• Significant support and/or operational inefficiency.
• A bad, confusing, end-user experience.
• Challenges with supportability and increases in technical debt.
• Significant additional costs through duplicative spending on software or services.
• Loss of economies of scale in licensing or support.

This overview of the Core, Common, and Unique framework, along with working definitions and examples, is intended to support planning, implementation, funding decisions, and service-level discussions across OneIT.