Tuesday 24 June 2008

Service Delivery and Service Automation

On Thursday I attended the latest itSMF e-symposium 'Service Delivery and Service Automation' (the presentations will be available from the archive in a couple of days if you missed it). There were four presentations, each of which seemed to skew more towards either the 'Service Delivery' element or the 'Service Automation' element. They were:'

- 'The Strategy for Success' by Chris Dowding of Fox IT
- 'How to create an automated Service Management structure in line with business need' by Jack Robertson Worsfold of Icore
- 'Building a foundation for an effective approach to process automation' by Chip Mason of IBM
- 'For the Customers ........ we change and automate' by Matthew Burrows of BSMImpact

I thought the most useful of the four was the third presentation by Chip Mason although there were a few things in each of the others that made it worthwhile. So if you only have time to listen to one - make it his. In the main, the e-symposium confirmed that I'm heading the right way with our soon to actually happen (maybe? hopefully? !) ITSM Programme in terms of definition of services and workflow to automate delivery of said services where possible.

As with the last event, I will post my key learning points from each presentation over the next two blog entries covering two presentations in each as well as detailing the Q&A.

Just a note about the facilitation by Mike Simons of Computerworld UK... better than the last in that we actually got comfort breaks this time (much appreciated). However, when it was clearly not an appropriate forum to be asking presenters for their recommendations on ITSM and workflow tools - why put them in the awkward position of asking? Far better I think to acknowledge the volume of requests, state that it was not an appropriate forum for vendor recommendations and refer people to the itSMF discussion or private e-mails (which happened with each but why put 3 of the 4 presenters through the question?).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry if you thought the questioning on tools was inappropriate. The weight of questions that came in was focussed that way - and i tried to pull the thing round and not let them blow their own trumpets too much.
I am also glad you think the e-symposiums are worthwhile. It is sometimes hard to tell if they are going well. Why don't you drop me a line about your blog at
mike_simonsatIDG.co.uk

The ITIL Imp said...

Hi Mike,

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my post :)

I absolutely do think they are worth while so my gripe is really a small one.

I just wish that people wouldn't go along to them and ask the 'Which tool shall I use for my ITIL implementation' question like that as they really should be analysing their own requirements etc. first then doing a market assessment. Actually... this bugbear may well be good for another blog post so I'll save it :)

The ITIL Imp

Jack Robertson Worsfold said...

Hi
As one of the presenters (jack robertson-worsfold) I have to agree with your statement. It was most centainly not an appropriate forum and the emailed questions I got afterwards were answered in private based upon more detailed information from the person asking the question. Good blog by the way.

Regards

Jack

The ITIL Imp said...

Hi Jack,

Thanks for posting on my blog, always nice to know people are reading. I imagine that Mike will bear this point in mind for future facilitations. Maybe there should be some sort of code of conduct, just a few bullet points on the splash screen whilst waiting for each presentation to start. That would be one way of trying to stave off the 'what tool do I need?' hoards ;)

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