Which of these elements is NOT part of the Service Pipeline?

The Service Pipeline is a key concept within IT Service Management that represents the flow of services from conception through design and into eventual deployment and operation. It is associated with the lifecycle of services as they evolve from initial ideas to operational status.

Operational services refer to services that are currently being delivered and managed within the organization. They are already in use, hence they fall outside the scope of the Service Pipeline, which is concerned with services that are still under development or in planning stages, such as those undergoing design or future deployments.

Service design, service assessments, and future service deployments all pertain to the planning and development aspects of services in the pipeline. Service design involves creating and developing new services, service assessments evaluate the potential services being considered, and future service deployments refer to services that are planned but not yet available to users.

Thus, operational services do not fit into the definition of the Service Pipeline, as they represent the output of this process rather than a component within it.