Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - part 4

It's here, the final part in the series! This covers the question and answer session from the itSMF e-symposium entitled: 'Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - what are your next steps?' on 18th March 2008.

Round Table - Questions and Answers
I didn't catch the names of everyone who asked questions, suffice to say it was worthwhile hanging on until the end.

Q1. How do we measure the ROI of ITIL v3 adoption?
A1. Rob Stroud observed that the last 60 days have seen a massive move to v3 and went on to say that IT needs to measure things at a different level in a way that the business see as important, i.e. the provision of service. He states that the ROI of ITIL is not necessarily tangible in bankable cost-savings.
Malcolm lightened the mood by informing us that he often thinks of the ROI of ITIL as the 'return on insurance', i.e. the potential cost of not doing it.
Sharon was quick to point out that there are other benefits aside from the financial.

Q2. Can you drive COBIT and ITIL agenda from middle management or does it have to be C-level?
A2. Harvey was strongly of the view that it doesn't need to wait for higher level management. He has been fortunate in his role to take what he needs and get on with it. He did note that for funding senior management do need to be involved.
Georges echoed Harvey's viewpoint stating that you can always start within your own area of responsibility. The organisation can then look at your area as a centre of excellence and adopt in the wider scene (why does Zapp! come to mind?). He did advocate the need to sell to senior management to expand beyond your own area.

Q3. ITIL certification is always on individual basis. Will it ever be organisational?
A3. Sharon sees no need for ITIL certification to go beyond the individual as for organisational certification there is ISO 20000 (ITIL v3 is aligned with ISO 20000). One of the drivers for individual certification is to promote ITSM as a profession within the IT industry. Harvey reiterated that "ISO 20000 is the quality standard for ITSM".
Rob informed the delegates that he often is asked for products that are actually ITIL accredited. (ITILImp: Currently there is only the PinkVerify scheme which has recently been updated to take account of v3).

Q4. Why do you need to know what level something is at?
A4. Georges picked this one up but I didn't make many notes other than the comment that COBIT certification is for the individual only, not the organisation.

Q5. v3 exams are now multiple choice rather than written. Is this a dumbing down of the qualification?
A5. I've heard this comment a lot since the itSMF conference last year and the answer hasn't changed.
Sharon stated that it is not a dumbing down and that there is a misconception regarding multiple-choice. The exam formats have been based upon research into undergraduate and postgraduate university examinations. The ITIL exams will use a blend of simple multiple-choice at foundation level whilst the higher level exames will use gradient, complex multiple-choice (e.g. one answer is the most correct, another is less correct, etc.). Apparently this challenges the application of what someone knows rather than their ability to write a paper. Exam pilots suggested that this format is actually harder than the v2 essay format for the manager's certificate. She also made the valid points that it removes the objectivity in terms of the exam grading and will benefit those writing in non-native languages.

As an academic himself it is not surprising that Georges stressed the benefits of multiple choice commenting upon their adaptability to the complexity of questions you want as well as being easy to mark.

Malcolm isn't a fan of these and believes that they lack the interpretation... the why. I liked his suggestion that for the new v3 Advanced ITSM Diploma candidates could write a white paper or say 30 pages as a way of demonstrating that they are a proven practitioner. The end result could then form part of the ITIL v3 complementary guidance. Sharon interjected to say that something akin to this IS part of the advanced service professional certification.

Q6. Will the business guys be worried that IT want to take over the business?
A6. Rob didn't think so, "Communication is the key".
Georges pointed out that ITSM benefits from the business as it positions IT to deliver capabilities. A service is not worthwhile if it is not delivering what the business needs. He also said that it helps accountability with clarification betweeen business failures vs it failures.
Sharon wrapped up by paraphrasing from a Harvard study, "CIOs have to be business leaders, not IT-centric".

All in all, a good set of questions and answers. Although I'm sure there were lots more questions that didn't make the cut. I put a few in (one being a request for Harvey's full workshop as it was really good stuff) and had one answered but the one that I thought would be a quickie that wasn't answered was: "When will the ITIL Live Portal be going live?" It's mentioned in all the books and it now almost a year since they came out. Since then, on a little adventure this ITIL Imp notices that the http://www.itil-live-portal.com address is now redirected to The Stationary Office (TSO) which assures us that it is 'coming soon' (Perhaps that is June, or the next eclipse of the moon, who knows?). Register for updates to find out.

There we have it... the final in this series. I wonder where my next adventure lies...

Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - part 3

Before I start, my apologies for failing to get this up on Tuesday 25th March as hoped. I almost wonder whether I should start following ITIL principles for my blog posting regime ;)

Today's post was going to be the final part in this series. However, as I was writing it became longer and longer so I figure you can have a part 4 on Friday!.


Georges Ataya and Rob Stroud - IT Governance for the Real World, Mapping COBIT & ITIL
This presentation started off with a little background about ISACA and the ITGI. One thing that I wasn't aware of is the introduction of a qualification: Certification in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT). Aimed squarely at professionals and management who are responsible for governance in one of the domains, the first exam will be in December 2008.

The presenters reiterated the message that most of us reading on the subject already know: COBIT and ITIL are complementary - they are not competitors. (As mentioned in a previous blog entry, we are still waiting for the updated COBIT 4.1 to ITIL v3 mapping which is apparently close to completion - at the time of writing not published on the ISACA website).

After a high level summary of the content of COBIT (and I mean high-level!) the point was made that, when considering the introduction of IT governance and IT Service Management, a top-down approach should be used, i.e. IT Governance first and IT Service Management next. As with ITIL implementations, they recommend that you select the bits that are immediately relevant to you to solve business issues rather than trying to implement all domains in one go.

There was nothing else that leapt out at me during the presentation other than:
1. Reference to the COBIT Maturity model, level 3 is considered to be 'compliant'.
2. I believe that Rob Stroud (apologies if it is George Ataya) is currently writing a service management guide to 'implementing COBIT in your environment'. It's already on my 'to buy' list :)

The final part of this series will be on Friday as I have already written it (I am testing the new Blogger scheduling function which if it works, may lead to more regular updates).

Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward

This afternoon I 'attended' an itSMF e-symposium entitled: 'Moving your ITIL Implementation Forward - what are your next steps?' Before I summarise my thoughts on the whole thing I must say that I didn't think that any of the presentations, or indeed answers to the questions, addressed the question posed. It was really more of an introduction to ITIL and IT Governance than what I interpreted it to be, i.e. a high-level process for planning and implementing ITIL with focus on the first steps of visioning, road-map etc. Admittedly the summaries of the presentations immediately suggested that it was not going to deliver what I hoped, but still I thought it worth attending. So... coffee in hand and Mind Manager at the ready, I listened to the music before the symposium began.

The Interface
The enterprise web-cast platform is provided by Brightcast. Having pre-registered for the event I received a reminder e-mail the night before and it was a simple matter to login with my username and password. As a spectator rather than presenter there was no need for me to dial up to listen, just delivered as you would expect through your PC soundcard. Limited controls during the live symposium as there was no way of pausing when I wanted to nip to the toilet / get a drink. However, there were tabs to make it easy to submit questions (shame you could not view which other questions had already been asked) and download the presentations in PDF format. Finally there was a tab to take the CPD test to get your certificate.

The Presentations

Sharon Taylor - What's going on out there?
This was fundamentally an updated version of the presentation she delivered at the itSMF conference last year. A few points:
- She believes that ITIL v3 will achieve an increase in the measurement of both Business value and ROI.
- Observed that the ITIL was previously geared towards a purely operational audience and now this is broader including CIOs and the wider business.
- Ran through some of the areas that people are picking from v3 for early adoption.
      - Service Portfolio Management
      - Service Catalogue Management
      - ROI Business cases
      - Event and request management
      - Supplier Management
      - Service Measurement
- She has this idea that everyone is actually doing ITIL because v3 is based on v2. Personally I think this is a nice concept but don't believe this to be truly the case in reality.
- As with v2, Sharon stressed the importance of picking and choosing what is needed for your organisation and the benefits of an incremental approach to implementation.
- When asked about the v3 qualifications capability and lifecycle streams she advised that the syllabi are complete and going through checks for consistency between the streams. The sample exams are in pilot as part of QA and there will be a further pilot with accredited training providers, i.e. a way to go and will be some sonths before release.

Check back on Friday for my summary of Malcolm Fry's 'ITIL V3 Essentials and the Role of a CMDB' and Harvey Davison's 'What Should Configuration do for Change?'

COBIT and ITILv3

First of all a delayed Happy New Year. 2008 thus far has already had it's share of ups and downs and no doubt that shall continue for the remainder of the year!

For those of us interested in COBIT (Control OBjectives for Information and related Technology - an IT governance framework) and ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) as they relate to IT Service Management, it is good news to hear that the 'COBIT® Mapping: Mapping of ITIL v3 With COBIT® 4.1' will be published on the ISACA website before the end of the first quarter of 2008.

Surf's up!

I had the day off work today and spent a fair portion of it surfing ITIL related sites and adding my thoughts to questions over at the ITIL Community. If you're interested this is what I've been posting.

I also had a quick look at the COBIT 4.0 framework as I am curious as to how ITIL can support it and whether they really are complimentary.

I've placed a request at work for a copy of the new the ISO 20000 standard so I can read up and identify how different the processes are to ITIL, but so far it has not been approved :(